by Paige Tyler
“And what about Shaw?” Nash asked, darting across the kitchen and taking up a position to the side of the entryway Santiago and the other guy would use. “You decided not to cut him in on the deal?”
“Yeah. I felt a little bad about that. But Shaw’s too young and naive to ever consider a deal like this. So, he had to go. Just the price he had to pay, I guess.”
“You must be pissed he’s still alive.” Nash said, lifting his weapon and waiting.
One of two things was about to happen…either Santiago and his buddy would rush into the kitchen and try to surprise him. Or they’d move in slowly, thinking they’d shoot him in the back as he talked to Roman. He was betting on the former. Santiago didn’t seem like the slow and patient type.
“I’m not too worried about Shaw,” Roman said from just outside the French doors. “There’s someone taking care of that problem right now.”
Realization hit Nash like a Mack tuck. He had about a half second to curse before a hail of gunfire cut loose upstairs. Santiago burst into the kitchen, the other guard right behind him. The men sprayed the room with bullets as they moved, unaware that Nash was behind them.
Nash didn’t think. He just pulled the trigger, hitting both men multiple times. He didn’t wait for them to hit the floor before spinning to face the door. Roman charged in on cue, bullets blazing. Nash ignored the rounds smashing into the walls and cabinets around him, calmly putting a three-round burst into the other man’s chest.
Roman slid halfway across the kitchen before thumping into the island and coming to a stop. Nash threw a quick glance at Santiago and the other man to make sure they were staying down before moving across the floor to kneel down by Roman.
He jerked the man onto his back, hoping to ask him what the hell he’d meant about Shaw, but it was too late for that. All three of the 9mm rounds Nash had fired had hit vitals locations. Roman had been dead before he’d hit the floor.
“You okay?” Dalton asked from behind him.
“Yeah, I’m good.” Getting to his feet, Nash collected up the weapons and all the ammo he could find on the three corpses. “We need to get back to the house. This whole thing was a ruse to get us to leave Shaw and Bristol alone.”
* * * * *
Nash was out of the truck and running for the front door before Dalton had even brought the vehicle to a stop in Josefina’s driveway. His heart stopped when he found the door ajar. His worst fears had been right. Munoz had sent men here to deal with Shaw—and Bristol—while he and Dalton had been screwing around with Roman.
Shit.
Jaw clenched, he drew the handgun he’d taken from Roman and cautiously moved through the house, taking in the two dead men on the floor, the tipped-over couch, the broken lamp, and the bullet holes in the walls. There had been a lot of people in here, and Shaw had fought back.
He found Shaw and Josefina in the kitchen. The CIA agent was sitting on the floor leaning against the refrigerator, blood covering the front of his shirt and running from the bandage around his leg. Josefina was beside him holding a towel pressed to the wound near his shoulder. There was a handgun on the floor near Shaw’s leg, the upper receiver locked back…empty. And no sign of Bristol.
Shaw shook his head when he saw Nash. “I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I tried to stop them, but there were too many.”
Nash pushed thoughts of Bristol aside for the moment—as hard as that was to do—and dropped down on one knee beside Shaw. He ripped open Shaw’s shirt to reveal a bloody wound through the upper part of his chest directly below his left collarbone. It was bad, but not fatal. Not in the short term at least. Nash wadded up a piece of Shaw’s shirt, pressing it against the wound, staunching the flow of blood. But stopping the bleeding was just the start.
“A leg wound was one thing, but this is different,” Nash said. “I can’t deal with something like this with some antiseptic and a bandage. You’ll need a doctor. Someone we can trust.”
“I know someone who will help us,” Josefina said. “And they’re not connected to Munoz.”
Shaw tried to push Nash’s hand away so he could get up. When Nash didn’t move, the CIA agent slid back down to the floor.
“Leon and two of Munoz’s men took Bristol less than ten minutes ago, Nash. We both know where they’re taking her. I can help get her back.”
He probably would have said more, but Dalton came in right then…with company. Nash looked up and saw Wes, Holden, Logan and Trent. The sight of them was like a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders.
Josefina took over with the makeshift bandage, giving Nash a nod.
Straightening, he walked over to meet his buddies. “How much do you already know?”
He didn’t want to waste time filling them in if he didn’t need to. Shaw was right. Nash knew exactly where they’d taken Bristol. He also knew what would happen to her when she got there. The same thing that had happened to her mother.
“Dalton already caught us up on the important details,” Logan said. Tall with dark blond hair and blue eyes, he was one of the Team’s petty officers. “He told us Bristol is important to you, that her father is a psychopath with a lot of goons and a lot of weapons, and that we’re going to help rescue her. Oh yeah, he also mentioned that the CIA and ATF agents running this operation took a bribe and sold you all out.”
“What?” Shaw demanded.
Nash ignored him. Instead, he threw a look of appreciation at Dalton. “That’s pretty much the basics. Now tell me you brought weapons with you? We have a handful of crap-stuff we’ve collected recently, but not much in the way of ammo.”
Logan shook his head. “Unfortunately, we don’t. Headquarters was seriously against sending anyone down here in an official capacity, preferring to leave this mess squarely in the hands of the CIA. Chasen got us down here on leave, but that meant commercial flights. We tried to get our tactical vests and night vision goggles through security, but even that was a no-go.”
Nash cursed, then glanced at Josefina. “Can you take care of Shaw on your own?” At the older woman’s nod, he turned back to Dalton. “I know where we can get as many weapons as we need—and then some.”
Dalton grinned. “Munoz’s gun range.”
“Exactly,” Nash said. “But we don’t have time to screw around so let’s get the hell over there.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
IT’S NOT YOUR fault.” Bristol sat on the floor in the same bedroom where she’d tended to Nash’s wounds, cradling Isabella in her lap. She gently brushed Isabella’s hair out of her face. “Leon is a monster. If you hadn’t told him where I was, he would have killed you.”
“I should have let him,” Isabella whispered. “At least then he wouldn’t have gotten you. Or hurt my sister.”
Isabella’s words came out a little slurred courtesy of the split lip and swelled jaw Leon had given her. Along with the bruises that covered the rest of her body. For the second time in as many days, Bristol’d had to use the first-aid supplies in the adjoining bathroom to tend to someone she cared about. Luckily, there’d been some over-the-counter pain relievers in there as well. The pills seemed to have helped Isabella some.
“Don’t even talk like that,” Bristol shushed her. “I’m fine and your sister’s fine, too. Leon was too busy dragging me out of Josefina’s house to bother with her. So, let’s focus on getting away and not wasting time worrying.”
Bristol hadn’t mentioned that Leon had shot Shaw in the chest and left him for dead. Knowing that would only scare Isabella more, and Bristol wanted her focused on getting out of here. Unfortunately, while getting away was a great idea, Bristol had no idea how to make it happen. There were no windows in this part of the villa and the guard Leon had left outside the door over an hour ago still hadn’t left.
The only real hope either of them had was that Nash would come to save them. But while she wanted to see Nash more than anything in the world, a huge part of Bristol prayed he wouldn’t come. Her father had more men at t
he villa than Bristol had ever seen before. If Nash and Dalton showed up to rescue them, both of them would likely end up paying with their lives.
The same way her mom had paid when she’d tried to leave with Bristol.
Thinking of her mother made Bristol wonder why she wasn’t already dead. Her father knew she’d stolen the Hummer and rescued Nash and the other guys. Luis Munoz wasn’t the kind of man to accept betrayal of any kind, and certainly not from his daughter. Maybe her father wanted to look her in the eye one more time before he ordered her execution.
Bristol was still trying to think of some way to escape when the door opened. Dread filled her when she saw Leon. Gently moving Isabella aside, she got to her feet to stand protectively in front of her friend. Well, as protectively as she could considering be Leon was much bigger and stronger than she was.
“What do you want?” Bristol demanded.
The hatred she felt for Leon for what he’d done first to her mother, and now Isabella, made her voice stronger than she expected. In reality, she was terrified of him and whatever he planned to do to them.
“Your father wants to see you.”
While his tone might have been casual, his eyes conveyed something completely different. They wandered over her with a lust in them that made Bristol feel like she needed to take a bath.
Something told her a trip to see her father wasn’t the only thing Leon had in mind for her. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Leon shrugged. “Fine. Then I’ll just finish what I started with Isabella.”
“Stay away from her,” Bristol ordered, intercepting him before he could get close to Isabella. “I’ll go with you.”
“Smart move,” Leon said. “Let’s go.”
Bristol crouched down in front of Isabella. “I’ll be back,” she whispered. “I don’t know how yet, but I’m going to get us both out of here.”
Isabella looked doubtful. “Be careful, mija. Don’t provoke your father. That was the mistake your mother made.”
Bristol didn’t tell Isabella that she’d already provoked him by siding with Nash. Instead, she nodded and turned to Leon.
As he led her to her father’s study, Bristol glanced out the window to see men loading large wooden crates into several trucks in the driveway. The weapons her father had purchased.
Her father wasn’t alone in his study. Nick Chapman was with him, seated in one of the chairs in front of the desk. The physical resemblance between him and Nash was almost eerie. But something told her that was where the similarities ended. There were two metal briefcases on the desk filled with stacks of American money.
From where he sat behind the desk, her father regarded her coldly. “Sit.”
She almost told him she’d rather stand, but then thought better of it. She knew she’d lose in a battle of wills. Moreover, Leon was still beside her. He looked like he was just waiting for her to refuse.
Taking a deep breath, she slipped into the chair next to Chapman. Leon smirked.
“You’re too much like your mother for your own good,” her father said. “She was naive, too, thinking she could walk away from me without paying a price.”
She glared at her father, anger boiling up inside her. “So, you had her killed simply because she wanted to leave you?”
“I couldn’t have people thinking I was weak, which they would have if I let her walk away. Though I should probably clarify one point. I didn’t have her killed. I did it myself.” He shrugged. “Leon was the one who ran her off the road near that abandoned villa with the blue stucco walls a few miles down the road. But I’m the one who looked your mother in the eyes and put a bullet in her. She’s still there by the way, buried in the backyard.”
Tears ran down Bristol’s cheeks even though she tried to stop them. She hated that her father could see gotten to her. She’d accepted a long time ago that her mother was dead, but hearing her father say the words exposed the fact that at least some secret part of her had held out hope. That was shattered now, destroyed by her father’s admission that he’d been the one who murdered her and that her body was lying in an unmarked grave only a few miles from here.
That it was the same location where Nash and Dalton had gone to rescue Roman couldn’t be a coincidence.
Her father smiled, triumph in his eyes. “Yes, Bristol. I know all about Nash and his friend, Dalton, going to that exact same villa to save the poor, wounded CIA agent. I was standing right beside Roman when the man gave that convincing performance on the phone. You have to appreciate the delicious symmetry though. Taking this new love away from you in the same place I took your mother away.”
One moment Bristol was sitting there, the next she was throwing herself at her father, determined to tear him to shreds. She didn’t get very far before Leon grabbed her and shoved her back down in the chair, holding her there with a firm hand on her shoulder. Fresh tears spilled onto her cheeks.
Nash wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be.
“Now that you realize you’ll never have anything in this world unless I allow it, I’m ready to put all of this behind us,” her father said.
Bristol glared at him through her tears. “Meaning?”
“I’ve offered Nick the same job that I offered Nash,” he explained. “I even doubled the money.”
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked.
“Because he wants you as part of the deal.”
Bristol looked at Nick. He gave her a smug smile. If Leon hadn’t been holding her down, she would have gone for his throat, too.
“If you agree, I’m willing to let bygones be bygones,” he father added.
Bristol’s heart died inside her then. She’d never see Nash again, never get to go to San Diego with him, or make love to him, or build a life with him…
On the wall behind her father’s chair, her mother smiled down at her from the portrait.
“I’d rather die,” Bristol said flatly.
“That can be arranged.”
Her father made a flicking motion with his hand. Leon yanked her out of the chair and propelled her toward the door as her father turned his attention to Nick and whatever job he wanted the man to do, as if he didn’t care she’d be killed within the hour. Why should he? She was already dead to him.
She considered begging Leon. Not for her own life, but for Isabella’s. She decided not to bother. Leon wasn’t human. Why would he do anything for her?
Bristol was surprised when Leon headed toward the front door. She assumed he’d take her out to the bluff overlooking the beach and shoot her right there. She supposed he was going to take her somewhere else to do it.
Maybe to the same place where her mother and Nash had been killed. That would be okay. Better even. A final resting place with the people she loved.
The men she’d seen loading the trucks earlier were still in the driveway and they stopped Leon to ask him where her father wanted certain weapons hidden. Leon must not have thought she would try to escape because he let her arm go as he explained to the men that most of the weapons and ammunition were going to be taken out of the city and moved south. Within moments, there was a good twenty feet between them. She thought she might be able to fade into the crowd and disappear, but then Leon turned and stabbed her with his angry glare and she knew she’d wasted her chance.
Suddenly, gunfire came from the direction of the bluff, as well as the stairs leading down to the beach and the dock. Her eyes widened as she saw a flaming fireball speeding toward the driveway. She had no idea what it was, but she knew it was dangerous.
She threw herself to the ground just as it hit the truck near Leon. There was a huge explosion and the heavily-loaded truck simply came apart. Men went flying in every direction, including Leon. The blast picked him up and tossed him through one of the windows of the villa like he was a toy.
Every instinct in Bristol told her to stay exactly where she was, but God had given her a second chance and she wasn’t going to waste it.
She climbed to her feet, knowing two things. One, she had to rescue Isabella. And two, Nash was somewhere out there making all this happen.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
NASH HAD JUST climbed over the perimeter wall of Munoz’s property with Dalton and started moving toward the villa when he caught sight of Bristol. Nash felt a sense of relief so overwhelming he actually got a little dizzy. She was surrounded by a lot of bad guys—including Leon—but she was alive, and that was all that mattered.
He and the other guys on his SEAL team had made quick work of the guards they’d run into at the range complex, but he’d still been pissed at how long it had taken to find the weapons and get to the villa. Once outside the wall, they’d spent minimal time planning the rescue. Logan, Holden, Wes, and Trent would come up from the beach and create a distraction, drawing as many of the guards in that direction as they could, while he and Dalton slipped into the house and rescued Bristol.
That plan would have to change a little now that she was already outside, but if the distraction Logan and the others provided was good enough, the original plan could still work.
Then the truck full of ammunition exploded, and Nash thought his heart was going to explode right along with it as he lost sight of the woman he loved behind a fireball nearly as big as the house.
Loved? Hell, yes, he loved her!
Nash was running toward the villa before the debris even hit the ground, terrified that he was already too late and furious at Logan for doing something as stupid as shooting a rocket propelled grenade at a truck load of ammo.
He’d wanted a good distraction, not a friggin' nuclear blast!
As he moved around to the side of the torn apart truck, he realized the explosion had been even worse than he’d feared. The whole side of the villa was on fire. Worse, he couldn’t see Bristol anywhere.