THE EDGE OF TRUST (TEAM EDGE)

by KT Bryan

  Bullets zinged through the rear window of the sedan.

  He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw a new set of headlights behind them and gaining. “Stay down, we’ve got more company.” He floored the accelerator.

  Keeping their distance from behind a shooting car was one thing, but sitting in a car full of explosives, sandwiched between two vehicles loaded with automatic weapons was probably not a good idea.

  By now they were hell and gone from the city, headed toward Puerto Vallarta and the jungle. He looked for a turn off, hoping that between the rain and the deepening darkness, he could pull off onto some side road and hide for a while. The odds were no longer in his favor and he couldn’t very well go into a four-against-one gun battle with Sara right beside him.

  The rain started coming down in sheets and the wind gusted hard enough to jerk the wheel. He needed his full concentration on the road and both hands, so he handed Sara his gun. “Here, I need you to distract the guys in the truck behind us.”

  She grabbed the weapon like it was her new best friend and for the first time he realized he was glad someone had taken enough care of her to keep her safe. To teach her self defense and how to handle a weapon. “Hold it with both hands and aim it out the back window toward the headlights. I’ll try to find a place to pull off.”

  Another gust of wind sideswiped the car and he jerked the wheel to keep it on the narrow road. Sara held the gun tightly between both hands, took aim, and squeezed the trigger. The recoil rocked her backward as the blast roared in their ears.

  She squeezed again and the truck’s right front tire blew.

  She fired two more times just as he spotted a dirt track turning left off the road. He killed the headlights, wrenched the wheel left and within seconds they were bouncing along a muddy dirt road surrounded by dense overgrowth. Visibility was pretty much nonexistent.

  “You can put the gun down now.” He slowed the car and when Sara didn’t immediately comply, he looked over at her. “Sara, it’s all right, put the gun down.”

  She turned slowly in the seat and placed the weapon between them.

  The car slipped sideways and pulled his attention back to the road, or, he thought, what was left of it. The rutted dirt track they were on ended abruptly and the car slipped even more as the tires tried to find traction in the wet undergrowth.

  At least the rain would cover their tracks into this dead end. Eventually, he’d have to turn around and go back the way they’d come and he hoped by then that whoever had been shooting at them was long gone.

  He pulled off the muddy path, drove behind the thickest vegetation he could find, killed the engine and turned toward her. “You okay?”

  She didn’t look at him or answer, just sat and stared blindly out the window at the pouring rain. She was all huddled into herself, leaning against the door with a look of abject misery on her face.

  “Sara?”

  “I could’ve killed somebody.” When she pushed her hair from her face, her hands trembled. “I’ve never fired a gun at a person before. Only targets.”

  He pulled her close and she curled into him like a rolling wave on a beach. “You did what you had to do to keep us safe.” Shooting someone, or even at someone, wasn’t nearly as easy as television and the movies made it look. It was damn traumatic, especially in a kill or be killed scenario. “I’m sorry you’re going through all this.”

  “It’s just that...I hate being so scared all the time. But I am and I hate it. I want my baby back.” She swallowed hard and he felt a warm tear drop onto his arm. “I want my life back. And I want to go home.” She finally gave up the fight and a deep sob burst from her chest. “I’m not like you. I can’t just…shoot people.”

  He stroked her hair. “You’re braver than most.”

  “I don’t feel like it.”

  “Courage,” he said, “is being absolutely terrified of something and doing it anyway. Which you have done, and are still doing. You’re a survivor, Sara. I’m proud of you.”

  “I’m not going to go all helpless maiden on you but this constant emotional tension is starting to kick my ass. I hate being scared.”

  “No one likes it. The fear makes you human.” He gently ran his hand over her back. “You’ve survived worse.”

  “You’re not scared.”

  She couldn’t be more wrong. The thought of losing her again, losing his child, scared the almighty hell out of him.

  He stared out through the window at the rain. He’d known more than his share of fear, but he’d only been terrified once. The day he’d left in anger, the night she’d supposedly died, he’d sat alone in their bedroom and had been more afraid than he’d ever been in his life.

  He pulled in a deep breath and set her away. “Don’t confuse courage with justice,” he finally replied. “Like I said, I’m nobody’s hero.”

  Just as the last word left his mouth, an explosion hit maybe fifty feet to their left. The shock wave rocked the car. Sara gasped and grabbed the dash. “That sounds like a grenade launcher,” he said abruptly. “We need to move.” Except they couldn’t go any farther in the car and they couldn’t go back to the road either. “We’ll have to make a run for it on foot.”

  “Duffels?” she asked.

  He nodded. “You get one, I’ll get the other. Then we’re gonna need to haul ass.”

  Sara grabbed the door handle. “Let’s go.”

  He grabbed his gun, holstered it, jumped out of the car and ran around to the rear.

  Sara was right behind him.

  He snatched the heavier bag, switched on a flashlight, then glanced around looking for the best way out of this mess. The GPS on his watch said they were facing south. They needed to head west and slightly north to find Sanchez.

  Another explosion struck, this time to their right, less than twenty feet away. Sara pitched backward, landing on her butt with a hard thump, too stunned, or hurt, to move. A metal fragment drove itself into his right thigh, and wincing in reflex, he instinctively dropped to a crouching position. The wound was small, the metal imbedded just enough that he’d have to take care of it later.

  He crawled forward to where Sara lay sprawled in the mud. He flashed the light over her features. “Are you hurt?” He looked her over from head to toe for blood, then checked her for broken bones. He didn’t find any. But her face was whiter than he’d ever seen it, her eyes almost black. “Sara?”

  “I...I don’t think so.” Obviously stunned more than hurt, she scrambled to her feet and grabbed a duffel bag.

  “Then let’s get the hell out of here.” Taking her hand in one of his, he grabbed the heavier duffel with the other, then pulled her behind him as they moved out fast, staying hidden by the thick foliage as much as possible.

  They hadn’t gone a hundred yards when another explosion hit.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Sara froze and looked back. The sedan burst into one big fireball shooting flames and debris into the sky.

  Images flashed.

  Dillon reaching toward her, screaming, telling her to get back, move, run, but she was frozen, not able to move, caught in a still frame of terror.

  Then someone was pulling her from the water among the smoke, then lights, sirens, deafening noise, people everywhere…but Dillon was gone.

  Then they’d taken her away, to a high-security hospital and she hadn’t seen him since.

  And right there, in the middle of a thunderous storm, in the middle of a perilous jungle, clarity left the shadows and strode into the sunlight. For the first time since it happened, she saw the details of that night in full living color.

  She’d been wrong. Really wrong. Hindsight being what it was, she knew she never should have followed Dillon. But worse, what was so much worse, was that no matter what Craig and Matt had said, no matter how angry or hurt she’d been, she never should have stayed away. Never should have agreed to the DEA’s terms. They’d told her that if everyone thought she was dead, she’d be safe. That Dillon w
ould be safe. That Sanchez would back off and leave Dillon alone.

  They’d all been wrong.

  Dillon couldn’t have warned her, and nothing that had happened to her had been directly his fault. She’d acted on impulse and everything that followed had been her fault.

  Dillon might have walked out that day, but he would have come back. Would have explained those awful pictures. She knew that now. For her, he’d have given his own life.

  And she’d hurt him. She’d made him suffer. She’d kept him from his child. And that hurt, that loss, might never be forgiven.

  Blinking, she turned away from the wreckage, and found herself staring through the driving rain straight into dark blue eyes.

  “Never, ever look back,” Dillon said, and then he turned away from her and started off again. “Come on, we’ve got to keep moving.”

  Sara could barely think, let alone move. She had to look back. Everything was there.

  “You’re my life, Sara, I love you .” But then twelve months ago, “If that’s the way things are, if that’s how you really see me, then dear Jesus, I’m sorry I ever married you.”

  Which was it? Saying nothing, she put one foot in front of the other and followed him. They walked for a good thirty minutes before he must have felt safe enough to finally hand her a flashlight.

  The storm gusted, and because of the direction they were headed, they had to walk directly into the wind and the rain was blowing almost horizontal, stinging their faces and Sara was a mess both inside and out.

  She kept her head down and concentrated on keeping the small beam of light on the ground directly in front of her. And she thought. She pondered. She questioned. Then she remembered what Dillon had said about her being his ticket to Sanchez.

  <><><>

  “Help? What kind of help?” Matt’s eyes narrowed, not trusting Lena for a minute.

  He hefted himself off her, grabbed the Uzi, then swung the door of his cell mostly closed. He waited while she got up out of the mud and thought, okay buttercup, let’s hear what you’ve got. And if you’ve got half a brain, you’ll make it good.

  “I need you to get me out of here. Tomorrow.”

  Okay, now that surprised him. And it wasn’t too bad as far as reasons went. He could definitely do out of here. But he didn’t much care for the tomorrow part.

  He wiped his still bleeding nose and lip against a sore, mud-caked arm. Damn, there wasn’t a square inch of his body that wasn’t in a world of hurt. “Where’s here, exactly?”

  She shot him a ‘what-are-you-a-moron?’ look and said, “Here. You know, as in away from Sanchez?”

  He could really do without her superior, smart-ass attitude. Just because she held the winning ticket in the where-the-hell-are-we sweepstakes, didn’t mean she had to go and get all snotty about it.

  He gave himself a minute to get his own temper under control and watched her try to tidy her wet, gloppy fatigue shirt. The more she pulled, the more it sucked back against her breasts. Nice, round, perky breasts that were neither too large nor too small. The perfect size for—

  She suddenly stopped messing with her clothes, straightened her posture like the Queen Mother, and said, “My eyes are in my face, Mr. Vega, not on my chest.”

  Okay, so he was busted. Big deal. What was she going to do, send him to the guillotine?

  She planted her hands on her hips and asked, “Well?”

  He reluctantly lifted his gaze to her face, not about to apologize for being male enough to appreciate a great body when he saw one. Even if it was slathered in mud.

  “What I mean, princess, is that I’m not sure where I am at the moment. As in what country are we in? As in I got beat unconscious and dumped. From the interior here, it’s kinda hard to tell my location.”

  “Oh. Mexico. Near Puerto Vallarta.”

  That meant he was being held just outside the stronghold, on the of the jungle, in what Sanchez’s happy little death-squad called The Pit. Not a pit really, just a place where Sanchez kept the people he planned to break. Or kill. Where screams wouldn’t disrupt a pleasant meal.

  “Just how am I supposed to get you out of here? And why should I?”

  “Because Sanchez is going to kill me.”

  “Uh huh, and what makes you think so?”

  She avoided his gaze, looked at the wall, studied the mud on her shoes, then finally pinned her regard on his chest. All telling signs that she was about to lay on a whopper.

  “I...angered my brother and he may have said something to Sanchez about me.”

  “Like what? That you’re a lousy cook? Or that you’re some kind of lesbian spy maybe?”

  This time she didn’t look away, but met his gaze. “I’m just a guard.”

  A guard? “Sugar, you just lost what little credibility you may have had with me. Sure, you can fight, but Sanchez doesn’t hire women as guards.”

  “He didn’t exactly hire me.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “My brother works here, for Sanchez, and I sort of used him to get in. But he made promises to Sanchez that I would...would...” She broke off with a shudder, then looked at him with sad green eyes. “I just wanted to get my brother to come home, but he’s so brainwashed he won’t leave.”

  And then, ah crap, she did the first girly thing he’d seen her do, she sort of sagged inward and blinked back big fat, watery tears. Man, he hated it when a woman cried. He could handle guns, knives, blood and snakes--any kind of guy stuff--no problem, but he absolutely could not handle tears.

  He was just about to go to her, offer some sort of comfort, when she continued, tough as nails once again. “I am no man’s whore. And now I’ve seen too much. Know too much. I don’t think Sanchez is going to let me walk away.”

  She was right about that. Once you got this close, inside the inner sanctum, there was only one way out, and that way generally entailed the wrong side of a body bag.

  Hell. The whole time she was talking, he’d studied her body language, her movements, her eyes. Her swiped-away tears. He was fairly certain she wasn’t lying this time. It sounded like her bastard of a brother, whoever he was, had bargained her into whoredom, and knowing Sanchez and his twisted sexual preferences, she was right in wanting to get away as fast as she could.

  So, why wait to leave until tomorrow? Why not leave right now, this minute?

  Or, in say, an hour. After he found Ellie and helped himself to a little revenge. He had a weapon, he could sneak into the fortress, find Sanchez, and--

  Die.

  As much as he wanted Sanchez dead, he couldn’t pull it off by himself. And no way in hell was he going to put Ellie’s, or Lena’s, life in danger.

  Sanchez’s men were loyal, and now that Sanchez had made him, Matt wouldn’t be able to get within a hundred feet of the bastard. He could, however, drop Lena off somewhere and then get help. He knew where the fortress was, he could radio the coordinates to the entire DEA if he wanted to.

  The problem was, there were miles of jungle to hike through before he hit the nearest town, he had no gear, and he sure as hell couldn’t drag a baby and woman along behind him. Even if said woman was a little spitfire. “So, what’s your plan? And why not leave now?”

  “I have a contact who can have a helicopter at a meeting place about three kilometers from here. But not until tomorrow. Late afternoon.”

  He almost laughed. Almost. The only contacts in Mexico who owned helicopters in the middle of the jungle were drug runners, guerillas, or Federales. And now that he had a rep as a snitch, he didn’t particularly want to meet up with any of them.

  Except that, shit, what choice did he have?

  But if she thought he was waiting until tomorrow to leave this stinking hellhole, she had another think coming. “Just how reliable is this contact?”

  “Fifty thousand dollars worth.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “And you just happen to have that kind of cash?”

  “I will by tomorrow.”


  “If you’re thinking about stealing it from under Sanchez, that’s suicide.”

  “So is staying here.”

  “Tell me something. Why hasn’t Sanchez killed me yet?

  She looked a little distressed. Like his death was just around the corner. And maybe it was, as far as Sanchez was concerned, but why Lena would care, he had no idea.

  Not that it really mattered.

  Now that he had an Uzi, he was feeling a little more equalized. Still, he needed to play it smart--one gun against one hundred were not great odds.

  “I don’t know what’s happening, but it seems like Sanchez is waiting for something. The guards have orders to move you tomorrow night.”

  Waiting for something--or someone?

  “So will you?”

  “Will I what?”

  She went back into princess mode and looked at him like a very sexy, but annoyed, school teacher. “Fly me to the coast. Help me leave. Haven’t you been paying any attention at all, Mr. Vega?”

  He didn’t correct the use of his name. The less people who knew his real name, the better. “Yeah, sure. But I think we should try to leave now.”

  “We can’t. I don’t have the money yet.”

  “Well, we can leave here, as in leave this cell. No way am I spending another night in this hole. I’ll hang out in the jungle until you’re ready.”

  More like he’d follow her sweet little ass back into the den of hell and help her. He wasn’t about to let her steal fifty grand from Sanchez on her own. Not that he was going to tell her that. She was too liable to go all ninja on his ass again, and then he’d really have to deck her.

  “If you leave, and someone notices, we’re both dead. You have to stay here until tomorrow. And I need the gun back.”

  “Oh, hell no, you don’t.”

  She squared off on him, and he thought, damn, he was gonna have to either whoop her ass or use The Force until she passed out. Not that he was some Jedi hero, but making her vagal would be lots easier on his balls.

  She held out her hand, all imperial like. “Give me the gun.”