by April Hunt
“While I do not agree initially to those measures,” Fuentes said, addressing Rafe, “I would like to extend to you an invitation to my home. Maybe we can search for a viable solution and build a partnership that would appease us both. A few days, so that we can reach an agreement.”
Diego’s dark, soulless eyes settled on Penny. “And I insist that you bring your beautiful señorita. It has been far too long since a striking, vivacious woman has graced the grounds. My only stipulation is that your security stays behind. As you pointed out, I am a man in need of keeping many secrets and the location of my home is one of them. I’ll have one of my men meet you at my private airstrip and they’ll escort you the rest of the way.”
Rafe stayed silent for so long Penny nearly pinched him. Finally, he accepted Diego’s hand. “Name the meeting time and we’d be pleased to join you.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Rafe enjoyed a good silent moment. He far preferred it to incessant ramblings and incoherent speeches, which is why it took him off guard when ten minutes into his and Penny’s drive toward the city’s posh tourist district, he felt ready to burst from his skin.
Curses. Mutters. Mumbles. Even the mother of all rants. He didn’t care which avenue Penny chose to take, he just needed to have some kind of clue as to what was going through her mind. But it didn’t look like that was about to happen. From the driver’s seat of their rented luxury car, Chase glanced back, no doubt coming to the same damn conclusion.
Thirty minutes later, they pulled up to the hotel where Rafael Manuel and the lovely Nell Hanlan spent their nights while on vacation. Through the lobby and the elevator ride up to the penthouse suite, Rafe kept an eye on the stiff set of Penny’s shoulders while ignoring the growing tension in his own.
They were supposed to set up a meet, get the intel they needed, and then coordinate the takedown of the entire Fuentes organization with every available government agency. End of operation. Game over. Bad guy in fucking jail. None of them had seen this shift in the plan.
When they finally entered the suite, the looming silence shattered with Trey charging across the room like a bulldozer.
“What the hell were you thinking, Ortega?” Trey demanded. By the look on his face, he’d been brewing a foul mood probably since Rafe and Penny had left the club. “Do you seriously think I’m going to allow you to sweep Penn into that psycho’s lair with a fucking army much less with no one as backup? What shit have you been smoking?”
Rafe kept his head cool. “In case you misheard, it wasn’t exactly my idea.”
“But you fucking agreed!”
“Allow him?” Penny’s gentle tone froze all five men to their spots. Instead of shrinking as she kicked off her heels, her stature grew. She glanced pointedly at each of them before landing on Trey, and never once raised her voice. “If Rafe had insisted on bringing any kind of security, it would’ve made it look like he had something to hide.”
“Yeah, but he didn’t need to agree to letting you tag along,” Trey argued.
She shrugged. “Fuentes likes women. Isn’t that why we thought sending me into the club with Rafe was a good idea to begin with? We got his attention. We got in. I’m not going to question why, and having been after this guy for months, neither should you.”
“We shouldn’t, but we are,” Stone interjected. “Too many innocents have been affected by Fuentes. We’re not eager to add to the tally.”
“My name was added to that list the moment the bastard took the only family I have left!”
As the rest of the team focused on Penny, Rafe’s gaze cut to his best friend. If he didn’t know Trey so well, he would’ve missed the minute twitch of his left eye. Faint, quick, and only happening once before Trey pulled himself back together, the brief flicker was his friend’s only physical show of weakness.
Rafe treaded carefully, clearing his throat. “I think what Stone means, Red, is that playing arm candy for a few hours is a hell of a lot different than having you under Fuentes’s roof—literally.”
“Then I won’t do it.”
“Thank fucking God,” Trey mumbled.
When Penny folded her arms across her chest, fluffing up the already impressive view, Rafe knew there was more. “If you can tell me right now there isn’t the slightest chance Diego will rescind his invite if I back out, then I’ll stay behind.” No one could make that claim, and the grim smile on her face indicated she knew it. “No? Then I’m going.”
Stone perched on the edge of the couch. His gaze was stern, but his voice surprisingly gentle. “You have to understand something, sweetheart. We have no idea where the Fuentes compound is. The entire international alphabet-fucking-soup has been trying to track the bastard down for years. We’re their last line of defense before they have to tuck tails and admit they’ve fucked up.”
She tossed her hands up in the air with a growl. “Which is why it doesn’t make sense that you’d be willing to risk the chance of Fuentes telling us to bug off! You’ve never gotten this close before.”
Trey intervened. “You’d be going into this op dark, Penn—no backup if things go to shit. No support. We can’t send you in with wires or run-of-the-mill tracking chips, because the paranoid bastard has the capability of finding them. It’ll just be you and Rafe. And if things go to hell, it’ll be the two of you and the Honduran rain forest.”
“Good thing I was a Girl Scout, then, huh? I wasn’t blowing smoke up your skirts when I said I’d do anything to get Rachel back. The question is are you going to let me?”
Fuck no. The red-blooded man in Rafe wanted her sweet ass on a plane. Out of sight. Out of mind. And out of danger. But the trained operative grudgingly admitted that she had a point. Her leaving at this juncture in the game would make their job more difficult than if she stayed.
Still, it wasn’t Rafe’s call to make—thank fucking God.
Stone, looking a hell of a lot like a gargoyle, went quiet. That alone wasn’t what alarmed Rafe, because the Alpha head often kept his thoughts under a tightly sealed wrap. What had Rafe holding his breath was the way Stone tapped his fingers against his thigh…as if he was in deep thought.
And then his boss’s gaze shifted to him. Fuckin’ A.
“The decision’s yours, Ortega.” Lips pressed into a thin line, Stone’s expression looked anything but thrilled. “You’re the one going on the inside with her. I know I don’t have to remind you that you’re going into this deaf and blind. Bail enforcement or not, Penny’s not Alpha trained. That means on top of everything else you’re responsible for, you need to add her to the list—and right at the damn top.”
“He doesn’t need to—” Penny started to protest.
“Yeah, he does. Though you can hit a target and inflict a fair amount of damage, you’re green. You’ve never been on this kind of an op. Hell, even Ortega hasn’t.”
But no fucking pressure. Dealing with Taliban leaders in the middle of the desert had nothing on the expectant stare Penny slid his way. On the exterior, she looked the poster girl for calm and cool. Direct gaze. Back straight. But the subtle bite to her lower lip identified it as a carefully controlled ruse.
He wanted to say what his team expected him to—no fucking way. But the words wouldn’t come.
Though he didn’t have family in the true sense of the word, everyone associated with Alpha was his family—even their ball-buster analyst, Charlie. If he were in Penny’s shoes, he’d turn over every rock in the Afghan desert, search every damn block of ice in the Arctic, and make a deal with the devil if it meant the safe return of his family. That same brand of loyalty was etched on every feminine curve of Penny’s face.
Lives counted on their success, and not just their own, but Rachel’s and the countless others being subjected to Freedom and God only knew what other nasty drugs Fuentes peddled around the globe.
Meeting Penny’s gaze, Rafe mentally relived the last week—Penny sparring in the training room, the too-close-for-comfort scuffle in the alley, and
the professional ease with which she handled the meeting with Fuentes. Hell, she’d been the one who remained casually aloof while he nearly reached across the table and throttled the sick fuck with his bare hands.
He couldn’t believe he was going to fucking say it. “Don’t make me regret agreeing to this, Red.”
With no questions, no hesitation, the team sprang into action. Logan fired up the laptop while waiting for Charlie to answer stateside. Stone and Chase talked schematics and logistics with Trey. Backup plans were only good if you knew where the hell you were, but some kind of contingencies needed to be made—and a hell of a lot of them. Plans A, B, and C wouldn’t hack it this time around. Their ducks needed to be lined up straight to fucking Z.
Penny’s presence hovered behind Rafe’s shoulder. “What is it, Red?”
“Thank you,” she murmured softly.
He stole a glance and mentally cursed with the sudden urge to yank her onto his lap and tell her everything would be fine. Instead, he gave a slight nod and prayed he hadn’t made a mistake. “You can thank me if we manage to get out of this in one piece.”
* * *
In her mind, Penny envisioned Alpha’s tech guru as a tall, lanky brunet with a built-in pocket protector in every shirt. And the way the guys talked about Charlie Sparks also had her anticipating him to be…well, a him.
Not only was Charlie not a him, but she sported shaggily bobbed blonde hair adorned with pink highlights—and an English accent Penny couldn’t get enough of.
“It isn’t a bloody windup toy, Ortega. Stop playing around with the bloody thing.” Charlie glared at Rafe from over the video link like she wanted to reach through the screen and strangle him.
“No. It’s a watch.” Rafe smirked, obviously having a good time teasing the other woman. “But do you really think this looks like something Rafael Manuel, self-made millionaire and professional ladies’ man, would be caught wearing?”
“He’d be bloody lucky to wear that baby. And it’s quite a bit more than a watch. What you have in your hot, callused hands is my pride and joy. It’ll detect any surveillance device that’s within a hundred-foot distance—audio or visual. Because let’s face it, Fuentes is going to have his place bugged like a New York City hotel room. Before either of you decide to talk any kind of shop, you scan. If you move an inch to the left while in a heated discussion, you scan. It wouldn’t even hurt if you ran a scan after breathing too deeply.”
“I get it,” Rafe interrupted. “I scan and scan again.”
“Scan until your bloody finger is well…bloody. I know I don’t need to remind you that one slipup could mean the two of you coming back or becoming cheetah bait.”
“Are there cheetahs in Honduras?” Penny asked absently.
A grin spread across Charlie’s face as she shrugged. “Do I look like an animal rustler? Although, I have to admit that I sometimes feel like I am when I’m surrounded by those five. You have no idea how thrilled I was to actually stay behind this time around. Too much sweat takes the pink out of my hair.”
Penny chuckled and took a good look at the blonde’s surroundings. It didn’t look like an office space or have the stark, cool lines seen in most military bases. Framed photographs decorated a cherry wood-panel wall, and to the far right over the other woman’s shoulder, Penny glimpsed the edge of an ornate plate-glass window. The way the browns and golds swirled together into the form of an old-fashioned beer mug looked…familiar.
“Charlie, where did you say you’re stationed stateside?” Penny asked, her gaze narrowing on the wall behind the pink-haired dynamo.
“At our new headquarters. And I say new, but we’ve really been here six months. Renovating a bar to fit our needs takes a hell of a lot of time. And as it turns out, you can’t really hire just anyone to build secret bunkers into the mountainside.”
Penny’s gaze drifted to one of the photos over Charlie’s left shoulder. Two smiling women with arms tossed over each other’s shoulders stared back at her. Penny didn’t need to see it closer to know the one on the left wore a white tank and blue skirt, and the other wore the exact opposite: a blue top and white shorts.
She knew because she was the one wearing the jean skirt.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Penny stared at the photo, the one she knew for a fact hung on the wall of her hometown’s neighborhood bar, Hot Shots. Thousands of miles away. In another time zone. In Pennsylvania.
Around her, the room went silent. No one moved. No one spoke. No one even appeared to breathe as she registered the fact that Alpha Security’s headquarters wasn’t as secret as they thought.
When she turned her gaze on Trey, Penny felt as if the floor slid out from under her. Regret flooded his eyes. He took a small step forward before stopping. “Penn—”
“Your headquarters,” she said, cutting him off. “Your headquarters is in Frederick?”
“It’s not what it looks like.”
“No? Because it looks like despite having been back home, you couldn’t be bothered to make an appearance, much less dial the damn phone. There was talk about new owners when it was closed down but—”
“We’ve only been there—”
“Six months. Six. Freaking. Months.” Penny couldn’t listen to any more. With a hasty good-bye to Charlie, she pushed her chair back, refusing to wait around and listen to Trey’s excuses.
Tears threatened to fall, more with every second it took for her to reach the penthouse balcony. She welcomed the warm, stagnant air of San Pedro Sula, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes.
She should be used to this by now. Evasion. Disregard. Disappointment.
Her father had started her off in thinking those three things were the norm with families, but living in the Hanson house had shown her that it wasn’t like that at all. At least until Trey left for boot camp and the e-mails became more and more infrequent, first separated by weeks, then months. Although she knew he occasionally sent his mother a quick check-in, the last one Penny had gotten herself had been about two years ago.
Behind her, the sliding glass door opened and closed.
“Can we talk?” came Trey’s voice.
“Now you want to talk? Or do you just want to make sure that I don’t tell Sophie you’ve been skulking around the neighborhood for half a year without so much as a drop-in? Your secret’s safe. I won’t tell her, but only because I don’t want to break her heart.”
“Will you hear me out? Please?”
She was on the verge of saying no when her gaze drifted through the window. Four sets of curious gazes watched them through the balcony door, but Rafe’s was the one that snagged her attention. His expression was impossible to read: lips pressed tightly together, blue eyes narrowed on Trey.
As if sensing he was being watched, Rafe looked her way. Her head pounded, too overwhelmed with questions and feelings to add Rafael Ortega to the mix. Penny pulled her attention back to the street below.
“We have a lot of work to do before tomorrow,” she pointed out to Trey.
“I know.” He came up next to her by the railing. “Penn, I’m sorry. Christ, I know that sounds lame, but I fucked up. I fucked up when I left. I fucked up six months ago. Hell, I’m fucking up right the hell now.”
“If you’re waiting for me to disagree with you, you’re going to be waiting a really long time.”
“I wasn’t planning on keeping our move a secret. Why would I have done that when I was the one who suggested we use Frederick as our home base? I just wanted to give things time to settle. And before…” Trey scrubbed his whiskered face with the palms of his hands and sighed. “I actually have no excuse for my eighteen-year-old self except that he was a punk-ass kid who didn’t realize what he had and focused too much on the things he didn’t—and wanted. By the time I made it into the Rangers, I knew it would be awkward to try and make amends. And when I made Delta, I didn’t think it would be fair.”
“Fair?” Trey’s wording caught her by surprise. “Wh
at do you mean?”
“I mean that any soldier takes risks. We know it before we even walk into the recruitment center. But Delta?” Trey’s throat worked to swallow. “Belonging to Delta requires a different breed. It’s dangerous. It’s secretive. I couldn’t imagine making things right with you, Mom, and Rachel when I’d have to lie about ninety percent of my life.”
Trey slid her a sideways glance. “Don’t look at me like that…Jesus Christ.”
“I don’t think Jesus wore black camo and carried an Uzi,” Penny quipped.
Trey chuckled, and for a minute Penny saw the boy she’d once cared about. He was buried way beneath the buzzed blond hair and tattoos, but he was there. And he was the reason she stood on the balcony and collected her thoughts. “Can I ask you something and get a truthful answer, not some negotiator response meant to keep people happy?”
“You can ask me anything.” He looked like he meant it.
“Do you anticipate acting stupid again? Or are you up for trying to make things right?”
A relieved smile bloomed on Trey’s face. “No to the first question, though I probably will. And hell yes to the second. Setting things right is the reason I fought so hard to bring Alpha to Pennsylvania.”
“I’m not going to make it easy on you,” she warned. “I’m still the girl who put cayenne pepper in your strawberry lemonade for ruining my date with Scooter Williams.”
Trey laughed. “He deserved that itching powder more than anyone I’ve ever known. I mean, his name’s fucking Scooter.”
“It’s his name.” Penny couldn’t help but chuckle.
“It was a nickname—one that he chose himself. He’s lucky he only got the fucking powder.”
Trey surprised Penny by tugging her into a hug. Cocooned in his massive arms, she felt warm and comfortable, just like the time he’d hugged her when she was eight and had fallen off her bicycle for the tenth time in as many minutes. Penny burrowed closer, holding on to the back of his shirt. A few breaths later and the teasing moment started shifting.