Marisela Morales 03 - Dirty Little Christmas - Julie Leto

by Contemporary Romance

  Frank moved to follow, but the first guy ordered him to stop.

  They’d anticipated this scenario, but that didn’t make Frank any happier about it. He was sending Marisela into an unknown situation inside a confined space filled with Japanese gangsters who were probably armed to the teeth. And yet, without a second’s hesitation, she bounded up the steps behind the doctor and even found a moment to turn around before she disappeared through the door and wink.

  Damned idiot woman. She was either going to get them killed…or save the day.

  Eighteen

  Marisela heard the panting and grunting before she spotted her sister lying across a half-reclined airline seat, her fingers white from digging into the arm rests. She was pale and sweating profusely and in pain.

  Or more precisely: she was in labor.

  “What’s the problem?” McFuego demanded of the flight attendant standing beside Belinda, a petite Asian woman who looked completely terrified. When she shook her head helplessly, the doctor turned to the older man sitting a few feet away, his arms balanced on his knees.

  “Isn’t it obvious, doctor? This woman’s having a baby.”

  It took everything in Marisela’s power not to rush to Belinda’s side, but the minute she moved, the doc grabbed her arm and held her still. The man who’d been sitting across from her suffering sister stood, tugged at his suit jacket and gifted them both with an indulgent smile.

  Rick’s father?

  She saw no family resemblance, but he was clearly in charge. He smoothed his hand across his raven-black hair and then gave the slightest bow to the doctor that was neither deferential nor respectful. It was just…expected.

  “I do not wish to impose upon the medical services of your city longer than necessary, doctor. We are waiting for my son to arrive before our departure. We will be taking off as soon as he gets here so that his child can be born surrounded by family. I wish for you to give her something for the pain and then you may leave.”

  Marisela had briefed McFuego—or more accurately, Dr. Sean McClarren—on the situation the minute she’d coaxed him away from the hospital. She’d only had to tell him that her sister and her baby were in serious trouble for him to jump into her car, though he’d had second thoughts when she’d given him all the details.

  But that hadn’t stopped him. And neither was this Asian Frank Sinatra wannabe. Though she could practically smell the fear rolling off her new favorite doctor, Sean balanced his hands on his hips and met the mobster’s stare straight on.

  “This woman isn’t going anywhere,” he decided. “This plane is grounded until I say otherwise.”

  Matsuharu Sato, Rick’s father, grinned. “You don’t understand, doctor. I called you here to make her more comfortable. That is the extent of your responsibility.”

  The slick, coolness in the man’s voice belonged to a guy who was so powerful, he couldn’t imagine anyone ever daring to contradict him.

  And yet, Sean took a step closer, ignoring the bodyguard who blocked his path. “I can ground your flight with one call to the controllers and there’s nothing you can do about it. So why don’t you let me assess the patient and we’ll see who is going where and when.”

  Beneath the mask Marisela had tugged over her mouth to ensure that no one recognized her as Belinda’s sister, she grinned. Doctor McHottie sure had cojones. If she wasn’t ticked off that he was legally wed before, she sure as hell was now.

  Dark anger flashed across Sato’s eyes, but he gestured toward Belinda as if he’d granted the doctor’s request with pure benevolent kindness. Marisela muttered a few choice curse words under her breath and rushed to Belinda’s side.

  “She doesn’t like to be touched!” the flight attendant insisted, but Marisela skewered her to silence with a steely glare.

  “It’s okay,” Marisela said, turning a more reassuring expression to her sister. “We’re here to take care of you.”

  Belinda might have been in excruciating pain, but her well-disguised intelligence snapped on as if someone had flipped a switch. She met her sister’s stare straight on and for the briefest flash, a smile popped into her rare and beautiful baby blues. But the joy of recognizing Marisela disappeared the minute another contraction struck. She howled and grabbed for Marisela’s hand, which she then squeezed until she nearly broke her fingers.

  “Check her heart rate,” the doc ordered, shoving the stethoscope toward her.

  Marisela worked quietly, saying as little as possible, sparing her few words for Belinda, whom she soothed with phrases in whispered Spanish. The doctor was efficient in his examination and exceedingly kind when he explained how he had to reach up beneath her skirt to check the baby’s progress.

  “Yea, that’s what I thought,” he announced. “This infant isn’t waiting for a flight. I need to get this woman to the hospital immediately.”

  He stood as if to go and signal Frankie, but two of Sato’s bodyguards blocked his path. He turned an impressive glare on the mob boss. “She’s in labor.”

  “She can have the child here,” the man replied calmly. “Babies are born outside of hospitals every day.”

  “I don’t have the proper monitoring equipment,” Sean argued.

  “Neither did my grandmother, who gave birth to my father in a rice paddy.”

  Sean scowled. “That explains a lot.”

  But Matsuharu Sato only arched a brow. “Tell my people what you need. They will ensure that my grandchild is delivered safely to me.”

  Marisela bit the inside of her mouth. If this son of a bitch thought he was getting his pint-sized paws on her little niece or nephew, he was certifiable. But now wasn’t the time to challenge his authority. If everything went according to their sketchy plan, she’d never have to exchange a single word with the man.

  Thing was, the scheme had already derailed. Their first option had been to get Belinda off the plane and into the ambulance. Of course, they’d made that plan before they’d known that she’d gone into labor.

  An hour passed. Then two. By the time Sean announced that the baby’s birth was imminent, darkness had started to fall. They were ten minutes away from the agreed upon rendezvous time with Rick when Max finally spoke into the earwig hidden by her surgical cap.

  “The minute the baby is born, get it off the plane,” he advised. “Cough twice if you read me.”

  Marisela folded her wrist and hacked twice into the miniature microphone she was wearing on her bracelet, hidden by her latex glove. Then she concentrated solely on Belinda and doing everything Sean told her to. She’d never been so compliant in her whole life. With her concentration on her sister, she hardly realized that a commotion had started in the cockpit.

  A large, suited man pushed his way to Sato and whispered some dire news, judging by the widening of his eyes. Sato replied in rapid Japanese, immediately touching off a firestorm of activity that made her believe he had ordered the plane to take off whether Doctor McClarren approved of it or not.

  “Okay, I need you to push when I tell you to, Belinda. Mari—” he started, but caught himself at the wild shaking of Marisela’s head. He cleared his throat. “Mary, hold her up and count.”

  He demonstrated once before Belinda’s next contraction hit. Marisela did her best, no longer cautious about speaking while her sister entered the final stages of labor. Around them, stuff was cleared off and stored. A couple of men strapped themselves into their seats while the rest poured onto the tarmac. In between Belinda’s grunts and howls, she heard voices arguing below. She guessed one belonged to Rick, a fact that was verified when Max spoke again.

  “Rick’s buying us more time. I called in a favor from the DEA. Seems our yakuza boss is on a watch list. He was just advised by the tower that take-off was denied, but that’s not going to stop them from taking off for long. Get Belinda off the plane.”

  “We can’t,” she said, hoping the commotion would keep anyone from noticing she was talking to her hand.

  “Yes, we
can,” Sean contradicted, though whether he was covering for her or just keeping up his relentless encouragement, she couldn’t tell. “One more push, Belinda. One more and you’ll be done.”

  He was right. Not a minute later, a slimy but beautiful baby girl slid into the world, screaming at the top of her lungs and proving to anyone within a mile radius that she had Morales genes.

  “Belinda!” shouted someone from outside.

  More turmoil erupted, but the doctor begged Marisela to stay focused as she held her niece and watched him clear her nose and mouth of gunk and then wrap the child in a blanket provided by the shaking flight attendant.

  Sean moved to hand the baby to Belinda, but her sister turned as best as she could onto her side and crossed her arms tight over her chest. She didn’t say a single word. Not throughout the entire birth. She’d efficiently and effectively removed the baby from her body. Her work was done.

  “We need to get her off this plane,” Marisela insisted.

  “Take the baby,” he said, thrusting the wailing child into her arms.

  Marisela wanted to object, wanted to argue that she couldn’t reach her weapon with an infant in her hands, but Sean’s improvisation made sense. The nurse would do as he commanded. Maybe, if they were lucky, the good doctor would talk his way off the flight before Sato decided to take off and avoid detention by the Drug Enforcement Agency.

  She bundled the baby like a football and rushed toward the exit. Only one man tried to stop her, but she tucked and rolled, then sprang down the steps as quickly as care would allow. When she reached the bottom, Frankie pushed the gurney he’d been leaning on into the crowd of men standing around arguing, then took the infant from her and dashed to the ambulance. Red laser lights from guns peppered his back, but no one fired before Sato, standing at the top of the stairs, ordered his goons to stand down.

  “My baby!” Rick cried out.

  Held in place by a man barely in his twenties, Rick struggled to get free. Marisela wondered how the hell they were going to get Belinda off the plane when she spotted Sean standing behind the mobster, her sister cradled in his arms, her body wrapped in bloody towels.

  Sato nearly tumbled off the stairs in his rush to get out of the way. Marisela might have laughed if she hadn’t been so worried. Nothing moved men faster than a woman with blood pouring out from between her legs.

  Marisela used the distraction to her advantage, slipping her hand underneath the gurney where Frankie had stored her gun and the key fob they’d wired for this occasion. She shoved the gun in her waistband, grabbed Sean by the arm and tugged him and Belinda to the ambulance. But when she touched the latch on the back door, a gunshot rent the air, stopping them all cold.

  Marisela spun, weapon drawn. She pushed Sean behind her.

  In her ear, Max announced. “DEA is two minutes out.”

  Then she heard Frankie’s voice. “The baby doesn’t look right. She’s too quiet. We need to get her out of here.”

  Marisela glanced behind her. Sean was barely holding up under Belinda’s weight.

  “Put her down,” Marisela told him. “Go to the baby.”

  “What? No—” He started to argue, but relented when Frankie called again for assistance. He gently placed Belinda on her feet. Marisela shoved her shoulder under Belinda’s and held her up as much as she could while keeping her gun trained on the only person in the crowd that mattered—Matsuharu Sato.

  “Go,” she ordered.

  Sean tore around the other side of the vehicle. As she watched Sato march down the steps, she heard the door to the cab open and close and the engine roar to life.

  “I’d advise your friends not to go anywhere,” Sato said once he reached the ground.

  Around them, everyone was standing like sentries, except for Rick, who was struggling to break free of his cousin’s iron grip and Sato, who walked nearer, but never ventured beyond the front line of foot soldiers who had their weapons trained at Marisela and Belinda. She might get off a lucky shot and take Sato down, but she and Belinda would die in a bloody shower of lead, an outcome she’d rather try to avoid.

  “DEA is one minute out,” Max said. “Just hold on.”

  “The baby,” she shouted.

  “Frank, go,” Max ordered. “They won’t shoot the bus. Go, go, go.”

  Marisela felt the exhaust burn against the back of her legs as Frankie tore away from the tarmac. The mobsters leveled their guns at the fleeing vehicle, but Rick screamed and Sato again shouted for them to not fire.

  But he did not tell them to lower their weapons or to retreat. Marisela was very aware that though the DEA might be only a minute away, it would take only a split second for these men to fill her and her sister full of holes.

  “Don’t come any closer,” she said, glancing over her shoulder to watch the ambulance whip around an outbuilding on their way to the exit. When they came out of the other side and gained speed toward the exit, she dropped her gun and held up the key fob.

  Sato stopped his forward motion. “What is that?”

  “My ticket out of here,” she answered. “I don’t give a shit about your son or his kid or even the doctor I paid to help me get on board your plane. I only want my sister.”

  Sato laughed. “I don’t care about your sister. Give me back my grandchild and you’re free to go.”

  “No way,” Marisela said, finally hearing the drone of DEA sirens she’d been waiting for. “As long as that baby is alive, as long as your son wants her back, you’ll never leave my sister alone. That doesn’t work for me, got it?”

  With her claim hanging like a bomb in the air, Marisela pushed the button on the fob. A heartbeat later, an explosion lit up the airport like the star on the top of a Christmas tree. The ground shook. Belinda crumbled to the ground. The bodyguards—and even Sato—dove onto the tarmac and the only noise that broke through the thrumming in Marisela’s ears was Rick, screaming as if he’d been inside the ambulance she’d just blown up.

  Nineteen

  Marisela had never been in a war zone, but she figured she’d never come closer than this. Everything happened in a rush of motion, sound and light, but seemed like it took forever. Fire trucks rolled onto the scene. Vehicles from every law enforcement agency she’d ever heard of—and a couple that she hadn’t—descended like locusts. Belinda had been rolled onto the gurney of an emergency vehicle and spirited away. But this time, no amount of fake fainting was going to get her a pass from the cops.

  The minute she arrived, Detective Anita Flores parked herself beside Marisela, watching with an unrelenting stare while paramedics checked her over. Once she was declared fit, the detective gestured her to the backseat of her standard-issue sedan.

  But instead of locking Marisela in and driving her to the station for an interview, she went around to the other side and got in beside her.

  “Interesting way to spend my Christmas Eve,” the tall, dark-haired woman said. Her voice was silky in person, but just as efficient as it had been on the phone.

  “Tell me about it,” Marisela said.

  “No, I think you should tell me. You blew up an ambulance.”

  Marisela didn’t reply. Yes, there were several witnesses who saw her press the button on the fob, but all of them, except her sister, were either criminals wanted by the Drug Enforcement Agency or a hysterical spurned lover who’d kidnapped her sister and blown up her car. She was still wearing her latex gloves, so her fingerprints wouldn’t incriminate her, either.

  “All those men think you sacrificed a baby, not to mention a doctor and a paramedic, in order to ensure that they never bothered your sister again.”

  Marisela chanced a grin. “I’m a heartless, cold-hearted bitch. It’s something I would do, right? Only I didn’t, and you know it. Dr. McClarren, the baby and my friend Frankie got out of the ambulance before they sent it speeding toward the exit. They’re fine. Right?”

  Flores seemed to weigh the wisdom of imparting truth or lie. After a long minute w
here Marisela replayed the sound of Frankie’s desperation as he reported the baby not breathing correctly, the detective smiled.

  “Dr. McClarren treated the baby for a mild obstruction. She’s probably at the NICU right now, being checked over, but I’m sure she’s fine. You went to a lot of trouble to make sure she’d be fine, didn’t you?”

  “Someone had to,” Marisela replied.

  “We could have helped.”

  Marisela laughed, her shoulders aching as they shook. “I’m not accustomed to going to the cops for help, detective. You all have a really nasty habit of throwing me in the back seat of patrol cars, or worse.”

  “And yet, your record is surprisingly clean. As if someone scrubbed it.”

  “Imagine that,” Marisela countered. “What’s going to happen to Rick Suzuki?”

  “The man you shot?”

  “He blew up my car. It was self-defense.”

  “Yes, he confessed to all that. He confessed to a lot before he passed out. If we find any physical evidence linking him to the explosive device under your car—”

  “You won’t,” she said. “His cousin, Hiro, placed the bomb. He’s dead, by the way, murdered by his brother, Makoto, who I’m pretty sure you have in custody.”

  Flores made a noise somewhat like a frustrated growl, then scanned through her notes, making notations with the information Marisela provided. Though it was against her instincts to cooperate with the police, Marisela knew the ways of the court system well enough to know that Rick Suzuki would get off a lot easier if the only crime he was tied to was harassing her sister. Not that he deserved it, but if Belinda didn’t press charges—and Marisela would make sure she didn’t—he’d testify against his cousins and then be deported back to England and more than likely barred from entering the United States ever again for his cursory involvement with crime lords.

  “You’ve been surprisingly helpful,” Detective Flores said. “I will have more questions for you as we sort this all out.”