Shadow Guardian

by Rebecca Deel

  Jon looked at his partner. “Only because Shadow arrived in time to stop it. Look, Nico, there are too many players in this thing and we don’t know any of them aside from the Jeffries, and Hector and his boss. If the Scorpions get their hands on Mercy again…”

  “They won’t.” He wouldn’t let them take her again, and if giving his life to protect her prevented it, he’d do it without regret except for missing his chance at a life with her.

  Nico’s heart skipped a beat before starting again in a frantic, pounding rhythm. Couldn’t be. He swallowed hard. It wasn’t possible this fast. Was it? Unable to process the new revelation with the two SEALs watching him with growing concern, Nico turned toward the sink and dumped what was left of his coffee down the drain.

  He braced his hands on the edge of the sink, staring out the window into the darkness. Nico drew in a deep breath and accepted the truth. He was in love with Mercy Powers.

  How could this happen in a few days’ time? With the loss of her husband, she would be wary of his fast-developing feelings. Although she was attracted to him, Mercy might never fall in love with him. She might be too afraid of losing another man she loved to a terrorist’s bullet or an IED to give her feelings a chance to develop to their full potential.

  Nico’s heart ached. He wouldn’t blame her if she refused to take the risk. He wasn’t in the safest profession. Would he leave Fortress if Mercy asked? He didn’t know. Protecting innocents was what he was trained to do and it was in his blood. The restrictions faced by law enforcement would bind him like an ill-fitting suit.

  Eli leaned against the counter beside him, facing the hallway. “Jon’s doing the security round. You look like you need to talk.”

  “How long did it take you to realize you loved Brenna?”

  The SEAL chuckled. “I fell in love with Brenna the minute I saw her face off with a slime ball on a downtown Nashville street. Took me less than a week to figure it out. In my defense, the week was intense.” His smile faded. “When human traffickers had her in their clutches, I was terrified we wouldn’t get to her in time. She still has nightmares.”

  “Mercy couldn’t sleep last night for the same reason.”

  “The nightmares fade. Brenna doesn’t have them often. Holding her while she calms down is a sweet privilege.”

  Nico remembered the night before on the couch with Mercy in his arms. Although he hated the reason she woke, he was glad he’d been close to comfort her. Falling asleep with her in his arms and waking in the same position was worth the sore muscles from sleeping sitting up. He’d never forget that experience.

  “Does Mercy know you’re in love with her?”

  He shook his head. “She’s a widow. Lost her husband in Afghanistan to an IED. She just agreed to date me two days ago. It’s a little early to be declaring my love for a woman who met me for the first time when I sprung her from a cave in Mexico.”

  Eli turned to look at him. “Give her time while you win her heart.”

  Some of the tension eased from Nico’s muscles. Eli was right. He and Mercy had time. She’d already expressed interest in spending more time with him after she was safe. He’d convince Mercy he was worth the risk. The alternative was unthinkable.

  “Rest.” Eli clapped him on the shoulder. “Jon and I will keep your team and Mercy safe.”

  “Wake me if anything happens.”

  “Copy that.”

  Nico trudged upstairs and got ready for bed. Within minutes he was sound asleep. Early the next morning, he rose before the sun came up. He glanced at Mercy’s closed door. She didn’t wake him. He hoped that meant Mercy had been okay through the night. He walked to the kitchen, poured himself a mug of coffee, and went in search of the SEALs.

  He found them both on the front porch, sipping coffee themselves. “Morning. Any problems overnight?”

  “Nothing.” Eli stretched and stood. “Zane called a few minutes ago and said no one went to a hospital in or near Sherwood with a gunshot wound. No bodies have turned up, either.”

  “Anything new on the Scorpions’ search for Mercy?”

  The SEALs exchanged glances.

  Oh, man. “Tell me.”

  “The bounty has increased by another million,” Jon said.

  He gritted his teeth. “Not what I wanted to hear.”

  “Gets better. The person offering the money also put a bounty on her family. He or she wanted them captured alive.” The sniper held up a hand. “Maddox already has them covered. He dispatched Adam Walker’s team to search the house. They’ll provide protection for her father and brothers and their families.”

  “They were planning to use the Garwoods as leverage to bring Mercy out of hiding.”

  “Wasted effort.” Jon turned to stare at Nico. “She’ll be in the open in a few hours.”

  “Maybe they don’t know that.”

  “They want her to panic and run scared. If she ditches her security detail, they’ll have her with no effort.”

  “She’s too smart for that.”

  “Make sure she knows that.” With those words, the SEAL rose and walked into the house.

  “No offense meant, Nico. Jon’s worried about her. Her situation reminds him too much of Dana’s troubles with the human traffickers,” Eli said and followed his partner into the house.

  Nico sat on the cushioned wicker couch and sipped his coffee as he scanned the area. Jon wasn’t the only one worried about Mercy. Everything in Nico said this trip to Washington, D.C. was a bad idea. On the other hand, he didn’t want Mercy on law enforcement’s radar for refusing to testify before the committee. He couldn’t protect her if she was in jail.

  When he finished his coffee, Nico returned to the kitchen for a refill and grabbed his laptop. He heard someone stirring upstairs and hoped it was his teammates rather than Mercy.

  After booting up his computer, he retrieved Mercy’s memory card and copied her photographs to his hard drive. Nico spent several minutes scrolling through the images, amazed at her photographs. He frequently took pictures of landmarks around Nashville and sent them to his mother. None of them had the same quality as Mercy’s shots. If she wasn’t an artist, Mercy could be a photographer.

  He scanned hundreds of photos before he heard someone coming down the stairs. Nico looked up in time to see Mercy walk into the kitchen. He abandoned his laptop and went to her. “Morning.” He cupped her nape and kissed her. “Sleep okay?”

  “Until a few minutes ago. Where are Eli and Jon?”

  “Asleep. Want tea?”

  “I’d love some. How long have you been awake?”

  “Almost an hour.” He filled a mug with water and placed it in the microwave. When the machine signaled the end of the heating cycle, Nico dumped a bag of chamomile mint into the water.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We need to talk.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Mercy’s stomach threatened to revolt. We need to talk. To hide her sudden pain and fear, she teased him. “Are you breaking up with me already?”

  Nico looked startled. “No, of course not. I’m crazy about you. Why would I be stupid enough to let you slip away from me?”

  “Isn’t that always what men and women say before they dump their boyfriend or girlfriend?”

  He cupped her face between his palms. “That’s not what’s happening here. I have information you need to know.” Nico turned away and grabbed her mug. He led her to the living room. “Let’s sit while we talk.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “It’s not good,” Nico admitted. “I don’t want to hide anything from you.”

  What had him so worried? A horrible possibility occurred to her. Mercy’s hands clenched around the mug, and she felt the blood drain from her face. “My family.”

  “They’re safe.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and drew her tight against his side. “The Scorpions raised the bounty on you by one million dollars and placed a bounty on your family. The orders are to cap
ture them alive. Hector and his buddies want to use your family to bring you into the open.”

  She set her mug on the coffee table and got to her feet. Her phone. Where was her phone? With such turbulent emotions pinging around inside her, Mercy had a hard time focusing on the immediate need. Talking to her family. “We have to warn them.”

  “Fortress has a team protecting them.” Nico tugged her back down beside him and pressed the mug of tea back into her hands.

  “Are they good?”

  “All of our teams are good. This team is one of the best. It’s also the team I planned to ask to protect you if we were called back into the field before you were safe and when Shadow went after the Scorpions.”

  Her eyes widened, inexplicable hurt twining through her. Her emotions were raw right now. Nico wouldn’t just hand her off to someone else. Would he? “You planned to have someone else take over my protection?”

  “I had to make contingency plans, Mercy. Shadow is the team Maddox sends after victims taken by human traffickers.”

  “He can’t send other teams in?” Did he and his teammates always have to face the worst people the world had to offer?

  “Of course. But that kind of mission is our passion. We’re always his first choice if we’re available.”

  “Nico, that can’t be good for Shadow.”

  “That’s the reason we’re taking a month off after you’re safe. Those missions demand a high price from us.”

  Mercy sipped her tea, grateful for the warmth that eased the knots in her stomach. “I understand the need for your work. But why is rescuing victims from human traffickers a passion for you and your team?”

  For the first time since she’d met him, Nico broke eye contact with her, pain filling his gaze.

  What hurt him so much? “It’s okay, Nico. You don’t have to tell me.”

  He shook his head. “You need to know. It’s part of what drives me to the point of exhaustion.” And still he wouldn’t look at her.

  “Turn out the light.” She set her tea mug on the coffee table again as he frowned at her.

  “Why?”

  “Please.” When he complied, Mercy snuggled up to his side and wrapped her arm around him. She pressed a kiss to his jaw. “Talk to me. Start wherever you need to and tell me as much or as little as you want.” Although curiosity might kill her if he didn’t tell her everything.

  He was silent a few moments. Maybe Nico was gathering his courage or simply trying to figure out where to start. Mercy didn’t press him. He’d start when he was ready. If he could tell her. The pain she glimpsed in his eyes might be too great to share with her today. She hoped he would unburden himself someday if not today.

  Nico pressed a kiss to her temple. “I have two sisters and one brother. When I was eighteen, I enlisted in the Marines. My parents were proud that I chose to serve my country.” He gave a wry laugh. “The truth was I didn’t want a job where I had to work behind a desk, and I didn’t have an interest in going to college. I’m not much for school. Anyway, while I was in boot camp, my fourteen-year-old sister disappeared along with several other girls about her age in our neighborhood. The cops were convinced Marta and her friends ran away.” Another kiss to Mercy’s temple. “She was the sweetest, most content kid in our family. Marta didn’t have a rebellious bone in her body.”

  Oh, no. Tears stung Mercy’s eyes. She already knew where his story was going.

  “My baby sister didn’t run away. Neither did the other girls who were taken. Marta and the girls were friends. They went everywhere together. The girls had similar qualities. Young, innocent, and beautiful, qualities irresistible to a human trafficker. The police eventually quit looking. My parents burned through their retirement money to pay for a private detective to find Marta. The detective called late one night months later and told my parents he had a lead on Marta and he was going to Mexico to follow up.”

  “Did he find her?”

  “I don’t know. While he was in Mexico, he disappeared. No one heard from him after that.” He fell silent again.

  Mercy thought about what he’d said and more importantly what he hadn’t. “You’ve been looking for her.”

  He sighed. “It’s foolish. After fourteen years, I know in my head Marta is dead. Women and girls in the hands of human traffickers don’t survive that long. It’s a hard, ugly life. However, my heart won’t give up hope.”

  “Do you have any proof human traffickers took your sister?”

  “While I was enlisted, I made contacts in the military and black ops community. I even had Zane dig into Marta’s disappearance. He confirmed there was a large human trafficking ring working that part of California at the time. Two of Marta’s friends were found dead at the Mexican border. Each girl had a brand on her ankle, an infinity symbol which was the symbol used by the trafficking ring. The traffickers had dumped their bodies on the side of the highway.”

  “Oh, Nico, I’m so sorry. No wonder you’re the first to go after human traffickers. What about the rest of your teammates? Are they invested in the missions because of you or do they have something personal against traffickers?”

  “Each of them has their own personal story.”

  In other words, he wouldn’t divulge their tales himself. Fair enough. If they wanted her to know the details, they would tell her. “Thank you for telling me about Marta.”

  Finally, Nico looked at her. “You needed to know.”

  Time to change the subject. “Will you answer another question for me?”

  “If I can.”

  “Why do your teammates call you Patch?”

  He grinned, his expression lightening. “It’s my military nickname.”

  She thought about that. Aiden’s nickname was Boston because he’d loved the Boston Red Sox. “Why Patch?”

  “I learned how to fly Cobra helicopters in the Marines. However, my favorite chopper is the Apache. A friend from the Army taught me how to fly one. My battle buddy, Harry, shortened Apache to Patch. The moniker stuck.”

  “Hmm. You’re a man of many talents, Mr. Rivera. Are your parents Hispanic?”

  “My great-grandparents are Hispanic. From there, the family bloodline was diluted.” He studied her face. “Does my heritage bother you?”

  “Does it bother you that my ancestors are from England?”

  “Nope.”

  “Same with me.”

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs. Trace walked into the living room, dressed in what Mercy had realized was the standard Fortress attire.

  “Any news?” Trace asked.

  Nico brought him up to speed on the higher bounty on Mercy and the new one on her family.

  “Man, these guys don’t want to give up, do they? Have you had a chance to check the memory card from Mercy’s camera?”

  “I downloaded the pictures to my laptop. It’s on the kitchen table if you want to scroll through them. I haven’t finished looking at them yet.”

  “I’ll grab some coffee and take a look.” Trace turned to Mercy. “How did you sleep?”

  “Better.”

  With a nod, he turned and went to the kitchen.

  “Are you hungry?” Nico asked.

  She nodded.

  “Good. Let’s see what we can find before the others wake.” He pulled Mercy to her feet.

  “How soon do we have to leave?”

  He grimaced. “With D.C. traffic, no later than nine.”

  Mercy poked around in the refrigerator and pantry. “Do you like French toast?”

  Both men perked up. “Who doesn’t?” Trace asked.

  With a laugh, she told the operatives what items to gather while she found two bowls that would work. Between the three of them, they established a good assembly line. By the time the rest of Shadow descended the stairs, they had two platters of French toast plus a mountain of scrambled eggs, coffee and juice.

  “Be still, my heart,” Joe said, delight on his face. “French toast? Please tell me you taught either Nico
or Trace how to make this. It would be a flat-out shame not to recreate this on another protection detail.

  Mercy smiled at the operative over her shoulder. “They’re great students.”

  “Yes!”

  Nico rolled his eyes. “Sit down before you drool on the food, Joe.”

  “You don’t have to tell me twice.”

  After they set aside enough food for the SEALs, finished breakfast, and cleaned the kitchen, Mercy sat with Nico and Trace at the breakfast bar with the laptop.

  She scrolled through the pictures until she found the shots of the Jeffries estate. “This is the first picture of the senator’s estate. The barn has twenty horses stabled inside. I understand they bred a couple of Kentucky Derby winners. They have an eight-car garage. This is the ranch house for the hands.”

  She moved to the next picture of a building in the distance. Mercy had been after the rolling hills, the stream, and trees. She’d used that in one of the pictures she’d drawn.

  “What building is that?” Nico asked.

  “I don’t know. Sean’s aide, Theo, said it was an old spring house and refused to take me closer to shoot pictures. He said it wasn’t safe. Something about sinkholes in that part of the property.”

  Trace studied the picture, frowning. “Do you have your mouse?” he asked Nico.

  The operative thrust his hand into a computer bag and pulled out a wireless mouse, then handed it to his friend.

  Mercy watched in fascination as Trace highlighted a particular section of the picture and magnified it. She frowned, not sure what she was seeing. He did something else with the mouse and the magnified section of the picture became sharper.

  Three men stood in front of the spring house. Mercy didn’t recognize one of the men, but she did the other two. Her breath stalled in her lungs. What did that mean?

  “Mercy.” Nico’s hand covered hers. “What do you see?”

  “That’s Sean Jeffries and his father. I don’t recognize the third man.”

  “Trace, focus on the third man.”