“Mason, I got to get my boys rolling. Need to secure Juanita and Mela, in case this is a strike. Fucking Columbians have been circling, and they—” Watcher swallowed hard. “They don’t care who they scoop up. We’ve seen it before. I know Estavez said Lalo, but we both know that motherfucker has as many connections south of the border as Estavez.” Juanita stepped closer and reached out, resting one hand against his chest, breathing deep when Watcher lifted his hand and covered hers, pressing their threaded fingers deep into his flesh. “Help me find my girl.”
“Duck and Fury are in Lamesa, already got Duck headed your way. Myron’s gonna work the info side of things. I’ll get a flight booked brother, be there before you know it. She’s gonna be okay, man.” From Watcher’s flinch, she knew it was an empty promise and leaned her head against his shoulder, resting her weight on him. He took it, supporting her as she knew he would.
The back door burst open, and voices filled the living room as eight Soldiers flooded in, demanding to know what was going on. Watcher terminated the call, bent to put his face close to hers and reminded her, “You got a job, honey.” She nodded, blinking fast, feeling her lips tremble again when his big hand cupped her cheek. “Get to it, yeah?”
Retreating to the kitchen, Juanita saw this faceless Myron had asked simple questions, numbering each so she could keep track of what she’d completed. In minutes she’d sent him everything in the first requests, and then spent time filling in some follow-up info he wanted. Waiting for the next round of questions, she was staring down at her phone and jumped when Watcher’s form fitted to her back, his arms crossing as they rounded her belly. He held her for a moment, and she took strength from him as he knew she would. “Gonna go find our girl. Carmela’s on her way here. Neither of you leaves this house, Juanita. I need to focus on Isabella.” The unspoken part of his demand was the shared knowledge that containing Mela would be hard, and he knew what he was asking by laying it on her shoulders.
“Find our baby, Michael.” Twisting her neck, she looked up at him. “Please.”
He lowered his head and kissed her, deep and brutal, leaving her lips bruised when he retreated an inch to whisper. “Promise.”
Miracle twice over
Watcher
The words rolled through his head, again and again, no shutting off the rewind, not knowing what he knew now. Tellin’ you, Watch. I don’t think you’re makin’ the right play. Watcher shook his head to clear it of Mason’s voice as he leaned closer to the tank of his bike and twisted the throttle harder, hand slipping on the sweaty grip because it was already pegged. Fast as I can, baby. I’m on my way.
He and his men had been south of the Rio when he got the call. He kept his earpiece in place because even in the wind Watcher demanded he receive updates every fifteen minutes, good or bad. Three hours earlier, he’d gotten news. Duck had found Isabella. In Las Cruces. The place where he’d pulled every damned resource from to throw into the fray in Mexico. Wrong, I got it wrong. So fucking wrong. That was the pulse of his guilt as his bike tore through the night.
Skidding sideways in the street, he barely kept the bike under control as he whipped it around the truck parked there. Sliding to a halt near a building which was only two blocks from where Mela had nearly been abducted, he was off the bike and through the door before any of his men made it onto the lot. He shouted into the phone, “Where?”
“Left, then right.” Myron’s steady voice fed into his ear as it had for three hours, and he was already running, rushing past empty doorways, the light ahead drawing him forwards, pushed by the sound of pounding footsteps behind him.
The room where the hallway terminated was empty but for a couple pieces of furniture and stacks of refuse along every wall except one. Fuck. Jesus. Fuck. Watcher screamed, “Duck, where the fuck are you?”
An immediate response, muffled and distant, of, “Here. I’m here,” had Watcher looking around frantically, trying to determine where the voice had come from. Pops and Spider surged around him, hands scrabbling along the wall to pull open a low door Watcher hadn’t seen. He launched himself at the yawning opening, hearing Duck again call, “Here! Need a rope.”
Jesus. Fuck.
The limited light showed dirt. An expanse of dirt with small piles here and there, and a much larger heap out near the middle, but no Bella. No Duck.
Duck’s voice again, coming from everywhere in the room. “I got her, but can’t get her out.”
Toes and hands digging for traction, Watcher threw himself across the dirt towards what had to be a hole. She hasn’t said anything. Why isn’t she talking? The only sounds were a man’s heavy rasps of breath accompanied by the slippery sound of dirt sliding, punctuated with a periodic faraway ping of small stones hitting something metal. The scent of sweat and pesticide filled the air, the close atmosphere of the room suffocating him because his Bella wasn’t talking, wasn’t calling out to him. He couldn’t even hear her breathing. “Bella. My Bella. Duck. Is she…my Bella.”
Stretched out on his belly, Watcher shoved his shoulders over the lip of the excavated area, seeing Duck halfway up a steep slope, his head only inches below the opening. Legs spread wide so his feet could dig into the sides of the narrow hole, Duck had his arms wrapped around Bella. Back to his front, Bella hung lax in his grip. Unmoving. Neck drooping to the side, her hair, usually glossy and beautiful now hung greasy and dirty, red-stained strands of it stuck to her cheek, a sheet of it obscuring her face. Her arms were draped over Duck’s, elbows akimbo, hands and fingers slack. Duck was filthy, covered to his elbows in caked on mud and dirt mixed liberally with blood. Jesus. Fuck.
Frantic, Watcher flung himself over the edge, dropping feet first down the hole, sliding to where they were wedged into the loose soil. Duck’s voice droned on, his words unimportant, nothing factored any longer. Not once Watcher lifted her chin and saw bruises like a necklace on his baby girl’s throat. Huge welts and smears of blood obscured her beautiful features. Her skin was cold, so cold it chilled him to the bone to touch her.
His heart stuttered and stopped in his chest, arrested until there was a gentle puff of her breath across his skin, until he felt the beating of her heart against his palm. Focused on getting to her, he plucked at Duck’s hands, insistently moving them, carefully gathering Bella to his body, feeling her head swing and wobble like a newborn against his shoulder. His world narrowed to her face, willing her eyes to open. Please, God. No matter how hard he prayed, nothing happened. No movement that didn’t come from their handling of her, nothing that wasn’t directed by him or Duck. Jesus, please. She showed no awareness of anything. Lips blue, tinging to purple, colors which would forever symbolize terror for him. Her mouth dropped open, and he saw her teeth, stained black with dirt and blood.
Lalo.
A force pulled her up and to keep his hold, he had to scramble, kicking footholds into the dirt, crawling and pushing with his heels, keeping her body tight to his. Over the lip of the hole and onto the flat dirt and then hands tried to take her from him. With a growl vibrating painfully through his throat, he beat them away, cradling her to his chest, stripping a rope away which had appeared out of nowhere, in his way. He fought it for a moment, finally freeing her.
Struggling with her dead weight—and oh, how his mind shied away from that word—Watcher pushed to his feet only to be confronted by a waist-high door. He felt a movement and stared down, seeing her hands captured between their chests jerk and twitch. Only barely, but enough that he knew he needed to get her out of this place. First, the door. Falling to his knees, he crawled through, bending and twisting to fit, curving around his daughter. The top of the opening scraped across his back, and he pushed harder, forcing his way through, not caring if it tore caverns in his skin. Couch, he thought, knee-walking there and leaning over, gently resting Bella’s back against the cushions.
Pale, so pale, but her lips were pink now. Nostrils quivering with each draw of air. She would hate having people see her like
this. My Bella. Scabs dotted her temple, drawing a line to a deeper gouge above her ear. Someone did this to her. Someone touched her, hurt her. Made her dirty. His mind shied away from that word, too. She’d want to be clean.
Snapping his fingers in a silent demand, a bottle was pressed into his hand, and he spun the lid off with his teeth. Pouring a little water into his palm, he wet his fingertips and started cleaning the blood away, each swipe revealing more bruising. The membranes inside Bella’s mouth were dry, so he tipped water between her lips, a drop at a time, not wanting to risk choking her as she lay unconscious. Bodies crowded around, words and instructions shouted, but his gaze didn’t waver. Bella. I went to Mexico and wasn’t even here. I got it wrong. Wasn’t me who found her. Duck saved her.
Bella’s breathing turned ragged for a moment, became terrifyingly uneven, and Watcher felt his own lungs struggling for breath along with hers. Her chest rose and fell in lurching movements, and Watcher wondered for a moment if he’d imagined a barely-there whisper, “Papa.” That single sound repeating broke the vacuum around him, a cacophony of voices crashing down on him. “She’s alive,” Watcher heard Pops say at the same time her lashes fluttered on her cheeks for the first time.
Then it was quiet, and there was only one voice, strong and steady, confident as it said, “I got her.” Duck.
He twisted to look, seeing the room filled with his Soldiers. So many men, so much on which to focus. Devil had started an IV, Watcher not even knowing when he’d stuck the needle in the back of Bella’s hand, and there were three men reverently washing the dirt from her skin. Duck sat propped against a wall, exhaustion evident in the mask of weariness on his face. Just as he became aware of the stinging on his own skin, he recognized the marks of chemical burns on Duck’s face and hands. Looking more closely, he took in more damning evidence of Duck’s single-handed struggle to save Bella. Bent and broken fingers, deep cuts on his hands, still weeping blood, runnels of it traveling down his fingers to plop in fat droplets to the floor.
The murmur of voices in the room died away as Duck told the tale. Explaining what he’d found, what he’d seen, and what he’d done. A miracle he’d located this place and an even bigger one that he’d managed to save Bella. Odds stacked against her so high, nearly obliterating survival, all of it evened by the actions of this man. The hole in the ground leading to her cell, dug by his bare hands. Watcher sat mute, aware if it had been up to him, Bella would have died today.
It didn’t take a genius to draw correlations between Bella’s prison and the one his men had watched for two weeks, unknowing as two women died. Coulda been Bella. Woulda been. I was wrong. Decamped and lit out. Took my ass to fuckin’ Mexico.
Then Duck said a name that made Watcher’s back snap straight, because he’d heard it recently from Fury: Deacon. If I’d been paying attention, I would have called Blue Line, or Bones. Fuck, all I did was reach out to Mason. Then I ignored his advice and trucked off on my own anyway. She’d be dead if it weren’t for Mason. I was in Mexico and didn’t even call Raul.
Watcher tried to take a breath, but the weight of his knowledge settled onto him, choking and strangling everything inside him. Killin’ me. Nearly killed her. Neck bowed, he thanked God for the help He’d sent. Because, in the end, all that mattered was Bella was safe. The only thing. I’ve already fucked up today. He had to stay focused and make sure he didn’t miss anything else. I can flog myself later. Right now, there was a score to settle, and Watcher knew where his attention would be directed. Diamante.
Duck stared at him, looked at Bella, and then back at Watcher. “I got her.” Watcher’s eyes slipped closed, weighted down by the knowledge of how close it had been. From Duck’s recounting, Bella should be dead. But she wasn’t. “Deacon didn’t win, brother. I got her.” Watcher nodded. The only thing that mattered. Amen.
***
“She cain’t stay here, Juanita.” Watcher sighed, explaining the reasoning for what seemed like the hundredth time today. First to Mason, because it was a huge ask. Then to Spider, feeling the look of betrayal the man sent him like a knife in his back. Deserved, because by sending her away, he was telling each of his men he didn’t believe they could keep their princess safe. Not the message he wanted to send, but it was unavoidable. None of this their fault, all blame could be laid directly at his feet. Still, they took it on. Spider most of all.
“I know, Michael,” she whispered, not lifting her eyes from Bella’s face.
Bella had fallen into a blind panic when Watcher and Spider gently tried to question her. Panicked and was striking out, not seeing anything around her, she’d been trapped in the prison of her own mind. Devil had pushed a cocktail through her IV to knock her out, and the minute Bella collapsed, Watcher had gathered up his girl, cradling her close to his chest and carried her to her room. Juanita had dragged a chair in here, angled it near the head of the bed and planted herself there. She’d held vigil since, remaining only inches from their daughter, wanting to be available the moment Bella woke.
Juanita had been quiet as Watcher lifted Bella out of the truck and carried her through the door. Pops had called from the warehouse, so Juanita hadn’t been left wondering, but something wasn’t right with her reaction. Watcher read censure in her tone if not her words, and she wouldn’t look at him. Hadn’t looked at him since he arrived.
“Honey, we found her.” He took a step into the room, stopping when Juanita stiffened. “But she’s not safe.”
“I know, Michael.” Even if her repeated words were soft, they still lashed him, leaving pain in their wake.
“Baby, I didn’t know this was on radar, or I’d have had guys on her.” Juanita had to understand he’d do anything for her or the girls. “And now we do, we need to make sure she’s safe. Mela’s headed to Estavez and Bella will be in Chicago, as far away as we can get her. You’re going to the church with the other women. Only until we get this sorted out, honey.”
“Will you?” Still soft, but her voice was trending upwards with the question. “Will you sort it out?” Juanita turned in the chair, half facing him. Gaze not rising to his face, she stared at his chest. Strong chemicals laced through the dirt had burned him. Not as bad as Duck, because that man had taken the brunt of it with the length of time he’d been in contact. Between Watcher and his men, they had washed Bella free of the stinging coating, but since Watcher had insisted she be assisted before he was, he’d gained some burns. The worse ones were at the top of his chest, right at his throat, where Bella’s head had rested. Juanita stared at those wounds, blinking back tears. “Will it ever be sorted out?”
“Juanita, I’ll—”
She shook her head and called, “Papi.”
When she gave him that word Watcher’s knees gave way, and he was falling because she’d been holding it back, hadn’t given him any sweet since the call came in and he had to leave her, and then he made the wrong call, and she couldn’t forgive him, and he was lost. “Papi,” Juanita’s arms were around him, her steady hand cradling the back of his head, pressing his face into her neck. “You weren’t lost. You were doing the best you knew how to find our girl.” She squeezed him, rib-cracking strength in his wife’s arms. “You’ve always told the girls if they did the best they could, then you couldn’t ask for anything more. Papi,”—heat hit the side of his face, kisses dropping like tears—“I don’t…can’t blame. There’s no blame in this house. That belongs out there,”—pressure released and then returned, her arm flung wide for a moment, coming back to anchor him—“and never, ever in here. But I’m afraid. I’m so afraid. If she…Papi.” Her voice broke, and she buried her face in his shoulder.
Watcher knelt on the floor of Bella’s bedroom and the strength from his wife, his Juanita, seeped slowly into him. Gradually their positions changed, easing them back into the well-worn roles they held between them, where he was the strong one, and she allowed him the belief because he had to know she could count on him.
“She’ll be saf
e in Chicago,” Watcher promised, holding those words as truth in his heart. “My cousin will take her up.” Watcher would rather fly her, but the stark fear on Bella’s face when he’d mentioned it had set those ideas aside. “When she wakes up, I’ll have Devil here. He’ll give her some meds, honey. We’ll get her comfortable and then she has to tell us everything. I can’t imagine making her relive it, so he’ll get it so the memories aren’t fresh. She’ll talk through it, but he’s gonna make it like it happened weeks ago. A little help for her head. Then I take her to Lamesa.” He paused, and said again with emphasis, “I take her. And then”—Juanita’s arms tightened around him—“I hunt.”
***
“Congratulations, brother. Another boy. What’d you name him?” Watcher was lying on his back next to Juanita, arm curved around her shoulders. Knowing it would be hours yet before Bella woke, he’d finally talked her into laying down, leaving Spider to watch over their girl. Juanita’s sleep had been uneasy, so Watcher had crawled into bed beside her, holding her close.
He hadn’t slept. Felt as if he might never sleep again with how his brain was racing. So at least Mason hadn’t woken him with this phone call. So much had happened so quickly, Watcher hadn’t been aware Mason was stuck in Fort Wayne. For the best of reasons, but still stuck.
“Garrett Davis Mason.” Spoken with ringing pride in his voice, Mason didn’t hesitate to push past this good news and into the bad. “Watcher, I got ears in a lot of places. I hear chatter, wanted to run it past you.”
“A minute, brother,” Watcher muttered. He carefully extricated himself from Juanita’s grip, flicking open a light blanket and tucking it in around her. At the door, he turned and looked at her a moment. Gorgeous dark hair with only a few strands of silver, her skin was as flawless as a child’s, and her beauty had not faded. Stunning. From here he could barely see the faded brand on her neck, which to him had become so much a part of her he nearly couldn’t imagine her without it. My queen.
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