by Edie Harris
Because eyes like his mother’s, eyes Sofia had passed on to all her children but him, had stared back at him. On Arlo, they were almost eerie, too big and pale silver-gray for her dark coloring, but his breath had strangled as his instincts made the connection his mind struggled to. Beautiful baby. A small face with his Moroccan heritage stamped all over it, from the straight dark hair to the ears with slightly pointed tips sticking out from her head ever so slightly, like a tiny little elf. His own dusky skin tone had lost the battle with Ilda’s luscious toffee-caramel, along with the rounded cheeks and dimpled smile Casey had fallen for so quickly and so irrevocably.
Standing in the dining room, he felt himself fall in love all over again, new and different and horrible as his limbs shook with faint tremors from holding his body in check. Playing a role. He was playing a role, and it was life or death that he succeed—not just his life, but his brother’s.
And now not just his brother’s, but his daughter’s.
Fuck. The heart wasn’t built to withstand this much emotional upheaval, not in this brief a time. It had only been a matter of hours, not days, since learning Ilda still lived, and that he’d left her behind four years ago. He couldn’t forgive himself for that, but neither was he certain he could forgive Ilda for moving on, and with her dead sister’s fiancé, no less.
Oh, yes. Casey had noticed the engagement ring taunting him from her third finger. She’d moved on, and how.
She was sleeping with that bastard. She was letting him put his bloodstained, kidnapping hands on her. Had they been together last night, after Casey had been inside her? Shit. Shit, his stomach rolled at the thought, able to picture it all too clearly. Jealousy raged within him, violent and hungry and ready to tear limbs from bodies.
Pipe must know he wasn’t Arlo’s biological father, just as he must have discerned by now that Casey, in his alter-ego of Cortez, was. The fury that had twisted the older man’s features when Eddy Jimenez led Casey into the dining room was understandable now. Pipe protected what was his, ownership Casey had forfeited with his deception and abandonment.
He wasn’t fucking forfeiting it anymore.
But he needed to remember his priorities. Adam. Adam had been beaten, kidnapped and might be subject to torture at this very moment, and Casey had promised his family that he would bring the youngest Faraday home safely. The situation with Ilda—and Arlo—was a problem of Casey’s own making, and not his mission. Which meant anything Casey intended to do about them couldn’t interfere with his search for Adam.
Casey loved his kid brother, same as he loved Bethie and Gillian and Tobias. But a daughter. God, it was the last thing he’d expected, a responsibility he’d never thought to bear, and knowing Arlo existed caused him such acute and sudden joy that he had barely been able to leave the dining room and trail Jimenez and Pipe into the hacienda’s northern courtyard, his knees were so weak.
“Cortez.”
Casey fought not to stiffen. Why was it so hard this time to pretend? He’d been good at his undercover work—one of the best—but he felt dangerously out of control, gnashing his teeth against the idiotic urge to pull his gun, shoot every man on the property and whisk his innocents away to safety, subtlety be damned. “Yeah?”
Pipe pulled a pair of Ray-Bans from inside his jacket, shielding his eyes behind reflective mirrors as he stared out at the vista visible beyond the courtyard’s columned walls. “You forget everything you just saw inside. Understand?”
Everything. Meaning the existence of a heretofore unknown child. His stomach pitched but he managed a careless shrug. “Sure, boss.” He pointed where Manuel stood next to an unlocked forest-green crate stamped with a Property of the United States Military emblem on every available service. “Brought the merch.”
“So you did. Let’s take a look.” Indicating Casey should precede him, Pipe crossed the courtyard to the crate. Casey took in his surroundings, noting what had changed in four years, what hadn’t. The security was certainly more visible, brigadiers mapping the various property perimeters every fifty feet or so. In addition to manpower, Pipe’s technology had been upgraded; live-feed cameras blinked from under the eaves and drooping tree branches, and the men themselves wore in-ear comms, with radios clipped to their pockets.
That complicated things somewhat.
The courtyard on the north side of the hacienda had always been devoted to cartel operations, away from the prying eyes of visitors, and that, at least, hadn’t changed. To the left stood Pipe’s extensive stables, where more horses stuck their heads over the stalls’ half-doors than they had years ago. Casey remembered the stalls being used mostly for holding prisoners, especially Orras enemies, the pained cries of those tortured drifting over the pavers to hang heavy in the heated Colombian air. Not so anymore, and Casey commented, because too much silence would draw even more suspicion to him than he already earned. “Looks like you’ve expanded some,” he murmured, and gestured to the half-dozen animals staring sleepily out at the courtyard activity.
“My girls like horses. I keep them happy.”
Clearly, the subject was closed, and it took everything in Casey not to react. “And you built up the barracks.” A sprawling single-story outbuilding opposite the stables, the barracks had historically housed all of the Marin cartel brigadiers at one point or another. It was where Casey had bunked down for several months, where he’d sneaked away from so often in his final weeks to buzz Ilda’s downtown flat and spend hours testing the limits of her lithe curves. “Got a bunk in there for me?”
“Don’t push your luck, Cortez.” Pipe’s voice was colder than he’d ever heard it, brooking no argument. “Only those I trust are allowed to stay at the hacienda, and as we established, I don’t trust you. Start remembering that.”
A tiny, tucked-away part of Casey respected Pipe for drawing that line in the sand, even as he resented him for it. He was keeping Casey from those who were his, not Pipe’s—never Pipe’s—but he understood. Keeping innocents safe was of the highest priority, and it was all too obvious that Pipe took their safety seriously.
You forget everything you just saw inside.
Yeah, sure. He would get riiiiiight on that.
Casey came to a halt next to Pipe and stared down at the open crate and its contents. Forcibly slamming shut the lid on his emotions and tossing on a couple of padlocks for good measure, he remembered his job, his training, and got his shit together. Adam. Adam had to come first, if only because the threat to his brother was more immediate than the threat to Ilda and Arlo, as difficult as it was to admit. “These were the only pieces worth anything in the Marine caravan Josef hijacked. He told me to hide them until he got out, but I can’t keep stuff this hot with me.” Casey shook his head, slipping deeper into the role. “I’d just as soon dump it in the gulf.”
“That would make you an idiot, son, and I know you’re not an idiot.” Pipe’s voice was mild once more, considering. “I spoke to Seijas this morning.”
Unsurprising, but Casey still internally held his breath. “I heard he was in solitary at La Modela. Not allowed calls.”
“Those rules apply to other men’s calls. Not mine.” Pipe’s trademark arrogance spread thick over each word. “Needless to say, he was livid when I told him you’d brought his take to my doorstep.”
Phew. “Shit.” So, Josef Seijas had played along, which meant that Tobias had also flouted the Rules That Apply To Other Men and alerted the undercover agent to the fact that Casey was, officially, calling in the favor Josef owed him from back in the day.
Pipe smiled, a touch of sympathy in his tone. “I would suggest you not return to Venezuela for a while, my friend. As soon as Seijas is released, he’ll be coming for you.”
Casey twitched as though nervous, shoving his agitated hands into his pockets. “So...are you saying you don’t want these?” He nodded jerkily at the crate, gaze flicking from Pipe to Manuel and back again, squinting slightly in the bright morning sunlight. “What the hell
am I supposed to do with this shit, then?”
This shit being a pair of bio-targeting system rocket launchers developed by Faraday Industries. Desperate times, desperate measures, et cetera.
Shaking his head, Pipe crouched low and gripped the edge of the crate with one hand. “I didn’t say I didn’t want them. Seijas and I came to an understanding—I’ll pay him a percentage of what these would’ve gotten on the black market.” He shot Casey an amused look over the top of his shades. “Don’t ever say there’s no honor amongst thieves.” He ran a finger over the body of one of the launchers, leaving a smudge on Faraday Industries’ trademark matte-charcoal paint. “You know what these do, or am I going to have to make some inquiries?”
Casey made a show of reticence, mentally gritting his teeth at the shame of putting his family’s legacy in enemy hands for the first time in history. At least layered within that paint were their patented GPS tracking microdots. Retrieval would occur as soon as Casey and Adam were home again. “No, I know what they do.”
“And?”
“They’re DNA-seeking missiles. If you’ve got a blood sample from someone and want to take out everyone in their family tree, these things will launch rockets with a quarter-mile square destruction radius.” He feigned growing enthusiasm. Yes, he was ridiculously proud of all that Gillian had accomplished, but sometimes he worried for the technology her mind created. Her work turned violence into something akin to art, and that in itself was a threat to humankind. “You can shoot it from as far as five miles away, and the rocket will find the most dense grouping of same-DNA targets and take them out. The blast zone is clean, precise.”
“Hmm. I wonder what Seijas intended for these beauties. I certainly have a few ideas.” Abruptly, Pipe stood and gestured for Casey and Manuel to follow him, leaving Jimenez to stand watch over the crate. “Come. There’s a...visitor I’d like you to meet.”
He couldn’t possibly be taking him to see—”We’re not going to the stables?”
“I have a daughter to protect. Things change.”
A daughter. Right.
They passed the barracks to enter a smaller attached outbuilding. Before, Pipe’s armory could barely be called such, but this selection of guns and other weaponry far outstripped any private collection Casey had seen, outside of his company’s. Pipe was stocked for a war, but against whom?
Unease trickled in, but Casey squashed it, maintaining an impassive expression as Pipe led him to a room the size of a walk-in closet. Light filtered in through a dirty window, illuminating a shackled man in the corner with his dark head bent in defeat. Limbs marred with blood, his lean bare chest covered in burns and cuts, nails missing from his limp fingers.
Adam? Fear and rage churned within him, and he scanned the room, counting brigadiers, estimating how many he could take and in what order, who was the easiest mark from whom to confiscate a firearm, and how long he had to get his battered brother from this hole in the wall into a vehicle before the shooting officially started.
Then Pipe snapped his fingers, and the prisoner’s head shot up, eyes dilated with terror.
Not Adam. But, dear God, what had been done to this poor bastard. Casey swallowed hard, not needing to playact his apprehension one bit.
“You remember Vicente, don’t you? Another of my former trusted brigadiers?” Pipe asked Casey, as though they both weren’t staring at a man whose mouth had been fucking sewn shut. Ugly black stitches bound Vicente’s lips together, the skin surrounding each stitch a nauseating purplish-red that indicated the onset of infection.
Pipe didn’t wait for Casey to respond, his tone utterly bland. “As it turns out, Vicente here has Orras blood in his veins—in fact, his dear abuela is Ciro Orras’s sister,” he said, naming the leader of the rival cartel. “Something we didn’t discover until recently, when the American Drug Enforcement Agency intercepted several shipments arriving into the Port of Los Angeles. Only those in my trusted circle knew about those shipments. Vicente was part of that circle.”
“And his...his mouth?” Casey eyed the stitches warily. This was a new side of Pipe, one that made him incredibly wary. In the past, Pipe had simply executed those who betrayed him, forgoing the crueler tortures for which other cartels were famous.
“I had a leak. I plugged it.”
Ilda. Ilda was the leak, not this unlucky sap who couldn’t speak to defend himself. And who knew, maybe Vicente had snitched on Pipe’s activities—no doubt, as a member of the Orras family, he’d spilled the beans more than once to keep the animosity alive and well between the two cartels. But DEA involvement meant Ilda; after all, it was through the DEA that he’d found Ilda again.
If the DEA made another move after Pipe had locked down Vicente’s movements, Pipe would keep looking for the leak. It was only a matter of time until he narrowed down his search and realized it wasn’t his inner circle but pillow talk that had undermined his power.
They exited the armory into bright late-morning sunshine, Pipe adjusting his shades as he scanned the courtyard. “What hotel are you staying in?” As if Pipe didn’t already know.
Casey answered regardless. “La Estancia Maxima.”
“I suggest you stay there until I call for you. And I will be calling for you, Cortez.” Another snap of Pipe’s fingers, and Manuel was pulling Casey’s burner from the front pocket of his pants, programming in a number and sending a text, putting Casey’s number on his own cell. “We’ll be testing these weapons soon enough, I think. Wouldn’t want you to miss the result of your gift, would we?”
“No, Pipe.” Casey snatched his phone from Manuel, stuffed it into his pocket and stalked toward the vehicle he’d driven up here.
He’d unlocked the door when Pipe’s hard voice reached him again. “Oh, and Cortez?”
Casey turned, seeing his own stark face reflected in Pipe’s mirrored sunglasses.
“Don’t come back here without permission.”
It was a calculated risk to push against a direct order, but Pipe wouldn’t buy quiet acquiescence, not based on the kind of employee Cortez had been four years ago and no matter the cowardice he’d purportedly embraced. “Because?”
“Because I was obviously too lenient with you before, allowing you to go where you wished and do what you wanted. I won’t make that mistake again.” Pipe’s smile was feral. “I will not, Casímiro.”
Hopping into his rental, Casey avoided the stink eye Manuel sent his way and focused on navigating his way down the drive. Earlier, in the moments before they’d entered the barracks, he had noticed Pipe’s old driver, Franco, steering a big black SUV through the gates. If Franco wasn’t chauffeuring Pipe, then the man was guarding someone Pipe loved, and Casey had a decent guess who that might be.
Ilda. He needed to find Ilda.
Damn, Casey had to get three people out of the country now, not just one. No telling what Adam’s condition was anymore, given what Casey had just seen with Vicente, and he was hardly going to leave Ilda here when Pipe knew there was a snitch in his organization. And Arlo? No. Just...just fucking no.
But first he needed to shake the tail Pipe had so unsubtly set on him and get his ass to the second hotel room he had booked that morning, where he’d hid his IDs, his laptop, the rest of his Faraday shit. All that remained in the room where he’d reunited with his dead wife were a few changes of clothes and the papers identifying him as Cortez. Pipe’s boys had probably already gotten eyes on the hotel, searched the room, planted a bug or two.
The game was real now.
More real than he’d anticipated. In his mind’s eye, he kept replaying the moment Arlo turned and waved hello, round cheeks dimpling and silvery eyes full of perfect innocence.
His heart turned over in his chest as he stepped harder on the gas. How could Ilda keep this from him? How could she have screamed out her orgasm yesterday, wrung his come from him sobbing love words in his ear, and not found a single second to drop this particular bomb? A baby. A little girl. His child.
He scrubbed a hand over his chest, his white T-shirt catching on the calluses of his palm. It was a struggle to claw past the blinding anger and choking shock to try to see things from her perspective. Protection. That was something he understood, respected. But he’d never had anyone try to protect his daughter from him. It made him feel...irrational. Confused. Unhappy. And so fucking angry.
She ought to have told him. She ought to have told him, damn it.
He wanted to hold Arlo. A desperate and completely unfamiliar urge, but his arms ached with the need to lift her to his chest and be nose to nose with her gorgeous little face. He didn’t know how heavy or light she was, nor how she smelled, nor what her giggle sounded like or if she was ticklish or if she suffered from nightmares. He didn’t know any of it, and the lack of knowledge made him long for the heavy bag he regularly whaled on back at the Faraday compound’s rec center.
More than ever, he needed to review the satellite footage Della had retrieved for him. It hadn’t come in quick enough for him to watch before heading to the hacienda, but as soon as he was safely in his new room, where he could be himself and not the hated Cortez, nothing would keep him from learning what really happened in those fiery hours after their wedding.
With only his tumultuous thoughts for company, he navigated the Jeep to the hotel in Parque Periodista, always conscious of the Mercedes trailing his every turn from two car-lengths back. Soon enough, he parked along the street, locked the door and hauled ass to his original hotel room. He didn’t bother peeking through the window, already knowing one of Pipe’s brigadiers would have eyes on the place; instead, he turned on the crappy television set, tuned it to a daytime soap and began his sweep of the room.
Ten minutes later, he’d determined there were no microphones or cameras, but his belongings had definitely been sifted through. Thank goodness he’d transferred the rest of his stuff to the other room across the city, but that was less good luck and more good planning. Casey wasn’t a fool, and he’d been in this world long enough to predict what would and wouldn’t happen to a covert operative showing up someplace unexpected—like, say, back from the dead.
