Star-Crossed Miracles

by Avery Gale

  Tucker and Brock had planned to share a wife, but Brock had disliked Jina from the moment the two met and hadn’t made any attempt to hide his contempt for her. She’d eventually convinced Tucker that Brock’s envy was the issue, and since he’d been thinking with his dick instead of his head, he’d believed her.

  Within weeks of their marriage, Tucker knew he’d made a mistake. He moved out of their bedroom the first time he caught her cheating, but his pride kept him in the marriage for four more torturous months. By the time he officially ended the sham, he’d become so cold and bitter, most women sensed his disdain and avoided him like the plague. Hell, even subs at the club who cared about nothing more than the mind-blowing orgasms he could give them walked a wide circle around him if Brock wasn’t part of the equation.

  Glancing over his shoulder to where Mia lay sleeping peacefully, Tucker shook his head, trying to keep the lustful thoughts from creeping back in. His first look at Mia Mendez had been through a rifle scope, and she’d still managed to shake him to his core. He was still trying to figure out what the hell it was about her that had caused his reaction.

  “You’re thinking so fucking hard, it’s giving me a headache.” Brock’s low-pitched voice brought Tucker back to the moment. “Is your attraction to her such a bad thing?”

  Leave it to Brock to cut straight to the heart of something. Damn, he’d been like this their entire lives, and to make matters worse, his brother was one of the most intuitive people Tucker had ever met. Why he’d failed to listen to Brock’s warnings about Jina was a fucking mystery Tucker was convinced he’d never unravel.

  “Yes,” sighing, Tucker finally answered his brother’s question. “No. Fuck, I don’t know. Maybe not, but I wasn’t prepared for it.”

  “Just because you didn’t see something coming doesn’t always mean it’s negative. Let’s set aside your confusion for now and focus on protecting her.” Brock shifted in his reclining position and turned in his seat to face Tucker. The intense scrutiny made Tucker uncomfortable, and he finally turned to glare at his brother. “All I’m asking is to table this discussion until Mia is safe.”

  Tucker knew better. His brother might think he’d done a good job of masking his interest, but his blasé attitude was so ridiculously transparent, Tucker almost laughed out loud. Keeping his voice lowered to avoid waking Mia, Tucker replied, “Agreed, but I’m warning you now, brother, don’t mistake my attraction to her for something more. We’re here to keep her safe and nothing more.”

  *

  Brock sighed aloud even as he was cursing under his breath. His brother wasn’t going to easily acknowledge his obvious attraction. Hell, he’d seen the look on Tuck’s face when he’d pulled Mia from her hiding place and known, instantly, the little bundle of blue-eyed innocence had reignited the inner flame of desire Tucker was convinced Jina had doused into extinction.

  Deciding it was time to redirect the conversation, Brock pulled out their SAT phone and placed a call to Prairie Winds. After explaining what had transpired to Kent and Kyle West, Brock listened as his bosses shared the new information they’d received about the woman in the backseat. The tone of Kyle’s voice was pitched low and the cadence slowed, both signaling the seriousness of what he was sharing.

  “Your passenger is none other than Mia Lucrezia Borgia Mendez. She can trace her family history back to Pope Alexander VI.”

  “Did you say Pope?” Brock might not be Catholic, but even he knew Popes were supposed to be unmarried and celibate.

  “There are periods of corruption in all the great religions, and this is one of those times that has been openly acknowledged and discussed for many years. As the product of a poly-marriage who shares a wife with my twin brother, I’m not in any position to judge, but from the sounds of it, this guy was quite a lover.”

  Brock chuckled because he’d forgotten Kent and Kyle’s parents had shocked their family and friends when Dean and Dell West married Lilly.

  “Anyway, one of Pope Alexander VI’s children was Lucrezia Borgia, a Duchess several times over—whatever the hell that means. She is Mia’s great-something or other grandmother and her namesake. The bottom line is her involvement is going to add a whole new level of public interest when this story breaks, and it will.”

  “Fast forward five hundred plus years, and we have Mia,” Kent picked up where Kyle left off. “Her family’s wealth is staggering. Her grandfather owns most of the banks in Columbia, but she appears to be resisting their efforts to wrap her in cotton and set her on a shelf.”

  A thousand questions raced through Brock’s mind. Why hadn’t she used her family’s connections to contact Tally instead of simply mailing the photos? Did her family know she was in trouble? Would they try to keep her from helping them find Senator Tyson? Were the men in her apartment part of the cartel suspected of holding the senator or a retrieval team sent in by her family? One of their contingency plans had been to transport Mia back to Prairie Winds in the hope she would be able to help the team remotely. But now, Brock wasn’t sure she’d even be interested in leaving.

  “Listen, we just received a new piece of intel we haven’t been able to confirm, but if it’s true, you need to be aware. It seems there are likely at least three different factions looking for her. The first is the cartel, who knows she’s a photojournalist and that she was the woman who helped the second group of banditos snatch Karl Tyson out from under their noses. Now, because the Cartel is waving some serious cash around in their search for Ms. Mendez and the good Senator, you have mercs inciting a bidding war for the recovery of Ms. Mendez and her photos. And just to keep things interesting, her grandfather also has a team looking for her, albeit they are evidently keeping a much lower profile for obvious reasons.

  Letting out a low whistle and scrubbing his hand over his face before responding, Brock couldn’t believe the mess they’d walked in to. “What a cluster-fuck.” He didn’t know what else to call it. They were at least two hours from the coast, and even if they made it to their destination, how were they going to secure her until they could find out what she knew.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Brock whipped his head to the side and found Mia sitting up, staring at him, her sapphire blue eyes wide and filled with guilt. Brock couldn’t remember a time he felt more like an ass than he did now.

  “Find us a place to stay in Cartagena and transport out if you can.” Brock was ready to disconnect when he heard a voice in the background.

  “Wait. Micah says to tell you he’s got something in the works, but your passenger is going to have to be open-minded. He’s going to text you the info.” Before Brock could ask what he meant, Kyle cut the connection, which caused Tucker to raise a brow in question. I’m with you, brother. No fucking clue. But the one thing Brock was certain of, if Micah Drake said Mia would need to keep an open mind, then there was kink involved. And if Drake was setting it up, the kink would be over the top—way over the fucking top, and that you could take to bank… pun intended.

  Chapter Three

  Mia sent up a silent prayer of thanks for all the practice she’d had pretending to sleep. Living under her grandfather’s roof meant enduring an endless string of nannies and security personnel who only let their guard down when they thought she’d fallen asleep. Faking it turned out to be an invaluable skill when she’d gotten old enough to plot breakouts from what she not-so-affectionately referred to as kiddie-prison. If those charged with watching over her thought she was sleeping, they left her alone, and all the secondary escape routes her grandfather had in place for her ‘safety’ worked equally well for her convenience.

  Listening to the two men in the front seat discuss their mutual attraction to her made Mia’s body heat from the inside and sent a rush of moisture to slicken the throbbing folds of her sex. Barely resisting the urge to press her hand against her aching clit, Mia bit the inside of her cheek to stifle her moan of frustration. Her reaction was made even more unsettling by the fact these two men were
obviously into menagé… something she’d only read about in the books on her e-reader. Her immediate response to them had annoyed her, but hearing she’d had the same effect on them lessened the sting. Well, at least she’d felt marginally better until she realized how much it had also unsettled the man named Tucker. And why is that so humiliating?

  Listening as Brock spoke on the phone, she wanted to laugh at his effort to speak softly when whoever he was talking to was practically rattling the windows of the truck. It always surprised her when people failed to realize how clearly their conversations could be overheard… both sides of their conversations.

  She’d often wondered what men were thinking, berating their wives and girlfriends over the phone when everyone near the woman could plainly hear what was being said. Most people kept the volume on their electronics loud enough to be heard in the next room, and they forgot that meant the voice of their caller was also amplified.

  Mia wondered who Micah was and what exactly he meant when he’d said she needed to keep an open mind. Mia wasn’t surprised they’d already connected her to Borgia Banking. Her grandfather was a self-made billionaire several times over and practically a legend in not only his own country but most of the Western Hemisphere as well. Mia loved her grandpapa more than she could possibly tell him. But after her grandmother’s death, his love had felt conditional… every touch, every gift, every word of praise had come with strings.

  Mia had never been interested in giving up everything she loved about her life to become the perfect princess she’d need to be for him to love her with the same soul-bearing depth she’d always shown him.

  No matter how many times Mia’s mother tried, she’d never been able to please her father, and Mia often wondered if she hadn’t died of a broken heart from the constant rejection? Maria Mendez had left Mia in the care of her parents and traveled the world. When Mia had gotten older, she’d wondered if her mother had been searching for the love that always seemed just out of reach. The married man Maria had slept with resulting in Mia’s birth had quickly retreated to the United States when he’d learned she was pregnant.

  During Mia’s last telephone conversation with her mother, Maria had whispered, “You can only try so hard, amor. Eventually, the desire for acceptance withers and dies, no matter how much you wish it wasn’t so.” Less than a week later, Maria died in Italy, and since Mia had never known her father, she was left adrift far too young.

  The voices around her pulled Mia back to the present, and when the call Brock had made disconnected, she couldn’t hold back her whispered apology. She saw Tucker’s frown in the mirror and flinched. Brock turned in his seat and narrowed his eyes.

  “What are you apologizing for, sweetheart? For finding a man all of us had given up for dead? For being brave enough to send the evidence to the one person guaranteed to call in a team to rescue him? Or perhaps you’re sorry you didn’t contact the U.S. government who would have no doubt swept the entire thing under the rug and dispatched agents to silence you. Hell, maybe you’re sorry you’ve painted a target on yourself so big, it can probably be seen from the fucking International Space Station.”

  “Enough,” Tucker’s single hissed word made Brock’s head swivel to him before he raised a brow in question. “Don’t be a dick. She thinks this is the first clusterfuck we’ve ever been involved in, and you’re being a first-class ass by pointing out points we both know she isn’t sorry for.”

  Glancing at her over his shoulder, Tucker gave her a small smile, and even though it was a minimal effort, she was startled at how it completely transformed his appearance. Tucker returned his attention to the road, but Mia couldn’t stop staring at his profile. If a man could be classified as fallen-angel beautiful, Tucker was the poster child.

  “Asshole. One smile and she can’t stop looking at you. I just don’t fucking get it,” Brock’s words were harsh, but she could hear the underlying affection in them and let out a small sigh of relief. He turned around in his seat and helped her up into a sitting position.

  “I’m sorry, Mia. I really wasn’t trying to hurt your feelings. I was just looking forward to being able to kick back on the flight back to Texas and spend some time with you.” He ran his hand through his hair and shook his head.

  “Here’s a tip, pointing out another person’s flawed thinking isn’t the best way to make friends and influence people.” She’d barely finished speaking when Brock’s head fell back and he roared with laughter. When she let her gaze slip to Tucker, she was surprised to see him chuckling as well.

  “Damn, I think that’s a first for me, sweetheart. I don’t think I’ve ever been slapped with a Dale Carnegie book title before.”

  Dandy, she had to get rescued by a man who could actually read.

  “We’re going to have to stop for fuel before long. We’ll eat at the same time, and that’ll give you a chance to bring us up to speed on who all may be following you.” She nodded at Brock, but he shook his head. “Not good enough, sweetheart. We’ll always require you to speak your answers, that way there are no misunderstandings. We begin as we intend to go.”

  Reading was one of Mia’s passions, and she’d read hundreds of erotic romance novels over the past few years, so Brock’s words were hauntingly familiar. She felt a flash of heat that made her pussy wet and the muscles in her vagina tighten in response. Hopefully, the dim light in the vehicle would conceal the flush she could feel washing over her cheeks.

  “Yes, Sir.” The words tumbled out without passing through the filter in her brain. Damn, so much for hiding that blush.

  *

  Brock worried his oxygen-deprived brain was going to shut down at her whispered answer. Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, every drop of his blood rushed directly to his aching cock. The damned thing was going to burst at this rate. Tucker hadn’t missed her sweet answer either, judging from the way his fingers flexed around the steering wheel. Both Deitz brothers had known they were sexual Dominants from the time they first became interested in the opposite sex. They didn’t judge others for their sexual preferences, but other men had never set their blood racing like a naturally submissive woman did.

  In the short time they’d spent hustling Mia out of her building before running two miles to where they’d hidden the truck, neither he nor Tucker had done much more than bark instructions at her. She’d done a good job of keeping up even though Brock knew she’d been exhausted. The one time he inquired if she needed to slow down, she muttered an apology, saying she hadn’t been sleeping well, but she’d shaken her head when they offered to slow their pace. He wasn’t surprised she wasn’t resting, she must have known it was only a matter of time before she was found.

  According to their intel, she didn’t advertise her association with Cecilio Borgia, but she didn’t try to hide it either. Brock figured she knew any attempt to conceal the connection would only draw more interest to it. The financial data Micah sent had been eye-opening. The woman sitting in the backseat, wearing what looked like well-worn, military tactical clothing was one of the world’s wealthiest heiresses.

  The frayed jacket made her look like a little girl playing dress up in her big brother’s uniform. What on earth did she put in all those pockets, anyway? Maybe he should have frisked her for weapons before they left her cracker-box apartment. Just because she appeared to be a natural submissive, didn’t mean they were safe. Shuddering, he remembered hearing Tobi West warn her husbands she’d shoot them with their own guns on more than one occasion.

  “Good girl. Now, try to get a few more minutes of sleep. You’re safe, and since we don’t know what our team leaders are going to have set up for us when we hit the coast, you might not get another chance to rest for a while.”

  This time she didn’t respond, simply settled back on to the seat and shifted her backpack over to use as a pillow. Not ideal, but probably better than the filthy leather seat, not to mention the fact the roads in Columbia were no match for those in the states—rough didn’t even begin to
cover it.

  Following his own advice, Brock leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. They always planned for contingencies when they went on any mission, but this one had been so time sensitive, they hadn’t been able to pull as much intel together as was their usual protocol. Finding out they were dealing with threats from multiple sides came as something of a surprise. Personally, he’d rank the grandfather’s team above the cartel, but not all families are as close as his, and hell, face it, there had to be a reason she hadn’t gone back to the safety her grandfather could have provided.

  Brock heard the phone beep beside him, but before he could push the cobwebs from his sleep-fogged mind, he heard Tucker speaking quietly into the small mic on his headset. Ordinarily, they’d bluetooth to the truck’s speakers so they could both hear, but since they didn’t know Mia well enough yet to fully trust her, they needed to play this with their cards a little closer to their chests.

  Tucker sucked in a breath, and Brock straightened in his seat when he sensed his brother’s agitation. “Jesus, is that all you’ve got?” Tuck listened for several long seconds and Brock wished like hell he knew what was being said. “Shit. There’s so much wrong with this plan, I don’t even know where to start. We’re just pulling into Cartagena now, and I think we have enough fuel to make it to our destination, but we’re all starving.” After another few minutes of silence Tuck’s “Roger that” indicated the end of the call.

  Before Brock could ask, the phone dinged with an incoming message, and he saw Tucker pull up GPS coordinates. Handing the phone to Brock, Tucker sighed.

  “You aren’t going to fucking believe this. Grayson wasn’t kidding when he said Mia is going to have to keep an open mind. Plug these in the system, will you?”

  Brock quickly entered the data and raised a brow when he saw they were headed to the very western end of the docks. “Where are we going to eat?” Brock asked, giving his brother a questioning look. “We promised to feed her.”