While Layla was at the Agency, Hunter was spending his time on the DEA investigation. He had decided to take a different approach, so with DEA intel plus the help of one of his hacker friends, he had gotten into the texts of some of the actual cartel members.

If they found out he was messing around with their stuff, he’d be as good as dead. But he was confident in the firewall and all the extra protections they’d set up, thanks to an additional level of security from the CIA.

He didn’t have Diego’s or Roberto’s texts, but he had messages from a variety of guys below them, and he was reading and trying to synthesize as fast as he could.

Currently, he was reviewing texts from Mateo Lopez. From everything he had gathered, Lopez was one of the direct reports to Diego. Most of the texts were operational in nature, and he had the feeling that if he stuck with it, he might get enough intel to provide the DEA with more leads on how to find Diego.

As he was reading the next string of messages, the tone suddenly changed. These weren’t business texts. They were romantic. And very steamy, at that. He almost stopped reading because he didn’t feel like it was right to invade these highly personal conversations. But the next word he saw on the screen made him freeze.

“What?” he said out loud. “No way.”

He read the words again. Scarlett, mi amor.

His mind went into overdrive, and a sick feeling formed in the pit of his stomach. He was far from an expert on Latin America, but he felt fairly certain that Scarlett was not a common name in the region.

Could Layla’s friend and mentor be working with a cartel deputy? He hadn’t even considered the possibility that the mole could be at the State Department. But hadn’t Layla said that Scarlett had worked at the DEA for years?

He scoured through the other texts, searching for references to Scarlett, but came up empty. It was highly possible that the one message had been a slipup. They probably never referenced each other by name for this exact reason.

How in the world was he going to break this news to Layla? She’d already been betrayed by Bryce, and now this. He had to be sure before he took this to her, but how could he be?

Immediately, he started researching Scarlett. He called his hacker friend and explained that he needed anything he could get on Scarlett ASAP.

Two hours later, he still didn’t have a rock-solid case, but he had enough puzzle pieces that he couldn’t hide this from Layla. There was far too much riding on this.