“Kane’s got a lock on their communication’s channel. He’s been listening in to their conversations for the last hour. Señora Azua was right, Perez is in charge of this op. He’s convinced there is a ton of money to be had in the bank, and he’s cutting out Maduro, but nobody else knows that.”
“If none of his underlings know it, how does Kane know it?”
“Maduro is still incommunicado, so this is all Perez. Our guess is that Perez is planning on looting the bank, then getting the hell out of Venezuela, never to be seen again. So, he wants this done before Maduro gets back to Caracas.”
“So, what’s Perez planning? It’s Saturday,” Asher looked at his watch, “at seven a.m. He’s running out of time.”
“He no longer cares if civilians know that he’s trying to break into the bank. All sense of subterfuge is gone. The report on the news is that there has been structural damage to the bank, and now Maduro’s people are trying to rescue bank employees. There’s a news helicopter that actually live-streamed the tank blowing holes in the North gate so that secret police could get to the bank building.”
“Everybody in Caracas would either believe them or would be too scared to say anything against them.”
“Okay, so it’s going to be an all-out assault against the vault,” Eden said. “How are they planning on doing it? From what Kane said the last time, they only had dynamite and that other stuff.”
There was a long pause before Leo started talking.
“Perez hasn’t been talking about this on regular channels. He’s been on his phone, so Kane hasn’t been able to do his eavesdropping thing, which you know kills him.”
Asher chuckled. “I wonder what A.J. thinks of that.”
“You know she’d cut him off at the knees if he ever tried shit like that with him.”
“I don’t think that’s what she’d be cutting.” They laughed harder. “Okay, so Kane knows nothing.”
“I didn’t say that,” Leo sounded like he was smirking. “Would you believe there is an earthmover being unloaded outside the gate?”
“Hmmmm.”
“Yep, they plan to dig their way in and then set the charges,” Leo said. “But they won’t work, will they?” Leo wanted reassurance.
“Leo, you need to keep an eye on things. They might not be digging just a hole for a man to climb down and set charges, they could be clearing the area so that the tank could shoot a mortar at the vault. Either way, it’s a hell of an undertaking. It’ll take hours.”
“Or how about they’re digging out a ramp so that the tank could angle its cannon at the vault and shoot at it that way?” Eden suggested.
Leo laughed, but Asher just rubbed his jaw.
“I see you trying not to laugh. They could be doing that. Wouldn’t that give them a more precise shot? You know Perez doesn’t want to destroy the contents of the safety deposit boxes.”
“She has a point,” Leo said.
“How is Señora Azua?” Eden asked.
“She’s out of surgery. She’s supposed to wake up on her own in two hours. If she doesn’t the surgeon has okayed a shot of adrenaline.”
What the hell? “Why not now?” Asher asked. They didn’t have time to wait.
“He said it would be a bad mix with the anesthesia still in her system. They have to wait.”
Eden stood up and put her hand around his waist. “It’s going to be okay. I swear, they’re going to do the ramp. We have time.”
“Asher, no matter what they’re trying, we have time,” Leo assured him.
“Yeah, but what you just said is that the bank has basically collapsed in on the basement. What’s the assessment on us getting out through the vault door?”
Again, there was a pause. “Hold on, I’m patching you through to Ezio.”
“Why—”
“Asher,” Ezio started. “Nic, Raiden, and I are on our way to you.”
“Okay,” Asher said slowly. “How? What’s available?”
“Not a lot,” Ezio admitted. “The stairs from the lobby to the documents floor are non-existent. Kane blew a hole through so we could climb down through there. The documents floor has some crawl space.”
Asher knew immediately why those three were the ones who were doing the crawling—they all had leaner body types than the rest of the team. Solid muscle, but leaner. “How far along are you? Is there any way to get some kind of protective gear for Eden to wear?”
“Already taken care of,” Ezio said.
Shit, he should have known that. Still, he worried about Eden.
“We hope we can be there by the time Señora Azua wakes up to tell us the vault combination, but it’s slow going.”
“Be careful.”
“Always.” Ezio signed off.
“How much more juice does your satellite phone have?” Leo asked.
“About two hours,” Asher told him.
“Turn it off for an hour and forty-five minutes. Nothing to be done in that time.”
Asher hated the idea of being out of contact for so long, but when the real action started, he’d need the phone.
“Okay. I’ll turn it on in an hour and a half.”
“I figured.” Asher could feel Leo’s laughter through the phone line.
Eden had never thought she’d be so excited to savor a mint, but here she was trying to make the little candy last. And as stupid, stupid, fucking stupid, as it was, she wanted this time with Asher to last.
She remembered when it had come to the end for her Grandpa York. He’d been living at the ranch. He’d been on oxygen for the last two months of his life, and he talked to Eden a lot since she was the only child still at home. He said he wanted to leave the Earth having lived as joyously and with as much grace as possible. She’d always taken those words to heart. She just never thought that she might be faced with the possibility of dying at twenty-eight.
The mint was down to a nub. She looked in the tin and grinned. There were nine mints left. If the worst happened, then she and Ash would at least die with nice-smelling breath.
“What are you smiling about?”
“Nothing.” She looked up and saw him staring at her. “Everything. This. You. Me.”
“Well that clears things up,” he said wryly.
She cocked her head. “You spend a lot of time laughing at me, have you noticed that?”
His brows drew up. “Huh, you’re right. Maybe I should start calling you Cullen. Do you sing karaoke? Do you spend much time in Florida?”
“Nope.”
“Still,” he said as he made his way over to her, “you tickle me, Ms. York.”
“I’ve done things to you Mr. Thorne, but I don’t remember tickling being one of those things.”
He shook his head, smiling. “Ah, there you go again. I’m entertained once again. And here we are without a deck of cards or indulging in sex. It’s amazing. It’s as if we like one another. Who’d have guessed?”
“You just set a low bar is all,” she grinned up at him.
“Honey, if you’re interested in tired old sailor like me, I’d say you’re the one who has the low bar.”
Eden plucked a mint out of the tin and stood. “Open up,” she said as she held the candy against his mouth.
He didn’t.
She swept the mint across his bottom lip, tempting him until he finally sucked it from her. But he held her fingers hostage, sucking them into her mouth. Her entire body went into meltdown.
Who cared about a condom? Really, in the big scheme of things, did it matter? What mattered was making love with this man. Asher must have seen what she was thinking.
“No, Eden.”
“Yes, Asher. I refuse to possibly spend my last hours on this Earth depriving myself of something that I so dearly want.”
“You don’t know me,” he protested.
“I’m twenty-eight years old. I’ve had three lovers in my life, and I can tell you unequivocally that I have never known one of them as well as I know you
. All three times I thought I was in love, but the emotions you’ve pulled out of me make my feelings for them mere shadows.”
“Eden,” he sighed.
“Truth.”
“I choose dare.”
“That choice wasn’t on the table,” she admonished as she wrapped her arms around his chest and stared up at him. “Truth.”
“All right. Truth.”
“I’m not asking for love. That would be nuts. But a connection? Do you feel it?”
His hand came up and tucked her hair behind her ear. “How could I not?” He leaned forward and brushed his nose against hers.
Was she standing? Or was she now a puddle on the floor?
Maybe it was love.
“Do you want to know what I want?”
“Truth?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“Absolutely, truth.”
“What?” she whispered.
“I want to hold you in my arms while you tell me all about Montana. I want to picture you growing up on a ranch with your daddy and mom and brothers and sisters. I want to hear what it was like being the youngest York girl.”
All the time he was saying those seductive words he was guiding her back to their little nest of tablecloths. Soon they were settled down and she was safely tucked in beside him, her head resting against his chest, his arms around her.
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything. Anything.”
Eden didn’t just tell him about her family, she painted pictures in his mind. He could see what her childhood was like on the Montana ranch. The York men were big and gruff, starting with her grandfather down to her brothers, but the biggest influence was her father. The town sheriff. She explained how most ranchers had to have a second job to keep a ranch afloat in Montana, but for her dad, serving the people was a calling. He believed in justice and helping the people of his community.
If Richard York was the solid rock foundation of the family, then Heidi York was the soft landing for her husband and children. But while she always provided the comfort and good cooking that her family needed, she never shirked her duty as a rancher’s wife, and Eden explained there wasn’t a chance in hell that the family business could have thrived like it did without her sure hand at the tiller.
Then there was the ranch itself—eight thousand acres of cattle, with a little less than two thousand head of cattle. There was the cherry orchard that had been planted by her great-great-grandfather and was definitely Heidi’s domain. The family revolved around the ranch, and it gave them a sense of pride, instilled ethics and honor, and taught them the value of hard work and teamwork. It was a good way to raise a family.
“Don’t get me wrong, there were lean years, and we wouldn’t have survived without Daddy’s salary as sheriff. Hard winters where calves died, or strong winds that damaged the cherry trees. But we learned not to whine and just make the most of what we did have.”
“Did that make it tough at school?”
“You mean because I was wearing hand-me-downs of hand-me-downs? Nah, everybody knew not to mess with me, because my brothers would take exception.”
Asher raised his eyebrow. He wasn’t stupid—he’d had a girlfriend in high school—he knew how vicious the girls could be, all without lifting a finger.
“Fine, it wasn’t always fun, and there were mean girls,” Eden admitted. “Plus, I was considered teacher’s pet, because I was smart. But my brothers and sisters were my best friends…finally. Lori and Jennifer were eight and ten years older than me, and they were always great big sisters because they had done all the shitty sister stuff to one another. By the time I showed up, they were just supportive and nice. Bobby had grown out of his asshole-brother stage by then.”
“But you didn’t tell me about school,” Asher prompted.
Eden pushed against his chest so she could look into his eyes.
“But I did,” she protested. “School was just a jumping-off point for college. What mattered was my family and the ranch. Yeah, I made some friends, had some dates, but anything that was negative mostly rolled off my back. Hell, by the time I was a freshman in high school, Pete had come back home with part of his leg missing. How could I ever think that some mean girl bullshit was important after that?”
Asher couldn’t help himself. He hugged her close. “You amaze me.”
“There’s nothing amazing about me. Now, my family, my parents. They are the amazing ones.”
Behind her back, he looked at his watch. They still had a half-hour before check-in time. Asher bent in for a kiss, but she shoved at his chest.
“Uh-uh. Now it’s your turn.”
He rolled his eyes heavenward. “I told you about Xavier. My mom is different than yours. You hit yours with anything, don’t you?”
“Definitely,” Eden grinned.
“Maman has been hit hard by life, losing her husband when her boys were, ten, twelve and fourteen and she was trying to hold down a job in a foreign country. But she managed.”
“I don’t know, that sounds a lot like what my mom would do.”
“But the woman she was, shut down. We didn’t have her for a couple of years. Don’t get me wrong, she functioned brilliantly. Never once did she start leaning on us, she was always Maman. But her heart was missing. Not mean or anything, but not the woman we had grown up with. But when Xavier left for the Army, she snapped out of it. It was like she realized that she wasn’t experiencing her time with her sons. I feel bad that for the last four years he was home he missed out on her spark.”
The entire time he’d been speaking, Eden had been drawing circles on top of his t-shirt, providing him comfort. His lioness cared.
“And Law?”
“God, I’m worried about him. He’s so angry. He doesn’t talk.”
“Like you?” she asked softly. There was no hint of a smirk, which he would have expected. Then he realized of course she wouldn’t. Underneath the hard smart-ass exterior was a soft, compassionate creamy center.
“No. I’ve talked to some of my teammates, and I’ve done a lot of reading on the subject so I could wrap my head around why he did what he did. I also talked to one of my old psych professors from college to get some perspective.”
“But have you really made peace with it?” she asked.
“No, and I never will. But do I forgive him? Do I love him? Am I not angry anymore? Yes, to all three.”
“Peace is hard to come by. What would get you there, do you think?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t know. But not being angry, that was big.”
“How is your mom handling it?”
Shit. She had to ask that, didn’t she?
“She doesn’t know. I lied to her. She lives in Belgium now, I didn’t see any reason with burdening her with the fact that Xave killed himself. She’s had enough in her life without knowing that.”
Eden’s arms clasped him tighter and she kissed the middle of his chest.
“You don’t have anything to say about that?” he asked.
“Sweets, you know your mother better than anyone. You know what’s best for her.” He loved her confidence in him.
“Tell me about your brother Law.”
“When we get done with this mission, I’m taking some leave and going and kicking his ass.”
She looked up at him again. “Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
“I’m pretty confident in my team getting us out of here. We’re getting out of here, no sweat. But kicking Law’s ass? We’re kind of evenly matched, we both might end up in tatters.”
“So, why are you kicking your brother’s ass?”
“He is not dealing. He’s angry as hell, and he can’t get over it. He can’t even get to the sad part. He’s torn up inside. I want him to see someone. Anyone.”
He looked at his watch. It was time to check in.
“Showtime, Eden. Are you ready?”
She took a deep breath. “Always.” She untangled herself from Ashe
r and got up. “Need help?” she asked as she held out a hand.
“I think I’ve got this,” he smiled.
Chapter 15
“Ash, it’s Max.”
Asher braced. It was coming down to the end if Max was coordinating everything. “Okay, what’s the deal? What do I need to do?”
“How much power do you have left on your phone?”
Asher looked down and did a quick calc. “About an hour and ten.”
“Okay, put it on low battery.”
“Uhm.”
“Scratch that, stupid suggestion, it’s already on low battery.”
“Yep, whenever I call out and can get a signal, it’s been on low battery,” Asher said.
“We’re estimating that the Venezuelans will be done digging at the back of the vault in another hour. Ezio is thinking he’ll be at the vault door in less than fifteen minutes.”
“Ezio? What about the rest?”
“He’s a crazy rock climber and caver on his off-time. He’s making great headway getting to you. He’s leaving Raiden and Nic in his dust. Literally.” Max muttered the last word.
“And Suzanne? Did she wake up?” Eden asked.
“Yes, Ms. York, she has. The adrenaline caused no adverse effects. She was able to talk to Rafa and explain what needed to be done to open the vault from the outside.”
Asher felt like a thousand-pound weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Talk about close timing.
“Ezio will call you as soon as he gets to the vault door. In the meantime, keep the phone on.”
“What about the rest of the people? Becker and Carlson? Do you have them locked up?” Eden demanded to know.
“They’re not going anywhere at the moment. We’re not taking off on the plane to Puerto Rico until you’re rescued.”
“That wasn’t my question,” she bit out. “I want to know if you have those assholes locked up. They’re evil. Especially Becker.”
“That’s not our job. That’s for a court to decide.”
“But—”
“Ms. York, that’s how it is.”
Asher could see the steam coming out of her ears. He squeezed her shoulder, but she shook it off and glared at him.
Her Chosen Protector: Navy SEAL Romance (Night Storm Book 3) Page 15