by Elle James
The Devil Boss grabbed her wrist and yanked it toward him, getting blood on his hands. “El idiota!” he shouted and let out string of curses in Spanish. He took the rifle out of the offending guard’s hands and spoke angrily in Spanish.
The guard raised his hands and answered, as if pleading.
“Really. It didn’t hurt,” Briana said.
El Chefe pressed the rifle into the man’s chest and stared at him through slitted eyes. For a long moment, he held that stance. Then, he said, “Bang.”
The guard’s eyes widened, and his body tensed. When the gun didn’t go off, he let go of the breath he’d been holding in a relieved whoosh.
The Devil Boss spoke softly, “Pagas por tus errores.” Then he shot the man pointblank.
Briana screamed and staggered backward as the guard’s eyes rounded and his mouth opened as if to say something. Then he collapsed to the floor and lay still.
The Devil Boss turned to Briana, pointing the rifle at her chest. “I will translate for you,” he said. “You pay for your errors.”
Briana sucked in a breath, her heart pounding hard against her chest. She fully expected the cartel leader to shoot her next. She almost welcomed it to end the tumult of fear roiling inside.
Instead, he tossed the rifle to another guard and waved a hand toward the body on the floor. “Limpia este desastre,” he said and walked away from Briana.
A couple of his men grabbed the arms and legs of the dead guard and carried him out of the room.
As the cartel leader reached his desk, he turned and jerked his head toward Briana. “Llévala lejos.”
The remaining guard clasped her arm and dragged her toward the door.
“You might as well let me go,” Briana said, her voice shaking. “I don’t know where Alejandra is.”
“Your friends know where to find her. If they want you to come home alive, they will bring Alejandra to me.” The phone on his desk rang, and a smile curled his lip. “I suspect this will be Alejandra now. She called earlier. She knows what is at stake. Now, it’s only a matter of time as to when she will return to her country. When she does, we might decide to let you go.” He shrugged. “Or maybe, we will keep you and sell you to the highest bidder or use you as an example to others who might interfere in our operations.” He waved his hand.
The guard dragged her toward the door.
The cartel leader let the phone ring a few more times, tapping his fingers on the desktop, as if letting Alejandra stew.
As her captor escorted her out of El Chefe’s study, Briana heard the man talking. She couldn’t make out the words and wouldn’t have been able to translate, anyway.
If it was Alejandra, it meant Hank had been successful in moving her to Montana. It also meant that all Briana had done to protect the woman and her baby was for naught. Thankfully, Hank’s men had moved her before the Devil Boss’s men had arrived at the shelter.
She hoped Alejandra would refuse to make the trade. The woman’s baby needed her more than Briana needed to live.
At the same time, Briana worried about the forms of torture the cartel leader would inflict on her to force Alejandra to comply. Could she withstand the pain?
The guard took her to a room at the end of a long hallway, unlocked the door and shoved her inside. As soon as he released his hold on her arm, Briana spun and darted around the guard. She almost made it past him when he grabbed her hair and yanked her backward.
Briana fell, landing hard on her ass.
Instead of letting her rise to her feet, the guard dragged her by the hair into the room, stepped back, pointing his rifle at her chest and backed through the doorway.
Scrambling to her feet, Briana ran for the door. It shut before she reached it. The metal click of a key being turned in the lock let her know she was well and truly stuck in the dark prison. With no windows and no lamps or light fixtures, she had to wait for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. The only thing saving her from pitch blackness was the sliver of light coming from beneath the wooden door.
Briana closed her eyes and willed her vision to adjust quickly. The sooner she could see, the sooner she could inspect her prison for possible ways to escape.
When she opened her eyes again, she looked around at the dim interior of a small, square room. In one corner was a toilet and a sink. In the other was a cot, bare of pillows or blankets. Not that she needed blankets in the heat of the El Salvadoran jungle. She tested the sink. The water appeared to be clear and fresh. She washed her face and hands, careful not to ingest any for fear of parasites. Eventually, she’d have to have water, but for now, she preferred to do without.
Footsteps sounded on the Saltillo tile outside the door of her prison, and the metal lock clicked.
The guard who’d brought her there pointed his rifle at her and said something in Spanish she assumed translated to “Stay where you are, or I’ll shoot your ass.” Another guard brought the tray of food she’d left in the study into the room and set it on the bed. Then he backed out, the door closed, and the lock sealed her inside.
The tray contained a small round pancake-looking things that appeared to be thick flour tortillas.
Briana lifted one, sniffed and tested a bite, only to find the interior filled with refried beans. It tasted all right and wasn’t too spicy. She ate all of one and started into another. On the tray was also a plastic bottle of water. Trusting it only slightly more than the water out of the tap, she sipped it, trying to quench her thirst. The humidity and the close confines of the room already had her sweating. She’d need the water to keep from dehydrating. After she’d finished two of the small, stuffed pancakes, she fit one into her pocket to hold in case she managed an escape.
Another careful study of the room helped her to identify items she might use for weapons. If she could knock out a guard, she might sneak past him to get out of the main house. The challenge would then be getting out of the compound. The wall was too high for her to scale without help. If she could find a ladder or something to help her get over the top, she’d need to climb over away from the main gate and hope there weren’t guards posted all around the perimeter. She just needed a chance, and she’d make the best of it. The jungle looked pretty tame compared to the kind of justice El Chefe Diablo dished out. Briana needed to figure a way out. The sooner the better. Then Alejandra wouldn’t have to risk her newfound freedom to get Briana out of a tight situation.
There had to be a way.
Briana went to work pulling and tugging at the legs of the bed. The metal was firm and needed a screwdriver and a wrench to dismantle the frame. The plumbing was bare bones. She might have used the lid to the toilet, if it had one. The tank was one that was mounted high on the wall with a string to pull for flushing. She might be able to use the string to stretch across the door to trip or confuse the guards. Filing that thought away, she skimmed her hands along the walls, searching for any holes or soft spots she could dig out to carve an exit through the wall. The wall was smooth. Tapping her knuckles against it, she realized it was probably made of concrete blocks. Without a chisel and several weeks of painstaking work, she wouldn’t make much of a dent in the structure.
If she wanted out of that room, she had to leave through the door. Unless the guard got careless, she doubted an opportunity would present itself. What guard wanted to face El Chefe Diablo after losing a prisoner? Especially after one of the guards was murdered for scraping Briana’s wrists with his knife.
An hour passed. Two guards showed up to escort her back down the long hallway to the cartel leader’s study.
“Give them proof of life. Talk to the camera.” He nodded toward a man who held a smart phone.
This was her chance to get her message across, not fight the monster who held her hostage. Briana stared at the smartphone camera, her head held high. “Alejandra, if you get this message, don’t come to El Salvador. Seek asylum from the US government, stay in the States and raise your baby.”
El Chefe cursed and started toward her.
Briana continued, talking faster, “You were right to leave this monster. Stay away. Don’t worry about me. I don’t have a child. You do.”
The Devil Boss grabbed her hair and yanked back her head. He stuck a wicked, long knife up to her throat and spoke to the phone. “If you want her to live another day, you’ll be on a plane in the next twelve hours. After that, I will start taking her apart, one piece at a time, starting with her pretty ear.” He touched the tip of the knife to Briana’s ear and pricked it, drawing blood.
Briana bit down hard on her lip to keep from crying out.
“Twelve hours.” El Chefe lowered the knife, released his grip on her hair and backhanded her hard enough that she flew across the room and landed on her hands and knees.
He made a cutting motion across his throat. The man holding the smart phone stopped the video and handed the phone to his boss. He pressed a few buttons, keyed a message and pressed send.
“Now, we will see if your life is worth anything,” El Chefe said, motioning to the guard. “Llévala lejos.”
The guard jerked her to her feet, walked her out of the room and back down the long hallway to her prison.
Still dizzy from being hit in the face, Briana could barely keep up with the man. He half-walked, half-dragged her until they reached the room. Then he shoved her inside and slammed the door shut.
Briana stumbled and fell to the floor, the same cheek he’d cut the first time bleeding again. She lay there for a few minutes, praying Alejandra did as she’d said and stayed in the US. If she came home, she would have no freedom and live in constant fear for her life and for that of her little girl.
Briana understood what it meant for her if Alejandra didn’t come, and she prayed that if she couldn’t find a way out, that she’d die sooner rather than later.
Chapter 11
Thirty-six hours after Briana’s abduction, the plane greased the landing and came to a halt in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. They couldn’t get there fast enough for Rafe. After seeing Briana bleeding at the hand of El Chefe, Rafe was ready for a fight. Being cooped up on a plane for hours, did little to reduce his anger.
He was glad to be on the ground again. They hadn’t saved Briana yet, but at least he was in the same country as the pretty social worker and had more of a chance of saving her than when they were back in Montana.
Hank had tapped on one of his movie star wife’s friends who owned a large plane they used to transport movie-making equipment and personnel to foreign locations. They’d loaded the cargo hold with everything they’d need to mount an operation to extract Briana from the clutches of one of the most notorious cartel leaders in Central America.
The plane parked in the general aviation side of the airport and was met by the customs officials of the country. Hank had arranged for them to see a crate full of movie equipment. After they’d checked the crate, they allowed the team to load the crates into waiting trucks inside a hangar.
A bus arrived from the commercial side of the international airport, and the Delta Force team from Fort Hood joined them.
Rafe had never been happier to see his old team as he was that day.
“Dude, I send you to protect my sister, and this is how you treat her?” Ryan “Dash” Hayes pulled Rafe into a bear hug. When he leaned back, he frowned, staring at the blood on his hand. “Get in a fight with one of those Montana grizzlies?”
“A grizzly would have been easier to deal with.” Hope built in Rafe’s chest. With his team there, they had half a chance against an army of cartel thugs. “I wasn’t sure they’d send you guys. I thought you were on a mission.”
“We were on the way back when I got the call from Bree,” Dash said. “I didn’t realize just how bad it was.”
“Neither did we. Obviously. El Chefe sent in a dozen of his mercenaries to get her out, along with a chopper and plane.”
“We heard. You’re lucky to be alive from what Hank told us.” Hayes tipped his head to the others standing behind him. “The guys are all glad to see you. We’re hoping we can talk you into re-enlisting. It’s not the same without our token Irishman.” He stepped aside.
“Yeah, man. I don’t have anyone to nag me to clean my weapon or change my socks on mission,” Doug “Dog” Masters said. He hugged Rafe then punched him in the arm. “You need to come back.”
“No shit.” Craig Bullington, otherwise known as Bull, pulled Rafe into a bone-crunching hug. The big mountain of a man could bench press four hundred pounds without breaking a sweat. “We miss having you around.”
“Speak for yourself.” Mike “Blade” Calhoun clasped forearms with Rafe. “Now, I have half a chance with the ladies without Donovan around to steal them. Unless he’s found one of his own. Then he can come back.”
Dash frowned. “You ain’t been hitting on my sister, have you?”
“Dash, I hope your sister is better looking than you,” Sean “Mac” McDaniel said, pushing him aside to get close to Rafe to hug him. “Is she better looking than Dash?”
“Much better,” Rafe said. “And she’s amazing, kind and selfless. Unlike her brother.”
Dash’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t answer my question. You been hitting on Bree?”
“If he has, he’s smart enough not to tell you,” John “Tank” Sanders, the old man of the team, said. He shook Rafe’s hand. “Good to see you.”
“Great to see you, Tank. You ever buy that piece of property out by Copperas Cove?” Rafe asked.
Tank nodded. “Closed on it the day before we shipped out on our last mission. Haven’t had a chance to get out there and see what needs to be done. Hope to build a house out there, someday.”
“Are you the next man to bail on the team?” Rafe asked. “You should be getting close to your twenty-year mark.”
“I have three more years to go,” Tank said.
“Tank, you should see about getting a desk job,” Rucker Sloan said, reaching in to shake Rafe’s hand. “You’re getting too old for Delta Force. Or maybe, we all need to be like Donovan and bail before we’re too old.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Tank said. “I’m not old. I can still outrun, outshoot and outfight any one of you dumbasses.”
Mac clapped a hand on Tank’s shoulder. “A little sensitive, are we?”
“It’s good to see you all,” Rafe said. “I didn’t realize just how much I missed you bunch of jerks.”
“Yeah, you’ll be back,” Bull predicted.
Rafe shook his head. “Nah. Montana is pretty amazing.”
“Montana? Or my sister?” Dash’s eyes narrowed.
Rafe’s jaw hardened. “We’re getting your sister back. I shouldn’t have let them get to her.”
Hank joined them. “You were far outnumbered. I should have provided more support.”
“We had no idea he would send so many or launch such an elaborate attack to capture Briana. He wanted Alejandra. Still does.”
“It’s how he operates.” Alejandra approached the group of Delta Force men. “If he can’t get what he wants directly, he makes certain he can negotiate for what he wants. He just has to get the right carrot to dangle.” Alejandra touched Rafe’s arm. “You couldn’t have known. I shouldn’t have taken up Briana on her offer to find me and my Bella refuge. She would never have been a target if I’d just moved on my own.”
“We can stand around swapping regrets all day, but we’re better off getting to the compound,” Hank said. “The undercover DEA agents have agreed to meet with us in a conference room inside this hanger to pass on what information they were able to gather. Let’s get this operation underway.”
The team moved into the conference room, where they met with the two agents who’d been as close as they could get to El Chefe’s compound in the jungle. They’d counted as many as thirty of the cartel leader’s men coming and going from that location. Since they’d taken Briana into the compound, she hadn’t come back out, that much they knew.
They’d been
covering El Chefe’s movements for some time now, gathering information about his contacts, clients and partners.
Hank had briefed his team of Brotherhood Protectors on the way to El Salvador. They weren’t to mention anything about the book Alejandra had with all that information. He didn’t want anyone in El Salvador to know of its existence for fear Alejandra wouldn’t make it to the compound to trade for Briana.
The Deltas and the DEA didn’t need to know about the book. That was information best kept for another day.
“We have to assume El Chefe has people watching us already,” Hank said. “Hopefully, he hasn’t seen just how many people we brought with us. He’ll expect my team to bring Alejandra to the compound. Before that, we need the Deltas in place for backup and to provide cover for when Alejandra makes the trade. We can’t let them keep Briana.”
“How do we know she’s still alive?” Rafe asked, though he hated the thought that she might be otherwise.
At that moment, Hank’s burner phone buzzed. He pulled the phone from his pocket. “El Chefe just texted a video.” He brought the video up on the phone, and they waited while it buffered.
Rafe leaned in and gasped when Briana’s image came onto the screen.
“Alejandra, if you get this message, don’t come to El Salvador,” Briana said. “Seek asylum from the US government, stay in the States and raise your baby.”
Briana continued, talking faster, “You were right to leave this monster. Stay away. Don’t worry about me. I don’t have a child. You do.”
El Chefe grabbed her hair and yanked her head back. He stuck knife to her throat and looked straight at them. “If you want her to live another day, you’ll be on a plane in the next twelve hours. After that, I will start taking her apart, one piece at a time, starting with her pretty ear.” He touched the tip of the knife to Briana’s ear and pricked it, drawing blood.
Rafe’s fists clenched, rage rising in his chest.
“Twelve hours,” the cartel leader repeated. The time stamp on the message was from six hours earlier.
