by MJ Fredrick
Alex snatched up the phone the minute it rang. Thanks to Julian tracing Danes’s GPS, they were tracking the man and Isabella, who had started out about forty-five minutes before him. With his foot to the floorboard, Alex had been able to make up most of that time before he contacted Danes and alerted the older man.
“Where are they?”
“A private airfield west of Miami. You should be close,” Julian said. “We’re at the base now, getting a chopper out. Don’t go in on your own.”
Alex snapped his teeth together. Going in alone was against everything he’d been trained to do, but one thought was foremost in his mind. “He has Isabella.”
“You don’t know what you’re walking into. Wait for us. We’ll be there in half an hour.”
“That’s too late.”
“Saldana won’t be there.”
Julian thought that was what worried him? Of course he did. What else did Alex care about? Julian didn’t know what Saldana had done to Isabella. He only knew Saldana was the mission objective.
“He’ll get away.”
“Better he get away than you get dead. We’re at the helo now. Wait.”
Alex folded the phone and tossed it on the seat beside him before accelerating. The hell he would.
Good thing Danes had such a firm grip on Isabella’s arm, because her knees could barely hold her when he dragged her from the truck to come face to face with her nightmare. She was shaking all over, unable to hide her weakness. Had she learned nothing from Alex? With that thought in the forefront of her brain, she forced her chin up as Santiago took three deliberate steps toward her.
Only a few months had passed since she’d seen him, but he’d lost weight, and gravity dragged at the loose skin of his cheeks and jaw. His dark eyes appeared sunken, the skin around them baggy and lined. Still, his body was powerful, broad shouldered, stocky, his hands wide and strong and capable of inflicting pain at the slightest frustration.
She swallowed hard and did her best not to flinch from his gaze. “I want to see Hector.”
“I do not care what you want. You have caused me too much trouble, wasted too much of my time looking for you.”
“I didn’t ask you to look for me.”
He took another step. His expression was relaxed but his eyes were hard, flat. She knew that look and cowered against Danes despite herself. He didn’t move away or shake her off, oddly, though he stood stiff when Santiago flicked his gaze to the bigger man then back to her.
“You belong to me.”
The last of her courage was buried deep, but she found it and dragged it up. “Not anymore.”
He swung in an arc toward her but she didn’t duck, taking the blow full on the cheek. Her skin split and she staggered into the front fender of Danes’s truck, realizing he wasn’t holding on to her anymore. The heat of the engine beneath the metal seared her palms, but she didn’t have the energy to push away for a moment.
She was at Santiago’s mercy. From experience she knew that he had none.
The squeal of tires behind her made her heart jolt, turned Santiago’s attention away. She knew the sound of that engine. God help her, Alex had come. She shoved her hair out of her face, looked toward him, past Santiago. Her heart dropped, her hope with it.
He was alone, against seven men.
But Alex didn’t hesitate. He shoved open the truck door and ducked behind it, his pistol in front of him, trained on one man.
Beside her, Santiago laughed and moved in front of her, toward Alex. “The shining knight has arrived, Isabella,” he said, his voice booming. “Do you remember what I did to your last shining knight?”
She would never forget watching Eric die, screaming, then whispering her name. What had happened afterward, to her, hadn’t been as horrible. She could not bear living it again. She couldn’t let Alex die that way, but was powerless. “There’s nothing between us,” she lied, desperate, knowing Alex heard, hoping her words didn’t hurt. But it was the only way she could think to save his life.
He’d come for her. Had risked his life. The reality of the danger they were in threatened to choke her. Meeting Saldana had been more acceptable, less frightening, when only her life was at stake. Her gaze riveted on Alex, his lean face illuminated by the headlights, the muscle in his arms corded as he held the gun straight in front of him. A real hero. But he was all by himself.
“Send her over here.” Alex didn’t shout the words, but they carried a level of command she’d never heard him use.
Santiago shook his head slowly. “You are brave but foolish.” He looked back at Isabella with a bemused expression. “What is it about you that makes men willing to die for you?” Turning toward Alex, he reached inside his jacket.
The headlights glinted off metal as Santiago drew his gun.
“Alex!” she screamed in warning, frozen as she watched Santiago extend the weapon in slow motion.
“Get down,” Alex shouted at the same time.
Her muscles tightened, unable to obey his command until the first shot rang out over the tarmac, then her body loosened and she dropped to the asphalt, covering her head with her arms as gunfire erupted, striking the metal of the vehicles, eliciting shouts of pain, drawing the scent of blood.
Afterward, she would count less than ten shots, but an eternity passed before she could lift her head. Lionel Danes lay at her feet, vacant eyes staring at the darkening sky. Santiago stood at an odd angle, favoring one side, and blood dripped down one arm, pooling on the ground.
Beside his truck, Alex lay on his back, one leg bent. Completely still.
Chapter Fifteen
She screamed his name and scrambled toward him, only to be snatched back by the hair, stumbling, scraping her forearm on the asphalt. Despite the pain, like needles prickling her scalp, and the gravel tearing at her skin, she clawed the ground to get away, to get to Alex. Her throat burned with unshed tears, with an agony no amount of screaming could alleviate. He couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t. Not because of her. But if he was alive, he would be moving. He would be trying to get to her.
The scene was a nightmare. She couldn’t reach him. Her vision telescoped and suddenly her breath was forced from her lungs as one of the other men lifted her over his shoulder, carrying her away, away from Alex.
He hadn’t moved. Not a muscle.
She kicked, twisted, screamed, but was held firm and dumped in the SUV. As soon as the man released her, she bounced out of her seat, heading for the door, only to be met by a fist to the temple.
And blackness.
Alex fought for breath as he stared at the sky and heard the plane’s engines start. Damn it, damn it, Isabella was on that plane and he couldn’t move, couldn’t go after her. The stars blurred, darkened, came back into focus, but only silence now. The plane was gone.
Isabella was gone. His gut churned with pain and despair. He’d failed her. She was back in the hands of the monster.
The next thing he knew, Julian was over him, cursing him, and ripping the bullet proof vest from him. Alex couldn’t pick out his words because, well, Alex was trying to draw air into his lungs without pain. What had they shot him with, a cannon? His chest felt like it had caved in.
Then he realized Julian was cursing him in Spanish. Too much effort to listen, to translate. Instead, he grabbed his friend’s arm and forced his attention. “Saldana was here. He took Isabella.”
“We’ve got satellite tracking him,” Julian said grimly. “I told you not to engage.”
“He took Isabella,” Alex repeated, each syllable a struggle.
“Yeah, well, you didn’t save her now, did you?”
Alex let his head fall back to the asphalt, released Julian’s shirt. “He’s going to kill her.” After he made her suffer for leaving him.
“We’ve got eyes on him, buddy. We know where he’s going.”
Alex shoved himself up on one elbow, but the movement made him dizzy as hell, and nauseated. His head throbbed like a son of a bitc
h. Still. “I’ve got to get to her.”
“You’ve got to get to the hospital for some x-rays,” Julian retorted. “Looks like you hit your head pretty good. Might need some stitches. There isn’t a plan in place yet, anyway.”
Alex ground his teeth. “The longer she’s with him, the more danger she’s in.”
“It won’t be long,” Julian insisted. “You just need to get patched up. We’ll get her back.”
“You keep an eye on her.” He scanned the area, what he could see with his telescoping vision. Great. A concussion. Just what he needed. “I got Danes and some of Saldana’s men. They still down?”
Julian glanced behind him. “I don’t see any bodies. Lots of blood, though.”
“Didn’t get Saldana—scared I’d hit Bella. Stupid.”
“Not stupid. You can’t risk a hostage.”
“Not a hostage.”
She wasn’t—she was the woman he’d sworn to protect, a woman who trusted him to keep her safe. He’d failed her.
“The SUVs? There were two. Expeditions, I think.” He strained to see past Julian’s shoulder across the dark tarmac.
“Gone.”
He closed his eyes again. “Maybe surveillance footage—”
“We got it covered, Shep. We’ll take care of it.”
“Don’t let him hurt her,” Alex said and passed out.
Alex sat on the narrow cot in the emergency room and watched for the nurse he’d sent to get him a shirt. Bruised ribs, they said. Could have been worse. Thank God he kept the vest behind the seat of his truck, and had taken time to put it on. Also, a minor concussion, and eight stitches in his scalp. Still, the amount of blood on his shirt made it look like he’d been butchered.
Julian was coming to pick him up now. Why he couldn’t have attended to Alex in the field, Alex didn’t know. It wasn’t like he’d never gotten stitches without anesthetic, or continued on a mission with a concussion. The rest of the team probably wanted him out of the way while they made their plan, the bastards. Julian had better be here before the nurse returned—or Alex would walk back to DEA headquarters, find out what they’d learned from satellite and cell phones. He didn’t know if they were still tracking Bella or if they’d found Saldana. Goddamn, he hated being helpless.
He had to force himself not to think about what she was enduring, only what he could control.
Which wasn’t a hell of a lot.
The nurse returned with a shirt. Her lips pressed together matter-of-factly as he grimaced. He pushed her hands away to button it himself.
“You have my phone?” he asked.
“Your ride will be here soon enough,” she said shortly.
“I want to call my dad.” Tell him he’d killed his friend. Get absolution. Hear his voice.
The woman’s eyes softened marginally. “Yeah. I can get you your phone. I’ll be right back.”
For the first time he hoped Julian wouldn’t come just yet. He needed to talk to his father with the privacy of a confessional.
The nurse returned with his personal effects. He dug out his phone, and holding it reassured him. He hadn’t realized how out of touch he’d felt. He dialed with shaking fingers. “Dad.”
“Hello, son,” his foster father replied in his deep, calm voice.
“Dad, I—” He swallowed hard, shaking all over now. “I just killed Lionel Danes.”
He heard his dad’s intake of breath, could sense him controlling his questions, knowing as a former Ranger himself what he could and couldn’t ask.
“What happened?”
That question left it open to Alex to decide what to share.
“It’s my fault,” Alex said. “I went to him. I needed his help here and he got us out of town and gave us a place to stay, and then—he took the woman I’m trying to protect.”
“Took her?”
Alex swallowed against the burning in his throat. “Kidnapped her. I thought she was safe alone, he came and got her. He said she had a price on her head. He was holding a gun to her—” He broke off.
“You were assigned to keep this woman safe.” His father’s voice was calm, reasonable, as Alex had hoped it would be. Had feared it wouldn’t be.
“No. I was assigned to let her lead us back to the bad guy.”
“Ah.” The single syllable held a world of meaning.
“It’s not like that.” Damn, he never lied to his foster father. Not anymore. Usually his father could see through it. Alex had to hope the phone gave them enough distance. “She’s young, she’s looking for her child. He’s only three years old. A kid that young needs his mother, right?”
“He does.” His father dragged out the last word leadingly.
“I made a mistake.” Alex rubbed a hand down his face as if he could erase that fact. “More than one. Lionel Danes is dead because of it. She’s gone, taken by the man Lionel gave her to. Because I worried more about the woman than the job.”
“Alex, you’re a good soldier. Lionel Danes was a man who always had his own best interests at heart.”
Alex resisted the pull of those words, the hope that they were true. “He was a Ranger.”
“You know yourself not all Rangers are saints.”
He did know. “But if I hadn’t killed him, he could link us to Saldana, to the kid.”
“He still could. You just have to work backwards. If he was in that deep, he would have killed you to get what he wanted, Alex.”
“I know.” He’d heard it in the old man’s voice earlier tonight. “I know.”
“You did what you had to do, Alex. You’ve done it before. Odds are you’ll have to do it again.”
His father was right. Hell, he may have to do it before this was over.
“Call me when you can,” his father said with a sigh when Alex didn’t say anything. “I love you, son.”
“I love you too, Dad.” He flipped the phone closed just as Julian walked back. The grim look on the younger man’s face made Alex’s stomach twist. “What happened?”
“We lost Saldana.”
Alex’s stomach dropped, and he jumped to his feet, ignoring his swimming head. “Isabella?”
“We don’t know.”
“Where did you lose track?” He grabbed up the plastic bag with his belongings and started for the exit, staggering just a bit on unsteady legs.
Julian fell into step. “Near Jacksonville.”
But at least not heading back to Honduras. How long had it taken the DEA to find Saldana the first time? Years? Isabella didn’t have that long.
“Have they traced the SUVs? What about the plane? It’s not like there are a lot of places they could land—did you get the flight plan?”
“Yeah, we have it, and we have a team on its way to the airstrip, but Saldana’s avoided authorities for a long damn time. You don’t think he’s playing by the rules now, do you?”
Alex whirled on his friend, who steadied him when he swayed. “We’ve got to start somewhere, got to find her.”
Jesus. What was she going through right now? Because if Saldana touched her, Alex would tear him apart. She’d been through enough.
He slammed his fist on the gurney. “How could you lose her? Do you know what he’ll do to her?”
Julian shook his head. “I’m sorry, Shep.”
“I shouldn’t have left her alone. I trusted Danes, and I left her alone while I did him a favor. I killed her.”
Julian rested his hand on Alex’s shoulder. “We’ll get to her in time.”
Alex shook his head. “It’s already too late.”
Isabella woke on a rolling bed, the scent of fish—no, the scent of the ocean—surrounding her. She took a quick inventory. Her head and her stomach ached from where Santiago had hit her once she was in his custody, but she was dressed and hadn’t been raped.
Thank God.
But Alex was dead, and that was the worst pain of all.
Without opening her eyes, she tried to measure the room, to discover if anyone
was here with her. She listened for the sound of breathing, anything that would give her a clue. But she heard nothing but the lapping of waves against the hull. A boat, then, but no motor. No other sounds surrounded the boat, no voices, no other boats. They had to be in open water. How would anyone find her now?
Slowly she opened her eyes. The room was clean, bright enough to hurt her eyes, gleaming wood and brass. A yacht.
She sat up abruptly. Hector could be here. If Santiago was leaving the country, he would certainly bring his son.
The fact that she wasn’t bound struck her and reaffirmed her fear that they were out on the ocean. Nowhere to run.
She was his prisoner again.
She rolled off the bed, staggered, and not from the pitch of the boat. Was she drugged or just hungry? She hadn’t eaten since the chili in the trailer with Alex. She had no idea how long ago that had been.
Cautiously she tried the door handle, not wanting anyone on the other side to realize she was awake. The door was locked from the outside. Her heart dropped, but she shouldn’t have expected otherwise.
Head spinning, she sat on the floor, hard. She only wanted to know where she was and if her son was on board. She glanced toward the windows that lined the room near the ceiling. Too narrow to crawl out, and even if she managed, what would she do next?
She needed to find out what hell she was sailing into.
Alex squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again, trying to focus as he stared out at the bobbing boats in the marina. His head throbbed like a son of a bitch and every bump Julian had hit from the airport to the marina in the rented Jeep had only made it worse. Julian had instructed him to stay in the Jeep and though Alex rebelled, he knew now was the time to let others do the legwork. When it came to tracking Isabella down, he needed to be ready to go. Which meant he needed to rest while his team canvassed the area.
Saldana had screwed up at the airfield. He’d probably thought no one saw him split his crew, two men taking the Lear Jet, two more plus Saldana and an unconscious Isabella taking another SUV here to the marina.
