by KT Bryan
“I killed him. Six months ago.”
“Xavier?”
“Dead too. Not by me. He wouldn’t have sent the pictures.”
“Who would?”
“Absolutely no idea.” He shrugged. “Sanchez? Vega? Neither one makes sense.”
Sara shifted her weight, moved her legs, stretched. “Who blew your cover?”
“I’m working on it.”
“Meaning you don’t want to tell me.”
“Meaning I’m still not sure how, but after three years of damn near living under the same roof, someone leaked my real identity to Sanchez. It was Adoña’s birthday. Sanchez was buying her a new car. I’d just sent in the last of my intel. Every picture, recording, contact, you name it, and I’d sent it. The U.S. and Mexico had enough evidence to not only sink the SBC but damn near everyone they’d ever dealt with.
“Anyway, we were at a car lot. All of us, the whole family. Adoña had picked a white metallic Mercedes. Convertible. It was a beautiful day out, sunny but not too hot, nice. Adoña and Dreena were already in the car. I told Marco to give me the keys, but he’d already given them to Adoña. I felt sucker punched. ‘Let them drive with the top down, shake their hair free. There’s nothing to worry about, you pussy,’ Marco’d said. I was used to that kind of crap from him and I let it pass. Still, I needed to check the car first. That was my job, security. Keeping everyone safe. But Marco had given Adoña the keys and both girls were already in the car, smiling, waving, ready to show off their new toy. I turned, started walking toward them. I had to check. No one had checked. So then I ran.
“I was too late. Adoña had already pulled into traffic and was gone. Seconds later the car blew. It was my job to check for those kinds of things. Warring cartels, rivals, enemies. And I should have, I was going to, I never did. And I, well, in the end I killed them. Dreena had just turned seven a few weeks prior.” That day, that beautiful sunny day had become an obscenity.
Sara looked pensive, sad, and said, “I’m sorry.”
Dillon nodded.
“None of that was your fault. Maybe Marco’s, but--” She laid a hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea. Why didn’t you tell me?”
The day he’d lost Dreena and Adoña would stay with him for the rest of his life. He’d always look back and wonder what he could have done differently, if he could have changed something, anything, if there was any way in God’s grace he could have possibly saved them.
“Because,” he said, “I failed. I didn’t do my job.” And then I got made that same day and had to run for my life. After that, there wasn’t time for sad stories, long explanations, self-pity. Too many people were dying and I was covering my ass trying to stay sane and decide what to do next.”
“Marco sounds like a prick. Maybe he sent the pictures.”
“He probably took them. He was a jerk that way. But I don’t think he would’ve sent them. Had no reason to. I’d been made. I was history. Besides, he didn’t have the intel. Only three people could have known where to send them. Sanchez himself. Vega. And whoever leaked my cover.”
“Sanchez because by then he hated you, and the leak would’ve known about me, given him our address, all that. The leak maybe, for reasons of his own. But how’s Vega fit in?”
“He set up the meet last year on the dock. Set me up. Maybe the pictures were just another way to get at me, through you.” He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
After seeing what was on the decoded flash drive, Dillon was fairly sure who else had been involved. In everything. How else would Sanchez have known where to find him, his sister, his parents, Sara, the safe houses...they were all classified. Every single person, every house, had been protected.
Only they weren’t.
No one, not a single one of them, had ever stood a chance.
The very idea touched something primitive and merciless inside him, and mentally he went to a dark, dangerous place. A place where cruel, corrupted men died in brutal, vicious ways.
With a deep breath, Dillon brought his mind back.
“What happened next?”
He gave Sara a measured look. “Sanchez blew Lisa, and my parents, to kingdom come.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Journal Entry
Today is Adoña’s birthday and Sanchez is buying her a new car. Another Mercedes. I asked her why she didn’t want something else, say a different make or model, or even jewelry instead, and she said, “Why change what you want if what you have is already perfect?” I had to agree. She has her car, I have my wife.
Everyone’s taken the day off and we’ll be headed into town in about an hour. This should be it for me—my last trip into town and anywhere else with Sanchez. Yesterday I sent in the last of my intel. Every picture, recording, contact, you name it, and it’s gone. The feds have enough evidence to not only sink the SBC but everyone they’ve dealt with on seven continents. Tomorrow the hands of the Americans and Federales will grab Sanchez in his own home. Two years undercover is a long time, three has felt like a life sentence.
I know I’ll miss Dreena more than I’d like, but I finally get to say, get your shovel and pails ready ‘cause, baby, I am coming home.
Race you to the beach! ~~ D.C.
<><><>
Sara jerked backward as though he’d actually slapped her. Which, verbally at least, he supposed he had.
“They’re…dead? But, Matt and Lisa…your parents--” She stared at him, wouldn’t look away, and when her lips started to tremble he felt very small.
“Car bomb.” He felt his jaw muscles tighten and wanted this to be over already. Except, well, dammit, he owed her. They were her family too.
Just when he thought she was going to scream and accuse, she turned to him, his wife, and looked past his anger, his hate and vengeance, and just as he thought she was going to hate him even more and unleash the anguish of the last year against him, just at that moment, she sobbed.
Instead of rage there were tears. Grief. Deep, sorrowful, heartbreaking grief.
He held her, comforted with small, quiet words, and a gentle touch. Rocked her like a child until the sobs subsided and there was only silence.
Sara held his hand. “I’m sorry,” she said, and the sorrow in her eyes was so profound that he knew, right then he knew, that he’d have to let her go. Sara and his child deserved a real life, a happy, joyous life without having to look over their shoulders forever, without caution and worry a constant companion.
He’d never make them pay that price.
“Vengeance,” she said.
He nodded. “That bomb was payback for Adoña and Dreena. And as Sanchez sees it, my betrayal.”
“Can you tell me?”
Dillon took a deep breath and began. “The day after the explosion on the dock, my parents came to get me from the hospital. You’d taken most of the brunt of the explosion, I’d just been banged up some. Anyway, the doctor released me and my parents came to take me home. Lisa had come, ironically enough, because she’d just bought a new Lexus a couple days prior. Paid cash for it. Saved for a long time to be able to say she’d paid cash for a new car. No car debt, she’d said, not in this economy.” Dillon looked into space. “Sanchez sure did his homework, I’ll give him that.” He shook his head and continued, “Everyone was exhausted, sick over what had happened to you, grieving and worried, and Lisa wanted to cheer me up. Told me to drive her new car. It wasn’t much she said, but looking back, I think she’d been desperate to erase whatever look I’d been wearing. I told her we’d flip for it, since it was, after all her new toy.”
“Heads,” Lisa called, falling back on her childhood habit of hopping from one foot to the other in her excitement over the toss.
Dillon flipped the coin, saw that it was tails and regarded her with a brotherly smile. “It’s heads, you win.”
“I didn’t have the heart to tell her I’d won the toss. I’d wanted her to drive, and hopefully even gloat a little. She was just so miserable.
She slipped her arm through mine, then let go and strode ahead a few paces. Probably wanting to get out of the hospital parking lot and away from the gloom. My parents loaded themselves into the back seat, interrupting each other over whether we should go out to eat or have dinner at home.
“The sun was just starting to set. The light was golden, almost yellow. I was lagging behind, not caring what we did or where we went. My parents were already seated in the back of the car and the next thing I knew, Lisa was lifting the driver’s side door-handle and then... God, the whole damn car exploded.”
He saw the rest in slow motion.
Lisa’s body flying backward onto the dirty pavement.
The concussion lifting Dillon off his feet and slamming him backward into another car. A shiny, pewter-colored car. Someone else’s car that wasn’t exploding into a tiny, million pieces, because the owner of the other car didn’t have a demon of a drug lord wanting him dead.
Dillon raised his gaze to Sara’s. “My parents were gone. Just…gone. But, Jesus, Sara, Lisa’d been thrown, had glass in her face, her hair...blood everywhere...and pieces of the car door...” He swallowed and made himself get the words out so Sara could understand his hatred of Rafael Sanchez just a little bit more. “Pieces of the car door were embedded in her chest.”
“Lisa, please, listen to me, you’re going to be all right. I promise.”
Cradling her head in his arms, he was gently wiping blood off her face when he heard the fragile whisper of her voice.
“I think...you need...take car back...handle’s broken...”
Despair crushed his chest, making it impossible to breathe. But somehow, as he lifted her bleeding hand to his face, pressing it against his cheek, he managed to say, “I’ll do that. I’ll get you an even better car.” He would have done anything for her, given up his own life if it would have saved hers.
Her pain-filled gaze reached out to him. She coughed up blood and as it ran down her chin and onto his hands, he couldn’t stop tears from spilling out of his eyes and over his cheeks. “Look, honey, you’re going to make it, I promise. Just hang on.”
Her body jerked with pain-wracked spasms and feeling more helpless than he’d ever felt in his life, he gripped her hand tighter and begged, “Hang on, please, Lisa, I love you...You still have an entire lifetime of things to do, I’ll take you shopping, we’ll go to movies, and dancing, and I’ll take you to that goofy jazz place you like so much. Please, you have to hang on…”
“She died in my arms. I killed my entire family.” And that’s when Dillon had realized that Sanchez had kept his promise. He’d massacred everyone Dillon had loved. Four down and none to go.
Fury and despair pierced through him, searing guilt and hatred into his soul forever.
He would not let Sara or Ellie die.
<><><>
Sara felt shell-shocked. The full impact of Sanchez’s monstrosity hit her and she wrapped her arms around her waist. Rocked. So much destruction. So many lives ruined.
She had no idea what to say. What she could say.
For an entire year she hadn’t known. And Craig had never told her. Neither had Matt.
Dear God, she and Lisa had been friends, sisters, her and Matt had been engaged, and Dillon’s parents, well his parents had been her family too, a real family, they’d loved her, treated her like their very own daughter.
No wonder Dillon wanted vengeance. Justice. No wonder he’d tried to wall off his heart, to push her away. No wonder he’d shut her out. All those years, the entire time Dillon had been undercover with Sanchez, she’d had no idea what kind of evil he’d been dealing with.
He hadn’t been trying to hurt her. She didn’t think he really hated her at all. He might be upset, even furious about her staying gone for a year, not letting him know where she’d been, about Ellie, but she’d tell him the truth. Explain everything.
And he would forgive her.
Dillon was looking at the fire with a thousand-yard stare and he said in a dull monotone, “Can we talk about something else now?”
Yes, she wanted to say. I want our marriage back. I want the man I’ve loved for so long, the gentle, kind, teasing husband who used to slay my dragons back.
“Move aside, wench, you’re ruining my moat.”
“Your moat? It’s Guinevere’s moat too, you know.”
“No way. If you get to rule all of Camelot, the moat is mine. Besides, girls don’t like moats. Nasty creatures inhabit a moat.” He spilled a half bucket of shells between two tall turrets, sprinkled some grass over the top, and plunked down a green plastic army man dressed in a leaf.
“Is that supposed to be me? It looks like G.I. Joe in a hula get-up.”
“We’re pretending.”
“In that case, I want to be Mermaid Barbie and swim in the moat.”
“No moat.” He stuck a drawbridge-looking piece of cardboard over the trench. “Behave and I’ll get you the Princess Play-set.”
Sara sighed. Behaving had never been her strong suit. She poked at the drawbridge, knocking it off center. “But I like the moat.”
He straightened the cardboard, and before she knew it, had her pinned on her back, hands above her head. “No moat. The moat is the King’s defense against the bad guys, and if you keep messing with it, Camelot is gonna get taken over by giant squid.”
Sara wriggled beneath him with a laugh. “You just want your own way.”
“Of course.” He gave her a wicked grin and nuzzled her neck. “Doest thou yield?”
Her laughter slowed, but her heart raced. “You dare flirt with a queen?”
His eyes went heavy and dark. “When the queen is mine, you bet your ass.” And he kissed her. Long and warm and sweet.
Oh, God, she wanted to build castles in the sand like they used to. She wanted silly turrets and a too-big moat, and all the funky green army men Dillon could carry. She wanted back the man who had the chivalry of Arthur, the man whose life was based on love, honor, and integrity.
She knew that somewhere, that same gentle man was still inside Dillon--she just hoped she could find him before Sanchez destroyed him.
When Sara didn’t answer, Dillon stood, picked up their dishes and cups, rinsed them out in a pan of clean water, then set them out to dry.
Just as he was turning back toward her, a loud din came from the rear of the cave. It sounded like an immense whooshing of air, and Dillon yelled, “Get down!”
Stunned, Sara stared at the wall of sound rushing straight at her like a great black cloud. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of black, beating wings, erupted into the room.
She froze, spellbound.
Dillon threw himself over her, knocking her sideways, and covered them both with his jacket. The sound grew. Her fear broke loose and she struggled to move. To get away. His arms tightened, holding her still.
Sanchez.
Fight.
Move.
Escape.
Panicked, she shoved at him.
“Sara, stop. You’re okay.”
But she wasn’t, Sanchez was out there, in the dark. Waiting.
The noise moved over them, around them, through the cave and out the opening. In less than a minute, the ordeal was over.
Dillon drew slightly back and looked at her, then slowly reached out a hand. “Sara?”
Dillon. Not Sanchez.
Sara stared into the dark. Dillon stroked his hands along her arms. “Just fruit bats. They’re gone now.”
Sara wasn’t sure if it was relief coming so fast on the heels of fear, or if it was simply the fact that Dillon was touching her, but all she wanted at this exact moment was to be held. Maybe even kissed.
His hand cupped the back of her head and his gaze locked with hers, “You can’t possibly want what your eyes are asking for.”
“I…I think…yes, that’s exactly what I want,” she said.
<><><>
Dillon’s indecision lasted for less than a breath before he crushed her against the ha
rd wall of his chest and lowered his mouth to hers. He kissed her, he craved her, because God help him, Sara was the kind of woman who made a man want to come home every night of his life.
But that man was no longer him.
He had to let her go.
His profession simply wasn’t conducive to love, long life, and happiness. He lived in a world where his very existence attracted danger and destruction and as long as he was breathing, there would always be another Sanchez. And bottom line, he loved her too much to risk her life because of who he was and what he did. Come hell or high water he was going to keep her safe. And that meant keeping her at a nice, safe emotional distance. “I can’t do this.”
Sara stepped back with a frown and let her arms fall to her sides. “I see.” Her tone was stiff with injured pride and sorrow. “I guess I should say I’m sorry then.”
She couldn’t be any sorrier than he was.
<><><>
Sara watched him visibly withdraw to a safe place somewhere inside himself, a place with no pain, no memories; a place she was not wanted. And that made her want to howl with anger.
His family’s death, Adoña and Dreena’s deaths, were not his fault, no matter what he believed. But she knew Dillon well enough to know that his guilt was the one thing that would keep a wall between them. He was shutting her out again, and she hated it.
“You can’t live the rest of your life playing the ‘what if’ game, Dillon. You can’t keep taking choices away from me, and you can’t keep blaming yourself for other people’s deaths.”
His expression clouded with anger and he frowned. “Oh, no. You’re not going to start this. You can’t magically fix me, so don’t even go there.”
“Well, by God, if you’re going to build a fortress then I’m going to sling some arrows. I never took you for a coward, but now I can see that you’re actually scared to death to let anyone inside your covert little world. You spend your whole life staying in the shadows, controlling your life, doling out choices, and suddenly it’s too big a risk to care about me, because maybe, just maybe, I might die. Well guess what, Mr. Special Forces, everybody dies sooner or later.”
