by Cindy Gerard
And then she waited, in the dark, her heart beating so hard she could feel it in her throat and in her ears and in her throbbing wrist, which, thanks to the adrenaline boost, she didn’t even feel anymore.
The only thing she felt was terror.
Of the dark. Of the unknown. And for the man who was out there right now, risking his life to save hers.
When you grew up a country boy in the South, the son of a marine and avid outdoorsman, you learned how to hunt. Joe had been a hunter his entire life. He especially liked hunting night predators, the cowardly kind that preyed on the weak. What he didn’t like were the odds. He was going to do something about that right now.
The trip wire sensors had been set one hundred yards from the house, four long, individual filaments, all set to trigger independently no matter which point was breached. Because Stephanie had noticed the instant the first wire was tripped, he was ahead of the game. There were four of them and there was no way in hell a single one of these bastards was going to get within fifty yards of the house.
He ran at a crouch toward the first perimeter that had been breached. The ground there was flat and empty. A small copse of trees no more than twenty yards long ran along a dry creek bed less than fifty yards ahead. He’d walked the entire property at least twice the day before. Had memorized each berm, rock pile, and culvert.
He reached the trees just as he heard someone stumble, then curse. He saw him an instant later. Stupid bastard was wearing a suit and carrying a sawed-off shotgun. Amateur.
In the darkest part of the night, unless the shooter had excellent night vision, there was no way he could distinguish Joe from the tree trunk he leaned against.
He waited, judged his proximity by the sounds the guy made lumbering clumsily through the dry summer grass, then stepped out behind him just as he passed. Before the guy knew what hit him, Joe hooked a forearm around his throat in a stranglehold, shoved his Sig in his back, and fired. The Sig made barely a pop, muffled by the sound suppressor and the guy’s bulky body. He twitched, flailed, then went limp. Joe slowly lowered him to the ground, then, crouching low, set off again at a run in search of the next predator.
18
Nothing. Stephanie could see nothing. She could hear nothing. Nothing but her irregular breathing and the beating of her own heart as she hid in the stuffy closet. Perspiration trickled down her back; her palms were sweaty on the pistol grip.
The adrenaline had let down a while ago. Her wrist screamed in pain, but she refused to give in to it as she gripped the gun with both hands, the barrel braced in the tight vee between her bent knees.
How much time had passed? Five minutes? Ten? She didn’t know. She’d lost all point of reference. How long had Joe been gone? Long enough to … to kill those men? Long enough to get killed?
And then she heard something.
She jerked her attention to the closet door, hyper-aware of every sound outside of her little hidey hole.
Someone had entered the house.
She swallowed hard, her heart beating so fast she thought it would explode.
Joe. Please, please be Joe.
And then she heard nothing.
No. Something. Someone breathing. Then the snick of metal against metal. A gun, she realized. Someone had injected a bullet into the chamber of a gun.
Footsteps. Slow. Cautious. Careful.
It could still be Joe, she told herself, working to regulate her breathing so she wouldn’t hyperventilate and pass out. He could be checking the house to make certain no one else was inside. He wouldn’t call out to her if that was the case. He wouldn’t want to give away her location.
So she sat. And trembled … and gasped when the door swung open.
The silhouette of a man filled the doorway. A small man.
Not Joe.
He raised a rifle to his shoulder.
She screamed.
And she fired.
And fired.
And fired until the gun was empty and she was wildeyed with shock as a man lay twitching at her feet.
“Stephanie.”
Terrified, she scrambled further into the corner.
“Stephanie. It’s okay. It’s Joe. You’re okay. Steph. Look at me.”
A light flicked on.
“Look at me!”
An order.
She looked up.
Joe. Oh God.
“Joe!” She reached for the hand he extended, rose on wobbly legs, and flew into his arms.
Hard, strong arms wrapped around her, then lifted her off her feet. Joe stepped over the body and carried her into the living room.
“He… he—”
“I know. I’m sorry. He never should have gotten to the house.”
“I… I… is he… d-dead? Did I k-kill him?”
“Don’t think about it.”
“The… the others—”
“Are no longer a problem.”
God, oh God, oh God.
People were dead. Men were dead. She could be dead… if not for this man.
She was shaking violently now. Even in her agitated state she knew it was a form of shock.
“Steph?” He set her on the sofa, knelt in front of her, and gripped her face between his big hands. “I know you’re scared, baby. But you’ve got to pull it together, okay? We’ve got to get out of here. As soon as they figure out that their goons are out of commission, they’ll send reinforcements. Are you with me?”
She nodded, then almost started crying again when he used his thumbs to gently wipe the tears she hadn’t even known were sliding down her cheeks.
“Good girl. Now come on. Let’s get your computer and your papers and make tracks.”
“Wait.” She covered his hands with hers. His face was inches away. His hazel eyes were narrowed with concern and something … something that told her he wouldn’t stop her if she leaned in and kissed him.
So she did. She kissed him. She poured her terror and her gratitude and her heart and her soul into a kiss that had him groaning deep in his throat, drawing her against him again and taking everything she gave him in that kiss. Giving back more.
She wanted it to go on and on. She wanted to lose herself in this moment where time stood still, where bad guys weren’t trying to kill her, where something felt good and right and vital.
She clung to him when he pulled away. He met the questions in her eyes with a smile that transformed his face to something beyond handsome, something that said he didn’t want to end it either.
“To be continued,” he promised, then leaned in and kissed her again. Fast and hot and hard. “Now we really have to go.”
Cesar Munoz’s gated villa nestled like an Old World Spanish castle on the rim of a lush green mountainside that overlooked the valley and the sprawling city of Medellín. Rafe had made the decision to arrive unannounced. He’d also wanted to arrive in style. The perception of success was often all about showmanship, and the stretch limo and chauffeur he’d rented this morning fit the bill. Plus, his uncle had always been into high drama. Rafe’s resurrection from the dead would definitely provide it.
“¿Qúe quiere? What business do you have here?” the uniformed guard demanded when the limo rolled up to the guardhouse and stopped in front of the locked gates.
“Raphael Mendoza to see his uncle Cesar,” the chauffeur announced as Rafe had instructed.
Yeah, high drama, Rafe thought, breathing deep to steady himself as they waited for a response. It was supposed to have been for his uncle’s benefit. He hadn’t counted on feeling the effects of it himself. And yet he did.
Nostalgia clutched at his gut as memories assaulted him. How many times had he come here for family celebrations? For parties by the pool, to make out behind the cabana with the daughter of one of his father’s business partners? To watch his mother and his aunts laugh and cook in the big chef’s dream of a kitchen, taking it over from the kitchen staff so they could provide their families with their own special style of cooking?<
br />
How many times had he and his father gone horseback riding with his uncle and his cousins Felipe and Rodrigo? It always ended in a horse race that his cousins resented when they lost to Rafe.
It would be interesting to see his cousins’ reaction to his reappearance. He expected resistance on that front—provided he could overcome this first obstacle.
Nearly fifteen minutes later, the guard leaned out the small window. “ Señor Munoz has no nephew. You must leave now.”
Rafe had expected this. He lifted the chain holding his gold crucifix over his head, handed it to the chauffeur. “Ask him to please show this to my uncle.”
Rafe had noticed the bank of security cameras inside the small guardhouse, had seen the lenses expand to look inside the limo. No doubt, the guard had an interior camera he could use to photograph the crucifix.
“Every male child born into the family was given this exact same crucifix at his first communion,” he told B.J. quietly as they waited. “The gold is twenty-four karat, the design unique to a local craftsman commissioned exclusively by the family. He’ll recognize it.”
Several more minutes passed before the guard stepped out of the guardhouse. He handed back Rafe’s crucifix, then motioned for them to get out of the car.
“Is this really necessary?” B.J. fell into the role of Brittany when the guard asked Rafe to empty his pockets and B.J. to turn over her purse. “We’re being treated like criminals!”
She held her breath while the guard looked through her purse, concerned that he would spot the false bottom and discover the transmitter.
“It’s just precautionary, cara,” Rafe assured her, glancing apologetically at the guard. “My uncle is a very important man. And you must remember, for the past fifteen years they thought I was dead. Until we meet face-to-face, Cesar can’t be certain I am who I say I am.”
“Well, it’s insulting,” she said indignantly.
“Discúlpeme, señorita.” The guard looked sheepish as he handed the purse back to her.
“He took my cell phone!” she cried, hiding her relief that the transmitter had not been discovered. “Baby…” She clutched Rafe’s arm. “I need my phone. I have to be able to text my sister and check on Peanut. I have to know how my little baby is doing.”
Peanut was the imaginary dog they’d settled on as a tool to relay coded messages to the BOIs in the event she was allowed to keep her phone. If Brittany called her “sister”—in this case, Crystal—who was “babysitting” and asked one of a set of prearranged questions, it would cue Crystal to their current circumstances.
“I’m sure you’ll get it back,” Rafe placated her, handing over his own phone to the guard.
“Gracias. Now, please get back in the car.”
After walking around the limo, then getting down and peering under the carriage, the guard returned to the gatehouse. A few seconds later, the gates swung open.
“We’re in,” Rafe said, sounding relieved.
“Alice falling down the rabbit hole,” B.J. murmured, her sigh relaying both relief and tension now that they were on their way into the inner sanctum.
“Just stick to the plan,” Rafe whispered in reassurance. “We’ll be fine.”
“Said Custer to his cavalry.”
He pushed out a surprised laugh. “Here I thought you didn’t have a sense of humor.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
For damn sure, he thought as they advanced slowly up a wide driveway made of stone pavers and lined with towering palms. For one, he was just getting to know what an amazing actress she was.
“Holy God,” B.J. said under her breath a quarter of a mile later when the limo rolled to a stop in front of the villa.
Rafe understood her reaction. He’d spent half of his childhood here yet the opulent grounds and buildings never failed to elicit some kind of reaction. Today it was nostalgia, determination, and regret.
The sprawling, three-story, Spanish-style villa was constructed of stone blocks, adobe, ornate grillwork, terra-cotta tile, and what seemed like hundreds of gleaming arched windows. While his family’s home had also been extravagant, he’d always thought of Cesar and Aliria’s villa as a castle. Clearly, it affected B.J. the same way.
Flowers and flowering shrubs of every color and description bobbed in lush beds on either side of the driveway, filling the air with a fresh floral scent he remembered from his childhood. Orchids dripped from palm trunks where they’d taken root. Sundogs played in the water spewing from a huge, ornate fountain sculpted in the shape of a dolphin.
“So crime does pay,” he heard B.J. murmur as he got out of the limo, then walked around to help her.
She took the hand he offered and stepped outside, looking in awe at the massive casa and perfectly manicured grounds. And for a moment, he didn’t see anything but her. Not his youth. Not the familiar sights of home. Just her.
She’d left her hair loose and wild; a warm breeze whipped it around her face.
“Fits the image we’re shooting for,” he had told her when she’d walked into his hotel room this morning. They’d booked adjoining rooms when they’d arrived last night, had a quick dinner in the hotel restaurant, then stayed up late hammering out the details of their strategy.
Yeah, her hair fit the image, he thought again as she stood there in her four-inch red stilettos; a short, clingy, yellow, strapless, sarong-style dress; and red-rimmed sunglasses with lenses the size of small coasters. Her lipstick matched the shoes, which matched her nails and generated as much red-hot heat inside him as the sun that blazed down from a cloudless blue sky.
“You look stunning,” he said because she did and because, he assured himself, he was merely playing the part of the love-struck fiancé.
“I know, darling.” Her smile was all devotion and confident seduction as she looped her purse handles over her right arm, then wrapped her left arm around his waist and snuggled close.
He’d dressed for the Colombian heat in white linen pants and a pale pink gauze shirt. He could feel the warmth of her body pressed against his side. Specifically, the heat and pressure of a very nice breast as he wound his arm around her waist and drew her against him.
“They’re watching, you know,” he whispered, lowering his mouth to her ear.
She stood up on tiptoe and pressed her mouth to his. “Would I be doing this if they weren’t?” Then she kissed him. A long, hot, wet kiss that sent his blood south and his head reeling.
Cristo. She was killing him. “Let’s just do this.”
“Yes, let’s,” she agreed on a bracing breath.
Arm in arm, they walked toward the entryway and straight into a past Rafe had been dodging for fifteen years.
19
The Colombian people were as diverse in appearance as they were in culture and class distinctions. B.J. had already discovered this in their brief contact with the local populace in Medellín. Cesar and Aliria Munoz belonged to a small group of wealthy, fair-skinned Colombians who dominated the economic activity of the country. Rafe’s aunt Aliria looked basically the way B.J. had pictured her. She was a slight woman, still slim and lovely at sixty-five. She wore her jet-black hair stylishly cut, just as she wore her clothes with an understated elegance.
Cesar Munoz’s hair was snow white, his neatly trimmed mustache lightly peppered with black. He was around five foot eight or nine, fit and trim, and he greeted them wearing a white shirt and pants and brown sandals. Cesar struck her as shrewd, intense, and deeply distrustful. Hard. Strong. An enforcer. But when his skepticism and doubt finally gave over to astonished belief at the realization that Rafe was, in fact, the son of his wife’s brother and that he was alive, Cesar Munoz embraced him, then spoke rapidly in Spanish.
“Thank God for this miracle. You’re alive!”
Rafe’s aunt Aliria stood by quietly, tears filling her eyes, wringing her hands to keep from reaching for Rafe until Cesar finally released him so he could stand back and look his fill
.
“Tía Aliria,” Rafe murmured, enfolding her in a gentle embrace.
“Raphael. Sweet child. You … you look just like your father.”
The affection was genuine and lavish. From where she was standing, B.J. understood that it went both ways. For Rafe, this was a reunion with a family he had loved. A family that, when his life had blown apart, he had no idea was made up of criminals.