Noah shot one of the guards in the face, his hands coming up to protect it as he dropped his weapon. I watched as the other guard turned around and saw what had happened—and locked on Noah. There was no time to think as I dove on to him, bringing the large man down to the ground, where he thrashed and threw me off like a rag doll. I hit the wall hard, but it had given Noah the time he needed to take him out.
Noah bent down next to me as I held the back of my head. It was definitely hurting, and I knew it would get worse. He looked me up and down. “You okay? Pretty nasty bang there.” I nodded. “Holy shit, Ky, you’re bleeding.”
“I know.” I glanced at her shoulder. “Just a scrape. Barely touched me.”
“Can you get up?”
“Yeah.”
He reached out his hand and I took it. I groaned. Yep. It was all going to hurt tomorrow. “Thank you,” he said. “Guy almost killed me.”
“No problem. Back at you. Guy almost killed me, too.”
Standing up, we took inventory of the carnage. On the ground was a dead Domingo Rodriguez, killed by one of the many bullets exchanged during the gunfire. There were four dead bodyguards. I was sure many more were spread out across the Rodriguez estate. The Calvary had indeed arrived. Not soon enough as far as I was concerned. Not soon enough.
The pounding of feet running up the stairs signified that the the team along with several other CIA and DEA agents were on their way up. Noah threw his gun onto the bed and took off his T-shirt. He tossed it to me, my heart was still racing and the adrenaline pumping through me made me light headed. Then it hit me! I was clad only in a bra and a miniscule pair of panties. Cold snaked down through my body chilling me inside and out, not only from the lack of clothing, but more so from the thought of what Domingo Rodriguez could’ve done to me, and how close of a call it had really been.
Straightening the T-shirt out around me, I glanced at Noah. A bluish bruise streaked across one side of his face, blood splattered on his high cheekbones and slightly crooked nose. Tanned and toned, Noah Kensington was not hard to look at. But I hated that he looked at me the way he did at that moment—his eyes full of pity. Please. But we had saved each other’s lives and he’d given me the shirt off his back. Plus I was fucking alive. Thank God I was alive. And, thank God the T-shirt reached below my butt, so I didn’t feel quite so exposed as the room filled with agents, guns drawn.
I crossed my arms in front of me, heat rising to my cheeks. “Where the hell were you?”
Noah laid a hand on my uninjured shoulder. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault. When we lost contact I started to gear up the team, but I really thought we should hold off for a little bit. It was a fine line there of trusting you and then possibly losing this guy forever. Before the bug went out of range, we hadn’t picked up anything to signal that he was on to you. I thought we were losing the signal because of the location with the mountain range behind us.
“What? You thought, let’s wait it out and see if she makes it?” I pushed his hand off my shoulder. “Come on.”
“Of course not. You know your job. You know how to do it. I mean, hell you’re a highly trained PSI agent. I wasn’t getting any kind of read that you were in danger.” He cast his eyes away from me. “Last time we went in too early with a raid I thought you were going to have my goddamn head. I wasn’t exactly eager to piss you off again.”
Hands on my hips, I shook my head. “That was totally different. We were raiding a Chicago south side apartment for a prostitution ring, not going after the biggest drug king in all of Mexico. Let’s seriously think about this. Just think about the reasons you weren’t getting anything. Maybe it’s because your skills lie in reading the past, not present or future,” I replied.
“Told him that. He doesn’t exactly listen to me though,” Ayden Connors said, entering the room. “I told him that I could feel you were in grave danger.” Long and lanky, Ayden was opposite of Noah in so many ways. Ayden tried to hide a smile behind his hazel eyes. His dark hair fell in waves around his ears. “He actually finally started to listen to me when I described your heart rate and the fact that I knew you were tied up and had a scalpel in your panties. Good thinking, Kylie.” He shook his head. “New one on me, though. The panties. Genius.”
I closed my eyes for a second. If only I could have crawled under a rock at that moment. I sighed heavily and glanced at the other faces in the room as someone cleared their throat. Every one of them looked incredulous. The PSI was not the most highly respected group within the ranks of the CIA or among any of the other government agencies who on occasion called on their special skills. There were many who referred to the PSI team members as hoo-do voodoo assholes—and worse.
However, it was the PSI, and our team in particular, whose work led to this bust. And, it was huge. The repercussions of what had just taken place inside the villa outside the small Mexican town of Sayulita would be felt globally within the world of organized crime and on the streets of American cities throughout the U.S. PSI had taken down a major Mexican drug cartel leader, shutting down a killing machine and a multi-million dollar drug business.
“I think we should discuss this later,” Noah said.
“Good idea, like after I get some clothes on,” I replied.
“You need to have someone take a look at that shoulder, plus you have yourself a nice bruise on our face,” Noah said.
“I’m fine,” I replied, but I didn’t exactly feel it. My body was beginning to ache all over and the pounding in my head was a repetitive drone banging on the inside of my left temple. Noah started to say something else, but I held up her hand. “No. I said I’m fine.” He sighed and dropped it. “I’m out of here,” I said.
One of the DEA muscle men placed a massive palm in front of me as I started to leave Rodriguez’s bedroom. “Wait a minute. You can’t go anywhere. You’ve got to give a detailed report.”
I did my best to smile sweetly at him, but I’m sure I didn’t look too terribly sincere. “I suppose I do, don’t I?”
The agent nodded. “That’s procedure.”
“Right. Well, you know what you can do with your procedure today? Shove it up your ass. I’ll give you a report, but not until I’m ready. It’s been a rough day, if you know what I mean.” I winked at him. His jaw fell open and I slid on past him. Little did he know that my tough talk was only that. I wanted to get the hell out of there because I thought if I didn’t that I might shatter into a million pieces.
We headed back to the small, seedy hotel we’d all been holed up in for over a week, riding in silence for the fifteen-minute drive. When I got out of the car, my hands still shook, regardless of the hot humid air billowing around us. I shoved them into the pockets of the jeans I had in my bag once I’d gotten outside of the villa. The last thing I wanted Noah or Ayden to see was how scared I’d been and frankly how scared I still felt.
“Can we talk now?” Noah whispered in my ear, as he held the front door of the hotel open.
“No. Not now. All I want to do is take a hot shower, have a couple of shots of good Tequila, maybe a piece of fresh fish and go to bed. We can talk tomorrow.” I didn’t want to talk at all with Noah. I knew what he wanted to talk about, and that was what had happened the night before between us.
Ayden slid past them. “Great job, sweetheart. Sorry we were so late. And sorry you got banged up. You sure you don’t want someone to take a look at your war wounds there?” He patted Noah on the shoulder. Noah cringed under Ayden’s touch.
“I’m good,” I replied.
Before any of us could make it to the stairs, the tiny, ancient Mexican woman who ran the hotel and was being paid nicely for her help to the CIA came out of her room. “Ay, bueno,” she said. “Esta aqui. Tengo una mesage.” She handed a note to Noah.
He glanced at it and immediately pulled a cell phone from the pocket of his fatigues. Seconds later he was speaking to someone, and I had a good idea as to who it was. “Right. Yes, sir.” He flipped the phone shut an
d looked pointedly at me. “You know that date you had planned with a bottle of Patrón? Hate to tell you, but...”
I held up my hand. “I know. Cancel it. We’ve got another job to do.”
To find out more about Kylie Cain and the PSI adventures, check it out on Amazon at : http://amzn.com/B00G7S92IU
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-Six
A Killer Margarita (Nikki Sands'/Wine Lover's Mystery Series) Page 16