by Katie Reus
She jerked her head up at the sound of heels moving over tile. Someone else was here.
The interruption pulled her back to reality. She would not have a breakdown at this event. Nope, she’d save that until she got home. Nathan had said he’d contact her, but she wasn’t sure she even believed him. Maybe he’d just said he would answer her questions so she wouldn’t tell Iker his real name. Not that he should ever fear that. She felt a loyalty to Nathan, whether he was a criminal or not.
On unsteady legs she stood but gained strength as she took a few more breaths. Time to shelve all those thoughts and get back to her date. She wasn’t going to stay, though. She’d make up an excuse about work soon, whatever it took. Because she couldn’t be in the same place as Nathan and not remember. It didn’t matter that she’d had counseling to get her through what she now knew had been a depression; seeing him was a stark reminder of too many things.
When she opened the stall door, some of the tension fled her when she saw Maria Cervantes standing at a huge, gold-framed mirror on one of the walls, applying lip gloss. “Maria,” she said, pleased it wasn’t a stranger.
Maria smiled warmly, the petite dark-haired woman meeting her gaze in the mirror. “Hey, I’ve been hoping to get you alone tonight.”
“I’m surprised your husband let you out of his sight,” she teased, already feeling more like herself, as she moved to one of the sinks. Maria’s husband, Cade, was huge, probably six feet five, and looked more than a little intimidating. With jet-black hair, a skull trim that made him look fierce, and a plethora of tattoos, the man didn’t look like the society types Maria had been linked to in the past. Amelia wasn’t even sure what Maria’s husband did for a living, but the way he looked at Maria was enough for Amelia to know he was completely head-over-heels for her friend.
Maria snorted and turned from the mirror. “He’s probably hovering somewhere nearby. So, Iker Mercado? He’s quite a catch, according to gossip.” She leaned against one of the sinks as Amelia dried her hands.
Now it was her turn to snort. “It’s our first date and honestly probably our last. He’s very nice, but . . . I don’t know. I just don’t feel that spark, I guess.” She didn’t want to talk about herself, though. “Did you know that Danita quit a couple weeks ago?”
Maria didn’t move from her position against the sink, but her gaze hardened just a fraction, before she smiled placidly. Considering that Amelia’s mother had been a prostitute, she’d learned at an early age to gauge moods and expressions of people, namely her mother’s clients. It was the only way she’d survived her childhood—and it was one of the reasons she’d succeeded in business. She wasn’t ever going to end up like her mother.
“I know.” Maria’s tone was neutral.
Ah, okay, then. “Do you know why?”
“I was hoping you might.” There was a subtle bite to Maria’s words—an unexpected one—that got Amelia’s back up.
How the heck would she know why the woman had quit? Months ago Amelia had started working with Maria, helping get some of the women from Maria’s community center placed in two of Amelia’s restaurants. After how hard it had been for her to make something of herself, she tried to help women in similar situations. It was why she’d reached out to Maria. “I hired her because of your recommendation and because I saw something in her, but . . .”
Amelia shook her head as frustration and a healthy dose of hurt welled up inside her. “She just sent me a lame note, which sadly is more than some employees bother doing when they quit. I didn’t expect it, not when we’d become friends. And, Maria, she’s the fifth person you’ve sent my way to quit like this.” Twelve women had actually come through her restaurant, but seven had given her face-to-face resignations and two weeks’ notice. It was the service industry and for a lot of them, it was a temporary job. She understood and accepted that, but she didn’t like it when employees just quit with no notice.
Clearing her throat, she continued. “Not that I’m blaming you or plan to stop hiring women you recommend. It’s just . . . I don’t know. Danita and I had become friends. She blindsided me.” She felt lame letting her hurt show but decided to go for honesty. There was no reason to hold back.
Maria’s expression softened at her words and she pushed up from her leaning position. “There’s something we need to talk about. It’s important.”
Amelia blinked at the abrupt change. “Okay.”
Maria shook her head. “Not here. Tonight, though. Can you meet me at Bayside? I want privacy for this and we can use my office.” When Amelia hesitated, Maria continued. “It’s about Danita.”
Alarm slid through her veins. “Is something wrong?”
Maria paused. “Maybe, I just can’t talk about it here.”
“Okay, we’ll meet. You want to talk after the auction? Or I was planning to leave early,” she said sheepishly. Which earned her the ghost of a smile from Maria.
“We were too. Cade hates these things. Can you meet me there in an hour?”
“Sure.” The request was a little odd, but Amelia trusted Maria. The woman had been through heartbreak last year, losing her mom in a terrorist attack that killed hundreds of people. Yet Maria was so strong about everything and had never wavered in her work for the community center. It was hard not to like and trust her. “Fair warning, I’m going to make up a work excuse, so don’t blow my cover.”
Maria’s lips quirked up. “Your secret is safe with me.”
“I’ll text you when I leave. Okay?”
“Perfect.”
As Maria headed for the door, Amelia pulled her lip gloss from her simple black clutch. She heard Maria murmuring a hello to someone else, and then the door shut softly behind her. The click of heels sounded before Collette Mercado, Iker’s daughter, stepped into view.
Collette’s perfect eyebrows arched. “Amelia, I wondered where you’d gotten off to. Heard you got Naomi Baronet in a pissy mood.” She laughed darkly before Amelia could respond. “That woman is such a lazy bitch,” she murmured, moving to the big mirror next to Amelia. Her perfume was subtle, with notes of lavender.
Amelia felt a little strange around Collette, mainly because Amelia was only three years older than her. It wasn’t just that, though; there was an edge to Collette. She was always direct, sometimes to the point of being brusque. It was so at odds with the tall, beautiful woman’s outer appearance. Her honey brown hair was the same shade as her father’s, but she must have gotten her dewy olive skin from her mother.
“She’s just jealous of you, don’t worry. She’s been after my father for years. Just for his money, though. So thank you for annoying her.” Collette pulled out a tube of gloss as well and smiled at her in the mirror.
Some of Amelia’s tension eased. Half smiling, she put her lip gloss back in her clutch, closing it with a snap. “I’m glad I could help.”
“We should do lunch soon,” Collette said, not looking at her now as she regarded herself in the mirror. “Regardless of whether you and my father work out. I want to talk to you about the restaurant industry.”
“Oh, uh, okay.” Amelia didn’t know if she planned to see Iker again, and it felt a little strange to meet up with his daughter if she ended things with Collette’s father.
“I’ll call you. We’ll set it up.” Then she was gone as quickly as she’d come.
Amelia knew that Collette worked with her father sometimes. Not that she needed to, if gossip was to be believed. But maybe she was looking to buy a restaurant as an investment—because Amelia couldn’t imagine the tall, striking woman who got her hair blown out once a week actually working in a restaurant, getting her hands dirty.
Not that any of that concerned Amelia. Right now all she cared about was making an excuse to leave and getting out of here. She wanted to meet with Maria, but the truth was, her stomach was tied in knots at the prospect of talking to and seeing Nathan again.
“Damn, that was easy,” Cade said to Nathan, turning the volume down on th
e laptop as Maria exited the bathroom.
Even though she wasn’t an NSA agent, they’d wired her for this op. Just as Nathan had been wired earlier when he was dancing with Amelia. But he’d turned off the recorder, something Cade was still confused over. His friend thought there’d been interference or a malfunction.
Nathan looked over at Cade, who was sitting in the passenger seat of the NSA-owned SUV. Though Cade had turned down the volume, they could hear the muted movements of Maria as she made her way out of the convention center to meet them. Normally they’d have a command center van as their base of operations, but tonight had simply been about information-gathering and making contact with Iker Mercado again. The man was suspected of illegal antiquities dealings, but he’d led a very clean life. At least on paper. He’d never been nailed down by any government agency, but if someone was involved in the smuggling of humans, he could be involved. Or know who was doing it.
Nathan had made contact with him twice over the past two weeks, but he’d known nothing about Amelia being involved with him. He’d read over the files multiple times, but she hadn’t been one of Nathan’s targets during this op and her last name was Rios, so he hadn’t realized it was his Amelia. Now he wished he’d been more diligent. Being blindsided tonight was his own damn fault. And it was a rookie fucking mistake. Not good for his first op back on duty.
Reaching over to the laptop, he muted the connection completely, not wanting Maria to overhear anything. “My cover is potentially blown. I know Amelia,” he blurted before his teammate could ask what he was doing. He needed to be straight with Cade. “And there wasn’t a malfunction with my listening device. I turned it off when I was dancing with her.”
Cade’s eyes widened, but he was silent for a moment as he watched Nathan. “How do you know her?”
He’d lost his virginity to her and had been so fucking in love with her that he wasn’t sure he’d actually ever moved on. He’d dated other women, but being in the military and then working undercover for the NSA hadn’t been conducive to relationships. At least that was what he’d always told himself. Deep down, he’d always carried a torch for Amelia. Life had dealt her a shitty hand, but she’d never let it get her down, had always been so damn stoic about things. But he sure as shit wasn’t telling his friend and teammate that. “My grandmother lived next door to her mom. We knew each other in high school.” A simple explanation for something exponentially more complicated.
Cade’s brow furrowed. “How’d she react to your name?”
“She didn’t, and she won’t tell Mercado.” Of that he was almost sure. Almost. He wasn’t going to risk his life on that assumption, though. He had to bring his boss in on this and he really needed to talk to Amelia directly. Once he got his shit together. Seeing her tonight, on the arm of one of their suspects no less, had made something dark inside him snap. For the last twelve years he’d made it a point not to look her up. She was the one who’d ended things, and it hadn’t been pretty. He’d fucking begged her to talk to him, to explain why she was cutting him out of her life. But she’d been so remote, as if they were strangers. Then her mom had been evicted from her rental not long after Amelia broke up with him, and he had no idea where they’d ended up after he went into the Corps. And when he was in the Marines, it had been easy to forget about everything else other than staying alive and keeping his buddies alive in war zones.
Not that he hadn’t thought about tracking her down, seeing where she’d ended up. If he had found her online, he wouldn’t have trusted himself not to try to see her again. Or worse, he’d hated the thought of her ending up married to someone, having someone else’s kids. Not knowing had seemed like a hell of a better deal. Then three months ago he’d almost died in an op. He hadn’t wanted to die without facing his past. Without facing her.
So he’d opened a fake social media account and had slowly started going through Facebook profiles in Miami and Florida—not that he’d found her. Yeah, he could have used company resources and located her a lot sooner, but he hadn’t wanted to for multiple reasons. The main one: the longer it took for him to find her, the longer he was still in the dark about her life. Despite his near-death experience, he still hadn’t wanted to find out that she was happily married and he was just a footnote in her life. Pathetic? Yeah, but he didn’t care.
“Hmm,” was all Cade said. “So, why’d you turn off the recorder?”
“I wanted privacy.” He’d have to call Burkhart tonight, tell him everything. Mostly everything. Burkhart might pull him from the op, but he was going to plead his case. It wouldn’t make sense to pull him when he’d established contact with Mercado already. And if Amelia didn’t blow his cover, there was no need to step back from this. He wanted to keep her away from Mercado anyway. That possessive need he felt for her was still there, even after so many years. It was as if it had just locked back into place after seeing her. Which pissed him off. He’d spent years keeping all that shit under wraps, but seeing her again brought it all back to the surface.
“You’ve got to tell Burkhart,” Cade said, mirroring Nathan’s thoughts.
He nodded once. “As soon as Maria meets with Amelia, I will.” Because he and Cade were going to be with Maria at Bayside. They’d stay out of sight, but the conversation between the two women would be recorded and he and Cade would be in the next room. His gut told him that Amelia wasn’t involved with the missing women—at least not the Amelia he’d known—but they had to be sure whether she knew anything relevant or not.
The back door opened and Maria slid in. “I feel like a super-spy tonight,” she said breathlessly. “Did you guys get our conversation?” Amelia had been one of Cade’s future targets, but since Maria had a relationship with her, and Amelia had been at the auction, they’d decided to reach out to her tonight. They’d be able to gauge her reaction later one way or another.
Maria’s office had been wired to include video and audio capability. They’d planned to get Amelia down there later in the week, but now turned out to be a better time. She couldn’t have been prepared for Maria to ask her to her office tonight, so she’d be off her game. Not to mention that seeing Nathan after so long would have messed with her—he’d witnessed that clearly in her eyes. Nathan could admit that he’d been shaken seeing Amelia too. It was much better to have this meeting when her guard was down. And Cade had been right—getting her to meet with Maria had been easy. Hopefully it was because she was concerned about Danita.
Cade nodded at Maria and shot Nathan an unreadable look as he started the SUV. Thankfully Cade didn’t say anything about what Nathan had done. Instead he turned back to his new wife. “You did great, sweetheart.”
“Thanks. I don’t think she’s involved, though. Honestly Amelia is awesome. I saw her expression. She’s concerned about Danita and unless I’m wrong, she’s kinda peeved about the other women quitting on her.”
“She or her restaurants are connected to some of the women,” Cade said as Nathan steered out of the parking lot. They’d opted not to use valet tonight so they could make an easy getaway and because they didn’t want any nosy drivers having access to their vehicle.
“Yeah, well, so is Bayside, and I’m not involved.” Maria sounded almost indignant. “I just don’t think she’s tangled up in whatever’s going on.”
“We’ll find out soon,” Cade said noncommittally.
“So, what’s the deal with you two?” she continued as Nathan drove.
Frowning, he looked at her in the rearview mirror. “What do you mean?” She wouldn’t have been able to hear them talking, and unless Cade communicated to her telepathically, she shouldn’t know anything.
“The way you and Amelia were dancing . . . caliente.” She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, laughing lightly. “I mean, it was subtle, but there seemed to be a vibe going on.”
He just shrugged. Maria might be Cade’s wife and yeah, she’d been read into this op because of the unique situation, but he wasn’t divulging any more
until he talked to Burkhart. Still, it bothered him that Maria noticed the attraction between him and Amelia. If she’d seen it, others had too. Including Mercado.
He’d been taken so off guard, still felt raw at being so close to her. Shock had punched through him when she didn’t call him out on his use of an alias. And damn, had she looked good. Better than he remembered, which should be impossible. He’d wanted to pull her into his arms and devour her. Her arms had been bare in the long dress she’d worn. They were lean, muscular, maybe from her job. From the file he knew that she owned two restaurants and worked long hours. She was still curvy with a small waist, but there was a leanness to her now that hadn’t been there before. Her blue eyes were still the same. They reminded him of the Caribbean, so bright and beautiful he could drown in them.
Tightening his jaw, he shoved those thoughts out of his head. He had a job to do. At least fifty women had gone missing and were likely being sold into slavery. He wasn’t going to rest until they were found and the operation running them was smashed to pieces.
He couldn’t imagine that Amelia was involved in any of it, but if she was, history or not, he’d do his job and she’d pay for her crimes.
Sid watched from the front seat of his SUV as his target strode across the nearly empty parking lot, her purse held against her side tightly. She was walking straight toward him and had no idea. He’d parked in a neighboring parking lot so that his vehicle was only yards away from her little car. They were separated by only a line of palm trees so he’d be able to move in from the shadows, knock her out, and carry her to his SUV with no chance of being seen by anyone at the restaurant if they happened to come out.
She was a looker at eighteen years old, the type of woman who’d only get hotter as she got older. Her long, dark hair was pulled up, the tail streaming down her back like a waterfall. Too bad he couldn’t touch the merchandise, because he wouldn’t mind tangling with that one.
His boss had ordered him to take the girl tonight. It had to be tonight for some reason and he wasn’t certain why, but he didn’t ask questions. Not when the money was so good.
