Love's Second Chance

by M. L. Buchman

  That was actually a hell of a good question. What he’d seen in the file back at Fort Bragg, intel and his commanders had certainly seen as well. His hometown—giving him the best knowledge on the ground. His family—he’d told the stories to the psychologists during induction testing into Delta. That had to be in his files. It didn’t take a genius to connect Alvarado and his own family. His family had worked as Miguel’s guns until they were picked off one by one. He’d probably have been in the family trade and dead by now too, if not for Alejandra threatening to shoot his balls off. Just him left now.

  There was only one thing he’d never told the psychs about, one piece that had remained for him alone.

  He opened his eyes and looked at her.

  “Because, I’m the best bastard for the job.”

  Chapter Five

  The best bastard she’d ever known.

  And now he was going to be a dead bastard if she ever got her hands back on him.

  Tonight’s plan had sounded so simple as they’d hashed it out. No unconsidered twists and turns. Whatever training Hector had gotten in the US, Alejandra saw it shine out of him. He brought up scenarios and variables like it was fact, not guesswork. His easy confidence had made it comfortable to believe and trust him despite his five-year absence.

  She tugged against the heavy ropes tied around her wrists, but all it did was abrade her already sore wrists. His plan had been great—right up to the moment she’d stepped off plan and everything had gone to hell.

  “I was not supposed to end up in Miguel Alvarado’s bed, Hector. That was supposed to be a goddamn joke.” But she had. The bedroom in Alvarado’s hacienda was lush. Dark wallpaper, leather and mahogany furniture, a massive California king bed with satin sheets…and a tie-down ring at each corner.

  She still had her clothes on, but it was a good bet that wasn’t going to last.

  Hector had been careful not to say anything about his life in America, but she’d listened to what he hadn’t said. No mention of wife or kids. No mention of anything except “work”. That’s all he called it: work. Not like it took magic powers to figure out what that meant.

  The US didn’t send Border Patrol hombres south of the line. They were tough bastards, but they were strictly by-the-book types. The US military didn’t invade friendly countries. He’d shrugged off Miguel Alvarado’s drug trafficking the way no DEA agent would and she suspected that if Hector was CIA, he’d feel creepier.

  He didn’t. Hector cut a solid, steady hole in the world gone to shit.

  US Special Operations Forces. Green Beret, Ranger…one of those types. Except they’d sent him in on his own. A true specialist. Now she knew how he shot the way he had. Delta Force. No one else operated alone, could do what he did, and made it look so goddamn easy.

  He hadn’t just gotten out…he’d gotten way out and done good besides.

  Alejandra fought back the burning in her eyes. For some brief fantasy moment, she’d thought there might suddenly be a way out for her as well.

  She tugged at the rope, knowing it was futile.

  Today had also offered a lousy as shit lesson about revenge.

  Hector had gone for some supplies he’d stashed out of town—and she’d gone for Marina. If she’d laid low, like he’d said, she wouldn’t be here.

  Instead, slamming open her sister’s door without knocking, Alejandra had found her with a man, of course. Except this one had Marina gagged and was holding a gun on her. The wide terror of her sister’s eyes had made Alejandra hesitate for the wrong second.

  Someone grabbed her from behind, and before she could fight him off, Marina’s captor had simply cocked the hammer of his pistol and put the barrel against Marina’s temple. Then he’d smiled at Alejandra.

  Hector had told her what Miguel Alvarado was now into, cross-border human trafficking for the sex trade. She wasn’t a damn bit pleased that she and her sister were getting to see that first hand.

  The two of them had been herded into an underground holding area with two dozen others. By the light of the lone dim bulb, Alejandra could see enough of their coloring and features to tell that most were Guatemalan or Oaxacan—at least half were underage. Refugees no one would ever miss except for the families back home waiting for news that would never come. In the stuffy, crowded cell, Marina had told her that the man who had captured them had been a pissed off ex-lover, one of Alvarado’s men, who she’d dumped for being too rough.

  They were the only locals waiting to be shipped off.

  “My timing seriously sucks,” Alejandra looked once more at her reflection in the mirrored ceiling above the bed. Miguel Alvarado was a kinky bastard.

  He’d come to survey his “cargo” earlier. He’d merely grunted when he spotted Marina. But when he’d seen Alejandra, his smile had gone evil. That was how she’d ended up tied to his bed.

  So much for hope.

  Now it was just a question of how awful the ending was going to be.

  Any time in the last five years, death wasn’t that unexpected. She’d known her life expectancy in Mexico stank.

  But for one brief afternoon, there’d been hope. The loss of that was now doubly devastating.

  Chapter Six

  It had taken Hector six hours through the sweltering afternoon and until well past sunset to track Alejandra. He’d lost ten years off his life when someone had finally dared to tell him that she and her sister had been taken away—bound. That had cost him half the time, finding that first step.

  No other Delta Force assets in the area, nor any that could be in place fast enough.

  He got on the radio with the intel boys, but this wasn’t America—security cameras didn’t hover above every street corner. However, they had been tracking a pending shipment of women. The challenge was not only to rescue the shipment, but to nail Miguel Alvarado red-handed.

  Hector’s plan had been to screw up the night’s logistics badly enough to force Miguel to take a personal and very visible hand. He was too well connected to turn him over to the Mexican authorities, but once across the border, there were other ways to deal with him. They needed him alive, at least long enough to reveal his whole network.

  But now Alejandra was gone and the paths had all led here—the massive hacienda several miles out of town. He’d dumped his beater vehicle in a handy arroyo and run the last few miles overland. The adobe wall around the massive compound was topped with glass shard and razor wire. Miguel had always been a rich bastard, but clearly he’d reached new depths that he’d needed to turn his home into a fortress.

  Hector slid into the compound, only having to leave two guards down for the count. No dogs, which was a mistake, though there were ways of dealing with them. Just made his job easier. Miguel used to keep pit bulls, until they’d mauled one of his sons.

  Hard floodlights blinded guards and cast hard shadows.

  The security cameras within Miguel’s compound weren’t well placed—there were plenty of blank spots where they could be avoided. But they acted as excellent signposts guiding him on which way to go—the more cameras, the more important the area was to Miguel.

  Inside the garage, Hector found a trio of hot sports cars (all red)—including a Ferrari that looked like it would be an awesome ride. Further in were a half dozen heavy pickups and SUVs appropriate for transporting a personal militia, and a battered American school bus.

  Even as he watched, he saw a line of women and children being led up to it from some underground cellar, but not onto it. Instead, hatches in the yellow sides were opened up and the women were made to crawl inside.

  Everyone knew that school buses weren’t set up to carry luggage underneath like a Greyhound. To any but the most careful inspection, it would appear empty except for the driver who was bound to have some “legitimate” excuse for crossing the border.

  They loaded the right side first. Just before she crawled into the rearmost compartment, he recognized Marina Martinez. The years had been far less kind to her tha
n they had to her sister. There was still a beauty there, but now it looked hard and strained. She also looked terrified. He didn’t recognize anyone else.

  When the guards finished and moved around to load the other side, he slipped up and unlocked the rear hatch.

  “Where’s Alejandra?”

  “Hector?”

  He clasped a hand over her mouth to silence her, then repeated his question.

  “Miguel took her,” she whispered carefully. “You have to save us. You must—”

  “Shh. Too many guards here. I’ll come for you later.” Before she could protest, he lowered the hatch and relocked it.

  And there wasn’t time to stop the shipment—he had another priority now.

  A quick drop-and-roll beneath a black Chevy Suburban was all that saved him from discovery.

  He had the beginnings of an idea and began putting it in place as he slipped deeper into the shadows.

  Chapter Seven

  Miguel seemed disappointed that she wouldn’t scream. His hard slaps only served to piss her off and make her jaw hurt. Fine, as long as he didn’t break it—so that she could chew off his face if she got the chance.

  He made all sorts of threats and boasts—most having to do with fucking her to death just to teach her a lesson. Apparently rejecting his now-dead son, as well as his job offer to be a shooter for Miguel’s illegal operations had really pissed him off. It was hard to tell which had made him angrier.

  Too smart to risk freeing her hands or ankles, Miguel used a steak knife to slice away her clothes.

  “First me. Then the knife,” he wielded it down near her waist. “Don’t worry, Alejandra. It will be fast. I have other business to see to tonight as well.”

  He stripped and knelt above her. Alejandra braced herself for the worst. She wasn’t going to cry or beg, not for Miguel’s benefit. There had to be more horrid ways to die, she just couldn’t think of what they were. She wouldn’t cry for him, but inside, where her heart ached, she would cry for what she and Hector might have had.

  She closed her eyes as his hot breath landed between her breasts.

  “First, I’m going to—” then he squeaked.

  Alejandra opened her eyes and couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing.

  Miguel’s eyes were wide with shock.

  In the mirror above the bed, she had a bird’s eye view of the baddest, angriest warrior she’d ever seen.

  She’d thought Hector had looked heavily armed and badass this afternoon. Now he was something else. A pair of night-vision goggles had been pulled up onto his forehead. He wore a vest that hung with two pistols, dozens of magazines of ammo for both pistols and rifles, as well as grenades and flashbangs. His puppy-dog eyes now belonged to a full-grown Doberman—a really pissed one.

  And she couldn’t see his rifle, not all of it anyway. The muzzle appeared to be jammed well into Miguel’s ass. The angle was such that if Hector fired, the round would miss her, traveling up through Miguel’s body and out the top of his head. She might get splattered with his brains.

  She was fine with that.

  “Lose the knife.”

  She thought she knew all the moods of Hector Garcia, but she’d never seen him so angry, so focused in her entire life.

  Apparently, neither had Miguel. The blade clattered to the floor.

  “Sideways, slowly, until you’re lying facedown on the bed. You so much as brush against Alejandra and you’re a dead man.”

  Miguel edged carefully away. The rifle moved with him.

  “You okay, Alej?”

  Ah-lay. A name she hadn’t heard in far too long. She couldn’t say all of the things that welled up inside her, didn’t dare let them out in the world yet. Digging deep, she found something else. “Could do without the goddamn ropes.”

  Keeping his rifle shoved someplace dark and nasty, he pulled out a big military knife and slashed her bonds.

  Her clothes were in tatters. She went and found some others stashed in a dresser: women’s, a wide variety, some close enough to her size. Bastard.

  She came back and picked up the knife Miguel had dropped to the floor and shifted around until he could see her holding it close by his nose.

  “How would you like to fuck a knife, Miguel? Be glad to hold it for you. I’ll put you down just like I did your rabid dog of a son.”

  Chapter Eight

  “I need information first,” Hector had to slow her down. Not that he could blame her. He felt the same way.

  To find Alejandra after all these years and then to come so close to losing her again made him sick. What Miguel had planned for her…the fury rose in a wave that threatened to choke him.

  But the 75th Rangers had taught him how to rechannel fury, saving it to focus on the battle moment. Then Delta had taught him how to turn hot fury into cold, until it was a finely-honed weapon.

  It didn’t take long to get Miguel to spill everything: hierarchy, contacts, combinations to safes, and passwords to his computer. He’d tossed Alejandra a recorder and she’d held it close to his mouth to make sure they didn’t miss a thing. How she didn’t rip his face off in the process was one of the most impressive displays of restraint he’d ever seen.

  Before he let Miguel get dressed, he yanked his rifle free, and shoved a small breaching charge for blowing open locked doors up the guy’s ass.

  “See this?” he held the remote up close for Miguel to see. “One press of the button and you explode from the inside out. We clear?”

  Miguel nodded hurriedly.

  Hector tossed the control to Alejandra who caught it one-handed, then looked at him thoughtfully but didn’t say anything.

  On their way back to the garage, the three of them walked as if everything was okay, Miguel imperiously waving guards aside. They made a few stops along the way. A small knapsack was soon filled with the contents of Miguel’s safe, though Hector didn’t bother with the cash. Instead he left an incendiary for whoever opened it next. They picked up Miguel’s laptop and smartphone along the way, dropping them into foil bags to avoid anyone tracking them.

  In the garage, the bus and most of the SUVs were gone.

  “Tell me you have a plan, Hector,” Alejandra had picked up several weapons along the way until she was almost as heavily armed as he was. It looked damned good on her. “My sister’s out there somewhere.”

  Hector loaded Miguel and his files into the trunk of the Ferrari—thankfully he wasn’t a big man. Then Hector hit him with enough morphine from his Delta med kit to keep a horse down for a day.

  He and Alejandra slid down into the soft, black leather of the bucket seats.

  Yes, he had a plan. But he had a mission to finish first.

  Chapter Nine

  From the start, Alejandra decided that she was really glad that she was on the same side as Hector. He definitely put the bad in badass. And then he kept getting better.

  In the Ferrari—which was one of the coolest rides she’d ever had (it grabbed low and yanked her ahead like a sexual shot)—they’d caught up to the bus and the escorting SUVs close to the border station.

  Hector had simply waved a hand out the window as they passed, for the SUVs to keep following the bus. He’d slipped in ahead of them all just at the border.

  Whatever ID he showed the border guard had certainly gotten his attention. After a few whispered instructions, the guard let the Ferrari and the school bus roll through.

  Hector stopped the car before the bus was fully out of the border crossing control lane, trapping it there.

  The SUVs had hung back at the last moment, truckloads of armed guards didn’t just roll through border crossings.

  Hector pulled out a remote control just like the one he’d tossed to her earlier. He had trusted her—trusted her to not kill Miguel unless they needed to, and to do it in an instant if it became necessary. He’d been right on both counts. No one had ever known her as well as he did.

  “I didn’t want to risk getting them mixed up,” th
en he flipped up the cover on the activation switch of the one he held, offered her an evil grin, and pressed down on it with his thumb.

  The three SUVs still on the other side of the border thumped hard, brilliant light shining out all of their windows. Remote control flashbangs.

  In moments, the Mexican border patrol, rifles raised, had everyone out of the vehicles and lying on the asphalt, along with a big enough stack of weapons to make sure they spent a long time in prison.

  The next moment, their own vehicle and the bus were surrounded by the US Border Patrol.

  INS agents gathered up all of the women and children. A very small team in an unmarked black SUV emptied the still-unconscious Miguel and his files out of the Ferrari’s trunk. Their eyes had gone a little wide when she handed over the remote trigger on the breaching charge, and told them exactly where it could be found. Then they were gone.

  She and Hector turned to watch as the INS began reassuring the frightened women and children. One was handing out blankets, another with water bottles, and even a few stuffed animals for the youngest to cling to.

  “Should I give your sister a contact number? Though I’m not sure if someone that sexy should be allowed into the US.”

  “You are a bastard, Hector. I’m the one you’re supposed to be calling sexy.” But it was hard to put any real heat behind it with the way he was smiling down at her.

  Then she thought about it.

  Hector was offering to give a contact number to Marina. It would be his contact number, to call if Marina wanted to reach Alejandra. That meant that whatever happened next, she herself would be with Hector. Discovering that the tiny shred of hope that had nearly died during the evening wasn’t so tiny after all just blew her away. That was way better than being called sexy.

  “Sure,” Alejandra managed after a deep breath to make sure her voice was steady. “She is my sister after all.”