by Kaylea Cross
She looked so lost and alone that Gabe couldn’t help but wrap an arm around her shoulders and tug her close to his side as he hustled her to the door. God, she was a tiny little thing, the top of her head barely reaching his chin, her slender shoulders much too frail to bear this kind of burden. When she leaned into him, seeking either warmth or simple human comfort, even his battle-hardened heart squeezed in sympathy.
Out in the hall, the SAIC met them. “I have news on the investigation,” he told Oceane, who hadn’t moved away from Gabe. He stood there awkwardly with his arm around her, half supporting her, half protecting her. “Forensics shows that your former bodyguard killed one of the attackers.”
Oh, hell.
She sucked in a breath and went rigid. “What do you mean?”
“Right now we think that he arrived after the attack commenced. He likely engaged and killed one of the attackers.”
“He was…” She swallowed and continued, a quaver in her voice, and Gabe tightened his hold on her, a little afraid she might collapse again like she had back at the house. “He was trying to save my mother?”
“We can’t speak to his motivation, but the initial forensics support the theory that he shot the attacker found in the bedroom.”
“No.” She pushed away from Gabe, shaking her head, a hand over her mouth.
Even the SAIC didn’t seem to know what to say. “The ballistics report will take a while, so we can’t say for sure what happened. In the meantime, I can’t speculate on why he was there except to say that chatter suggests that he was possibly there to collect you and your mother, at your father’s request, and return you to him.”
That lined up exactly with what Oceane had told them about her exchange with her former bodyguard.
“What we need to figure out is how he and the others found you in the first place,” he continued.
“I don’t know,” she cried, tears shining in her eyes, her face drawn. “I don’t know how they found us, who the others were, or who sent them. I don’t know.”
The SAIC shared a look with Gabe before speaking to her. “I realize this is all very difficult for you.”
“Difficult,” she echoed, her mouth twisting into a humorless smile. “Yes, it certainly is.”
“We’ll need to question you further, once you finish here. One of my agents will bring you down to—”
“I’ll escort her,” Gabe said, understanding that business had to be seen to, but disgusted by the timing and delivery. The man had basically just told her she’d needlessly killed the man she’d trusted with her life for more than a decade, and now he was dragging her away from her mother’s fucking body before she’d even had a chance to say a real goodbye. “But not until she’s ready to leave here.”
The SAIC nodded once. “Fair enough.”
He walked away, and Gabe breathed a little easier. Oceane had composed herself, but now she just looked shut down, arms wrapped around her ribs. “Did you want to…” He gestured behind them at the morgue door, where her mother was.
She shook her head. “I can’t right now. I can’t deal with any more.”
That he totally understood. At this point he considered it a miracle that she wasn’t a hysterical, sobbing mess right now. “You want to go to the cafeteria? Get some coffee or something?”
She blinked at him, almost whispered her response. “I don’t have any money.”
Shit, of course she didn’t. She was in witness protection and had just come from the scene of her mother’s murder. “I’ll buy.”
Another shake of her head, her chocolate curls bouncing around her shoulders. “I just need to sit and be quiet for a while.” She moved to one of the chairs lined up along the wall and sank into it.
Unsure what to do, he took the second seat away and simply waited, giving her the quiet she’d asked for while hopefully making her feel less alone. And safe, hopefully.
“I can’t even bury her,” she murmured a few minutes later, almost to herself.
That was another blow on top of everything else, some salt to go into the gaping wound of her loss.
“She used to visit her parents’ grave every week near where we lived in Veracruz. She bought a plot for us beside them. I guess I can’t even give her her final wish and see her laid to rest there.”
Gabe was pretty sure that once Nieto got wind of this—and that would be soon—he would pull strings from behind the scenes and have someone within his organization take care of everything. He didn’t say it to Oceane, though, and he was never so glad for a distraction in his life than when his phone buzzed with a text from one of the marshals standing guard outside. Hamilton was here with Victoria Gomez, and requesting to see them. What did she and Cap want?
“My team leader’s outside with Miss Gomez,” he told Oceane. With the threat level and recent breach of security, the marshals and FBI agents standing guard wouldn’t let anyone but agency personnel back here without his knowledge and permission. “They want to see us.”
Oceane frowned. “About what?”
“Not sure.”
She sighed. “All right.”
He texted back that it was okay. The door at the far end of the hall opened a minute later and Hamilton walked in with Victoria Gomez. “Cap,” Gabe said as he stood, still surprised. “What are you guys doing here?”
“We heard what happened. Miss Gomez wanted to come down and see if there was anything she could do.”
At that, Gabe and Oceane both looked at Victoria, who stood watching Oceane with an unreadable expression. She wore jeans and a long-sleeve shirt with a high neck on it, even though it was still over seventy-five degrees outside. To cover the scars Ruiz and his men had inflicted.
“You…came here for me?” Oceane asked, sounding puzzled.
Victoria nodded once, shadows in her eyes. Oceane might be years younger than her, but that look in their eyes was the same age. Ancient way before their time from all they’d seen. Lockhart had seen it in some of the guys he’d served with in the military. “I heard what happened. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Oceane lowered her gaze to the floor. “Thank you.”
“They want to move you into the orientation center tonight.”
Oceane looked up, frowning. “Is that safe? After what’s just happened?”
“It’s the most secure facility they have,” Hamilton answered. “No one but the Marshal’s Service knows where it is. You’ll be blindfolded anytime you come or go from the building, the same as me.”
Oceane didn’t answer, staring at Victoria for a long moment, then nodded once. “I have no one now,” she whispered brokenly.
Victoria’s carefully blank face filled with sympathy. With two quick strides she closed the distance between them and reached for Oceane, drawing her close into an almost protective hug, one hand cradling the back of her curly head. “I know what you’re going through,” she said while Gabe and Hamilton looked on, “and I know what it feels like to lose everything and everyone you ever cared about. But you haven’t lost everything.”
Oceane shook her head. “Yes, I have.”
“No. You’re still here. And you’re not alone, not even now, because I’m here,” Victoria said fiercely, this new connection between the two women instant and undeniable. “The two of us are not only going to get through this, together we’re going to figure out how to survive. And while we do that, we’re going to bring down the Veneno cartel and make every last one of them pay for all they’ve taken from us.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The blood funneled out of Manny’s face when he got the news.
His fingers slackened around the wine glass. It crashed to the glazed Mexican-tile floor and shattered, sending up a spray of ruby liquid and tiny glass shards. Like blood and crystal teardrops.
“What?” he whispered, stricken, reaching forward to grasp the edge of the table to steady himself. Praying he’d heard wrong. Or at least misunderstood.
David, his trusted
head of security, shifted his stance nervously and cleared his throat. “Anya finally died of her injuries on the way to the hospital.”
Finally? “What do you mean?”
He glanced away, as though unable to look Manny in the eye.
Manny’s heart tripped, then sped into double time. “What did they do to her?” he snapped.
“Montoya’s men. They sliced her up.”
His knees gave out. They were vicious, he knew that. Yet even he had mistakenly believed they wouldn’t dare touch anyone connected so intimately to him.
His ass hit the woven cane seat, his entire body wooden as he absorbed the blow. He shook his head, barely comprehending but there was something else in his bodyguard’s expression. A kind of dread mixed with pity that warned Manny there was more. Much more. “What,” he demanded. “Tell me. Is it Oceane?” Dear God, if anything had happened to—
“No, she wasn’t hurt, from what I understand. But Anya. They uh…”
His patience fractured. “Say it, goddamn it.”
“They raped her, boss.”
Nausea rippled in his belly, mixed with a toxic, blinding rage so strong that for a moment he couldn’t see. Couldn’t breathe. He imagined Anya, with her dark Caribbean skin and those inky spiral curls, her hazel-green eyes laughing up at him with such joy and trust and worshipfulness.
Fuck. No, this was too horrible. It was supposed to be a clean hit. Humane, without any fear or suffering on her part. He’d ordered Arturo to take care of it personally instead of Montoya and his men, for that very reason. Manny had ordered him to find out Anya and Oceane’s location from Montoya once he got it, then infiltrate and kill Anya with a single bullet to the back of the skull when she wasn’t looking. One shot, without her ever knowing he was there.
Instead, she’d been raped and butchered…
He swallowed back the bile that rushed up his throat, hot and acidic like the guilt now burning a hole in the center his chest. Anya. Sweet, beautiful Anya. “Montoya,” he ground out as the red haze of rage receded slightly. “I’ll kill him. I’ll fucking kill him.”
“He wasn’t there, boss.”
Manny’s gaze snapped back to his bodyguard, temporarily forcing back the blinding anger. “What?”
“He found the safehouse and alerted Arturo, but then Montoya left. He was trying to track down Oceane and wasn’t there when his men attacked. He’d ordered them to stand down, wait for Arturo. But they didn’t listen.”
His jaw worked, his hands flexing restlessly. They hadn’t listened because they were like a pack of jackals, hungry for the kill. “They’re dead men.”
“They were killed at the house. Along with Arturo. I heard Oceane shot him.”
When the gravity of that sank in, of what it must have cost her to shoot someone she loved so much, Manny lowered his gaze to the tablecloth. His favorite meal was spread out before him but the sight of it turned his stomach. “My God,” he whispered, frantic and sick inside. “My God, how is she ever going to forgive me now?”
****
Juan Montoya slumped down in the passenger seat of the unmarked van parked in the underground lot and checked his watch one final time. Six-fifty-one a.m. Seven minutes until the meeting that was supposedly going to take place between Oceane and the lawyers from the U.S. Attorney’s office.
“You see any of them yet?” one of the guys asked from the back.
Juan checked the video feed on his phone that showed all the approaches to the building. He had four guys with him for this part of the op, including the driver, who was to remain at the wheel throughout this whole operation so they could make a speedy getaway. Another van was parked across the street, with five more of his men in it. All but two of them former Mexican Special Forces who had been lured to the dark side by a guaranteed salary of four times what they made in the military.
Yeah, Juan had the best sicarios money could buy.
“No,” he answered, scanning the feeds.
Maybe they’d gotten bad intel. Or maybe they’d received a bogus tip about the meeting time and location. Even though his contact had worked his magic at the U.S. Attorney’s office yesterday, charming the young receptionist in charge of booking appointments so she didn’t suspect anything was wrong, it didn’t guarantee she had been telling the truth.
“Even with the cameras down here disabled, I don’t like doing this in plain sight, man,” the guy in the back continued.
“I don’t care if you like it or not, cabrón. This is the job and you’ll damn well do as I tell you.” After yesterday’s botched hit, Juan had half expected to wake up in his motel room bed to find Manny holding a knife to his throat. His boss didn’t like violence, and Juan knew damn well how enraged he would be right now after what had happened to Anya.
Juan hadn’t had the guts to call Manny last night to explain what had happened, knowing word about the botched op would get back to him soon enough through the cartel network. Even though they hadn’t had much of a relationship over the past few years, Manny had still loved Anya in his own way. Enough that he’d ordered Arturo to make the hit instead of Juan.
It had irked him to be rejected on that kind of high-level op, but he’d let it go and focused on the prize that would give him the most reward—Oceane. She was Manny’s number one priority, and if Juan could bring her back unharmed to him then all might still be forgiven. While he’d been searching for her, his men had disobeyed orders and gotten…carried away and gone after Anya. All dead now. One less problem for Juan to deal with.
The office building they waited beneath wasn’t marked, with no visible signage on it except for the address. Apparently the U.S. Marshals had chosen it to keep the meeting a secret and maintain security for Oceane and the lawyers.
Next to him, the driver yawned and folded his arms, leaning his head against the window. Juan punched him in the chest. “Hey. Wake the fuck up. This isn’t the military, but I expect you to stay alert. All of you, get ready. When they show we’re gonna have seconds to get this done. Seconds, understand? This is a one-shot deal. We screw up, we either die or go to jail here. Got me?” He had no intention of dying or going to jail today, or anytime soon. He was having way too much fun.
A grumbled chorus of yeahs sounded from the back.
On camera, a deep blue SUV rolled up and turned into the street that led behind the building, its windows tinted. “Hey,” Juan snapped, watching closely as he alerted the other van with a button on his radio. They would take care of any backup that arrived, and assist with the main assault if Juan and his crew needed a hand.
Not that he expected to. A handful of federal agents armed with pistols and maybe a pump-action shotgun or two were no match for Juan’s men and automatic rifles.
“Get ready,” he ordered. This could be it.
The SUV turned and took the ramp into the underground parking garage. Juan sunk down farther in his seat, making sure he wasn’t visible through the windows.
The SUV’s front passenger door opened and a guy wearing jeans and a collared shirt popped out. He was a big guy with a military bearing and he turned his head this way and that, scanning the garage. Juan tensed when that alert gaze seemed to stop on the van. But then it moved away and the man reached for the back passenger door.
A woman’s legs appeared, ending in a pair of high heels. Nice legs. Too pale to be Oceane’s. A trim body climbed out wearing a snug skirt suit. She had long black hair.
Turn around, sweetheart, Juan silently urged her, needing to see her face for confirmation.
His hand gripped the door handle as he watched the camera feed, the other ready to tug down the black balaclava already on his head. His rifle rested in his lap, a full magazine ready to go. He could be up and out of the vehicle and ready to fire within a second.
The woman stood fully and turned to face the building’s rear entrance, finally giving him a view of her profile.
Gotcha. He tugged the mask down over his face and alerted the oth
er team with the push of a button, adrenaline pulsing through his veins in a dizzying high he’d never get enough of. “It’s the lawyer. Go.”
“What about Oceane?” one of the guys blurted as he opened the back door. “Shouldn’t we wait for her?”
They couldn’t wait. “We get the lawyer, we’ll get Oceane.” Rowan Stewart would know where she was. And he would make her talk. “Go.” He threw open the door and brought his weapon up, ready to have some fun.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Since the incident with Anya and Oceane yesterday, Rowan’s security team had gone into overdrive. Her protocols had been tightened and she was under strict instructions to do exactly as her agents said, the moment they said it. Other FBI agents had already checked to ensure the building for this meeting was clear, and two were posted inside now.
Rowan had been scheduled to arrive first, then Oceane a few minutes later, followed finally by Val. All in separate vehicles with their individual security details. Once the meeting about the financial information Anya had given investigators was over, Oceane would leave first, since she was at greatest risk. After that, Rowan and her boss would be driven to a different location to meet with Victoria Gomez, who would be waiting for them with her security team.
Rowan waited in the backseat of the SUV now, watching the FBI agent standing outside her door. The windows were darkly tinted but she could easily see him and hear what he was saying to Oceane’s team via his earpiece, since they were still en route from the WITSEC orientation center.
“Be advised, there’s an unmarked van across the street,” the agent said. “Two males in the front. Unknown number in the back. There’s another down here, not sure if it’s occupied. Suggest you reroute and wait until we’re in the building before approaching.”
Rowan automatically swiveled around to look behind them. Sure enough, there was the van, parked over in the far corner. It was early, but not too early for service or construction workers to be here, and her team was simply doing its due diligence to play it safe. Still, in light of the horrible tragedy yesterday, she was a little on edge as she waited for the agent to open her door.
