by Cindy Gerard
“Car door,” Gabe said when they all turned toward the sound in the driveway.
He walked quickly to the window and hooked a finger on a shade to pull it back so he could see outside. “Doc and Green,” he announced, then headed for Sophie’s front door to unlock it and let them in.
23
“God love him!” Doc proclaimed, sniffing the air and following his nose to the kitchen. “Mendoza cooked.”
Wyatt stood back as Doc barreled right past both him and Hugh, who scowled at both newcomers.
“Swear to God, Choirboy,” Doc said as he accepted the plate Rafe shoved in his direction, oblivious to the angry undercurrents in the room, “there are days when I’d consider switching teams and marrying you just to cash in on some of your cookin’.”
“You so did not say that,” Green grumbled as he tossed his go bag on the floor just inside the foyer.
Joe spotted Hugh, then glanced at Wyatt. When Wyatt nodded, telling him all was well, he extended his hand, all the while giving Hugh the once-over. “Joe Green.”
“Hugh Weber.” Hugh returned Joe’s handshake. “Yeah,” he added when Green cut another glance at Wyatt, “Sophie’s ex. But that’s another story for another day. I’m here to help.”
Joe nodded and jerked his head toward Doc, who was shoveling in food as if it was his last meal. “That would be Luke Colter.”
“Just call me Doc,” Colter said with a nod in Hugh’s general direction. “I’ll be more sociable once I fill this hole in my belly. Gawd damn, Mendoza. You outdid yourself this time.”
“B.J.’s recipe,” Rafe said with a smile. “Joe, better get a plate before our growing boy aces you out of the rest of this.”
“Do I have to offer to marry you, too?” Joe muttered as he walked into the kitchen.
Doc barked out a laugh. “D’you hear that, everybody? Joe cracked a joke. Jesus, Green. What’s Stephanie done to you?”
“Just eat your damn breakfast,” Joe said.
Wyatt knew the first time he’d met Joe Green that the man didn’t like being the center of attention. If his silence on the subject was any indication, he didn’t like talking about Steph, either, or the fact that the big, sullen warrior had loosened up since she’d become a part of his life.
The right woman could do that for a man, Wyatt thought, glancing at Sophie, who had finished her breakfast and was insisting that Joe take her stool. The right woman could have a man searching for and finding pieces of himself that life had broken and wondering if there was a prayer he could put them back together again.
Stephanie Tompkins had become the right woman for Joe. Just as Gabe and Sam and Rafe and Reed had found those pieces of themselves in their women. Strong women. Brave and true and above all else, women who knew exactly who they were and hadn’t changed a thing about themselves to be the right women for their men.
He watched Sophie carry her plate to the sink and rinse it off before placing it in the dishwasher, and he realized again just how badly he wanted Sophie to be that woman for him. He had even begun to think there was a chance of that happening.
Then Hugh had walked in on them. Everything had changed in that moment. Sophie hadn’t looked him in the eye since.
And Hugh—despite his outward show of anger, Hugh had hardly taken his eyes off her.
The certain knowledge that Hugh still loved his ex-wife rode over Wyatt’s head like a storm cloud. Sure, on the surface, there appeared to be nothing but malice and anger and regret between them. Hate, even.
The only emotion stronger than hate was love—and love, he knew, could still burn behind the façade of hate.
Wyatt had to live with the possibility that Sophie might still be in love with Hugh. Just like he had to quit getting all twisted up about something he couldn’t do a damn thing about. Like making an enemy out of an old friend and knowing neither one of them would fully recover from the loss.
What he could do was find that child.
He turned to Doc. “So tell us what you’ve got.”
* * *
Against Mendoza’s protests that he’d take care of it, Sophie shooed him out of the kitchen and busied herself cleaning up. She needed to do something with her hands other than wringing them as she listened to Doc’s account of his and Green’s latest foray into Soyopango, the gangland territory on the east side of San Salvador.
“The jungle drums must have been busy and loud, because word’s apparently gotten around about our little playtime south of the city. Everywhere we went, we got the look. They knew who we were, knew what we’d done. Wasn’t enough money in the Chase National Bank to make those suckers talk.”
“So we resorted to another form of persuasion,” Green said with a quiet intensity that sent a shiver down Sophie’s spine.
“This piece-of-shit banger bolted out of an abandoned building just as we drove by,” Doc went on. “He hadn’t figured on running head-on into our SUV. Nice piece of driving, by the way,” Doc said, giving Joe a nod.
“Anyway, once we convinced him that he needed to talk to us or we’d weld him to the grille and use him as a cattle catcher, it didn’t take long to get him to roll on his buddies. Must be he didn’t want to end up like the fat boy.”
“Can you cut to the chase here, Colter?” Wyatt asked.
“Right. He told us about this house that Vincente Bonilla likes to use. Said he’d heard of some unspecified ‘goods’ held there for safekeeping. Figured it must be something big, because the big bangers closed ranks around it. Close as we could figure, this all happened about the time the girl disappeared. Anyway, he’s done a few stints as lookout on the crib. Said he’d seen ’em going in and out of the building with food, thought he heard a child crying a couple of times.”
Sophie froze in place, her hand gripped around a dish towel the moment Doc said the words goods and safekeeping. But when he mentioned that a child had been crying, her heart picked up several hard, heavy beats.
She dried her hands on the towel and joined them in the living room, where Doc bent over the city map that was still open on the coffee table. “Here,” he said, leaning to the side when Hugh moved in to take a look.
“What do you think?” Wyatt asked Hugh.
“Fits,” Hugh said reluctantly. “This whole area, ten to twenty square blocks, has all been claimed by Bonilla and the Mara Salvatrucha in the past few years. Besides this building, there are at least twenty, thirty other strongholds. But”—he met Wyatt’s eyes—“even if this is our girl and even if MS-13 has stashed her in the city, you’re never going to find her. She could be in any one of them.”
“Then we hit every one of them,” Wyatt said, baldly challenging Hugh. “What can you tell us about their security so we can figure out the best way to breach them?”
Hugh glared, then shook his head. “They’ll be armed to the teeth. Lookouts all over the barrio. And there are hundreds of them.”
And a handful of them, Sophie thought as Wyatt met Hugh’s stare.
“Then we’ll have to use our old standby force multiplier,” Wyatt said, making it clear that he wasn’t backing away. “Surprise and relentless, overwhelming force.”
Hugh made a sound of disgust. “And you’re still gonna end up dead.” He cupped his palm over his jaw and swore under his breath. “Fuck me for a bleeding heart, I’ll bite it right beside you. Never planned on rocking my way to the grave anyway.”
Wyatt narrowed his eyes in reaction to Hugh’s reluctant decision to go with them. Then a slow, pleased smile curved up one corner of his mouth.
When Hugh returned his smile, Sophie could see that they’d gone beyond truce to the “one for all and all for one” mentality that had seen them through more deadly confrontations than she wanted to think about. They were ready to face the fire again, side by side.
She bit on her lower lip until she thought it would bleed. One more time. One more time, these men—one who had once been the most important part of her life, one whose life meant as m
uch to her as her own—were charging into danger. Together.
They were smiling—smiling damn it—over this second-chance reunion of their brotherhood, when there was every possibility that they could both die in the next twenty-four hours. They and four other brave men, all willing to give their lives so that good could triumph over evil.
* * *
The guys were outside, checking gear and weapons and getting ready to rumble, when Wyatt went looking for Sophie. Somewhere along the way, she had quietly disappeared. He understood why. Good-byes were never easy; under these circumstances, they were damn near unbearable.
He knew he should just go, but he couldn’t make himself leave without telling her good-bye. He wasn’t surprised to find her in Hope’s room, but his heart damn near broke when he saw her there, standing in front of the oval mirror attached to a child’s white dressing table.
Necklaces, hair clips, dozens of photos, and the typical clutter of a twelve-year-old hung from the mirror and filled the table. Posters of some American teenage pop stars hung on the walls. White stars floated down from the ceiling as if suspended from a dark blue sky.
“Sophie?”
It was a moment before she turned to face him. When she did, she was clutching a well-used, well-loved stuffed white bunny to her breast.
“It wasn’t that long ago that Hope took Thumper with her everywhere.” She buried her nose in the soft plush rabbit. “He still smells like she used to after her bath. Like baby powder and lotion.” Her eyes filled. “She had such a small amount of time to be a little girl.”
“She’ll always be your little girl.” Wyatt walked over and drew her into his arms.
She leaned into him and turned her cheek against his shoulder.
“Ask me how I know that,” he said, giving her a gentle nudge that told her he wanted her to play along.
“How do you know?” she asked, obediently but with little enthusiasm.
“Because anytime I get to thinkin’ I’m a little too big for my britches, Momma reminds me that once upon a time, she powdered my lily-white backside. Puts a man in his place, ’specially when she announces it in mixed company and lets everyone know that to her, I’ll always be her little boy.”
He felt her smile against his chest and hugged her hard. “It’s going to be okay.”
She pulled back far enough so she could look into his eyes. “Can you promise me that? Can you promise that when this is over, you, and Hugh, and the guys … that you’ll all be okay? That Lola will be okay?”
No, he couldn’t promise her. And he couldn’t lie to her. The next several hours were going to be ugly. “Sophie—”
She touched her fingers to his lips. “Don’t.” Tears misted her eyes. “Just … just come back. All of you. Just come back.”
He closed his eyes, covered her fingers with his, and pressed them against his lips. “Another thing Momma taught me,” he whispered against her fingertips. “A Southern gentleman always does what a woman tells him to.”
On a soft cry, she pressed deeper against him, lifted her mouth to his, and drew his head down for a kiss that was staggering in its urgency, stunning in its desperation. She tasted of desire and fear and a frantic need to will him to return to her. She felt like heaven and home as he wrapped his arms around her and drew her so tightly against him that she gasped against his mouth and squeaked.
Squeaked?
“Damn rabbit,” he muttered, which finally made her laugh as he tugged Thumper out from between them and drew her back against him.
“Not good-bye,” he whispered against her parted lips, and kissed her with all the love he wished he had the right to proclaim. “This is not good-bye.”
But it felt like it.
Damn, it felt like it when he finally let her go.
He backed slowly out of the room, and her dark eyes—scared and searching yet determined to be strong—willed him to come back in one piece.
“This is so my favorite time of day to make house calls,” Mendoza announced from the backseat of Wyatt’s SUV as they cruised the Soyopango gangland territory. “Nothing says sneak attack like waltzing in under the cover of the noon-fucking-sun.”
He had that right, Wyatt thought, appreciating the Choirboy’s sarcasm as they ran recon on the first target on their list. Like Mendoza, Wyatt would have much preferred waiting until dark. They didn’t have the luxury or the time, so the hope was to take advantage of siesta and catch their targets napping in the sweltering El Salvadoran heat.
The sun beat down like a bonfire; the humidity was so thick every breath felt like it was filled with swamp water. Functioning in this heat in full combat gear was going to be a bitch. Between the Kevlar body armor, extra ammo, and weaponry, each one of them was carrying a good forty pounds. They were all sweating in the sauna-like heat. And if they came back alive, they’d all be at least ten to fifteen pounds lighter in the water-weight department before the next twenty-four hours was over.
Twenty-four hours. That’s how much time Lola had left. They were pinning all their hope of finding her on a list of probable MS-13 strongholds that Hugh had helped Wyatt isolate at Sophie’s no more than two hours ago. Once their targets were set, it had taken most of those two hours to pull their plan together and then hit Hugh’s munitions warehouse, where they’d bolstered their ordinance out of his inventory.
“Not to look a gift horse in the mouth”—Gabe had pulled Wyatt out of Weber’s earshot before they’d left—“but you’re sure this guy’s a hundred percent solid?”
Wyatt got it. Gabe didn’t know Hugh from a scud missile. He didn’t trust him yet. But Wyatt did know Hugh. Regardless of the animosity between them over Sophie, regardless of Hugh’s resistance to the attacks on the MS-13 hideouts, he knew he could still trust Hugh with his life.
The man riding shotgun beside Wyatt was a man he’d trust to guard his six at the gates of hell. He might not be the man Wyatt had known fifteen years ago—hell, Wyatt wasn’t the same man, either—but the bond they’d forged as raw recruits in the rat-infested back streets of Mogadishu and a dozen other Third World hell holes had been sealed by blood.
“Yeah,” Wyatt had told Gabe without hesitation. “I’m sure.”
That was the end of the conversation. Gabe understood that kind of brotherhood. The BOIs lived it every mission. If they didn’t, they died. Pig-simple.
And the bottom line was, Hugh knew the city. He not only lived in it, but he’d worked it for the past several years. He knew the gang mentality, their setup, their hierarchy. He knew where their cribs were, who called the shots in each district, and which heads needed to roll. If Hugh said targets X, Y, and Z were where they were most likely to find a hostage crib, then Wyatt was going through the door with him.
“That’s the building,” Hugh said, pointing out their first target to Wyatt. “The one on the corner.”
PC vernacular would label it low-income housing. In the “calling a spade a spade” department, they were slum apartments. They’d driven by block after block of buildings just like this one, havens for MS-13, the gang’s own urban jungle, heavily populated with civilians whose souls were as lost as theirs.
Sheer numbers gave the gang the protection of having a lot of innocent civilians around to give the policía—yeah, there was a joke—or, in this instance, Wyatt’s detail pause for fear of collateral damage. It also provided an endless pool of lookouts. It was damn easy to recruit anyone for any job with the promise of drugs or money or MS-13’s method of choice: a bullet in the head.
In this particular building, more windows were broken than intact. Graffiti and MS-13 gang signs smeared the first six feet or so of the grim cement-block structure. Apparently, the lack of extension ladders was the only thing keeping the upper four stories expletive-free.
“Mendoza.”
“Already on it.” Rafe interrupted Wyatt and raised Gabe on one of the commo radios Hugh had provided. “On target,” he said into the mike.
“Roger
that,” Gabe answered almost immediately from the Suburban, which kept a respectable distance behind them with Green at the wheel. Wyatt would like to have had Doc with the team, but he couldn’t risk leaving Sophie alone. It was too dangerous. And she was too close to the edge.
He could still see her standing in Hope’s room when he’d left her, her arms wrapped tightly around her midsection as if she was holding herself together, her dark eyes haunted by fear and resignation.
They’d all piled into the vehicle and were about to pull out of the drive when she’d run out of the house.
“Bring her back,” she’d said quietly, her gaze encompassing all five of them. “Bring them all back,” she stated, those eyes lingering on Hugh and then on him.
There were so many things Wyatt wished he had said to her. He’d wanted to climb out of the SUV, pull her back into his arms, lose his hands in her hair, and feel her life blood pulse against him one more time. He’d wanted to tell her he loved her. Tell her that when this was over, he was coming for her. That Hugh had had his chance and had blown it. Now it was his turn. Now it was their time.
But he hadn’t. For her sake, even for Hugh’s sake, maybe even for his own sake.
He’d just left her standing there in the driveway, telling himself that if he didn’t make it back, she’d be better off not knowing the depth of his feelings. Better off with Montoya, who was waiting in the wings and could give her a future that didn’t start and end with the fear that the next time, he might not come home.
24
“Pretty quiet.” Hugh’s voice broke into Wyatt’s thoughts about Sophie.
Wyatt shut down that part of his brain and scanned the AO as they cruised slowly by. Across the street, a kid—no more than ten or twelve, wearing baggy black shorts and a grimy blue tank—leaned against a broken-down chain-link fence, cell phone in hand. Talking to Mom? Not likely.
An old woman sat in a rusted-out lawn chair by the curb, holding a basket of half-rotted vegetables, hoping to make a sale in the sweltering sun. Right next to her, a crack whore huddled into herself in the gutter, her body shaking in the filth like it was fifty below.