Romancing the Alpha: An Action-Adventure Romance Boxed Set

by Zoe York

  “Why don’t you come a little closer, then?” John asked, a warning tone in his voice.

  “Ha. I remember you, of course,” the man said.

  John was quiet for a beat, studying the man from the water. “Oh, fuck me,” he said eventually. I could tell from his voice that he now knew who this man was, and clearly, it was an unhappy realization.

  The vacation had been fun while it lasted. For all of its six or so hours.

  I looked up at Meredith. She was as white as a sheet as the men held her and she struggled against them. I had to help her, but I had nothing to use as a weapon. I needed to get to her, but even if I leapt up and tried to free her, we were woefully outnumbered. If they started shooting at us, we were through. There was no place to hide in the cave, the walls slick and smooth. The cenote seemed suddenly sinister to me, like it was a funnel to doom.

  It wasn’t until then that I realized we were completely trapped here. There was no way out.

  “We’ll be taking our prisoner now,” the man said. “We’ll be in touch.”

  “Gerardo,” John called. “It’s me you want. Not her.” He swam to the ladder.

  “Oh, I want you, too. But later. First, I’m going to do bad things to your wife.”

  “That’s not my wife!” John yelled.

  “I have it on good authority that it is, Mr. Quinn. Don’t worry. I’ll be in touch.”

  They hustled Meredith up the stairs, and I saw that she fought them the whole way. Before I even knew what was happening, Matthew had climbed up the side wall and was sprinting after them, water running off his body.

  “Matthew! Stop!” John hissed. He pushed me up the ladder and scrambled up behind me, grabbing Matthew by the arm just as he was about to sprint, dripping wet, up the stairs. “You’re not even armed. There’s six of them. Just stop for a minute.”

  Matthew rounded on him. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he asked. “They have my wife!”

  “We’re going to get her,” John said. “Let’s get the guns. And a car. If we’re going after Gerardo Ramirez, we need to be prepared. You’re no good to Meredith if you’re dead.”

  It must have taken every ounce of considerable strength he had not to run up the stairs, but Matthew knew when John was right.

  “This is fucking unbelievable,” Matthew said, breathing hard.

  “Well, believe it,” John snapped. “Let’s go. But stop at the top of the stairs—they’re probably still up there. They might be waiting for us.”

  We quickly grabbed our things. “Do you seriously not have a gun on you?” Matthew asked, his jaw clenched tight.

  “I left them at the resort. First time ever,” John said.

  “Me, too. Last time ever,” Matthew said and headed determinedly up the stairs. I’d seen Matthew shot, beaten, and absolutely livid. But I’d never seen him as pale as he was right now. He was as white as a sheet, just like Meredith had been. My heart was breaking for him. Meredith was innocent, with two little kids at home.

  She must be petrified right now. With good reason.

  By the time we got to the top, my heart was thudding in my chest. John and Matthew scoped out the landing; it was quiet and clear. They motioned for me to come out, and we quickly headed to the welcome center. It was empty; all signs of the friendly attendant who’d checked us in were long gone.

  There was no one else. No one, nothing, except for the punishing sun and the ache in my head. Matthew and John looked at each other uneasily as the car that had driven us here pulled slowly back into the empty lot. The driver put it into park and came around to open the door.

  “Did you enjoy the womb of the goddess?” he asked and motioned for us to get inside.

  A look passed between John and Matthew, but they said nothing. Matthew jumped into the car, and John motioned for me to follow.

  “It was an experience,” Matthew said neutrally. He jaw was clenched, and his face was still white.

  “Are you down one?” the driver asked, looking at us in the mirror after John had climbed in.

  “She took a cab,” John said. “She wasn’t feeling well.”

  “I didn’t see her,” the driver said. There was no trace of suspicion or curiosity in his voice.

  “I’m sure you didn’t,” Matthew said under his breath. He had a point. In my limited experience, it seemed Mexico was one of those places where people didn’t see things a lot. It was probably much safer that way.

  “Do you know where Leo is right now?” John asked.

  “Mr. Leo? I think he had a business trip,” the driver said noncommittally.

  “Did you take him somewhere?” John asked.

  “Maybe,” the driver said, and I heard my husband sigh.

  Matthew didn’t wait for instructions, and he didn’t wait for John to finish sighing. He put his considerably sized hands around the driver’s throat and started to squeeze. The driver spluttered and choked and turned the wheel hard, heading off the road. John jumped up front and grabbed the wheel with his right hand and took the gun out from the driver’s holster with his left. He pointed it against the driver’s head and maneuvered the car to a stop on the scorched grass beside the road.

  Matthew just kept squeezing.

  “Matthew!” I yelled, before he squeezed him to death. The driver started to slump, and Matthew released him, looking as if he’d like to finish the job.

  The driver leaned over, wheezing hard and rubbing his throat, and John kept the gun pressed to his head. “Where did you take Leo?” he asked. “You only get one chance to answer. And then I’m giving you back to the big guy.”

  “Just to his house,” the driver wheezed. He coughed and spluttered. “You promise not to shoot me, I’ll take you there.”

  “I’m driving,” John said, hopping over him. He gave the gun to Matthew. “Do not fuck with us. ’Cause I’ll let him shoot you a lot, but I won’t let him kill you. Not for a good long while, at least.”

  “You have my word,” the driver said in between wheezes. “It’s not like I have a lot of choices at the moment.”

  “I’m sensing you’ve done this sort of thing before,” John said.

  The driver just coughed.

  “I’ve known Leo for a long time,” John said almost sympathetically.

  “So have I,” the driver said. He recited Leo’s home address, and John punched the coordinates into the GPS program on his phone.

  Matthew still had the gun pressed against his temple, but the driver seemed unfazed, like this was a typical Tuesday.

  Which it probably was.

  “What do you know about Ramirez? I know you saw him. And the girl,” John said.

  “I actually didn’t,” the driver said. “Leo called me on my cell and told me he needed me for a ride. Then he told me to go back to get you.”

  “He didn’t want you to see anything,” John said.

  “More likely Mr. Ramirez didn’t want me to see anything,” the driver said. “He likes to keep things private.”

  “But Leo’s working with him.” John didn’t bother to frame it as a question.

  “That I don’t know,” the driver said. Matthew clicked the safety off the gun and slammed it back against his head. “I swear to you,” the driver said. He raised his hands as if in surrender. “I would agree that it looks that way, though.”

  “Huh,” John said and almost laughed to himself. “That fucker.”

  “Who is this Ramirez guy?” Matthew asked flatly. He was still extremely pale, his eyes wild, with two bright spots of color on his cheeks, as if he was feverish.

  “He’s a black-market businessman down here. He’s into all sorts of things, including weapon running and money lending. He’s also the man I hurt to protect Leo years ago,” John said.

  “Hurt him how?” Matthew asked.

  John looked in the rearview mirror at Matthew. The hollowed-out look in his eye made my heart sank. “I killed his girlfriend.”

  We were all silent for a beat after
that.

  “I’m sorry?” I asked, thinking I’d misheard my husband.

  “I killed his girlfriend. On accident—well, sort of on accident. I shot at a car Ramirez was in and I killed the driver. I found out afterward that his girlfriend was the driver.”

  Matthew said nothing, but if it were possible, I swear that he got even paler.

  “So he thinks he has your wife,” I said to John. “But he has Matthew’s wife.”

  “That’s right,” John said.

  “And it seems like he got the information that we’re here from Leo. Your friend,” I said.

  “Correct.”

  “So what’re we gonna do?” I asked.

  “We’re going to get Leo. And then we’re going to get Meredith. And then I think we’ll go home,” John said calmly, as if we were discussing a carpool plan.

  “You forgot the part about all the dudes I’m gonna shoot,” Matthew said. I noticed that he had a sheen of sweat on his face, in spite of the air conditioning. “After we get Leo, can we stop by the resort? I feel like I need to get another gun. One isn’t gonna cut it.”

  “No,” John agreed. “One definitely isn’t going to cut it.”

  — EIGHT —

  MATTHEW

  Meredith, I thought wildly. My wife. All I could picture was the look of terror on her face when they dragged her up the stairs, while I’d been helpless and impotent, floating in the water.

  This was my fault. In so many ways. I hadn’t brought my gun to the cenote, but I shouldn’t be in a business where I needed guns in the first place. I’d put my wife at risk.

  And now she was gone.

  They’d taken her from me. And I knew—oh, I knew too well—what these people were like. How ruthless. How very little sympathy they had for their enemies.

  I almost pictured my kids, but I shut my brain down before I did. That would drag me into a darkness I didn’t have the luxury for right now. I went into full-predator mode. I could feel the adrenaline coursing through me, followed very closely by an almost paralyzing fear that I pushed roughly aside. Meredith. I could picture her beautiful face, that smattering of freckles.

  I had to get to her before they did something to her that would wipe the smile off her face forever.

  Before we got to the bastard Leo’s house, we had a little discussion with the driver. It went like this: you get out and walk, you do not come back, you do not repeat anything you heard us talking about, or we come and find you. And hurt you a lot.

  The driver had gotten out, walked, and not looked back. I was guessing this wasn’t his first time getting kicked out of a car he’d been hired to drive. He’d been helpful, so I hoped this wasn’t his last time.

  “Before we go in, let me give you some background,” John said. He rubbed his eyes. “But the first thing I want to say is, Matthew, I’m so sorry. If I had any remote idea that Leo was still involved with these people, we never would have come here. It’s been decades. He’s been out of trouble for decades—that’s what I thought, anyway.” He looked up at me, and I saw that he was suddenly haggard, as if a very old ghost he thought he’d put to rest had come back to haunt him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. I just shook my head at him. I couldn’t talk. If I talked, I would cry.

  He took one look at me and understood. He clapped me on the shoulder. “Okay. So Leo—obviously, he sold us out to Ramirez. I don’t know if it’s because he’s still in trouble with him or because Ramirez made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. It doesn’t matter. We are going to take him and get as much information out of him as possible. He’s useless to us as a hostage, though. Ramirez does not, I feel certain, give a shit if Leo’s dead. He’d probably be thankful if we took care of it for him. So aside from any information he might have, I don’t have a reason to keep Leo alive.”

  “Can he get some of the resort workers to help us?” I asked, making sure my voice was even. “And do you think we should notify the police?” I shut all the pain and the panic out and tried to look at this from every angle. I needed to be smart and calm. With a hostage situation, you didn’t always have a lot of time. We needed to find a hole in Ramirez’s plan early and fill it.

  Otherwise, my wife was gone for good.

  “We’ll ask about the workers,” John said. “I’d call the local authorities right now, but they might just arrest me. I haven’t exactly ever been on my best behavior down here. And I don’t know anybody in local law enforcement.”

  “Let’s just get Leo and any weapons he has. Then the guns at the resort. We’ll see if we can find any takers to help us. You okay back there, Lib?” I asked.

  “I’ve been better. Except they should have me, not your poor wife,” Liberty said. “But let’s go. Every second counts. We need to get to her.”

  “You stay in between us,” John warned. “There’s only one gun, and Matthew’s got it.” Liberty nodded silently, and we all got out of the SUV. Leo’s house was hidden behind a large metal gate; without even trying it, I shot the lock off, and we went right through. There was a narrow path that led to a door. The house was stucco, its lone window covered by a thick metal screen.

  “Lots of security,” I said. “Looks like your buddy is afraid of company.”

  “He should be,” John said.

  For once, Liberty was silent. She stood between us, her face pinched with worry. We got to the door, and I tried it: locked and dead-bolted. It didn’t budge. “I’m gonna have to shoot my way in,” I said. I’d grabbed more ammo from the driver, but still, I didn’t have as much as I liked. “We need to disarm him as soon as we can. We don’t have a lot to work with here,” I said, motioning to our one gun.

  I shot the door several times, and then I rammed myself against it. There was something blocking me from inside the house. I wasn’t sure if it was just the deadbolt, but I didn’t care: it felt good to hurl myself against the door, again and again. Feeling the burst of pain in my shoulder was so much better than feeling anything else right now. I finally broke the seal and then nudged the door open enough so that we could go in.

  Of course, we were vulnerable. Leo was probably waiting right inside, ready to shoot me.

  I intended to shoot him first.

  I was only halfway through when gunshots started whizzing by me. I could tell where he was standing from the angle of the shots. I started firing in that direction, over and over, until I heard him scream.

  “Matthew!” John yelled from behind me. “Don’t kill him!”

  I stuck my head around the corner. Leo was slumped on the floor, blood spattered across his chest, his gun abandoned on the floor next to him. I crouched down and grabbed it, and then I pointed it to his forehead. His eyes fluttered briefly.

  “You alive, old man?” I asked.

  “Probably not for long,” he said, his voice slurred. He opened his eyes. They were hazy and unfocused for a second, and then he seemed to come to as Liberty and John came through the door. I tossed John my gun, and I patted Leo down for more weapons. He had a semiautomatic pistol tucked into the back of his shorts, hidden underneath his Hawaiian shirt, but he didn’t even flinch when I took it. He just grunted in pain when I dropped him back against the floor.

  “I would say you’re on my shit list, but that doesn’t really cover it, old friend,” John said.

  Leo looked up at him. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m already a dead man. Ramirez got the wrong girl.” He nodded at Liberty. “He wanted your wife. Not the woman he got.”

  “I know,” John said. “Where did he take her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Matthew stood up and shot Leo in the leg, right at the knee.

  “Oh, fuck,” Leo yelled. His voice came out garbled from the pain.

  “He has my wife,” Matthew said. “I would like to get her back. Now.”

  Leo writhed with pain on the floor. I could feel John watching my face, waiting to see if I was going to become completely unglued.

 
“If I know Ramirez—and unfortunately, I do,” Leo panted, looking at his ruined knee and wincing, “he’s already figured out his mistake. He’ll be in touch. Soon.”

  ***

  Liberty and I were up front in the SUV, both of us pale and tense. After John had bandaged up both his knee and his chest, we’d carried Leo out to the car and put him in the back seat. Leo was ashen beneath his dark tan. John sat in the back with him, holding one of the many guns we’d taken from his house against his ribs.

  All of this was just fine with me. Leo was not my favorite person at this moment.

  We were headed back to the Estrella. “Three of my men owe me a favor,” Leo said. He was still panting in pain. “I can’t ask them to fight for you, because I can’t send them to their death. But I’ll ask them to take you to Ramirez once he calls. They can help you understand the terrain, at least.”

  “Leo,” John said with a sigh, “walk me through this whole thing. Tell me why you sold us out to him, and everything that he’s told you.”

  I watched Leo’s face in the rearview mirror as it got even paler underneath his tan. I hoped he talked fast. He wasn’t going to last much longer.

  “You know I finally paid Ramirez back. All those years ago. He would’ve come back to kill me if I didn’t,” Leo said.

  John nodded. “I know.”

  “After that, I tried to work smarter. I cut back on things. Sold some properties. Time went by. I started to see some success again, so I bought a couple new hotels—most notably, Estrella Maya. I knew it could be successful. I hoped it would be a goldmine. I’m getting older, you know? At some point, I wanted to stop hustling. So I put more money into it. Upgraded it. Hired a pool architect from Phoenix. Hired a fancy chef from Vegas. Spent over four million dollars on an interior-decorating plan. Not the goods, just the plan. I was investing in my future, you know? Spending money to make money.”