“Shut up. Shut up!”
Jasmine laughed. “I obviously know your husband a lot better than you do. And you know, he didn’t use a condom … because he was trying to get her pregnant. But she was a whore. Are you sure he didn’t catch something? Give it to you? Maybe you should get it checked out.” She crossed the room. “I don’t like you, you needy, weak bitch, so let me make this perfectly clear: Your husband works for me. As long as he does his job—which is not only to make me money but also to keep you in line—then you, Thomas, and little Joshua get to live. But if you push me, I will kill you myself. I’m sure Thomas will find another whore to keep his bed warm at night.”
It was perfectly clear that Danielle Morrison hadn’t known anything. She hadn’t known about Joshua’s conception, his mother, his birth, or Thomas’s arrangement with Jasmine. Stupid, naïve idiot.
“Get out of my office,” Jasmine said. “Now!”
Danielle could barely walk. She staggered out of the room as if she’d suffered a physical blow.
“Have someone watch her,” Jasmine told her bodyguard.
“Yes, ma’am.” He walked out. She liked her new bodyguard. Not quite as much as Lance, but at least this one didn’t talk as much. She was tired of being second-guessed and questioned by every damn person.
Jasmine was going to clean house. If her men weren’t 100 percent with her, they were against her, and they would die.
She sat down at her desk again and looked at the numbers Thomas Morrison had run. She was in deep trouble.
Jose walked in with two cups of coffee. He handed one to her.
“I hope you didn’t poison it,” she snapped.
He stared at her. “Why would you even say that?”
“Are you with me?”
He sat down across from her. “Jasmine, I need to give you some advice. You are family. My only family now. I would be lying to you if I said I didn’t miss Dom. He was a good brother—he was more a father to me than our father was to either of us. But he’s not here. You are. I don’t want to run the business. Dom knew my strengths. I like people. I’m a good negotiator. Dom’s associates trust me. You have to earn that.”
“Dom kept control with fear.”
“No, he kept control because people respected him. He did what he said. He could be ruthless, but only when he had to be to make a point.”
“And he had money,” she said. She was only half-listening to Jose. She was focused more on her cash flow problem. “We have a fraction of the resources that we had before the Rogans came in here and killed Dom.”
Jose’s face clouded. Jasmine used that. “Still have feelings for that little whore?”
“I gave her to you, didn’t I?”
“No one will buy them. I asked around. Oh, a few thousand here and there, but I remembered something Dom said a long time ago. The Romeros were people with information.”
Jose nodded. “Dante Romero is primarily an information broker. If it’s worth knowing, he knows it.”
“He blackmails people.”
“Mostly, he sells information to people who want it. But he knows everyone and he brokered the truce between Dom and Reynosa years ago, and the truce between Dom and the Hernandez people. The truces have been good for business.”
“I need that information. I can’t trust what he says, but he must have the information somewhere.”
“His house.”
“You know this for a fact?”
“I can get it for you. I’ve been to his house, I know where his safe is.”
This was too easy. Much too easy.
“Why would you do that?”
He shook his head. “We’re family, Jasmine. I hope that you’ll listen to me about how to handle the business without Dom, but in the end, if we don’t have family, what do we have?”
She considered that. Her family had never trusted her. She was the bastard daughter, the bitch in the States. She and Dom had an alliance, but he didn’t trust her and she never trusted him. They talked about family, but that meant nothing to them because she was the illegitimate daughter.
Was Jose going to obtain the information and then ice her out? Would he make a deal with Reynosa or another player to have her assassinated? She couldn’t trust Jose with information, she couldn’t trust him with anything, until he proved his loyalty. And there was only one way to do that.
“You will give me all the information about the safe and I will go to Dante’s house and retrieve it.”
“I don’t think that’s smart—”
She threw her coffee mug at Jose. He ducked and it fell on the floor behind him, spilling black coffee on the Persian rug. “Do not tell me that I am stupid! You want to prove to me that you are with me? I expect to see Gabriella and Dante Romero’s dead corpses hanging from the gate when I come back. They will hang there until they rot and then everyone will know I am in charge!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
As soon as Jack signaled to Kane that the truck had exited the compound they waited. Kane was positive that Jasmine would leave alone or with one other person to retrieve the files at Dante’s house. Dante’s Guadalajara property was twenty minutes away. That gave Jack and JT forty minutes to neutralize any threat, find Gabriella and Dante, and get to the rendezvous. Jack had to make it on time—the SEAL chopper wouldn’t land until they were all there. The risk was too great, and they couldn’t wait or return.
But Jasmine wasn’t leaving. Gabriella had said nothing about a second exit, but the idea nagged at Jack.
“We need to go in,” he told JT. “I have a bad feeling we’ve already missed her.”
Just as he said it he spotted Jasmine Flores on the wide veranda. She did indeed have only one man with her, and he led her to a Hummer. A moment later they drove off through the gates.
“Now we go,” JT said. “I know you’re worried, Kincaid—but this was your plan and it’s damn brilliant.”
Based on previous intel from Gabriella, they knew Jasmine had eight to twelve men at the compound. Four had left with Lucy; they could see one with Jasmine—that left three to seven on-site.
JT disabled one camera and they went in over the back wall. Gabriella’s intel over the last month had been solid. Everything Jasmine Flores had done to security, people, the grounds, Gabriella had sent over, even if she didn’t think it was important. That’s how they knew the cameras were all on a dedicated system shown on one large computer screen in the security room. If they took out all of the cameras, someone might notice. But one camera might not be noticed at all—at least that was the theory.
The only secure place to hold anyone, especially after the breeches last month, was the basement. One entrance, from the outside, no windows. It was easy to see—an armed guard stood outside the door. Kane told Jack that Jasmine wouldn’t kill Dante until after she verified the information she wanted was in Dante’s safe. Then she would make the call and have him and Gabriella executed. In theory. Of course, she could have already killed them.
Jack wished it were night. Operations like this always worked better under the cover of darkness. But it was 0900 hours. The steady rain helped, but it was still daylight.
Jack easily took out the guard and JT ran down the stairs to the basement. A minute later he came out. “They’re gone.”
“Fuck!”
JT pulled out his phone. Dante had a tracker on him, and JT brought up his signal.
“He’s in the house. About a hundred feet inside.”
“There’s a windowless panic room that Dominick used for interrogations,” Jack said.
In silence they ran along the side of the house and went in through the closest door. It was locked, but Jack broke it, walked in, swept the hall. He had memorized the floor plans before the first assault on the house last month to rescue Sean’s kid, and he had refreshed his memory while walking through the plan with JT.
Jack had given up international fieldwork after he got married six years ago. But some skills you nev
er lost; some instincts were so finely tuned that you could sense a silent footstep in your sleep. When he’d come back to Mexico last month, it was like he’d never left. He’d told Sean he wasn’t at his best, that he had lost his edge, and part of that was true. But he hadn’t lost the important stuff.
He walked up behind a guard and slit his throat. Killing never came easy, but Jack was on autopilot. These people were part of a violent cartel. They’d been party to kidnapping his sister. They would have killed her. They planned to give her to Jack’s enemies to lure him out. Six years was nothing to men like Raymond Reynosa.
Jack motioned for JT to go down the hall to the kitchen. The panic room was underground, and not much bigger than a root cellar. But if Gabriella and Dante weren’t in the main basement, they would have to be here. Unless they were already dead.
Jack took the rear. He didn’t hear anyone else in the house, but there had to be at least one more armed man. A maximum of five more.
Just before they approached the dining hall JT put up his hand and Jack froze. He put up two fingers and gestured directly to his right, then forward and to the left. Two men. JT would take the first one, Jack would rush and take the second. JT put down his hand and they both rushed.
JT’s target went down silently, but in his fall a vase crashed to the floor.
A voice came from the hall. “Robbie, what’s going on?”
Jack’s target stepped into the room from the opposite hall and raised his weapon to fire. Jack shot first, twice in the chest, and he went down. Dammit, he’d now alerted everyone they were here.
Jack rushed through the kitchen, cleared it, and reached the basement door. It was locked from the outside. He slammed the butt of his rifle on the lock twice and it broke open.
There were shouts from two corners of the house, but Jack was surprised there weren’t more people.
Jack went down the stairs while JT guarded the door. It was dark down here, and he would be a sitting duck.
“Romero!” Jack called out in a loud whisper.
“Jack?”
Gabriella. She wasn’t dead. Thank God.
Jack shined his flashlight around. Gabriella was in the corner trying to help Dante up. “He’s hurt,” she said.
“Can he walk?”
“Yes,” Dante said.
“We have to go.”
Gabriella wrapped her arm around Dante’s waist. They went up the stairs first, Jack behind them.
Gunfire rang out and JT stepped onto the landing of the basement and fired twice. “Now,” he called.
They went back the way they came, JT leading and Jack again taking the rear. JT held up his hand.
Just then Jack saw a woman holding a bundle of blankets that looked like it was a baby—a baby?
Gabriella said, “Danielle!”
“Take him.” Danielle showed JT the infant’s face. “Take Joshua, please Gabriella. He’s not mine. I didn’t know—I didn’t know any of it.”
“Come with us. We can get you to safety,” JT said. It was an order, not an offer.
“I’m not leaving.” She pushed the baby into Gabriella’s arms. “Save Joshua.”
“Gun!” Jack called.
Danielle turned and ran away from them. She had a gun in her hand.
“We have to get her—” Gabriella said. “She’s going to get herself killed.”
“This is one of the babies Lucy is looking for, isn’t it?” Jack said.
“Yes, but—”
“We don’t have time.”
“Jack—”
“Get her moving, Kincaid,” JT said.
“Gabriella, we have to go,” Dante said.
Suddenly a single gunshot rang out from down the hall.
Then silence.
Jack wrapped one arm around Dante’s waist and pushed him forward. “Now, G. We have to go.”
They left as fast as they could with an injured man and a newborn.
Jack spoke into his mike. “Leaving extraction point B now. Over.”
There was no response.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
It had taken all of Sean’s willpower to remain in hiding as the truck that held Lucy slowed to a stop.
Jack’s entire plan was subject to Lucy being taken to a barn on Reynosa property. If Jack was wrong, they would lose her.
“I’m not wrong.”
But until Sean saw the truck in the distance, through his binoculars, his stomach had been tied in knots. If they were wrong … if they were at the wrong place … if Lucy was already dead …
Then he saw her.
She was restrained in the back of a pickup truck. Two men in the cab, two men in the rear. Her eyes were closed. She wasn’t gagged or blindfolded, but he adjusted his binoculars and saw her hands tied in front of her. Her clothing was torn, bloodied. She was shaking, soaking wet, as the rain continued to fall. Red rage filled his vision and Sean had to bite his own finger to keep from rushing into the road and getting both him and Lucy killed.
The truck slowed, then stopped at the fallen tree. He and Kane had pulled it across the road when Jack gave the signal that the truck had left the Flores compound.
Sean saw Angelo Zapelli in the passenger seat. Zapelli ordered the driver to go out and clear the log. It wasn’t a one-man job. The driver called out to Zapelli. Of course Zapelli didn’t get out and get wet, he ordered one of the two men in the rear to assist. But he was suspicious—Sean could tell by his expression.
Sean waited … each second feeling like an hour. The men were moving the tree over to where Sean hovered. He was waiting for Kane’s signal.
In his earpiece he heard: “Now.”
Sean fired two bullets each at the two men by the side of the road. They both collapsed. One dead, the other in pain. Sean shot him again as he jumped up and ran past him.
The report of a rifle sounded and Sean looked just in time to see the armed guard sitting next to Lucy fall over and slump against the truck.
Zapelli slid over to the driver’s seat and started moving, trying to drive around the fallen tree, which had been partially moved aside. His wheels spun in the mud, then jerked forward. Three more rifle rounds echoed and the truck stopped.
Zapelli slumped over the steering wheel, blood spatter sprayed all over the side window. The bastard was finally dead.
“Clear!” Kane said in Sean’s earpiece.
Sean ran from the side of the road and to the back of the truck. “Lucy! Lucy!”
“Sean?”
Her voice was weak.
“Are you shot? Are you hurt?”
“No.” She ended on a sob. “It’s a trap. For Jack.”
“We know. Jack is fine.” He hoped. They had to run the two rescues simultaneously or they would all have been in jeopardy. “It’s just Kane and me right now. I’ll explain everything as soon as we get out of here, but we don’t have a lot of time.”
He took out his knife and cut through the rope. It took far longer than he wanted. Her wrists were raw and she winced but didn’t cry out.
“Can you climb out of the truck?”
She nodded. Sean jumped out, then put his hand out to help her. Her legs were unsteady and she reached for his hand and missed. He grabbed hold of her wrist to keep her from falling and she cried out.
A blind woman.
“What’s wrong? Lucy, what’s wrong?”
“Everything is blurry. I—”
Kane rushed over to them and helped Sean maneuver Lucy out of the back of the truck.
“Reynosa’s people heard the shots,” Kane said. “He has a fucking army surrounding the barn. Let’s go.”
Sean wrapped his arm around Lucy’s waist and helped pull her along, but she stumbled and fell in the mud. He pulled her up and she winced. “Where are you hurt?” he asked, trying to keep his voice calm.
“I’m okay. Just dizzy. Let’s go.”
“She has a concussion,” Kane said.
“Something else is wrong,” Sean sa
id.
“We’ll check her out as soon as we get to the jeep,” Kane said. “Move it!”
Both Sean and Kane supported Lucy as they ran over the damp earth. They had a jeep waiting on a parallel road, but it was a quarter mile away.
As if Kane had eyes in the back of his head, he said, “Down down down!”
Sean dropped to the muddy ground with Lucy. He covered her body with his, expecting to hear gunfire. Kane was down next to him. They were hidden only by low-lying shrubs and the gray, wet morning. Reynosa’s men stopped at the truck. Sean heard intermittent voices but couldn’t make out what they said.
“Stay,” Kane said in a low voice.
It sounded like someone was giving orders. Kane pulled out his phone and hit a preprogrammed number.
“Brace yourself,” Sean whispered in Lucy’s ear.
The explosives Kane had set under the truck went off. The ground shook. Screams from the men behind them echoed in Sean’s ears.
“Go go go!” Kane helped Sean pull Lucy up and they ran across the field to the jeep. Sean and Lucy got into the back and Kane jumped into the driver’s seat and sped away. Kane got on the radio. “I have the birdie. Over.”
Sean didn’t hear any response. He sat in the back with Lucy. She had her eyes closed and for a minute he thought she had passed out. “Kane—what happened?” Sean asked.
“He clicked his mic, he’s good, can’t talk.” Kane glanced back. “How is she?”
“Luce?” Sean asked.
“I’m here.”
“Where are you hurt? And don’t tell me you’re not.”
“My head. Liam put something in my eyes that blinded me. It was temporary, about twelve hours, but nothing is clear, and I’m so dizzy.” She reached for his hand. He grabbed hers, squeezed it.
“I am so sorry.” Sean’s voice cracked.
“Not your fault.”
Lucy didn’t sound right.
“Anything else? Who hurt you? There’s blood.” Sean didn’t want to think about anyone striking her.
“Just pushed me around. The blood was from my nose. And I might have a bruised rib.”
Sean pulled up her torn shirt. Her rib cage was bruised and swollen. Likely cracked. If it were broken, she would probably be in more pain. Unless she was going into shock. “We’ll get X-rays. No wonder you couldn’t climb out of the truck.”
Make Them Pay Page 30
