by Zoe Dawson
A soft breeze stirred, ruffling her hair against her cheek, like the flutter of butterfly wings, the scent of freshly mown grass buried in the wind. The sweet fragrance made her insides clench even more.
Derrick stood next to her, his chest heaving as he, too, watched her sister’s son get farther and farther away. She dragged her hair back, frustration and a sense of helplessness raging through her. Letting her hands fall, her mind racing, her stomach knotting, she whirled, but there was nowhere to go, nothing she could do.
She looked at Derrick, uncertainty racing through her, and she folded her arms tightly in front of her; she needed to hold everything in right now, bleakness chilling her.
Gripping her forearms, Emma tried to will away the thickness that was growing in her chest, a thickness that was rooted in monumental pain.
The banked rage in Derrick’s eyes exploded, and he twisted and swore viciously. He looked at her, his eyes blazing, the veins in his neck distended with fury. “Goddammit!”
His tone was filled with disgust, and the air sizzled with tension as he walked away. Stopping a few feet from her, he jammed his hands on his hips and tipped his head back, trying to level out his rapid breathing. Finally, he exhaled sharply and turned to face her, his voice subdued. “I’m sorry, Emma. I’m so sorry.” He bent his head and rubbed his eyes, his expression set. “We’ll track him again. We’ll find him!”
Her breath suddenly wouldn’t come. She dropped her arms as if all feeling had left her body. Trying to fight the increasing tightness in her throat, she nodded.
Emma pressed her thumb and middle finger against her eyes to try to stall the ache that kept spreading. She knew it was going to be extremely difficult to track him now. Ortega had unlimited resources. Time was on his side, and before too long, Matty wouldn’t even remember them.
That thought sliced through her like the sharpest knife. Her strength was fragmenting on her, but she hung on to it, using it to block out the pain. Her sweet baby boy wasn’t going to be raised by a notorious drug lord.
She thrust her hands into her hair, trying to process the awful realization. Raking her hair back from her face again, she tried to make her mind focus, shock draining the warmth from her.
Sirens blared and people were running toward them, but Emma couldn’t move.
“I’m sorry, babe.” She heard the agony, felt his pain, and she clutched her stomach. Her throat so cramped her jaws ached, she sank down to the concrete; a broken sob escaped her, tears blinding her.
His face ashen, Derrick knelt beside her, his eyes shadowed by some emotion she couldn’t understand. “It’s going to be all right, Emma.”
“Matty,” she whispered brokenly.
He looked away, the muscles in his throat convulsing, and desolation stripped her bare.
“Ah, Emma,” he murmured, his face contorting with raw emotion as he reached for her. “It’ll be okay.”
Catching him by the back of the head, Emma closed her eyes and hung on to him. Deep sobs were wrenched from her, and Derrick crushed her even closer, his fingers tangling in her hair as he tucked her face against his. “It’s okay, babe,” he choked out. “It’s okay.”
Having Derrick here to support her meant everything. It felt so damn good to lean on him. Let him comfort her. She needed that desperately. Needed him.
Overwhelmed by her feelings that one revelation set off in her, she went blindly into his arms, holding on to him with all the care and strength she possessed. With a gruff sound, he enfolded her in a fierce embrace, holding her as if she was the foundation of his world. Fighting against more tears, she closed her eyes and cradled his head against her, needing him so much she felt almost suffocated by it.
He kissed the side of her neck as he smoothed down her hair, trying to comfort her by touch alone. Then inhaling deeply, he caught her face between his hands, her chest so full she could barely breathe. She leaned her head against his jaw, the muscles there contracting. She looked up at him, the rawness in his eyes going straight to her heart.
The richness, the wholeness of her feelings nearly overwhelmed her as she slipped her arms around his neck. “I’m glad you’re here with me, Derrick,” she whispered vehemently.
He caught one of her hands, then laced his fingers through hers with a crushing grip. His expression scored with a range of emotions, he closed his eyes and pressed her hand against his mouth, his voice hoarse. “Emma—babe—”
Fighting against the swell of tears, Emma tore her hand free and clutched his shirt, a soft sob wrenching loose when he looked at her with his eyes so full of concern. Despite all the things that had gone wrong, this was right. So damned right.
Derrick raked her hair back, cradling her head against the curve of his neck, his breath warm against her skin. “We’re alive. We can fight again. I’m not going to give up, Emma,” he murmured hoarsely.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He held her tighter, his fingers spread wide as he cupped the back of her head. “I’m going to move heaven and earth to find him. I vow on my life that I will place him in your arms.”
Emma’s breath caught in her throat, suddenly scared, but this time it was for Derrick. Softly cupping his face, she gave him a reassuring look. “Together. Don’t leave me hanging,” she whispered, a hint of censure in her tone. “You promised.”
Derrick stared at her, then closed his eyes and hugged her hard. “Emma…” His voice broke on the word.
“Promise.”
He drew in a deep, uneven breath, his voice raw with emotion. “I promise.” Moved by the depth of feeling in that hoarsely spoken declaration, Emma shifted her head, her mouth connecting with his in a kiss that was filled with so much emotion, with such open, unfettered sentiment, that it drove every conscious thought out of her mind. Rising on tiptoe, she molded herself to him as he shifted his hold, bringing her fully against him from shoulder to thigh. He held nothing back in that kiss—nothing. And she felt the fire in him—the wonderful, hot, all-consuming fire that seemed to come from his very soul. It was so overpowering.
A shout from down the runway blasted them back into reality.
Unable to check her tears, Emma tightened her hold and made an anguished sound as she opened her eyes and over his shoulder saw the plane, now a speck in the bright blue sky, disappear along with her hopes.
She couldn’t believe this was happening.
She’d failed Lily. She’d lost Matty.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was going to lose Derrick, too.
Chapter Fifteen
Over the Pacific Ocean
Through the window of his private jet, Gilberto Ortega watched the moonlit clouds course across the sky over the dark ocean below. Beside him, Francisco was furious, delivering his outspoken tirade in a constant stream of Spanish, punctuated by butchered English when he wanted to make a particularly damning point.
“This is dangerous. Entrusting yourself and your young son to Lopez’s cartel and their leader, Diego. Far worse than finding a place to lay low in a different country.” His second-in-command had been vocally unhappy from the moment Gilberto had decided to make a risky decision to eliminate everyone in his organization, including his eldest son, and to start over from a new location.
“All will be well, Francisco. We have an established network in every city in the United States.” He corrected Francisco’s last statement. “We have something very valuable and lucrative to offer. We’ll build something bigger, bolder, and my name will be whispered with fear on the lips of every man who decides to cross me.”
“You should have let me stay back and kill them,” he grumbled. “Reyes was a bumbling fool and now that NCIS agent and that woman are free and alive. That agent is trouble, Gilberto. I guarantee it. I know a threat when I see one and he’s very, very dangerous. The St. John women can cause a lot of problems for you, including the old woman pressing the State Department about the boy. Let me handle this.”
“No
, Reyes will be the one with the blood on his hands. There tends to be a lot of interest in the death of a federal agent. Let Reyes earn his pay and take the heat. As for the surviving mother and grandmother, they will get lax and there will be a time to take care of them once the danger seems to have passed. We will bide our time. We have plenty of it.”
He rubbed his hand over the tattoo of Santa Muerte, saying a prayer to her for his fallen employees and Arturo.
His future lay in a carrier, strapped in the seat across from him. The beginning was always so exciting, and Lily St. John’s son would become Gilberto’s shining legacy, as dangerous and feared as his father.
He’d make sure of it.
Caliche, Mexico
Derrick stood in the dark square of the small, peacefully sleeping city of Caliche the second night after they had lost Matty. His hands in his jean’s pockets, fingering his folding knife, were contracting into fists. The gun in its holster was pressing against his ribs. He wanted to kill someone, but the two main targets were hundreds of miles away now.
A man approached and said softly, “I was shocked as hell to hear from you. I thought you got out of this game a long time ago, son.” His thick Southern accent was the one he was born with, but it was often hidden behind so many identities and accents, Derrick had rarely heard it.
S. Robin Browne was a veritable chameleon and almost as good at espionage as Derrick. He wasn’t even sure that was his real name. Derrick straightened, glancing around the square. The guy didn’t look a day over nineteen with his blond ponytail, scruffy beard and a perpetual confident smirk, a hippie company man toting more weapons on his body than anyone Derrick had ever met. From observation, Derrick knew Browne didn’t need a damn one of them to take an opponent down. He was also one of the lost boys, an orphan like Derrick. “You never get out of this game,” Derrick said bitterly, knowing that while lies and deception were all part of his past, they were now also part of his present.
The guy laughed softly.
“I need some information.”
“Even though you pulled me away from another part of Mexico and my current mission, you saved my life, man, more times than I can count. Name it.”
“I need the name of Gilberto Ortega’s second-in-command.”
“That’s an easy one. Man, I’m not even breaking a sweat here.” He bit into an apple he had been tossing in his hand as he crossed the square. He leaned against the wall. “Sadistic son of a bitch that goes by the name of Francisco Flores. You crossed paths with him?” He took another bite. “Best to kill him swiftly and cleanly. Make sure the job is done.” He worked at his tooth, then took another bite of the fruit.
“Not yet,” Derrick said. “He’s not in the country right now, but my gut says Gilberto Ortega isn’t quite done with the area he’s carved out here in Mexico.”
“Your gut trumps even tarot cards, psychics and any form of intel for me, man.”
“Still got that warped way of looking at the world, Browne?”
“What can I say? I’m The Company’s joker.” Then he grinned.
Derrick sighed. “I’d stake my life on Ortega coming back. He’s going to keep what’s his. It’s going to be a bloodbath. But he’s going to have a forerunner. So, when Flores returns, let me know.”
“You’ve got it.” Browne finished off the apple and threw the core into a trash can a few feet away.
Derrick grabbed the man’s shirtfront and said in a low and menacing voice, “If you breathe a word of this to anyone or betray me, I will come back here and kill you. We clear?”
“Crystal. I got you. This one means a lot to you. I won’t take you threatening to kill me personally. But I do have a question.”
“What is it?” Derrick growled and let him go.
“Does this have anything to do with that gorgeous redhead with the amazing legs and eyes and skin—”
Derrick growled.
“—you’ve been palling around with?”
“So, our presence here didn’t go unnoticed?”
“What kind of spook would I be if I wasn’t aware of all the potential chaos going down in my little neck of the woods?” He straightened. “I’ll give you a piece of advice for free. Don’t get involved, man. You’ll do things, dangerous things, that will get you dead because you lost your head. Screw her, but cut her loose. I’ll be in touch,” he said and right before Derrick’s eyes, the guy walked off and simply vanished.
The fallout from Gilberto’s “fake” coup, supposedly orchestrated by a rival cartel, had everyone in the area in an uproar. The rival group was trash-talking and taking all the credit; other cartels were circling around the Ortegas’ vacated piece of prime drug lord real estate and the area was quickly turning into a powder keg.
Velasco had survived his gunshot wound, reported back to the attorney general who then reported back to the NCIS director, offering his condolences on the way the case had been botched by one of his own.
When Derrick had contacted Kai, she had been sympathetic and saddened by the news. She’d ordered them both back to the US. Now that Matty wasn’t in Mexico, their only recourse was to go home, regroup and figure out their next steps.
They had a room at the hotel, and he’d left Emma sleeping there to meet with Browne. He wasn’t going to tell her anything, and it tore him up inside that he had to be secretive to keep her from getting any more involved. He wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but he knew he’d lied to her. Exposing Emma to any more danger just wasn’t on his agenda.
This lie jeopardized everything they had between them. He also knew what they had between them was…significant. But he knew going into this that he wasn’t sure he could change.
He closed his eyes and swore softly under his breath, hitting the side of the building with the flat of his hand.
She trusted him.
And he was going to find a way to get Matty that was completely illegal and dangerous. He was going into a world she wasn’t prepared for, didn’t have the skills to disappear and blend into like he did. She was tough, beautiful and he was in too deep, but he’d rather lose her than have her death on his conscience or have to look into those heartbroken blue eyes every day, knowing Matty’s loss was eating at her. It was in his nature, and he was doomed to be a loner. It had been an illusion to think he could fight it. Putting other people ahead of himself had been what joining the CIA was all about.
He walked back to the hotel and slipped back into their room. He wasn’t trying to hide anything anymore. Emma needed him now, and he needed to be there for her.
He slipped out of his suit coat, gun holster and shirt, pulling out the weapon and setting it on the bedside table. He shucked off his jeans. In his underwear, he stood beside the bed. She was curled up on her side, still asleep, and she looked so soft and vulnerable lying there.
He slipped into the bed and she shifted automatically against him, nestling her head into the hollow of his shoulder, resting her upper body against his chest, her arm going around his waist. He clenched his teeth at the exquisite sensation of having her curl around him. He dipped his head and brushed a soft, lingering kiss against her forehead, smiling a little when she made a soft sound and turned her face toward his warmth. If only things could be this simple.
Brushing back the wisps of hair clinging to her face, he kissed her again. He stared into the darkness, thinking about what had happened on that runway two days ago. He had received something from her that he had never expected to have in his life. An emotional gift. And he couldn’t be sorry about it.
But what left his gut in a knot was that she had lost it the way she had. From his experience, Emma never lost it. She was pensive, heartbroken and it hurt his heart to see her like that.
Releasing a heavy sigh, he gazed at her, his expression solemn. Even in the faint light, he could see the shadows under her eyes. Matty’s loss had hit her so hard. And, he admitted, him, as well.
She stirred and he brushed a light kiss against h
er temple.
“Where did you go?” she whispered.
“To get some air,” he whispered back.
“Any news?” she asked, her voice hopeful, and he hated that he had to be the one to dash it.
“No, sweetheart. Go back to sleep.”
She caressed his waist and then his hip. Lifting herself up, she kissed his jaw. “Don’t tell me what to do,” she said softly, a teasing inflection in her voice.
“I’m not the bossy one,” he said.
She snorted, and he rested his head against hers. He immersed himself in the scent of her, the feel of her.
“I won’t let you down, Emma,” he said gruffly. He looked at her, something painful happening around his heart when he saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes. Sliding his hand along her jaw until his fingers were buried in her hair, he drew her head down, the fullness in his chest making his throat tight. He took her mouth in a soft, comforting kiss. Wrapping his fingers around the back of her head, he held her still as he softly, slowly, brushed his mouth back and forth across hers, tormenting her, tormenting himself. “That is a promise,” he whispered unevenly against her mouth. “Nothing is going to stop me from getting your nephew back, protecting your sister and you.”
Releasing a pent-up breath in a rush, Emma slid her arms around his neck and moved on top of him. Closing his eyes against the onslaught of sensation, Derrick turned his face against her and wrapped his arms around her, wondering how in hell he would ever manage without her. Grasping a handful of hair, he clenched his jaw and turned his head against hers, something raw and wild breaking loose inside him. Inhaling raggedly, he clutched her against him. A tremor coursed through her, and she drew her knees up and pulled out of his hold.
Kissing her way down his chest, her hair cascading down his body in a sensual caress, she tugged at his briefs and pulled them off him.
