by Amy Jarecki
“Us? We?”
“Kids came and went. We didn’t talk much—talking wasn’t allowed and keeping your mouth shut was the only way to avoid the whip.”
Luke slowly ran his fingers through his hair, his jaw hard. “How were you kidnapped?”
“My family took a vacation to Mexico. I don’t remember where, exactly. There was a beach and a market.”
“That could be about anywhere.”
“Unfortunately, I know. Every time I leave the hacienda, I look for the fountain. It didn’t have any water, but it was up on a platform and painted white—chipped paint. That’s where they grabbed me.”
“Your parents left you alone?”
She shook her head. “Dad and my brother were on the beach—not too far away. I went to the market with Mom. When I got bored, I climbed up on the fountain and walked around the edge, pretending I was on a tightrope. I could see the stall where Mom was shopping. I can still see the vibrant colors—turquoise, orange, yellow.” Mia’s voice trailed off with her memory.
“Could you see your mom?”
“She’d moved deeper inside the shop when the man put his hand around my mouth and pulled me into a white van.” Mia clutched at her throat. “I tried to scream, but another man held up a big knife and told me he would cut my throat if I made any noise.”
“You must have been scared out of your mind.”
“Terrified.” She shuddered. “It scares me to think about it even now.”
“I’ll bet your family was devastated.”
Shaking her head, Mia’s stomach sank. “I don’t know if they were or not. No one ever came to rescue me, no matter how much I prayed. And six years later I became El Padrino’s pet.”
“Pet? That sick, twisted, monster.”
“Yeah. After what I’d been through, at first I thought I was in heaven.”
“But paradise didn’t last.”
“No.” A shiver snaked up her spine. “The first time he used the crown of pain. You know he studied how to inflict excruciating with electricity. The victim feels the pain, yet there is no latent effect. It’s sadistic.”
“Christ. I can’t imagine what your life has been like, but you have my word I will do everything in my power to find your family, Michelle.”
At the sound of her real name, a cry caught in the back of her throat. Tears welled in her eyes as she covered her mouth.
Luke gently brushed the hair away from her face. “Michelle is a beautiful name—it reminds me of the angel you are. But we are on a secret mission, and we use aliases to keep our identities hidden. So, until I get you out of here, I’ll still call you Mia. Okay?”
“Yes.” It was the only name she’d used in fifteen years. If someone called her Michelle, she might not even realize they were referring to her. But she had another question. “Lucas Lewis isn’t your real name?”
“My parents named me Lucas, but everyone calls me Luke. Lewis, well, you’ve figured it out.”
She waited, but he didn’t tell her his real last name. After he’d found the tracking device, it didn’t surprise her. His silence served as an unspoken warning. It told her she’d lost his trust, at least some of it. Scraping her teeth along her bottom lip, she vowed to earn it back.
How could I have been so stupid?
Chapter Twenty-Two
Luke figured they probably had twenty-four hours before they needed to make a move. He was wrong.
After Mia fell asleep in his arms, he dozed, leaning against the headboard. Yeah, he was tired and really ought to pull out the hide-a-bed in the next room, but he had a lot to think about. No matter how innocent the girl in his arms looked, he’d been utterly gobsmacked to find that damned GPS unit. Sure, she didn’t understand why he needed to get her out of the hacienda while he left the others behind, but he’d been right. They all had family around Guadalupe y Calvo. It was dark. He could bet every single one of them made it out of there as long as they knew how to be quiet and keep their heads down. Besides, Luke wasn’t on assignment to be a Good Samaritan. His job was to put an end to Morales’ reign of terror, full stop. In the past fortnight, Mia had provided as much if not more intel than he’d collected in months. He needed to keep her safe, and he could damned well guess she didn’t have anyone to run to.
His head had lolled to the side when he heard footsteps in the corridor. Not civilian footsteps plodding along aimlessly, but carefully placed steps meant to make little sound. Luke’s skin prickled like it did when he was about to spring into action.
With his next breath, the footsteps stopped.
Luke sprang into action, rolling with Mia onto the floor. As the door burst open, she bucked beneath him, squealing. He snatched a glass from the bedside table as he whispered in her ear, “Stay down. Understand?”
She froze, nodding her head once.
The floor squeaked in the adjoining room.
At a crouch on his knees, Luke peered over the bed. The muzzle of a rifle inched into view. The roar of his breath rushed in his ears. His heart hammered. The perspiration on his fingers made the glass slip a fraction. He tightened his grip and waited.
He had one chance.
He couldn’t blow it.
The gunman’s hand came into view.
Luke’s arm tensed, ready.
A little further.
With his next blink, he caught a glimpse of the gunman’s face, straightened and hurled the glass, hitting the shooter in the center of his forehead. Stunned, the man tottered then fell to his back.
“Shit!” another voice cursed.
While the muzzle of number two’s rifle jutted around the corner, Luke dove onto Mia, covering her with his body. The rifle erupted in repeating fire while fluff rained down around them. Squealing, she covered her head as the shooter started around the bed.
“Wait!” Luke yelled.
Silence rang in his ears. “You want the girl alive?” he asked.
“Si.”
“What?” Mia whispered, squirming.
“Trust me,” he whispered so quietly, he barely heard it himself. But he took the sudden quietening of her body for her assent.
In a bold move, he stood, pulling Mia with him and shielding her with his body. “This Sheila’s been nothing but a pain in the ass.”
“You are the pain,” she spat.
Keeping her at his rear, Luke assessed his opponent. Hard features, beady eyes, but he held his gun too low. Any trained soldier in a combat situation would keep the rifle secured against his shoulder. The problem? Bullets still killed whether they were fired by a punk or an expert.
Luke took a step nearer, far enough to clear the end of the bed.
“That’s far enough,” said the goon, his trigger finger twitching. “Hand her over.”
“No worries, mate.” He cracked a smile, watching the man’s trigger finger in his peripheral vision. “Come now, girly. Time to go back to your master.”
Mia said nothing as she allowed him to lead her toward the shooter.
As soon as the punk’s eyes shifted, the gun lowered a bit more. As he released a hand to grab Mia’s arm, Luke pounced.
The gun fired, ripping a line of bullet holes through the wall as he twisted it from the man’s grip. The thug came around with a left hook. Luke bobbed and weaved under the strike, landing an uppercut to the jaw. The shooter lost his balance with the force of the punch, exposing his temple.
That’s all the invitation I need.
Gritting his teeth, Luke slammed the rifle’s butt into the man’s head, dropping him with the single blow.
“We’re leaving now,” he said as he pulled a clip of ammo from the punk’s belt. “Stay close behind me.”
Mia stepped over the gunman’s legs. “D-do you think there are more?”
“Never assume there’re not.”
He checked the hallway before leading her down the fire stairs and out the hotel’s rear door. He scanned the cars in the lot and saw no one—no idling engine—nothing
suspicious.
The faint sound of sirens screeched in the distance.
“Keep your head down and make a beeline for the car!”
***
Luke took it slow driving out of town. He was pretty sure the two thugs he left back at the hotel were still alive, but if he was caught, there was every chance he’d end up in an American jail while Garth worked a mountain of red tape to get him out and that couldn’t happen.
“Go faster!” Mia whipped around, looking out the rear window.
“We’re more likely to be pulled over if I do.”
She plopped down in her seat. “I thought you were going to hand me over.”
“I told you to trust me, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, but—” She swiped a hand across her mouth, her eyebrows drawing together.
“But what?”
“After I…you know. I thought you wanted to be rid of me.”
“I can’t say I wasn’t aggro. In fact, I could have turned you over my knee and given you a good hiding.”
She chuckled—a nervous chuckle. “You’d do that?”
“I didn’t, did I?”
“No.”
“But I thought about it.”
She chuckled again. This time, more readily.
“What?” he asked.
“I like that you care.”
“Because I wanted to spank you?”
“No. Because you wanted to and didn’t.”
“You’re bonkers.”
“Maybe I am.” When they passed the turnoff for the airport, she shifted in her seat and pointed to the exit. “Aren’t we going to get the plane?”
“Two reasons we’re not. First, it needs jet fuel to get off the ground. And second, it has been quarantined, and I can swear on a stack of Bibles we’d be detained for the little shootout we were just a party to.”
“Oh.” She sat staring out the windscreen for a moment. “Then where are we headed?”
Luke tapped the GPS displaying on his phone. “Colorado, I reckon. But I need to call the boss first.”
He drove for about an hour before he rang the CO.
“Talk to me.” Garth picked up on the first ring.
“Got you on speaker, boss. We ran into a bit of trouble at the hotel in Las Cruces.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Padrino’s goons. Had to make a run for it.”
“How the hell did they get to you so fast? I thought you said the hacienda was under attack.”
“He has people everywhere.” Luke looked over at Mia. She had her seat reclined and her eyes closed, but he didn’t think for a minute she was sleeping. “Hold on, I need to pull over.”
“Where are you?”
“Heading north on Interstate Twenty-Five.” Luke took the exit, stopped the car and muted the phone. “Stay here.”
He didn’t wait for her to respond, he pulled out the keys and walked far enough away not to be heard. Yeah, it might be the dumbest move of his career, but if he didn’t come clean, Garth would see right through him. He told the whole story about Mia’s abduction, the crown of pain, and topped it off with how he’d caught her with El Padrino’s tracking device. “She was terrified. On top of that, she thought she couldn’t trust me because I left the hacienda without saving everybody’s bum.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“She didn’t know the device was in El Padrino’s packet. It was a lack of judgement, sir. She’s been brainwashed, I’ll admit, coerced into believing she can’t go anyplace in the world where Vincent Morales won’t find her.”
“God damn, if she hadn’t provided so much intel for the bank accounts, I’d tell you to put her on a slow boat to Antarctica.”
Luke winced. “I don’t think we need to do that, sir. But we do need to put her somewhere she won’t be found.”
“How about her family? Have you located them?”
“I haven’t had time, but that’s the first place Morales would look.” He swiped a hand across his mouth. “There’s only one place on the planet she’ll be safe.”
“Ayers Rock?”
“ICE.”
“Are you fucking nuts?” Garth bellowed. “What about a highly secretive clandestine organization do you not understand?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense. You said yourself she’s provided top shelf intel. Most of her life she’s been living with the most sought-after drug lord of our time. She’s young. She made a mistake.”
“She made a major fuck-up.”
“I’m not saying she doesn’t need to be watched, but she’s smart—an incredibly fast learner. And she’s our greatest conduit to the heart of the Morales Cartel.”
“Fox, you’re insane.”
“Maybe, but you want to bring Morales down, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So do I. So does she. And when he’s behind bars, she might even be able to breathe.”
“I’m still not convinced.”
“All right. What do you suggest? I’ve got no other place to take her. No place where she won’t be looking over her shoulder at every step.” Luke stopped and paced while silence filled his ear. “Garth?”
“I must be out of my mind.”
Luke let out a breath he felt like he’d been holding for an hour. “Thank you, sir.”
“But you’re responsible for her. She puts one strand of hair out of place and I’ll come down on her like a swatter on a fly.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m routing a transport to Tinian airfield—it’s nothing more than an abandoned dirt strip, north of Albuquerque. Latitude 35.838, Longitude 107.335.”
“Roger that. Over.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The leather airplane chair reclined into a bed and as soon as the Lear Jet took off, Mia dropped into sleep. Thirty-five thousand feet in the air with Luke beside her, she allowed herself to let go of her fear—at least for a little while.
She awoke to dim cabin lights. Out the window, the sky was an eerie midnight blue with overtones of cobalt, as if the sun were soon to arise.
Michelle Bradford. The name played on her lips though she didn’t speak it aloud. It had been years since she dared to remember. Who was Michelle Bradford? One of the many forgotten children who disappeared every year? What would life be like if she hadn’t been kidnapped and sold? Where were her parents now? How long had they searched for her? Did they still miss her? Hollowness stretched inside her chest, so painful it felt like the cavern had been carved by a knife.
And now there she was on a flight north. All Luke would tell her was they were heading somewhere safe. Somewhere near the Arctic Circle. She rubbed her outer arms. What was snow like?
Luke took in a deep breath and released it with a guttural sigh. Mia pushed up with her elbow and checked to see if he’d awakened. No. His eyes were shaded by lids, fringed with dark-blond lashes. Every woman in the world would be jealous of such thick eyelashes. She smiled, holding in a giggle. He looked so peaceful—almost angelic. Is he my guardian angel?
If Luke resembled any sort of heavenly deity, it would be an archangel of war. In fact, watching him take down the two men at the hotel confirmed it. With his hands he could be more brutal than El Padrino. If Luke and The Godfather were in a fighting ring together, Mia knew who’d win. But her master used coercion, weapons and torture to make others suffer. Luke could kill a man with his hands—with one lightning-fast strike. No, she hadn’t seen it, but she’d observed his workouts and he was the real deal. Mia had never met anyone as lethal.
But he acted with self-discipline and restraint. From the deadly look on his face when he’d caught her on the phone, he’d wanted to hit her or worse. But he didn’t. His jaw had twitched as he questioned her—the only sign of anger aside from the wildfire in his eyes. Still, he hadn’t lifted a finger against her. He hadn’t tried to control her or punish her in any way. Though his obvious disappointment cut her to the quick—lowered her into the abyss of wretchedne
ss.
Mia needed to remember that, deep down, Luke had a heart. He is a hero. How could I have doubted him?
Could he really keep her safe from El Padrino? No one else had in the nine years she’d lived under his roof. Pure fear and years of brainwashing to train her to behave as a loyal servant had driven her to think her situation was hopeless.
The myriad of thoughts twisting through her mind was like a battle of wills inside her. But as she drew in a breath, she cemented her decision. The right side would win. The valiant side. She vowed to do the right thing. El Padrino might hunt her down and kill her. The torture might be slow and agonizing, but she would live her days as his pet no longer.
She shivered with her next breath.
“Mm,” Luke moaned and shifted his shoulders. His hand wandered over and grasped hers as he shifted his seatback up a bit. “G’day,” he said in his swaggering Aussie accent.
She smiled with a flutter in her stomach. Such a simple gesture, but his touch made her feel as if she mattered. “I think it will be daylight soon.”
He glanced at his watch, then rolled to her seat and gave her a peck on the cheek. “How’re you feeling?” he asked, his face inches away. How a man could look sexy the moment he awoke amazed her. But he didn’t try to kiss her lips. Aside from the kiss on the cheek, he seemed a little distant as if he were saying they could only be friends now.
I can’t blame him.
“Numb.” She was. And confused and afraid and worried.
“Are you scared?”
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t.”
He brushed her cheek with the tip of his pointer finger. “I know traveling to the unknown is harrowing, but rest assured I’m taking you to the safest place on the planet.”
“A cold place.”
“Cold outside.”
“Tell me about it. Is there snow?”
“Yes, you’ll see snow.”
“Even in August?”
“There are places where the snow doesn’t melt like mountaintops. But you’ll learn more when we arrive.”
Almost as if on cue, the plane began its descent. The captain announced they’d land in ten minutes and by the time Mia used the restroom and freshened up, they were instructed to fasten their seatbelts.