by Elle James
Delgado jerked his head. “Encerrarla en la bodega.”
The men holding her arms carried her up the steps and into the house. They passed through a grand entryway and through a dining room. All the way, Maggie studied her surroundings, memorizing the number of steps, the doors and windows she could see. The place was opulent, decorated with rich mahogany furniture, expensive Persian rugs and paintings on the walls.
The men carried her into a large kitchen with ultra-modern appliances and wide granite countertops. A windowed door led off the kitchen to the outside. But it wasn’t through that door that she was carried.
Another door opened to a wooden staircase leading down into a darkened cellar with rack after rack filled with bottles of wine. At the back of the wine cellar was another wooden door, shorter, stouter and hinged with iron.
Maggie shivered in apprehension.
The men were headed straight for that little door. As they neared, Maggie struggled to free her arms, bucking and kicking with all of her strength.
The men were much stronger than she was. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t work herself free. They only tightened their hold on her until she was certain they would break her arms. At the least, she’d have bruises where they’d held her.
One man lifted a metal latch, opened the door and, together, the two men shoved her inside.
As soon as she got her feet beneath her, she scrambled toward the door and pushed against it. But she was too late. The door closed, the latch slid into place and she was trapped in a dark, cool cell beneath a killer’s lair.
“Where is my daughter?” Dwayne Neal asked as soon as Chase, Trevor and Carson entered the hotel room without Maggie.
“Have a seat, Mr. Neal,” Chase said.
“I will not sit. I demand to know what you’ve done with Maggie.” He stood his ground, his face a mottled red, his brow deeply furrowed. “Where is my daughter?”
“Oh, my God.” Gina’s eyes filled with tears, and she walked into Carson’s arms. “He got her, didn’t he?”
Chase nodded. “The cab driver took off with her before any of us could get into the vehicle with her.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket preparing to dial the only man he could think of who could help.
“What are you talking about?” Mr. Neal asked. “Why did the cab driver take off with her? Where did he take her? Who has my daughter?” He stalked across the room, grabbed Chase by the collar and got in his face. “I want answers. Now!”
Chase held stock-still. He understood the man’s rage. He deserved it. “Mr. Neal, your daughter has most likely been taken by Raul Delgado, the leader of the Jalisco cartel here in Cabo.”
“The leader of a cartel has my daughter?” Mr. Neal’s face grew redder. “You said you’d protect my daughter. How’s that working out for you? My daughter could be killed because of your incompetence.”
Chase couldn’t refute the man’s accusation. He felt the same way. If he’d gotten in first, he’d at least have had a chance of saving Maggie. Now he had no idea where they were taking her or what they’d do to her. His chest was so tight, it hurt. “Excuse me, sir,” He pushed past Mr. Neal and hurried to the bedroom where Maggie had slept, closing the door behind him.
He hit the phone number for Hank Patterson, praying he’d already come up with a solution to his problem.
Hank’s phone rang and rang. He didn’t answer. Chase stared at the phone.
Out of options, and with no help coming, Chase couldn’t stand around and feel sorry for himself. It wasn’t his way. He had to take action. If they only had three Navy SEALs, then they had to come up with a solution that involved just the three of them.
A knock on the door made him stop in the middle of pacing the floor.
Gina pushed the door open and stuck her head inside. “We need a plan.”
“I know,” Chase said.
“Any ideas?” she asked.
He nodded, a plan starting to form, but it depended on information they didn’t have. “We need to find where Delgado lives. I bet that’s where he’s taken Maggie. If we can find him quickly, we take the fight to him.”
“I’m in,” Gina said. “I can fire an AR-15. I qualified on an M4A1 rifle in Army Basic Combat Training. I shot expert every time we qualified. That brings our number up to four.”
“Against potentially one hundred cartel members?” He shook his head. “It’s a suicide mission.”
“Yeah, but you can’t go it alone,” she said.
“No,” Trevor pushed through the door. “You can’t go it alone. So, you’ll have to take us along with you. Carson left a few minutes ago.”
A stab of disappointment ripped through Chase. He’d thought the Navy SEAL would stand with them.
Trevor grinned. “Carson went to check with his contacts. They should have a good idea of where to find Delgado. As soon as he finds out, he’ll be back to take us to his place to pick up the contraband weapons he’s stockpiled.”
A wave of hope washed over Chase. Since seeing the cab drive off with Maggie inside, he hadn’t been sure he’d ever see her again. But with the help of his fellow SEALs, he began to think it might be possible. “Whatever we do, it has to be at Delgado’s place, not at La Casa Loca. I can’t imagine he’s taken Maggie to the bar. He probably has her locked up at his place. We have the rest of the day and into the evening to make this mission happen.”
“God, I hope Maggie is all right,” Gina said. “I can’t imagine how she felt being kidnapped and driven away by one of Delgado’s thugs.”
Chase knew how it felt to stand in the street, helplessly watching the woman he’d married on a whim being driven away to God knew where. It felt like crap. He’d failed her completely. All his focus now was on getting her back. Whatever he had to do. If it meant giving himself into the hands of a murderous cartel leader, so be it.
Waiting for Carson proved to be painfully tense.
Mr. Neal paced the sitting room of the suite alongside Chase. Maggie’s father called every one of his own contacts in Mexico, searching for someone who could help. No one offered assistance against the Jalisco cartel. The US State Department offered to look into the matter if Mr. Neal would go to the consular agent in San José del Cabo and file an official request. Mr. Neal told them what they could do with their request, hung up and resumed pacing.
On a couple of occasions, Mr. Neal and Chase almost ran into each other. When that happened, Maggie’s father would glare and mutter something to the effect of Chase having failed his daughter, and what was she thinking getting involved with a washed-up SEAL?
Chase held his tongue, determined to conserve energy for the fight ahead. If Delgado had an army of cartel supporters behind him, it could be a bloody battle in which he and his friends might end up dead. And if that happened, what would Delgado do with Maggie?
Chase refused to consider that as an option. Whatever he and his friends did, they had to get Maggie out of Delgado’s hands and back to her father. Until he had her somewhere safe, Chase couldn’t leave Mexico for the wilds of Montana. Hank would wait for him to come to work for the Brotherhood Protectors. He was a reasonable man with a wife and child. He’d understand Chase’s desire to protect his own wife and bring her back to a safe and secure location. If it meant taking on an entire army of cartel members, Hank would do it for his family. Chase would do no less for his wife.
Despite the fact he’d only just met the woman he married, he liked her. Hell, he’d broken all his self-imposed rules about never marrying. He would never consider leaving her at the mercy of a dangerous man as Raul Delgado.
In the meantime, he waited for Carson to return with word on where to find Delgado and, hopefully, Maggie.
Minutes later, a knock at the suite door heralded the return of Carson with the news he’d been waiting for. Maggie’s father stood beside Chase as Carson, the resident former SEAL of Cabo San Lucas, shared what little information he’d been able to attain.
“Delgad
o lives in a compound west of town,” Carson said. He pulled a piece of notebook paper from his back pocket, unfolded it and spread it out on a table. Someone had drawn an image of Cabo with the main roads noted and an arrow pointing to a location northeast of town.
Carson pointed to the location. “Delgado has a compound with walls seven feet high. The guy I spoke with has been inside the compound. He helped to build it and knows all the places Delgado could have stashed Maggie. He thinks Delgado will have incarcerated her in the wine cellar. There’s a small storage closet at the back of the cellar with a lock on the outside of the door.”
Chase’s fist clenched. The only reason to have a lock on the outside of a door was to imprison whoever was on the inside. When he got hold of Delgado, he’d make him pay for taking Maggie and subjecting her to being imprisoned in some dark, dank cellar.
“Okay.” Chase drew in a deep breath and looked up into Carson’s eyes. “Now that we know where he is, we’ll need your stash of weapons.”
Carson met his gaze. “You know going up against the cartel is suicide, don’t you?”
Chase nodded. “I can’t leave her there, and we can’t shoot up a bar full of innocent people.”
A slow grin spread across Carson’s face. “I was beginning to go crazy here with so much sun, sand and relaxation. I’m ready for action.”
Chase’s heart skipped several beats and then thrummed a steady, strong tattoo. Calm determination spread through him like it did with every mission he’d undertaken as a Navy SEAL. “Let’s do this.”
Chapter 9
Maggie stood in the dark, praying her eyes would adjust to the limited lighting. But the lighting wasn’t just limited, it was non-existent. Once she came to that conclusion, she felt her way around her prison, seeing with her hands everything in the room besides herself, and hoping the cell didn’t contain any other live creatures. The possibility of finding rats and mice made her shiver. But if the cell contained rats or mice, it might have a gap, a hole, something she could widen and dig out enough for her to fit through. She refused to give up hope of escaping.
The cell contained a pail, and nothing else. But the floor was made of dirt like the rest of the wine cellar. She supposed the pail was for relieving herself. But she refused to believe she’d be in the cell long enough to need it. If anything, she’d use the pail to dig into the dirt floor. Maybe she could tunnel beneath the wall back into the wine cellar.
Since no one knew where Delgado had taken her, she was on her own. She couldn’t sit around and wait for anyone to rescue her. She had to do something to get herself out of her current situation.
Using the bucket, she dug it into the hard-packed earth and scraped away a thin layer of dirt. She felt the ground, despair threatening to overwhelm her. She’d barely made a dent in the earthen floor.
Now wasn’t the time to give up. Maggie stiffened her resolve and dug in. A little at a time, she expanded the impression until it was as deep as her fist. Her hands hurt, and her arms and back began to ache. But, she couldn’t give up. The longer she took, the closer the hour drew to Chase’s meeting with Delgado at La Casa Loca. She had to find a way out and get to Chase before he walked into certain death with Delgado and his armed-to-the-teeth cartel thugs.
She didn’t know how long she’d been trapped in the cell. With no light from the sun to gauge the time of day, she could only guess at the number of hours that had passed. It felt like forever, but she supposed it was getting to be late afternoon. Evening would be upon them soon and, so far, no one had come down to check on her, or to give her water or food. Why should they? And if anyone did come down, what would she do? The potential scenarios made her shiver in the cool dampness of the cellar prison.
She’d never been this frightened in her life. Nor had she been this determined. If she could keep her focus on escape, she wouldn’t succumb to complete despair.
Footsteps sounded outside the door of her cell and the sound of metal scraping across metal alerted Maggie that someone was opening the door.
She dropped to the dirt floor and played dead, her hand on the bucket, her body tense as she readied to spring into action.
The dull yellow light from the wine cellar spilled into her cell.
“Señora?” a male voice said.
Maggie lay on the ground and moaned softly, but loud enough for the man standing outside her door to hear.
A plastic bottle of water landed on the ground beside her, but the man didn’t enter.
When the door started to close, Maggie ramped up the sick act and moaned louder. If he didn’t fall for it, she might lose her only chance to get out of the cell.
The door stopped closing, leaving a wedge of light crossing over her face. The wedge broadened as the door opened wider.
“Señora?” the man called out, the sound closer this time.
He stepped into the cell and nudged her foot with the toe of his shoe. “¿Estás bien?”
From beneath her lashes, Maggie studied the man. Dressed all in black, his arms covered in tattoos, the man carried a rifle and smelled of sweat.
She moaned again and pulled her legs in, balling her body into the fetal position.
The man squatted beside her and touched the barrel of his rifle to her temple. “Bang,” he said softly.
Anger surged through Maggie at the man’s sadistic taunt. Her hand closed around the rim of the pail and she brought it up hard and fast, aiming for the man’s face.
The pail caught him on the nose, and the crunch of cartilage echoed off walls.
His hand flew to his face. Blood spewed from his nose, and he swung the rifle away from Maggie’s head.
This was her chance, her only opportunity. Maggie had to move. With her legs cocked already, she kicked out both feet, catching the man in the knees. He fell backward, landing hard on his ass.
Maggie scrambled to her feet and dove for the door.
The man roared behind her and lunged after her.
She made it through first and slammed the door, but the man’s hands were in the way.
He screamed and withdrew his hands, giving Maggie a second shot at closing the cell door. This time she succeeded and dropped the bar in place, locking the man inside.
She didn’t have much time. Once he figured out, he was locked in, he’d probably start shooting the rifle at the door. The bullets would splinter the wood. If he had enough ammunition, he’d break through and get out. Not to mention, the sound of the gunfire might filter through the building and draw the attention of Delgado’s goons.
Maggie raced through the racks of wine to the stairs leading up into the kitchen. Once at the top, she paused long enough to ease open the door and peer out. Two men stood in the kitchen, each armed with rifles. One drank from a water bottle.
The other said something in Spanish that made the water bottle guy laugh.
A sound from the other end of the kitchen made them look up.
A man in a white smock entered and spoke sharply to the two men with guns.
The men snorted and talked back to the man in the white smock, but they left the kitchen soon after.
Maggie assumed the man in the white smock was the cook. He pulled pots from a rack beside the gas stove about the same time as the guard in the cellar started firing his rifle. Though the sound was muffled by the walls of the basement, Maggie held her breath.
If the cook heard the muffled sound of gunfire, he might alert the men he’d just chased out of his kitchen. Maggie had to get out of there before they discovered she’d escaped her cell.
The cook filled a pot with water and set it on the stove. He switched on the overhead vent, the sound filling the kitchen with enough noise Maggie hoped it would mask the sound of the gunfire below.
Then the cook turned toward her hideout and crossed the kitchen.
Maggie shrank back against the wall at the top of the stairs and waited for the cook to push the door to the basement fully open.
When a few seconds
passed and that didn’t happen, she peered out. Another door stood open beside the cellar door. The kitchen stood empty. The cook was in a closet or pantry beside the cellar door, and the path was clear from where she stood at the top of the cellar steps to the exit door that led from the kitchen to the outside.
Maggie dragged in a deep breath and made a break for it. She ran lightly through the kitchen, her focus on the door to the outside. Her heart pounded, her pulse pushing blood and adrenaline through her system. Only a few steps away from freedom.
As she reached for the doorknob, a shout sounded behind her. Maggie froze and turned back to the man on the other side of the kitchen.
The cook had come out of the pantry, carrying a canister and a couple of bottles of spices. He frowned fiercely and spoke to her in rapid Spanish.
She shook her head. “No comprendo.” Maggie eased backward toward the door, pressing a finger to her lips. “Por favor,” she said having exhausted her memory of the Spanish she’d taken in school. “Por favor.”
The muffled sound of gunfire sounded again from the basement.
The cook’s gaze shifted to the basement door, his eyes narrowing. When the sound of wood splintering and a shout rose from below, the cook looked to her, his eyes widening. He gave her a chin lift and whispered, “Darse prisa.” With his hands full, all he could do was jerk his head toward the outside door.
Maggie nearly cried with her relief. “Gracias, mi amigo.”
“Go. Desapareces.”
Footsteps sounded on the staircase from the cellar.
Maggie turned and ran out the door into the shadowed dusk.
The band of four former military members gathered at Carson’s small house on the beach. Inside, in a secret room hidden in one of the stucco walls, Chase, Gina and Trevor discovered an arsenal of weaponry.
Chase had chosen to carry an AR-15 rifle with a scope. For backup, he tucked a 9mm P226 into a shoulder holster he wore beneath a light black jacket.
Thankfully, Carson had a stash of black clothing they used to camouflage themselves against the night. The former SEAL even offered camo sticks for them to use to blacken their faces.
