The Lost Girls

by Allison Brennan

  This place was a maze, but he ran through a dining room and the kitchen was straight ahead. It was huge. There were no knives sitting on the counter, and he didn’t have time to search. He ran out the service door expecting to be attacked, but no one was there. Two steps later the yard burst alive with spotlights shining from what seemed like every corner of the house. Shouts came from everywhere. There was no place to hide.

  Two men rounded the corner, guns drawn, aimed at Sean.

  A small explosion shook the ground, and every light went off simultaneously—the spotlights and the house-lights. Adrenaline made his ears ring and Sean hesitated, just for a moment … what if Kane and Jesse were still inside?

  Trust your brother. That’s why you brought him.

  A second small explosion came thirty seconds later and propelled Sean toward the rendezvous point in the southeast corner.

  Sean couldn’t see anything, but he’d memorized the layout of the house and the compound grounds. He knew exactly where he had to be. And prayed Kane was there, with Jesse.

  Gunfire behind him was closer than he expected. There was no place to hide, but the shooters couldn’t see him, either. He was in the middle of a sick game of Russian roulette. Anything that hit him would be out of sheer luck, but there was still the chance that a bullet would hit the back of his head and he’d be dead, here in Guadalajara.

  Not tonight. You’re not going to die tonight.

  He zigzagged, kept as low as he possibly could, stumbled, kept moving toward the southeast corner. But in the dark and with all the noise, he was losing his sense of direction. Was he heading to the right corner? Had he messed up? Shouldn’t he be there by now?

  He slowed down, listened, and heard a whistle. Kane’s unique whistle.

  He turned to the right and bolted through the new hole in Flores’s stone and metal wall, courtesy of Jack and JT.

  “We have a problem,” Jack said.

  “Jesse,” was the only thing Sean could say as he gasped for air.

  Please don’t tell me he’s dead. Please don’t.

  “He’s here,” Kane said.

  Sean glanced over. Standing behind Kane was his son. His son.

  He didn’t know what to say. Thank you to Kane was inadequate. Hello to Jesse, likewise. He just stared.

  “We need to retrieve Spade,” JT said.

  “What the hell for?” Sean snapped back to attention. “He made his bed, let him die in it.”

  Then he looked at Jesse. This boy considered Carson his father. The man who had raised him. The only father he knew.

  “Rick Stockton needs him in the States,” JT said. “Rick has covered our ass many times and asks for little in return; we’re doing this. There’s no way they’ll get him extradited before he slips away. He has far too many assets and properties. He’s not just a small-time accountant laundering money for a crime boss. He’s the only accountant for the entire Flores crime syndicate. He knows everything.”

  “But we’re on a clock,” Kane said. “If Dante did what I expected him to do, the Velasquez crime family has sent a team to take care of business. We don’t want to be here for that battle.”

  A female voice said, “You made a promise to me, Jack Kincaid.”

  Sean looked over and saw Gabriella Romero. Tall, slender, beautiful. Exotic would be the right word.

  Jack said, “Sean, Matt Elliott is at the rendezvous point, and he has the coordinates you need to pick us up.”

  JT handed Sean a .45. “You’ll have a tricky landing and takeoff, but you’re the best.”

  “That I am,” Sean said, though he didn’t feel at all confident at this moment. Then he spotted the duffel bag that had the bearer bonds and cash. “What—you got it back.”

  “Took out Flores’s goons before they arrived at the gate. We can’t let anyone have these bonds. Take them with you. The cash is going to Romero—he earned it.”

  Kane grunted. Sean didn’t know what Dante actually had done, but clearly JT and Kane didn’t see eye-to-eye on this.

  “Go,” Kane told Sean. He glanced down at Jesse. “Trust us, kid.” He handed Jesse a phone. “When this beeps, call Carson’s cell phone.”

  Jesse nodded. He was pale as a ghost, but he stood tall.

  Kane, Jack, JT, and Gabriella went back into the compound. Sean wanted to go with them.

  But it was just him and Jesse, and he would do anything to protect his son.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  For all her flaws—mostly criminal flaws—Gabriella had done everything she said she would and more. It had been Jack’s plan to take out the lights, but Gabriella had taken care of the backup generators first. Kane was going to owe her and Dante big time, and he didn’t like owing criminals anything. He and Dante were going to have a heart-to-heart when this was all said and done. If Dante could recuse himself from some of the shadier businesses, Kane could look away from the other shit. But he didn’t think Dante could turn down the money. He wasn’t a distributor, smuggler, or grower … he was a moneyman. A negotiator. The arbitrator when two crime families—like the Flores and the Velasquez families—had a disagreement.

  And sometimes, like now, it paid for Dante to know everyone’s secrets.

  But Kane sure as hell didn’t like him knowing the Rogan family secrets.

  Kane and JT split off from Gabriella and Jack. They had their own plan, and it didn’t include grabbing Carson Spade.

  JT didn’t work in the field anymore, but there were some things that were so ingrained, it was like they’d been working together for years. They didn’t need words. A nod, subtle body movement, hand signs. It was like old times, but Kane was acutely aware that JT was rusty. Just because he had once been among the elite didn’t mean his reaction time was the same. Kane hadn’t thought Jack would bring in JT and Matt Elliott to implement Kane’s plan—Matt was a fucking prosecutor and hadn’t run an op since he left the Navy SEALs umpteen years ago. JT—he was more in the game, but not from this side of the war.

  But that was a conversation for another day. Today was about survival. And finding that bastard Carson Spade.

  He looked at the countdown on his watch. When Jesse called Carson, whether or not he answered his phone, Kane would have his exact location. Sean was brilliant, though Kane stopped telling him that long ago. Why inflate his ego any more? Sean had created an app so that even if the person had GPS turned off, if they were called from a phone with the app, any other phone with that app could track them to a ten-foot radius. If they answered the phone, a virus wormed its way in so the individual could be tracked even when they terminated the call.

  Unless of course they took out the battery. But Kane didn’t think Carson would suspect anything. And he would absolutely answer a phone when the caller ID had been programmed to show the name JESSE.

  JT held up his hand and Kane stopped. They were flush against the back wall of the house, partly obscured by scraggly oak trees. Kane looked at the watch again. One minute. He held up one finger to JT, who nodded.

  A group of four guards ran past them toward the back wall.

  Thirty seconds.

  Kane and JT entered through the same service door that Sean had escaped from. A guard stood there as sentry, but hesitated just a second, surprised that the man who had escaped had returned. Kane hit him in his neck and broke his windpipe. Quiet, effective, deadly.

  They ran through the kitchen and stood in the butler’s pantry. Kane looked at his watch. Ten seconds. He took out the small tablet Sean had given him. The light was so dim he almost couldn’t see the screen, but he didn’t dare turn it up. He launched the app and waited. Listened. There was still chaos outside, but inside the atrium there was only a shouting match between Jasmine and Dominick.

  He caught parts of the fight because the atrium echoed.

  Rogan! How dare you!

  Bitch.

  Fool.

  They won’t get out of Jalisco alive.

  They’re not here, are they
?

  The app showed Kane as a white dot and Carson’s phone as a green dot. It was moving, about twenty feet from them and walking rapidly away.

  Kane motioned down the hall that marked the atrium’s northern perimeter. JT nodded. They both moved down the hall and pursued Carson. They were getting closer when a shout and gunfire had them taking cover.

  “Get him,” JT said. “I got you.”

  Kane didn’t like leaving his partner, but he also couldn’t let Carson Spade get away. He bolted down the hall and into a room.

  Carson had a gun on him. Kane reached out and disarmed him immediately. Fucking accountant and lawyer, not a soldier.

  Carson stared at him wild-eyed. “You took my son!”

  “My nephew,” Kane said in a low voice, “never forget it.”

  Carson made the connection immediately, opened his mouth, then closed it. “You’ll never get out of here.”

  “Shut the fuck up. I planned to kill you, but others want you alive. They won the coin toss.” Kane enjoyed the panic written all over Carson’s face.

  “What? What do you mean?”

  Kane didn’t answer. He looked around the room. They were on the ground floor, which was good. Where was JT?

  Gunfire erupted, very close, and JT ran in the door. He was favoring his right arm.

  “Fuck it, J!”

  “Flesh wound. Let’s go.” JT pushed a table in front of the door.

  “I’m not going with you!” Carson shouted purposefully to alert anyone in the house where they were.

  Kane hit him. Damn, that felt good. He whispered in his ear as he pulled the bastard’s arm behind his back until he winced, “If you say one more word, I’ll stab you in the kidney and leave you here to die slowly and in agony.”

  JT pushed open the window and climbed out. Kane pushed Carson toward the window as someone started hitting at the door. The table moved.

  “Now!” Kane ordered.

  Carson went through. Kane followed as the guards broke through the barrier. He pulled a grenade out of his pocket, pulled the pin, and tossed it back through the window.

  “Run!” he commanded.

  Ten seconds later the explosion sent them all to their knees. Screams echoed behind them, but Kane couldn’t be concerned with casualties.

  He hoped Jack and Gabriella had been successful, because the plan had them splitting up until they reached the plane.

  Provided Sean made it safely to the plane. And was able to land at the right coordinates in the dark with the pending storm.

  They couldn’t escape the same way Sean had; by now the perimeter guards would have found the breach. They had to go through the main gate. And the best way was to create another distraction.

  “J, now.”

  JT pulled a detonator out of his pocket, flipped the switch, then pressed two buttons simultaneously. Every corner of the compound perimeter exploded simultaneously. The bombs had been placed outside the gates because they couldn’t access the inside until Kane had found Jesse. But the distraction was just what they needed. All the guards rushed toward the house to protect the structure. And Kane, JT, and a reluctant but terrified Carson Spade ran toward the road.

  The jeep was right where they’d left it, hiding two hundred yards from the entrance. Kane cuffed Carson to the vehicle because if he didn’t, he might have killed him.

  He didn’t like criminals as a general rule, but he despised criminals who put kids in danger.

  Especially when the kid was family.

  * * *

  Everything that had happened from the moment that Sean had cornered him at the football game had seemed surreal. But tonight … Jesse was living an action movie, only it wasn’t as exciting as he’d thought it might be.

  In fact, he’d been scared to death. He still was.

  “Explain that again, Matt?” Sean asked the driver.

  “I said, you only have 1500 feet to land and take off. But it’s secure.”

  “That’s next to impossible. Not the landing part, but we’re going to have what, seven—no, eight—passengers. I need more room.”

  “We don’t have more room.”

  “We’ll have to dump everything.”

  “Okay.”

  “And half the fuel.”

  “Um, is that a good idea?”

  “Do you want to fly or crash?”

  “I see your point.” Matt didn’t talk for a while. “Are you going to have enough fuel to make it to Hidalgo?”

  “No. Kane better know a place where we can refuel before we hit Monterrey.”

  Jesse had flown many times, but never in a small plane. He was scared. And excited.

  But mostly scared.

  “Jesse, you good?” Sean asked. He looked back at him, winked. “We’ll be fine.”

  Fine? He didn’t know if he’d done the right thing. Well, he did … but he didn’t. When Carson didn’t let him call his mom … and then he got the letter from Sean … he thought okay, this was going to happen, Sean was his real dad.

  But his real dad was a jerk. His mom said so. His mom said he’d told her he didn’t want a kid and why not just get an abortion. So why would he swoop in and save him now? Risk his life? It didn’t make any sense.

  “Seriously, you aren’t hurt or anything, are you? Jesse, talk to me.”

  “I’m fine.” He bit his lip. “My mom told me you didn’t want her to have a baby.”

  Sean turned in his seat and stared at him. Sean looked really upset. Angry and sad all together.

  “Jesse, I don’t know why Madison said or did any of the things that she did. All I can say is this: She was nineteen and pregnant and in college. She made decisions based on what she thought was best for her. I’m not going to fault her for that. But I’m going to tell you this once, and it’s the truth. I never knew you existed until this week. I didn’t know your mom was pregnant. If I had, I would have been there. I wish I had been. God, Jess, I love you.” He looked away. For a second Jesse thought Sean was crying, but maybe not.

  He shifted in the seat so he could see Sean better. Yeah, his eyes were wet, Jesse could see that even in the near-dark. Sean put the palms of his hands against his eyes, pressed hard.

  Jesse didn’t know what to say. Everything he’d believed for his entire life was a lie. His mom lied to him … and Carson. He couldn’t call Carson Dad anymore. Carson lied to him, too. Told him he couldn’t call his mom, took away his phone, said he’d talked to her. Had he? Had he really talked to her?

  And then there was that conversation this morning.

  “I heard Carson talking to Mr. Flores this morning,” Jesse said quietly.

  “You don’t have to tell me.”

  “You were right. About everything you said in your message. And more. He … he talked about it. About how he was moving money around so Dominick could access it. I didn’t understand a lot … but Dominick was angry with my dad. With Carson,” he corrected himself. “Carson kept saying it wasn’t his fault, that he set up these bank accounts and companies or whatever perfectly. But Dominick said, ‘Fix it or else.’ And I knew Carson was scared that the or else meant he’d be killed.” What would that have meant for him? Would they have killed Jesse, too? His mom?

  “Carson worked for dangerous people,” Sean said.

  “Criminals,” Jesse said. “You said they were criminals.”

  “They are,” Sean said. “Flores and his family run a drug and human trafficking organization, and Carson set up their money-laundering operation. The FBI has proof, and that’s why my brother went back to get him.”

  “Would Dominick have killed him?”

  “Yes,” Sean answered. Matt cleared his throat. “Matt, I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not going to lie to my son.”

  Sean looked back at Jesse. “Jesse, you’re young and you’ve had a quick and violent education in the last three days. I’m never going to lie to you, okay? Maybe I’m too blunt sometimes, and I’ll work on that—but I was
raised by my brothers, and they never sugarcoated anything. Ignorance is never an option.”

  “So Kane is my uncle.”

  “Yes he is.” Sean smiled.

  “And is Jack my other uncle? You said brothers.”

  “Jack I guess would be your uncle-in-law. He’s almost my brother-in-law. JT is Jack and Kane’s partner. I’ll draw you a flowchart and teach you about Rogan-Caruso-Kincaid and what we do. Well, what they do. I don’t work for them anymore.”

  The fear started to fade, and curiosity grew. Jesse had a lot to learn about his dad and his new family. It was, well, really kinda cool and exciting.

  “Is Carson going to jail?”

  “I hope so,” Sean said. “I’m sorry, but that’s the truth.”

  “I hope so, too.” Jesse paused. The fear came back. He didn’t know quite how to say it, to explain it.

  I hope Dominick doesn’t get so mad that he kills me and my mom.

  But he would be brave. Because his uncle Kane and his dad—his real dad—were brave.

  And he hoped they would protect his mom even though she’d been lying to everyone ever since he was born.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Noah brought Lucy back to the hotel at two that morning. She felt like a zombie. She was cried out, exhausted, barely able to put two thoughts together.

  Ana was stable and the babies were healthy, but the doctor put her on bed rest. Siobhan was sleeping in Ana’s room, her two years of searching finally over. The baby girl Lucy had delivered was in the NICU, but the doctor expected her to be just fine. She was nearly five pounds, almost full term, and she’d make it. Abby had called her mother, who was driving all night to be here for her daughter.

  She said there was nothing to forgive and she loves me.

  Lucy was an emotional basket case. They hadn’t found Marisol. Four women had been killed in that slaughterhouse. There were seventy-one babies unaccounted for—all sold, all gone.

  “It’s over,” Noah said. “Sit down before you collapse.”

  The hotel rooms were a suite—two rooms on either side of a living area. Lucy sat on the couch and Noah sat next to her. She put her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. “It’s not over.”