Reignited: Ensenada Heat Book 3

by Tess Summers

  The scene at the Guzman estate could best be described as highly secured chaos. The guards around the estate had been tripled, there were two helicopters on the grounds—Ramon’s and the new one John had been using to fly back and forth between Ensenada and his home in San Diego.

  Understandably, Dante looked like shit. Not surprisingly, Bella looked like she was ready to kick ass—she just needed to be pointed in the right direction. Edward and Reagan were there—their baby, Brianna, noticeably wasn’t.

  “We decided it would be better if she stayed in South Dakota,” Edward explained when Jacob inquired where she was. “Although she’s staying with Reagan’s mom until my parents get there tomorrow, so we’re a little worried about her.”

  “Mama does okay in short-term situations,” Reagan admonished her husband. “Bri will be fine.”

  “I’m guessing your mother doesn’t know about…” Jacob gestured to everything going on around them.

  “No. We didn’t see the point in needlessly worrying her. I’m sure we’ll have Madison back by morning.” Reagan’s body language didn’t match the assured tone of her words. She probably subscribed to that universe bullshit, too.

  “Jacob, let’s go to my office, and I can brief you on what we know,” Dante said, and started walking toward his study, not bothering to check to see if Jacob was following.

  Of course he was.

  His phone began to vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw it was Tink. Good, that means she made it to Houston okay. As much as he wanted to talk to her, now wasn’t the best time, and he silenced the call—sending it to voicemail.

  “I hope you haven’t spent that million dollars we paid you,” was how Dante started.

  “It wasn’t the Columbians. It was Los Zetas—making it look like the Columbians did it. Think about it. Who would have the most to gain with you going to war in South America? Your resources would be spread thin; you’d be vulnerable, ripe for the picking if an attack from the West hit you while your manpower was in Columbia.”

  The Mexican stared at him as if trying to decipher whether he was purposefully trying to steer him wrong.

  “The Zetas are here. I know it. Give me two days to prove it.”

  “You have thirty-six hours. Then we’re going to war in Cartagena.”

  Dante was normally a reasonable man, but the man’s daughter’s life was on the line, so his irrationality made sense. As did his wife’s proclamation to Jacob and Edward of, “I’m going with you.”

  “No, you’re not,” Edward and Dante said in unison, which seemed to only piss her off.

  Her husband was astute enough to take another tack.

  Drawing her into his arms, he murmured into her hair, “Bella, I need you here with me, mi amor. I’ll go insane without you.”

  “Then come with us,” she whispered.

  He shook his head. “We need to be here, coordinating everything. I want to know what’s going on with every single person who is looking for Madi and for the people who took her. We can’t concentrate on just this one lead—that’s what Edward and Jacob are for.”

  “Marcus, Eddie, Erik, and Raul just landed,” Edward informed them as he looked at his phone. “We’re meeting them in thirty minutes. We got this, Bella. Trust me.”

  Marcus was Edward’s brother and former CIA. He was who they’d rescued in Cartagena two years ago, when Edward had kidnapped Reagan—before she was his wife, and drew Bella out of retirement to assist him. Eddie Landon, Erik Yu and Raul Garcia were three rebels from his brother’s team who had disobeyed orders and come back to Colombia to get Marcus home safely. They, too, were coming out of retirement to assist.

  Jacob wished he would have been a part of team like that. Marcus called them, and they came—no questions asked. Jake had always been a lone wolf—even when he was with the agency.

  The only one of the four who knew Bella’s true identity was Marcus, and that was only because his brother ended up married to Bella’s sister. The other three were told as little as possible in Cartagena; they had been undercover long enough to respect they didn’t need to know their assisting operative’s bio. And Jacob had made damn sure their paths didn’t cross, in the slim chance one of them recognized her somehow, some way.

  He didn’t know how he was going to keep her identity secret this time.

  “I don’t care—just get my daughter back!” was her response when he voiced his concerns out loud.

  “I honestly think my brother’s team will keep her secret. They know they’re rescuing the daughter of the woman who played a pivotal part in Marcus’s rescue. They’ve been around long enough to figure out the score.”

  Meaning they knew the CIA’s termination orders of one of their own wasn’t always justified—more like a convenient way to tie up loose ends. Edward was a prime example.

  “I think they know when to let dead dogs lie,” Jacob agreed.

  “Everyone has a price,” Dante observed cynically.

  “So just be willing to beat it,” Jacob responded.

  “Whoever gets my little girl back can name their price.”

  Jacob and Edward started loading their gear bags with hi-tech goodies provided by the Sinaloa cartel while Bella stood watch. He knew old habits die hard, and she was itching to lead the charge with this.

  “We got this. I promise you.” Edward flung the duffle over his shoulder.

  She looked at them both with pursed lips, then subtly nodded her head in agreement and stepped aside.

  Edward grabbed Reagan and kissed the breath out of her, whispering words Jacob couldn’t make out when they came up for air. She stroked his cheek and nodded with tears in her eyes.

  Without another word, the two men got into separate vehicles and began communicating via walkie talkie, en route to pick up the rest of the ragtag gang of retired badasses.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Taren

  She heard the burner phone alert with a message around midnight, right when she was starting to doze off, and she bolted upright, fumbling to grab it from her dresser.

  I’m glad you’re home safe, baby. Things are going to be hectic here for a while, so not sure when or if I can call. I’ll try to text soon.

  I miss you. No word yet on Madi?

  Miss you too, babe. No, not yet. We’ve got some good leads we’re pursuing though.

  Be careful. I love you. Hurry back to me.

  I’ll get there as soon as I can. xoxo

  She breathed in the smell of the shirt she was holding against her chest like a security blanket. She might have ‘accidentally’ put one of his dirty shirts in her suitcase instead of his this morning when she packed his clothes. It had his natural scent, plus a mixture of the cologne and deodorant he wore.

  As much as she missed him, she felt a sense of pride knowing that he was off saving the day. He needed to be in Ensenada.

  Getting up so early this morning helped her fall back asleep, despite the two-hour time difference.

  She showed up at 11:00 a.m. for her twelve hour shift in the ER, raring to go. As was often the case, she barely stopped the entire time she was on duty, and dragged herself home by a quarter to midnight, barely keeping her eyes open as she waited in her t-shirt and panties for her microwave dinner to cook.

  She hadn’t heard from Jacob yet today, but hoped to soon. It was after midnight when he texted last night, maybe it’d be like that tonight as well.

  Turns out, he did, she was just dead asleep by ten after twelve and didn’t hear the message alert.

  Her 8:00 a.m. alarm had been going off for five minutes before it even registered with her.

  This two-hour jet lag is kicking my ass, she thought when she finally got of bed an hour later. She’d fallen back asleep, then when she did wake up again, she saw Jake’s text and composed a reply before throwing back the covers. Her pace around her apartment was slow-moving, and she felt like she was conserving her energy for when she went to work.

  Tar
en repeated this cycle for the next two days until she was off for four. But even on the days she was home, she had a hard time getting motivated and spent most of her time reading or watching television. The following week was more of the same, although she picked up an additional shift to help out a co-worker, but then didn’t even get out of her pajamas on her days off and ate mostly takeout.

  I must be situationally depressed. The situation—or stressor, being Jacob’s absence, of course, along with the uncertainty of what was happening with little Madison. Two weeks without a sign of her couldn’t be good. She was ashamed to admit she was glad for the exhaustion when she came home at night—it let her sleep without thinking too much about it. When her brain wasn’t shut down, she was filled with anxiety.

  She talked to Jacob briefly about every other day, and he was as elusive as usual on the most recent call, although he hinted he might be home soon. But even that didn’t perk her up.

  Then the vomiting started after she ate breakfast the next morning, and again anytime she tried to eat anything.

  Oh, fuck.

  ****

  Jacob

  The ransom request Dante had received still made it seem like the Columbians were behind Madison’s abduction, so his respect for Jacob appeared to be at an all-time low. The Mexican didn’t seem to have a lot of patience to listen to Jacob continue to insist Los Zetas were holding his daughter captive—although, he’d held off on going to war, for now. Jake decided it was best if Edward liaised with his brother-in-law on behalf of the small group from now on.

  They’d pursued lead after lead like they were on a wild goose chase. Some were dead ends, some resulted in useful information, and they hadn’t had to kill anyone yet—just bribe a few people. But Jacob knew how quickly that could change.

  The latest information had them staking out a warehouse storing goods the street vendors sold that came in on cargo ships from China—a lot like in his dream. It was a little unnerving, but he also knew in his gut that meant she was there.

  They didn’t want to go in with guns blazing until they knew what they were dealing with. The risk of Madi getting killed outweighed everything else. So, they were developing a way to surreptitiously get a video feed into the building, assess the layout, and figure out whether or not she was even inside, and if so, where. If the opportunity arose, they’d go in like a hurricane, snatch her up and get her the hell out of there. Otherwise they’d devise a plan to extract her covertly. The problem was, unlike operatives who’d they’d gone in and rescued, the little girl had no idea they would be coming for her or even who they were, so there was always the chance she’d either hide from them or scream upon their arrival—if she were able to do either.

  They were looking at aerial footage of the roof Eddie had taken earlier that morning. It would have been safer to do it by drone, but if a drone was heard and spotted, the Zetas—or Columbians—whoever it was really holding her, would know they’d been compromised. Jacob couldn’t risk them getting spooked; he had no idea how they’d react. His ‘Taren’ phone—the phone he used only to communicate with her, dinged with an incoming message.

  Jacob casually looked down and couldn’t help but smile when he saw she’d sent him a picture. There’s no way his Tinkerbell would have sent him nudes… was there? God, that would be fucking awesome. Although he seriously doubted she really had, he decided to wait until he was alone to open the attached photo.

  As they went over the plan for breaching the roof to use a camera, his mind kept wandering back to the photo that was waiting for him to open on his phone. It was probably something benign, like a copy of her resignation letter.

  But what if it wasn’t?

  Fuck, he missed holding her. Obviously—since he was getting all worked up about the slim possibility she’d sent him a picture of her naked boobs. Or maybe her body. Oh, hell yes. Boobs, body, anything. He’d suggested it in jest the last time they talked, more because he knew her reaction would make him laugh than anything, but also on the off-chance she’d comply.

  “Yo, Smith,” Erik said, snapping his fingers in front of Jake’s face.

  He shook his head. “Sorry, wandered off there for a second.”

  “Dude, we need your head in the game. Kinda got a little girl’s life to save here,” Eddie rebuked with a grin.

  “I know. I’m sorry.” He gestured with his hand. “Please, continue. I’m all ears.”

  All four men looked at him blank-faced. Finally, Edward spoke up.

  “Um, we were kind of hoping you’d weigh in on this. None of us are familiar with the new camera you have.”

  “Oh, right. Yeah,” he said then started to explain how the hi-tech gadget worked. When he finished the tutorial, he called for a five-minute break before they rehashed their plan one more time to flesh out any weak spots.

  “You okay?” Edward asked as he fell in step with Jake as the older man made his way to the bathroom—where he’d be alone to look at Taren’s picture.

  “Yeah, just—”

  “Worried about Taren,” Edward supplied.

  “A little.”

  “I get it. That’s why I agreed to let Reagan come down here when she insisted on being with Bella, although part of me wishes she were home with Bri, but I know my parents are taking good care of her. You’ve got nobody watching over Taren.”

  “She checks in with me a few times a day, so I know she’s doing all right, and we talk on the phone. I know she’s really worried about Madi, and me.”

  “Not me?” Edward pouted.

  “She’s on a need-to-know basis; she has no idea you’re with me.”

  “Probably a good idea.”

  “I wouldn’t have even told her about Madi except she could tell something was really wrong the last night of our cruise, plus I had to explain why I wasn’t returning with her.”

  “Returning to?”

  “You’re on a need-to-know basis, too.” Jacob grinned. “And you don’t need to know.”

  “I’ll get it out of you,” Edward said confidently, walking into the kitchenette area of the tiny apartment they’d holed up in.

  “Don’t bet on it,” he said, escaping into the bathroom to finally get a look at the photo Taren sent.

  Jacob was leaning against the vanity, grinning in anticipation when his jaw dropped as he looked at what appeared on his screen. He turned and stumbled backward and sank down onto the toilet, fully clothed, staring at the picture on his phone.

  He scrubbed his jaw with the webbing of his hand, then used two fingers to blow up the image on the screen.

  Two pink lines all right.

  She’d simply sent him a picture of a home pregnancy test with the results visible.

  He was going to be a dad.

  Chapter Thirty

  Jacob

  Before he got his hopes up, he needed to call her and make sure he wasn’t misunderstanding her text. It seemed pretty self-explanatory, but, he was a guy, after all. There was always a chance he was misconstruing something.

  “Hello?” her sweet voice answered softly.

  “Hey, Tink,” he tried to say as quietly as he could. Even practically whispering, his words echoed off the walls in the tiny room.

  “I’m guessing you got my picture.”

  “I did, baby. Does it mean what I think it means?”

  “We’re going to have a baby.”

  He combed his fingers through his hair, a million questions swirling through his mind, but thought he’d better start with the most important.

  “How are you feeling? Are you okay?”

  “I’ve just been tired and having a hard time keeping food down. That’s why I thought to get a test.”

  “You’re just barely pregnant; I thought you had to wait like a week after you missed your period before you could even take a test?” That’s what he’d remembered anyway from the one time he and his high school girlfriend had a scare.

  “Well, that would have been last week, but I di
dn’t think much about the fact that I didn’t get it. My periods are usually light anyway. I’m not really sure how this has happened, to be honest. I take my pills religiously. I’m kind of still in shock.”

  “Good shock, though, right?”

  He could tell she was smiling when she said, “I’m getting used to the idea,” but her voice quivered when she asked, “What about you? Are you okay with this news? I’m sorry to dump it on you like this when I don’t even know if this was a good time for you, but I just took the test and…”

  He cut her off, she was talking too fast and starting to babble.

  “I’m over the moon, baby. You can text me anytime. If I’m in the middle of something I can’t break away from”—like directing a warehouse raid—“I will call you back as soon as I can. If you have an emergency though, you need to text me with 911, and I will drop what I’m doing if I can.”

  “I’m sure everything will be fine. No emergencies.”

  “Promise me you’ll text me if something happens.”

  “Jake, nothing is going to happen. Just hurry up and find Madi so you can come to Houston and be with me.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can, beautiful.”

  He hung up, flushed the toilet for effect, washed his hands and walked into the living area. All four men were occupying the couch and chairs, grinning at him.

  “What are you assholes looking at?” he snarled and kept walking into the kitchenette, opening the refrigerator and pretending to look for something other than the current contents of leftover takeout containers, water bottles, and beer.

  Edward was the first to speak up. “So, Taren’s pregnant? It’s yours, right?”

  Goddammit. He knew he hadn’t been quiet enough. He kept his head in the fridge, trying to assess how he wanted to handle this and also trying to compose himself so he didn’t rip Edward’s head off for the question, is it yours?

  Goddamn right that baby is mine.

  The reality was sinking in.

  Taren was carrying his baby.

  They were going to be parents.

  Holy shit. How was he going to keep her safe from fifteen hundred miles away?