UNDERCOVER TWIN

by LENA DIAZ,

  Dante’s men were in a firefight. What neither Dante nor Nick knew was exactly who they were fighting—Luis’s men or Jose’s men. When Heather had called Dante, his men were already landing on the island. A few minutes later, the gunfire started.

  Nick peeked out the window and watched the woods. He counted five different gunmen from his vantage point, based on the muzzle flashes.

  A pinging noise sounded and he ducked back, cursing at the small hole in the Sheetrock just inches from where he’d been standing. Another bullet pinged through the wall. He dived down onto the floor, using the tub as a shield. Two more bullets shot into the room. Someone must have seen him looking out the window.

  Going out the front was suicide. He needed to find another way for Heather and Lily to get out of the house. He grabbed the cell phone Jose had given him earlier and punched Dante’s number.

  “Dante,” a breathless voice answered.

  “It’s Nick. We’re pinned down in here, and if Luis’s statements can be trusted, this whole place is wired with explosives. What the hell is going on? I’ve got gunfire coming through the walls.”

  “It’s not from us. I swear it’s like someone’s purposely shooting at the house. We’re trying to take them out. We’ve spotted both of the Gonzalez brothers a few times, but they’ve got a lot of men protecting them. I can only assume their men are either shooting it out with each other or us. Hell, I don’t know who’s shooting at whom. It’s a screwed-up catastrophe out here.”

  Nick swore again. “Luis must have had more men hiding in the woods when he came in here. He said he wanted to blow up the house. I’ve got to get the women out of here. What’s the situation out back?”

  “Not much better than out front. Your best bet might be to hang low and wait it out.”

  Another bullet pinged through the wall. The ceramic sink shattered, raining dust and needlelike shards all over the room. Nick covered his head, hissing as the shards pricked his skin like a hundred volts of electricity all over his arms.

  “We’re sitting ducks in here. I’m taking the women out the east side of the house into the woods. We’ll head to the water. Can you cover us?”

  “I’ll reposition some men. We’ll do what we can.”

  “Give me three minutes.”

  “You got it.”

  Nick ended the call and shoved the phone back into his pocket. He grabbed one of the towels hanging on a bar above him and raked the ceramic shards from his arms, leaving a bloody trail across his skin.

  He tossed the towel down, lunged to his feet and ran into the hallway. He sprinted down the hall back toward the other bathroom. He didn’t want to take the women out into that firestorm outside, but if he could get into the cover of trees, they’d have a much better chance than in here. The house was a death trap of bullets and explosives.

  He ran down the hallway and whirled around the corner into the other bathroom.

  The tub was empty. Heather and Lily were gone.

  * * *

  THE SOUND OF a voice drifted down the hall. Nick crept forward, following the sound. He held Lily’s gun at his side, pointing to the floor. It was a man’s voice. Luis? Jose? The voice stopped.

  Sweat popped out on Nick’s forehead and ran down the side of his face. His gut tightened with dread as he crouched down by the last doorway where the sound had come from. This room was on the back of the house. Thankfully no bullets were pinging through these walls, but there was no guarantee there wouldn’t be at any time. The rat-a-tat gunfire was still strafing across the yard.

  He raised his gun and swung around the doorway.

  Oh, God. No.

  For a moment, time stood still as his mind tried to take in the bloody scene.

  Luis Gonzalez sat slumped against the far wall. The only way Nick knew it was Luis was because he wasn’t wearing a suit as Jose had been earlier. His face and chest were covered in blood. Arterial spray covered the ceiling and walls, and blood was still gurgling from the gaping wound in his jugular. The knife Luis had apparently used to cut his own throat lay in his lifeless hand beside him.

  And on the floor at his feet lay Lily and Heather. At first, Nick wasn’t even sure which one was which. They were naked, side by side, their eyes closed. It was as if Luis had undressed them and posed them as his last act of vengeance, so no one would be able to tell the two apart.

  And they were both covered in blood.

  Nick shoved his gun in his holster and ran to the two women. He felt for a pulse. Both of them were still alive, but unconscious.

  To the casual eye, the women were identical, especially with their matching tattoos. But Nick knew every inch of Heather’s body. He knew the tiny little round scar on her forehead from when she’d had chicken pox as a child and had scratched herself. He recognized the smattering of freckles on her shoulders from when she’d suffered a serious sunburn a few years ago.

  Perhaps the most telling of all were her no-nonsense fingernails, clipped short so they wouldn’t get in her way—unlike Lily’s nails, which were long and perfectly manicured, painted a hot pink.

  He sank down next to Heather and gently felt along her body, searching for injuries. When he felt the back of her head, he found a large bump, and his hand came away bloody. He sucked in a sharp breath.

  A whisper of sound came from the hallway. Nick grabbed his gun and pointed it at the opening just as Jose Gonzalez stepped into view.

  Jose held his arms in the air. His gaze swept the room, his skin turning a pale gray beneath his tan. He stared at his brother a moment. Then he looked above him. If possible, his skin turned even whiter.

  “Grab your woman and get out of here,” he said. “Luis started the countdown. The house is going to blow.” He pointed to the far wall.

  Nick looked up. He swore when he saw the square box on the wall that resembled a security system keypad. But the bright lights on the readout showed numbers that were counting down.

  They had less than a minute.

  “Grab Lily. She’s still alive.” Nick shoved his gun in his holster and lifted Heather into his arms. “We’ll make a run for it. My men out front are going to lay down cover fire. We’ll go out the door on the east side and run into the woods.”

  Jose slowly shook his head and lowered himself to the floor. He gathered Lily up in his arms and cradled her against him. “No. You go. I’ll stay here with my brother. And the woman I loved.”

  “Don’t be a fool. I can’t carry them both, and I won’t have time to come back for her. If you love her, carry her out of here.” He glanced at the readout. “Forty-five seconds. Come on. Let’s go.”

  Heather stirred in Nick’s arms. She moaned and opened her eyes. She gasped in recognition. “Nick, what are...” She turned her head and let out a scream. She squirmed and struggled in Nick’s arms, but he held her tight so she couldn’t get down.

  “Let me go!” she yelled, her voice breaking on a sob. “Please. I have to help Lily.”

  “Jose,” Nick urged. “Come on. We only have thirty seconds!”

  “Thirty seconds?” Heather whispered, confusion in her tone.

  Jose laughed bitterly. “This little firefight has brought down my empire. You and I both know I’ll never see the light of day if I go to prison. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, but it did. Luis turned some of my own men against me. I’m finished whether I go to prison or not. At least this way, I’ll be with the woman I love. Now go. Get out of here. You may have already waited too late.”

  Nick looked at the numbers counting down and cursed viciously. He whirled around and ran out the door, up the hallway.

  Heather twisted and flailed in his arms. “No, no, don’t leave my sister. Nick, oh, God, please don’t leave her there!”

  The devastation and panic in her voice were like shards of
glass to his soul. He steeled himself against her heartbreaking pleas and ran outside.

  “Let me go, put me down. I have to help her!”

  Nick ran across the side yard. Gunshots continued to ring out, but Dante must have provided the cover he’d promised because none of the bullets hit him or Heather. He clasped her hard against him to quell her struggles so he wouldn’t fall while he ran into the woods.

  Once on the path, he tossed her on his shoulder, steeling himself against her tearful sobs and pleading to go back for her sister.

  He grabbed his cell phone and punched Dante’s number, running as fast as his legs could carry him through the thick brush.

  When Dante’s voice came on the line, Nick yelled into the receiver. “Get your men back from the house, now. It’s going to blow!”

  He dropped the phone and clutched Heather against him, running faster, faster. The sparkle of blue-green water beckoned in a break in the trees. He yanked Heather back down off his shoulder, clasped her to his chest and jumped into the water.

  The world exploded in a fiery ball around them.

  Chapter Sixteen

  He shouldn’t have come to Lily’s funeral. Nick knew Heather didn’t want him there. She’d made her feelings, or lack of them, perfectly clear by ignoring his requests to see her when they were both in the hospital.

  But he couldn’t stay away. Part of it, a very large part of it, was guilt. Which was why he was standing here, against doctor’s orders, beside some oak trees, using one of the trees for support so he could watch Lily Bannon’s memorial service taking place fifty yards away.

  He acknowledged that part of the reason he was here was to see Heather again. To catch a glimpse of her brown, wavy hair tumbling down the back of her black dress. To mentally caress the curve of her face as she kissed a white rose and placed it on top of her sister’s casket.

  There were only a handful of people sitting in the dozen or so white chairs set up in front of the gaping hole in the ground. Apparently Lily hadn’t had a lot of friends. And the lack of family members was almost embarrassing. He didn’t even know if Heather had any family, and that somehow bothered him even more than his guilt.

  He’d loved her almost from the first moment he’d met her. And although he knew her personality, the goodness inside her, the work ethic that was as much a part of her as breathing, he didn’t know much about her past, what had shaped her into the person she was today.

  He hadn’t taken the time to learn.

  He’d chosen his career over her. And the only time she’d ever asked him for anything—please save my sister—he’d failed her, utterly and completely.

  The service was over. He hadn’t planned on Heather seeing him there. He’d come to pay his respects, to offer a silent prayer, but he’d intended to step back behind the tree so no one would see him when the funeral came to an end. But he’d been too lost in his thoughts to remember to conceal himself.

  Now it was too late.

  Even from fifty yards away, he could see Heather’s shoulders tense when she looked his way. An older woman standing next to her put her hand on Heather’s arm, said something to her. Heather shook her head and started walking toward Nick.

  He straightened away from the tree, gritting his teeth against the nausea that action caused and the tug of the material of his suit across the still-tender skin on his back. The explosion had singed the hair on his head and blistered the skin from the back of his neck to the back of his calves. Only his feet had escaped without burns because of his shoes. But thankfully Heather hadn’t received any burns. She’d had a concussion from when Luis had knocked her unconscious. And she had half drowned by the time Dante’s men had fished them both out of the water. But thank God she hadn’t been burned.

  She came to a stop about three feet away, the same distance someone might give to a stranger, as if they’d never been anything more than that to each other.

  Maybe they hadn’t. Maybe he was the only one who felt like his heart was being ripped from his chest every time he thought about the explosion, and how close Heather had come to dying. He certainly hadn’t realized how much she meant to him, not until she nearly died in his arms.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, her blue eyes flashing, her hands fisted at her sides.

  “I came to pay my respects.”

  She laughed harshly. “Your respects? To the woman you killed?”

  He winced.

  “Why did you do it?” Heather demanded. “Why didn’t you put me down and grab Lily? I could have run out of that house on my own two feet. You could have saved her. But you chose to let her die. Why?”

  He felt the blood rush from his face. He stared at her, incredulous, shocked. Was that what she thought? That he chose for Lily to die? He shook his head. “I didn’t want her to die. You had a huge bump on your head and had lost a lot of blood. You’d been knocked unconscious—”

  “But I came to. I told you to put me down. You chose not to. There was still enough time to save her.”

  “You were pale, shaking. Your eyes were unfocused. I knew you had a concussion. I couldn’t risk you trying to run out on your own. You wouldn’t have made it. You couldn’t have run fast enough. The only choice I made was to save you. I couldn’t save you both.”

  Her skin flushed and she opened and closed her fists several times, as if she were fighting the urge to slap him, or slug him. If it would make her feel better, he’d gladly stand there and let her.

  She didn’t hit him. Instead, she drew a deep breath. “You saved my life, several times. I know that. And I thank you for that. But...” Her lips compressed into a hard line and she swallowed. The bright shine in her eyes told him how close she was to losing her composure.

  It nearly killed him not to reach out and draw her close, cradle her against him. But he wasn’t sure he had the strength to take a step, even if she’d wanted him to hold her, which he knew she didn’t. The most severe burns, the ones on his right calf, were sending sharp jolts of fire racing across his nerve endings. It took every ounce of strength and stubbornness he had not to sag against the tree for support.

  She blinked several times, fighting tears. She finally let out a pent-up breath, back in control. “I’m sure you feel like you did the right thing on that island, and I am glad to be alive. But I could never look at you again without seeing the face of my sister lying there in a drug dealer’s arms while you forced me to leave her there to die.” Her voice broke on the last word and she drew another shaky breath. “I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  She turned around and marched across the grass, back to the only person still standing by the graveside, the older woman she’d spoken to earlier. The woman put her arm around Heather’s shoulders and led her toward the parking lot.

  Nick prayed he wouldn’t disgrace himself by blacking out while he waited for Heather to get into her car. His legs started shaking violently, but still he fought against the white-hot agony. He didn’t want Heather’s sympathy, and he’d be damned if he let her see how weak he’d become.

  When her car rounded a curve out of sight, Nick’s brother stepped from behind the cluster of oak trees and shoved the wheelchair up behind him. Nick collapsed into the chair, hissing when his back pressed against the hard vinyl.

  “Thanks for waiting,” Nick said from between clenched teeth.

  “I didn’t want you to look like any more of a fool than you already do,” Rafe said. “You know it was totally stupid coming here. You’ve probably set your recovery back a couple of weeks. She would have been really impressed with your intelligence if she’d realized you sneaked out of a hospital to go to a funeral where you weren’t even wanted in the first place.” Rafe pushed the chair across the grass toward their car.

  Nick winced with each bump of the wheels. “I didn’t come here
for her.”

  “Yeah. Right.”

  The agony pulsing through Nick’s back and legs was making his vision blur. But it was no worse than the pain of knowing that his brother was right. One of the reasons he’d insisted on coming here was that he’d held a small grain of hope that—if he had the courage to speak to her—Heather might be happy to see him. He’d hoped she might find it in her heart somehow to forgive him.

  But now he knew that had been just a dream.

  * * *

  HEATHER SAT IN her car at the curb as she’d done every day this week, and the week before, doing nothing but thinking. Thanks to her sister’s one selfless act, she had the luxury of sitting and thinking, of doing nothing, because she could afford to.

  Lily had purchased a life insurance policy, a rather large one, and she’d made Heather the beneficiary. The generous settlement seemed like Lily’s way of paying her sister back for everything she’d taken from her. It had certainly come in handy, because Heather couldn’t focus or concentrate on work ever since the disastrous trip to Key West. Her fledgling private investigator business was on hiatus, and she wasn’t sure she even wanted to start it up again.

  Thanks to Lily, she didn’t have to.

  The life insurance policy had been paid for in a lump sum. The only way Lily would have been able to do that was with money from one of the Gonzalez brothers. Heather had wrestled with her conscience for weeks before cashing the insurance check. She’d finally decided that since the Gonzalez brothers had helped to destroy her sister’s life, the least they could do was to make some kind of restitution, even if it was from the grave.

  Heather had done a lot of looking back in the past few weeks, because she couldn’t move forward until she understood how she’d gotten here, why everything had gone so horribly wrong. Talking to her relatives had been, well, an enlightening experience. She’d learned things she’d perhaps suspected, but had never been completely sure of. She’d cried over and over in the days since, but the tears had finally dried. She’d finally made her peace with her sister, and herself.