“Now.”
Landon and Dylan charged toward the compound wall. From the images gathered by the drone, they knew the area they were breaching would be far enough from the party to keep civilians from getting injured, but should cause a good amount of panic.
As he approached the wall, Landon removed an explosive device from his belt. He exposed the adhesive, clicked the device once to the left, and stuck it to the wall.
He ran, joining Dylan on the ground as they plugged their ears.
The explosion rocked the night. Debris blew sky-high as the device blew a hole the size of a tank into the compound wall.
Screams came from within the compound.
A second deafening explosion drowned out the screams and took out more of the wall.
One more explosion breached a third location in the wall. The bastards wouldn’t know which way they were coming from or how many of them there were.
“Go, go, go!” Joe shouted into the earpiece.
Landon and Dylan ran through the dust and smoke to the wall and peered around to make sure it was clear of men with weapons.
When they looked, Landon saw what he’d expected to. Utter chaos.
People ran for cover, screaming. Others had fallen and were being trampled.
The dust and smoke started to clear as Landon and Dylan made it into the house to take cover behind an archway, in front of a door. Before Diego’s men charged out into the melee, assault weapons in hand, Landon and Dylan had their handguns drawn.
Guests continued to scream, running and trying to find someplace for cover or a way to get to their vehicles. People saw the men with the weapons and ran screaming from them, too.
Some guests tried to come to the door behind the archway that Dylan and Landon were stationed at, but anyone who reached them turned and ran the moment they saw the guns.
One of the tents went down, collapsing onto guests who struggled to get out.
The plan was to find Alejandro or Diego Jimenez, or both.
They would take the men hostage in exchange for Tori. The place was so huge, and Landon and the rest of the team just didn’t have enough intel to figure out where the bastards could have hidden her.
If she’s still alive. The unwelcome thought went through his mind.
No. Tori was alive. She had to be.
Terror ripped through Tori as Diego dragged her from beneath the tent and onto the lawn. He had her by her neck and kept the barrel of a pistol against her side where guests wouldn’t see. He had taken the gun from an inside pocket of his suit right before he’d grabbed Tori.
People were running. Screaming. Smoke and dust particles floated in the air. Gunfire cut through the night. Her ears rang from the explosion.
Could it be possible that someone was here to rescue her? Was Landon here?
Or was she in the middle of some kind of drug war?
When Diego had looked at her in the tent, he had just stared. But she knew that he had recognized her. He clearly hadn’t wanted to create a scene during the party. But the moment things started exploding, he’d lunged for her. She’d tried to run, but her dress had tangled up around her ankles and she’d stumbled.
And then he’d had her, gripping her tight. She’d struggled, but he was too strong.
Everything had gone insane. Explosions—first one, and a second, and then a third. People panicking, fleeing, or getting trampled. Diego and Tori had been jostled and she’d almost blacked out from pain a couple of times. She might have fallen if Diego hadn’t been gripping her arm so tightly.
And now here she was, held hostage by one of the most ruthless cartel leaders in all of the world. Diego Jimenez. El Demonio.
“Angelina.” Diego sounded almost panicked as he held onto Tori while he turned his head, looking for the girl.
“I have her.” Alejandro’s voice came from behind them.
Diego appeared relieved when he saw his son and granddaughter. “I will take care of our problem.” He’d clenched Tori’s upper arm tight enough to bruise it.
“Grandfather, please.” Angelina looked horrified. “Do not hurt Tori.”
“You know her name?” Diego’s expression went from relieved to angry. “Did you help her escape, mija?”
“Let her go, Grandfather.” Tears in her eyes, the girl looked from Diego to Tori and back. “Please.”
Diego’s grip on Tori intensified. “Get Angelina to the house and lock her in her room. I will deal with her later.”
“Grandfather?” Angelina could barely be heard over the commotion around them, but she looked as if she might be sick.
“Go.” Diego wrapped his arm around Tori’s neck and dug the barrel of his gun into her side.
For one wild moment, Tori thought he was going to shoot her then and there.
When Alejandro didn’t move, Diego shouted, “Go! Do as I tell you.”
Tears rolled down Angelina’s face and she sobbed. “Grandfather, no.”
Alejandro grabbed Angelina by her arm and jerked her toward the house.
“Your American agents have done this.” Diego growled the words. “They will die tonight, as will you.”
Landon ground his teeth and put a bullet into a man carrying a machine gun, taking him down. Landon and Dylan picked off as many of Diego’s men as they could amid all the commotion.
Searching the crowd with his gaze, Landon’s sights found a familiar face.
Diego Montego Jimenez. El Demonio.
“Diego. By the tent.” Despite the pain in his shoulder, Landon kept his weapon trained on Diego. Landon narrowed his gaze as he saw the man controlling a woman in a yellow dress. “He’s holding a woman hostage.” Diego had his arm around her neck, his gun to her head.
When Landon saw the woman’s face, his body went tense.
Tori.
Relief that she was alive hit him for one moment before fear for her life followed.
“He has Tori.” Landon’s voice was flat.
“Motherfucker.” Dylan snarled the words as he saw Diego, too. “Got any ideas?”
Diego met Landon’s gaze and pressed his gun barrel so hard against Tori’s head that her neck bowed to the side. He could read the pain in her expression, but something other than the fear he’d expected to see.
Landon saw anger in her eyes. Hot, hard anger.
Good. He could work with anger, as long as she didn’t do anything that might put her in danger.
Gunfire continued to erupt across the compound. With absolutely no fear in his expression, Diego pulled Tori with him toward Landon and Dylan.
Landon never took his aim off Diego. Dylan continued to cover them, making sure none of Diego’s men got close.
Diego’s gaze bore into Landon’s as he got within ten feet. The cartel leader spoke in perfect English. “I will put a bullet into her brain unless you lay your weapons down. Now.”
Landon didn’t even twitch. “If you don’t let her go, I will kill you, Jimenez.”
The man’s voice was cold, as harsh as an ice storm. “Do not try my patience.”
Landon remained steady. “Don’t try mine.”
The hard bite of the gun barrel pressed into the side of Tori’s head. She winced involuntarily as it cut into her flesh when he dug it further in. It stung and caused pain to shoot through her head, but it was nothing compared to the pain she felt in her chest and the rest of her aching body.
She had done her best not to let Diego see by her expression or actions that she was injured. Instead, she ground her teeth and tried to think of a way out of this. She was so tired of being afraid and not being able to defend herself. She had to do something, and not wait for Landon to be her knight in shining armor.
Neither Diego nor Landon appeared to blink as Diego pressed the gun against her head while Landon kept his weapon trained on Diego.
Alejandro came into view and Tori caught her breath. Alejandro had Angelina at gunpoint.
“What are you doing?” Diego sounded confused
when he saw his son with his granddaughter, yet Diego was furious, too. “Why do you have a gun pointed at Angelina?”
Alejandro’s smile was pure evil. “Tonight I will be rid of you and the spoiled little bitch.”
“Mijo?” Diego was so distracted that his grip on the gun pressed to Tori’s head faltered.
She grasped both her hands together and swung them up. The gun flew out of Diego’s hand and she pushed away from him and ran toward Landon.
When she glanced over her shoulder, it was in time to see a bullet hole appearing in Diego’s forehead and the man slumping to the ground as Alejandro turned the gun back on Angelina.
Alejandro had just shot his father.
“Grandfather!” Angelina screamed.
“Behind me,” Landon shouted to Tori.
Tori darted around Landon and back behind the archway.
After Alejandro shot Diego, Landon immediately turned his weapon on Alejandro. Landon wanted to shoot the bastard so badly he was almost shaking with it.
Landon gripped his weapon tighter. “Let the girl go.”
Angelina was visibly trembling, her face streaked with tears and black trails of mascara. “Alejandro, why? You killed Grandfather.”
Alejandro kept his gun to the back of Angelina’s head. “It’s time for me to take over the family business, little girl.”
“Let her go.” Landon repeated the words slowly. “If you hurt her, you will die.”
“You are the one who will die.” Alejandro shouted out in Spanish to men who were approaching. “The Americans have killed our beloved El Demonio.”
“Shit.” Dylan’s jaw looked tight as he and Landon kept their weapons trained on Alejandro while men with machine guns ran toward them.
Just as the men started getting close, they began dropping, one by one.
Joe’s team of special operatives must be taking them down.
Angelina sobbed. “Why are you doing this, Uncle?”
“Because I can.” He smiled and petted Angelina’s hair.
The young woman looked at her grandfather’s body. With fury on her face, she raised her foot and brought the high heel of her shoe down hard on Alejandro’s foot.
He shouted in surprise and pain.
She turned in his arms and rammed her knee into his groin.
Alejandro cried out, releasing Angelina as his face crumpled with pain. Still he raised his gun.
Dylan dove for Angelina, driving her to the grass.
Two shots rang out and Alejandro slumped and fell forward.
At the same time he shot Alejandro, Landon felt something hot and fierce enter his body just below his bulletproof vest. The pain was unimaginable.
He fell back and landed on his ass, his head striking the archway. His vision blurred and his eyes started to roll back.
“Landon!” Tori’s scream. “Oh, God.” And then she was over him. “He’s bleeding, but I can’t tell where.”
Dylan shouted for Joe’s men to call in the chopper and to stand watch while Dylan attended to Landon. Dylan ripped open Landon’s bulletproof vest and then Tori was pressing a piece of the yellow dress against his wound.
Tori was getting good at this, he thought before he slipped into darkness.
CHAPTER 30
Tori sat in the hospital waiting room at Tucson Medical Center, her chest tight as she waited for Landon who was in the operating room. The doctors had said it was touch-and-go, and Tori was terrified that Landon was going to die.
The pain in Tori’s chest had nothing to do with her broken rib and everything to do with her feelings for Landon as she prayed for him. She’d fallen in love with him, and she’d fallen hard.
While the doctors worked on Landon, the hospital staff insisted on going over Tori, taking X-rays and examining her. They treated the laceration on her scalp, bandaged her ribs, and took care of other injuries she had sustained.
The whole time members of the hospital staff were patching Tori up, all she could think about was Landon and the need to get to him.
After Landon had been shot, the men who had come to rescue Tori grabbed her and took her to a helicopter that had landed on the expansive lawn. A powerful draft from the rotors had sent the second tent flying.
Dylan and another man had carried Landon while others covered them with their weapons, taking out as many of Diego’s men as they could.
Only one of Joe Black’s special ops team members had sustained a bullet wound before they escaped by helicopter, the Jimenez Cartel’s men still coming after them. Somehow Tori and the spec ops team managed to get off the ground with no one else on the team being shot.
Tori had feared for Angelina’s life so the men had snatched her and took her with them. The girl had stayed huddled next to Tori who kept close to Landon in the helicopter. Angelina never left Tori’s side, almost clinging to her.
At the hospital, the young woman had been treated for shock and given a mild sedative. Angelina was still dazed from all that had happened in front of her—Alejandro shooting her grandfather, that same uncle having taken her hostage, and then her uncle being killed.
As soon as they had gotten into the helicopter, one of the men had taken what they called a “sponge syringe” and injected a special sponge into the bullet hole in Landon’s gut to expand and stop the bleeding.
Once they reached the hospital, the new technology had been explained to her. The FDA hadn’t approved it yet, but Joe Black’s company, Black Sky International, had gotten hold of the device filled with small sponges that sealed up gun wounds like “Fix-a-Flat.” A radiopaque X was on each tiny sponge to make sure the doctors could find them once they started working on the patient.
The sponge had kept Landon from bleeding out and losing his life. They’d also injected a sponge into the thigh wound of the other man who’d been shot.
And now here she was.
Not knowing if Landon would live or die.
She squeezed her eyes shut. God, please, let him live.
The doctor and nurses finished patching up Tori and left her with Angelina to clean up and dress. The nurses provided scrubs for Tori and Angelina to put on so that they didn’t have to wear the torn yellow and pink dresses that had been covered with dirt and blood. Angelina and Tori both cleaned up and combed their hair the best they could.
Just as Tori and finished dressing in the scrubs she’d been given, and Angelina came out of the private bathroom wearing hers, a tiny elderly woman walked into the hospital room. She wore all black with the exception of a white lace mantilla, and looked even older than Landon’s grandmother.
An eerie sensation washed over Tori, a feeling not unlike déjà vu.
Angelina looked nervous and backed up against the hospital bed and sat on the edge.
“Do I know you?” Tori asked the elder woman.
“I would like to rest my legs,” the woman said in a strong Hispanic accent.
“Of course.” Tori pulled up one of the chairs in the hospital room for the woman. Tori thought she could hear the woman’s joints creak as she sank down onto the chair.
“Bring it closer.” The woman gestured to another chair in the room. “And sit.”
Tori did as she was instructed, and sat facing the woman.
“I am Juanita.” The elderly woman looked at Angelina who was still sitting on the bed. “You have grown to be a lovely young woman, Angelina.”
Tori’s eyes widened as a surprised look came over Angelina’s face. Before Tori could ask Juanita any questions, the woman reached out and took Tori’s hands in hers. “We will pray for your man.”
Juanita closed her eyes, her cold, bird-like hands holding Tori’s. Something about the woman gave Tori a sense of peace, and she closed her own eyes.
For a long moment, Tori prayed with Juanita.
After several minutes, Tori raised her lashes. Angelina was watching with wide eyes.
“He told you the truth.” Juanita was looking at Tori. “Now it is up to the w
ill of God.” To Angelina, the old woman said, “These are good people. You will be welcomed and loved here. You belong.”
Tori’s thoughts spun and she could see Angelina looked just as confused. They stood when Juanita did, then watched as the elderly woman slowly made her way out of the room.
Angelina and Tori looked at each other. Angelina looked as if she was at a loss for words like Tori.
It was as if everything had come to a standstill while the woman prayed with Tori.
As soon as Tori and Angelina stepped outside of the hospital room, everything else passed by in a blur.
Tori and Angelina went to sit in the waiting room. Tori started biting one of her nails as she waited for the doctor to return to give an update on Landon’s condition.
Dylan had contacted Landon’s mother and father, who had called Landon’s three sisters. One of his sisters lived close, and within thirty minutes she and Landon’s parents arrived in a flurry. When Dylan introduced Tori to Landon’s family, Mrs. Walker gave Tori a hug, clearly seeing how distraught Tori was.
Mr. Walker left to get Grandma Teresa, and when she arrived, the old woman went straight to Tori and started questioning her in her no-nonsense tone. Tori didn’t mind. It took her mind off the possibility of Landon actually dying.
As they waited, Tori held Angelina’s hand tightly, letting her know that she wasn’t alone. Tori didn’t know what the future held for the fifteen-year-old, but she’d do everything in her power to keep her from being sent back to her great-uncles who would now be running the family business. They feared for Angelina’s safety if the girl was left with the ruthless men.
Juanita’s words came back to Tori. “These are good people. You will be welcomed and loved here. You belong.”
Tori was relieved to learn that Special Agent Sofia Aguilar was here at Tucson Medical Center, and was out of the ICU, her prognosis good. Some of the other agents and staff hadn’t fared as well. The explosion at the DHS office had been a tragedy all the way around.
It had also been big, big news, and was being covered by TV stations around the world.
Tori had heard Dylan speaking to another agent. The feds were going to come down hard on every aspect of the cartel’s business.
Hidden Prey (Lawmen) Page 26
