Hot Soldier Bodyguard

by Cindy Dees

  Hot Soldier Bodyguard

  Cindy Dees

  Contents

  Summary

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  Buy Howdy’s Book

  Cindy’s VIP Reader List

  Plea to Readers

  More Books by Cindy Dees

  About the Author

  Summary

  Special Forces operative and Blackjack medic, Joe Rodriguez, has a simple job: rescue Carina Ferrare from her father, crime lord, Eduardo Ferrare. Problem: the man’s house is an impregnable fortress, and he’d rather kill his daughter than let her leave. Solution: marry Carina, infiltrate Ferrare’s house, and break her out.

  But the biggest problem of all for Joe and Carina may not be her deadly father. It may be the attraction exploding between them and threatening to make their fake marriage all too real…

  Praise for Cindy Dees

  Lovers of Dees’ high-stakes, fast-paced action will find exponentially increasing tension in each scene and pulse-pounding adventure that will keep readers enthralled.

  Romantic Times Book Reviews

  Ten stars is not enough for Dees’ books!

  Harriet Klausner, Amazon Top Reviewer

  Wow! You have to read Cindy Dees! I laughed. I cried. I laughed some more. Left me breathless. Can’t put her books down!

  Romance Reader review

  Chapter One

  Despair washed over Carina Ferrare as she stared at her father’s mansion coming into view past a manicured lawn and landscaped with perfectly groomed tropical foliage. Her prison. Oh, she was let out now and then to fool the world about just what a monster her father was, but she always went out under heavy guard and always returned to the gilded cage to be locked away again.

  The limousine glided to a silent stop in the circular drive opposite the scrolled ironwork front doors. An urge to flee, to let her father’s goons shoot her in the back and end her misery, washed over her. What was the point of living if she was always to be gripped in the unbreakable fist of her crime lord father? The door beside her opened, and she stepped out, helpless to do anything else. She was a lowly pawn, and pawns did not challenge the king.

  One of her “escorts” touched her elbow, urging her away from the limousine and under the sweeping portico. Yeah, yeah, she knew. The portico provided cover from snipers. Although it would have to be a hell of a sniper to hit anyone in this exact spot. The nearest cover outside the sprawling Ferrare compound was nearly a half-mile away.

  The mansion’s white stucco walls gleamed in the moonlight with false purity as one of the men operated an elaborate keypad and handprint recognition system. The guard’s names were Alfredo and Neville, but she called daddy’s pet gorillas Freddie and Neddie—to their everlasting disgust.

  God. How could her life have gone to hell so fast and so completely?

  Two months ago, a knock on the door of her apartment in Gavarone’s capital city, St. George, in the wee hours of the morning had turned out to be Neddie, telling her to get dressed and come with him. Now. Her father, Eduardo Ferrare, had ordered her to come to his beach estate outside of St. George. For “safety reasons.” And God knew, Daddy always got his way.

  As Freddie and Neddie stood back now to let her enter her father’s house, she glanced up and noticed that tonight the mansion’s adobe-tiled roof was the color of blood.

  How creepily appropriate was that?

  As she walked grimly up the shallow marble steps, she steeled her resolve. No more despair. No doubts. No weakness. She wasn’t about to give her father the satisfaction of breaking her. By God, she wasn’t his daughter for nothing.

  She took a deep breath and paused on the threshold. She could do this. Just go inside and play the obedient daughter for one more night.

  Lord, she hated this house and her forced presence in it. Her escape plan had to work. She would go stark raving mad if it didn’t.

  The good news was Daddy Dearest would never guess that Tony, her long-time clubbing buddy and best friend, had the cajones to help her escape.

  Her rendezvous with Tony tonight on the dance floor of a nightclub in St. George had gone well. Freddie and Neddie had lurked by the bar like trolls the whole time, never suspecting that as she and Tony had shouted back and forth, they’d worked out the last touches on their scheme while they gyrated under the strobe lights.

  She’d passed off several expensive pieces of jewelry to Tony, tonight. He was going to pawn them and buy her a plane ticket from this sleepy little corner of South America to an even sleepier corner of New England. Her older sister, Julia, was there already, hiding from their father.

  Eduardo would never dream that she, his wild child daughter, would willingly sentence herself to such a quiet existence. She’d always been the rebel in the family. Julia had been the responsible big sister who all but raised her, and who’d grown up into an accountant and found a good man who loved her like crazy, apparently. Little did her father know that she, too, desperately craved the peace and stability that Julia had found.

  But in Eduardo’s house, it was all about playing the game. Giving him exactly what he expected to see. Truth be told, she’d gotten sick of the party scene years ago. Right now, her outings to nightclubs were her only escape, the only bright spot in her existence.

  How lame was that?

  Thankfully, she’d convinced Eduardo that if she didn’t make occasional appearances in her regular Gavronese haunts rumors would get started about her. Rumors that would draw media attention to him that he couldn’t afford.

  It was the one chink she’d found in her father’s formidable armor over the years. An international criminal feared on four continents didn’t have too many exploitable weaknesses. But he didn’t like to draw unnecessary attention from the press.

  Of course, that meant she’d spent the last few years doing everything in her power to draw media attention to herself and, indirectly, to him. The tabloids loved her. She said and did the most outrageous things she could think up. She specialized in sleazy clothes and sleazier men and delighted in flaunting both. She’d never met a paparazzo she wouldn’t pose for.

  And then, of course, there was his money. It came from drugs, trafficking, weapons smuggling…if it was illegal, Eduardo did it.

  As a public service to make amends for his crimes, she did her level best to relieve her father of as much of his wealth as possible. Specifically, she tried to put it back lavishly into the hands of the working people he’d stolen it from.

  Sometimes she just gave money away. Fistfuls to any random person in need whom she happened to run across. Eduardo wouldn’t let her donate to any charities. Which was a shame. She could really blast through his bank accounts that way.

  Her spending was a huge bone of contention between them. But until Eduardo actually pulled the financial plug—and oh, the media stink she would make if he ever did—she planned to go through his money as fast and furiously as she could think up ways to do so. It wasn’t much, but it was one small act to make amends to society for her monstrous father.

  Carina paused in the dim cavern of the foyer and kicked off her strappy high heels. Dangling the skimpy shoes from her fingers, she climbed the long, curving staircase toward her room. The mansion’s ornate walls pressed in on her heavi
ly. One more night in this wretched house of horrors and then she’d be free. Forever.

  “Good evening, Miss Cari.”

  She looked up at the gravelly voice. Gunter, her father’s gray-haired German chief of security, had worked for her father for as long as she could remember. She tended to think of him as a benevolent uncle who was really into guns and black suits.

  “Hi,” she replied. She actually liked the guy when he wasn’t busy making sure she couldn’t escape the compound. And she couldn’t blame him for following orders.

  “Out late, I see,” he commented with a hint of disapproval in his voice.

  “Good band,” she mumbled.

  “I’m glad you’re back safely, at any rate.”

  Sheesh. What did it say when the hired help paid more attention to her than her own father? She flashed a genuine smile at the older man. “Thanks.”

  Her father had been grouchy and distracted ever since the trouble with her older sister two months ago. Quiet, boring, responsible Julia had up and taken off for the United States with copies of all her father’s financial records and a whole bunch of Eduardo’s money, apparently. Who’d have guessed sweet Julia had it in her?

  Although her father hadn’t said so, he’d undoubtedly dragged her back home to the estate to put pressure on Julia. It wasn’t a new trick in his retinue of control tactics over Julia—just an extremely annoying one. Cari was really sick and tired of being their pawn. She was an adult trying to have a life of her own. What was so damned wrong with that?

  This standoff between Eduardo and Julia was getting worrisome. The maids were whispering that Julia had made off with millions and that her father was threatening to kill Julia when he found her. Surely, that was an exaggeration.

  But just maybe, it wasn’t.

  Both Eduardo and Julia had upped the stakes in this conflict to the point where neither one could afford to back down. And Cari was trapped in the middle.

  She had to get out before their confrontation blew sky-high, with her caught squarely in the blast.

  Four o’clock tomorrow morning was zero hour for her escape. Twenty-five hours and ten minutes to go. She could make it that long without losing her mind.

  She walked down the long hallway toward her bedroom at the back of the house. A half-moon high overhead sent cold, blue-white light through the gauze curtains into her bedroom. She didn’t turn on the lights as she entered her room. Rather, she made her way to the French doors leading to the balcony and threw them open.

  The evening was cool enough to raise goose bumps on her arms. The ocean’s usually balmy humidity had become a damp chill in the air, tonight. Leaning on the wide stone balustrade that surrounded the balcony, she listened to the surf. White breakers striped the blackness of the ocean beyond the wide lawn, and the crash of waves incoming and hiss of waves outgoing mesmerized her, soothing her as they always did.

  She leaned on her elbows, the cold of the stone soaking through her skin, and the damp of the night soaking through her bones, until she was chilled completely through.

  Too jittery to sleep, she delayed going back inside despite the shivers coursing through her. Freezing felt better than the dull numbness that so often came over her from living under her father’s iron fist.

  The ocean was turbulent tonight. A storm must be coming. The wind whipped up the ocean into row after row of rolling waves, pounding onto the white sand beach in a relentless, hypnotic rhythm. She watched its impersonal grandeur for a long time, feeling smaller and smaller in the face of Nature’s power.

  She was lonely.

  Was it too much to wish for someone in her life who would simply love her? Tony was great, but he was also gay and only loved her like a sister.

  She wasn’t picky. She just wanted a decent man to give a damn about her for a little while. Until she could find her soul again. No strings attached, no scheming, no danger. Just a little old-fashioned tender loving care. Was that really so much to ask of the universe?

  A tear escaped the corner of her eye and ran down her cheek, cold against her skin. It was the chilly breeze making her eyes water. She was not crying for herself, dammit.

  Finally, reluctantly, she turned to go back inside. One more night in her gilded prison. One more night in her white lace bed. One more night as Eduardo Ferrare’s daughter.

  God, she couldn’t wait to disappear, to shed her skin and her past, and to begin a new life.

  She padded across the expanse of white carpet to her bed. Lost in her thoughts, she pulled off her silk blouse, leaving on the white cotton tank top underneath. She shimmied out of her short leather skirt and let it fall to the floor as well. Abruptly exhausted, she pulled back the covers in the dark and crawled into bed.

  That was odd. Her bed didn’t feel right. The mattress moved heavily. She rolled over and plumped the pair of eiderdown pillows she favored and noticed, out of the corner of her eye, a strangely shaped shadow enveloping the bed. Big and dark, it encompassed most of the other side of her bed.

  And then two more things struck her simultaneously: a sensation of wetness on her skin and a metallic smell.

  What in the world…

  She sat up and took a good look at the other side of her bed. And jumped violently. There was someone lying there!

  The house’s ventilation system kicked on just then, its fan billowing her curtains just enough to cast a thin shaft of moonlight across her bed. She caught a glimpse of a silver crucifix earring in her unexpected companion’s left ear.

  “Jeez Louise, Tony,” she whispered. “You scared the daylights out of me! How in the world did you get up here without my father’s men seeing you?”

  She reached over and nudged his shoulder. He was out cold. She didn’t think he’d drunk that much at the club tonight. He couldn’t pass out in her bed like this. Her father would be livid that anyone, even Tony, had successfully snuck past his security team. Eduardo would take away her clubbing privileges.

  Although, after tomorrow—God willing—that wouldn’t matter. Still. It was better not to infuriate her father on the eve of her intended break out.

  She whispered, “Hey, Tony. Wake up. Don’t snore through my great escape on me, will you?”

  Nothing. A vague sense of dread coiled in her stomach.

  “Tony. Wake up.” She shook him harder.

  He was out like a light.

  She reached over and turned on the small lamp on the nightstand beside her bed. It cast a circle of yellow light on the room. She turned back to Tony.

  Her scream split the night air like the fall of a guillotine.

  There was blood everywhere. Her white lace bedspread was soaked in red. The sheets, the pillows and now even her tank top were bathed in it. Congealed blood defined a dark gash across Tony’s neck. Frantically, she knelt over him, pressing her hand against the long wound.

  “Tony!” she cried. “Oh, God, Tony!”

  And then she noticed his eyes, glassy and blank, staring off into space. His mouth was open, pulled back into a rictus of terror. She glanced down at the bed and saw his hand clenched around the sheets. A single thought exploded in her brain.

  Her father had slit a man’s throat in his own daughter’s bed.

  The horror of it hit her first, sending bile up into her throat. And then the guilt struck. If she hadn’t asked Tony to help her, he wouldn’t be lying here, dead. She felt violently sick to her stomach.

  On top of everything else, a wave of utter hopelessness slammed into her. She would never escape her father. Never. And with that thought, black despair closed in on her.

  She knew her father was a criminal. A cruel, ruthless man. But never, ever, had he turned that violence directly on her. That had been the one constant in her life. Her father loved her in a distant sort of way, and for all his flaws, he had always protected her from the world he lived in.

  But tonight, he’d smashed that silent covenant to smithereens in a murderous pool of blood.

  And that
was what finally broke her.

  Something cracked inside her heart. It was too much to bear.

  She couldn’t go on any longer. She wasn’t strong enough to keep fighting who and what her father was.

  A great black pit of despair yawned before her and, numbly, she fell into it.

  She scrambled awkwardly off the bed, backing away retching, from her last hope for freedom. She noticed that she was leaving bloody footprints on the white carpet. The symbolism was terrible.

  Clumsy with creeping terror, she pulled out the fire escape ladder stored in the trunk by the French doors and fumbled to hook it onto the balcony ledge. Desperately fleeing the horror behind her, she flung herself over stone railing.

  Joe Rodriguez floated just below the surface of the shallow ocean, gently buffeted by the waves gathering to race ashore. His neoprene scuba suit protected him from the worst of the cold, but even at this equatorial latitude, a night dive in the Atlantic Ocean was viciously cold.

  He peered through his NODs—underwater night optical devices—at his diving watch. He had about two hours of oxygen left. He put the periscope’s eyepiece back to his facemask. Nothing much was happening at the Ferrare estate in front of him.

  His target, Carina Ferrare, the younger daughter of international crime lord Eduardo Ferrare, had just come home. Since it was a Friday night and she’d left wearing a tight skirt and a blouse unbuttoned practically to her waist, Joe guessed she’d been out dancing again.

  She’d done a lot of that in the two weeks he’d been watching her. Apparently, it was the only activity her father let her out of the house to engage in.