Because it was the only way Nadia would be really, truly happy.
**
“Thanks, Remy.” Nadia hung up the payphone and strode immediately toward the marina, where boat after boat could be rented out. She walked past all the tourist boats, all the way to the end where an older man in a worn T-shirt, denim shorts, and flip flops peered through his long hair at her as he sat in a deck chair, drinking from a long-necked bottle.
“How much for you to take me up the coast and drop me off?”
His chest jerked, but no sound emerged. The man’s lips curled up as he took another sip. What was so funny?
He wiped his beard with the back of his hand. “Thirty thousand dollars.”
“Ten.”
He chuckled soundlessly once again. “I don’t take credit cards.”
Nadia slipped the backpack from her shoulder, unzipped it, and tossed it on the deck. Stacks of bills spilled out. “Good thing I made a withdrawal this morning.”
That got the man’s attention.
Sure, this tactic had bitten her once before. But now she had a gun. If the man tried anything, she’d just shoot him and take his boat anyway. And keep her money this time.
He unfolded his lanky body from the chair, lean for an old guy. Muscles toned from weathering big waves and his hands worn from the ropes onboard. Fishing nets. Poles. “Get aboard, woman. The meter’s running.”
Nadia smiled and hopped onto the deck.
Finally, things were going to plan. Thanks to Remy she knew exactly where everyone was. She had a new phone and internet. Weapons. Once she got to Pu'u honua she would be able to warn Ben and Bolton that Dante was already here—and that he had Grant. She could warn them Will had been feeding their enemy information for weeks.
Thank you, Lord. God had been protecting her, seeing her through this whole thing. And now he’d given her another opportunity to be there to help. Sure, she wasn’t a trained agent, but neither was she the kind of woman who sat around. That had been proven.
Bolton seemed to think she was just going to go home, and that would be that. Like living in Sanctuary was the only solution. And not just that, but living there without him? Not her first choice. Somehow she had to convince him that it would only be worth going back there if he came with her. Because what was the point in her watching everything she’d ever wanted fly away in a helicopter and knowing she was never going to see him again?
Nadia gritted her teeth. Bolton was so set on living his own life, maybe he deserved to realize what being alone felt like.
Lord, help me keep loving him.
She wanted to know what connection felt like. John and Andra had it. Matthias and Frannie. Even Beth and Sam. Everything in Nadia yearned to know what it felt like, to belong to someone so completely that you were their whole world.
Why couldn’t she have that?
Psalms said God would give her the desires of her heart, but she couldn’t ask for this. It was too much, too selfish. Didn’t those desires have to be pure in motive before God would give them to her? That seemed like it should be a thing, not using His power for her own gain. Sure, God wanted to bless her with good things, but she had to be wise with it, otherwise, she was only in this to have her own needs met. What about giving away the gift she’d been given, to other people, so that they were blessed by what God had done in her? It didn’t seem right to get caught up in what she could get out of this relationship. That wasn’t healthy.
Tell that to her heart.
Nadia gripped the edge of the boat as they motored out into open waters, and the owner kept them parallel to the shore. As they sailed north, she prayed harder than she ever had for strength.
**
Colt grabbed Bolton’s arm and set him in a chair. Bolton couldn’t quite silence the groan. The room was open, wood paneled walls, and shutters instead of glass. They probably barely kept the rain out. A bare bulb lit the room, a pull cord dangling down. It looked like a jungle interrogation room run by some local cartel, or a revolutionary force.
Colt looked like he was going to ask about Bolton’s obvious pain, so he said, “Nice place.” He couldn’t figure out how people actually lived here. All there had been was one hut in the trees. Where did everyone else stay? How many people lived here? Were the houses underground?
Colt pulled out his radio. “We’re clear.”
“Understood.” Thea.
Bolton sucked in a breath and turned his head to the door. “Is she coming in here? Are you going to let her shoot me, too?”
“That depends on Thea. Her son seemed to think you need to die.”
My son. Bolton could hardly say it. Could hardly believe that years of knowing he’d never see his boy, but dreaming of it still, had culminated in the kid trying to shoot him.
“I don’t know you.” Colt folded his arms. “My town is under siege, and you likely have answers. So I guess we’ll find out if Thea feels the need to take her vengeance on you.” He shrugged. “One less thing for me to figure out.”
He had to know what Thea was like. If Colt really was the person in charge around here—Bolton was beginning to doubt if he was a marshal—he had to know that Thea lied as easily as she breathed. That she complained about anything even remotely not to her satisfaction until Bolton had simply given in to get her to stop whining. How she’d survived here was a mystery, given it was pretty rustic.
She’d have driven everyone crazy in Sanctuary, too. That was certain. Wherever she went, Thea had left a trail of people who wanted nothing more than to get rid of her. Unless she’d simply fooled them all with that sickly sweet act that she’d used on Bolton. The one that wore off fast when he’d begun to have ideas about anything contrary to her opinion.
It had been a long three years, even though there were some good times. At least he thought he might have been able to remember some. Still, despite all the regret wrapped up in Javier, Bolton had honestly been a little relieved when she’d walked away.
The door opened, and Thea walked in. Silk blouse, cargo pants that hugged her figure like cling wrap, suede boots, and short hair that was spiked out in the back. She looked like Halle Berry. Her makeup was heavy but flawless. Bolton could count on one hand the times he’d seen her face clean of products. He stared at her, hardly even knowing what he was supposed to say.
Apparently she knew, because she set her hand on her hip and fired off a shot. “Are you here to kill us?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Why else would you show up, Bolton?”
“I’d have to actually hate you in order to want to kill you, Thea. And while you annoy me, tremendously, and there’s a great deal of frustration wrapped up in there, I can’t exactly say I hate you. Might be close, though, but Colt here took my gun.”
Her head whipped to the other man in the room. “You can’t give me privacy right now? You have to stick your nose in this, too?”
Colt sighed. The slight smile that had edged onto his lips while Bolton had spoken disappeared now. He glanced at Bolton. “Maybe I should be worried about her killing you.”
Bolton shrugged. “If you could talk a person to death I’d be long gone already.”
Colt chuckled. “I hear ya.”
“Excuse me.”
“No,” Bolton said. “You know what, Thea? No. I came here because Dante is on his way. You aren’t safe, and neither are these people. This town, if it even is a whole one, could be exposed.”
She reacted. Spine straightening, lips thinning.
He turned to Colt. “Either you have defenses, in which case we employ them. Or we are the defense. In my town there’s bunker where everyone was protected.”
Colt nodded. “A cave.”
“The alternative is we get everyone out of here. Now.”
Colt lifted his radio. “All units, this is Colt. Get everyone to the south corner and wait for instructions.”
“Copy.”
“Copy.”
“Copy.”<
br />
The word came over his radio two more times. Colt clipped his radio back on his belt. “So what do we do while everyone hides?”
“Hides?” Thea set her hands on both hips. “We can’t hide. He’ll find us.”
There was something off about how she said it, but Bolton couldn’t nail down what it was. It had been too long since he’d seen her. His son had to be at least twelve. “You should get Javier to safety.”
“Don’t you say his name! You abandoned us,” she hissed.
“You’re the one who left.” No one had whined at him for years, and he didn’t miss it. But he had to focus. “Get your son to safety, and I’ll make sure Dante doesn’t get to you. That’s why I came here.” He paused. “Javier is—” He didn’t even know how to answer that.
His voice had a hard edge to it, he heard it, and it was one she brought out in him. They’d never backed down, either of them, not once in a fight. That was why her divorcing him had made so little sense. He figured she’d rather have made his life miserable for eternity, the way he’d planned to do with her. Then a child came along, and she’d left. It still made no sense to him, no matter how long he thought about it.
“When this is done, you and I will have a conversation about how you kept my child from me and why the first time he saw me, that child tried to kill me.” Bolton had to take a breath. “You took that from me, Thea. And I want an answer. When I’m satisfied, then I’ll be leaving. But not before.”
“You can’t do this,” she hissed.
“Go and protect your son.”
He glanced away, dismissing her. If things went any further she’d know he couldn’t get out of this chair. Bolton’s legs had numbed to the point he wasn’t convinced they would hold his weight.
Thea slammed the door behind her.
“You guys have a doctor?”
Colt lifted his chin. “What do you need?”
**
Ben crept through the trees. He shifted a giant leaf silently and peered through. Dante. Four men. Grant in the middle, hands tied. The path was a decent choke point if Ben could get ahead of them. He had enough guns he could take out maybe three before one got off a shot. Ben had no body armor, but he could get it off one of these guys after he killed them.
Men he’d hired to protect his brother. Men who had betrayed that trust and taken his brother right to the man he was trying to find.
Ben wasn’t sure whether to shake their hands first before he killed them.
Grant stumbled. He was sweating pretty well, but he was in one piece. Ben had known he wasn’t cut out for this life, but Grant hadn’t been content being the corporate face of Ben’s organization despite his extensive Washington contacts. The man had pull, that couldn’t be denied. Field work had been about Ben making his brother feel useful, but hopefully Grant had that out of his system by now.
Ben lifted his hands to his mouth and sounded the call of a bird native to their home state.
Grant froze.
The man behind Grant shoved him forward. “Keep moving.”
Ben set off through the trees.
Chapter 20
Ben readied himself. Grant wasn’t going to last much longer before he either collapsed. Or snapped and forced Ben to move because he was tired of waiting.
Dante’s phone rang.
“What?” Dante glanced up and stared at the sky. “She was supposed to be taken care of, and you tell me she’s loose and ready to cause trouble? If she gets in the way, it’s your family who will suffer. Understand me, Will?”
Ben took a breath to process the fact a man he trusted was being coerced into helping Dante. Dante had a man on the inside of Ben’s organization for long enough Will could have done some serious damage. And Nadia was gone. He pulled out the burner phone Will had given him. Even if it was compromised, Ben didn’t have much choice. Will had a family? Since when?
He sent a text to Remy and got a reply within seconds.
She’s fine. Boat ride to help you.
One more player Ben needed to keep safe. His life was a chess board. King and pawns. Knights determined to help, who wound up getting in the way instead of being useful. All to protect a queen, one well and truly able to protect herself—and who wanted nothing to do with him.
Nadia fit in that mix somewhere, while Ben tried to move the pieces as much as he could control.
He texted her back about the town’s emergency protocols.
His name is Paul.
He’d met Colt, but who was Paul?
Dante spoke into the phone. “Get me a location on this place I’m going. I want to know if the director is leading me the right way.” He swung around and glared at Grant. “Great.” Dante muttered, hung up, and stowed his phone away. When he turned back, Dante swung out with the butt of his gun and slammed it into Grant’s temple.
Ben watched his brother slump onto the dirt and groan about a chocolate ice cream.
Dante leaned down. “What did you say?”
The smile curled Ben’s lips nonetheless. So impatient. He readied both weapons and stepped out. Simultaneous shots took out the first two. Grant kicked out and swiped Dante’s legs from under him. Three and four turned, and he put a bullet in both.
Dante moved to fire at Ben, but he fired first. Always quicker on the draw. Always. Ben shot the bullet maybe a hair from Dante’s hand. He dropped the gun, eyes wide. “Ben Mason.”
“You think I’d let you traipse out here with my brother and not come?”
“Oh no.” Dante mock-gasped. “I never thought of that.”
Ben kicked the weapon from each man, not that the four were getting up. It was the principle of disarming them. “I wonder how you managed to convince the DEA you were stable long enough to get through the hiring process.” He kicked away Dante’s gun and then cut Grant’s bonds before he helped his brother to his feet.
“Looks like we found our prize.” Grant smiled.
Ben wasn’t so sure. “Any more of your men out here in this jungle?”
Dante lifted his eyebrows. “And if there were? You think I’d let them finish this when I could do it myself?”
Ben had to cover the variables fast, given the man looked that smug. “I think they’ll bring Thea to you.”
The man’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “Interesting.”
Ben hauled him up and patted him down before he secured the man’s hands. “You might have escaped from federal prison but your fun is over. Time to go back.”
“You think I’m going back there?” He barked a laugh. “Tristan will have me killed before I even get through the doors. He paid the Haitians to stab me at breakfast, and I barely got away. Wasn’t gonna hang around for the next time.”
“How did you escape?”
“Trade secret.”
Ben had assumed he’d simply had friends on the outside who helped him. But not Tristan? The bug Ben planted in Tristan’s house hadn’t yielded as much as he’d hoped, but it appeared Dante and Tristan were at war.
“Is Tristan coming here?”
“Your man, Will, didn’t know that. Didn’t know much in fact. I’ll have to let them know to kill his wife and daughter, so he knows exactly how helpful he was.”
Ben shared a look with Grant and then pulled out his phone. He couldn’t call Daire—the man was on personal time, and that meant no one could disturb him. It was the first rule of their company. The earth could be about to explode, but you didn’t get a man off his vacation. Nothing was more important than leave.
Shadrach was in hospital. That only left outsourcing the search for Will’s family for the time being. Ben called a man who worked in his field, a man whom Ben didn’t know all that well except that Daire referred to him as “the boy scout.” He was ex-Delta Force, freelance now. Rumor was he’d married a CIA double agent and settled down to a quiet life of private ops. Ben filled the man in and got an assurance he’d look into it.
Satisfied for the time being, he hung up and texted Remy
to find out where Tristan was. If he was on the island, Ben wanted to know before he walked into the man’s sights.
Grant subjected Dante to much the same treatment he’d received. They changed directions and headed down to the water. He didn’t want Dante anywhere near the town or the people who lived there.
“If you want to check on the residents here, you’re going the wrong way.”
Ben shook his head as they walked. “You think I’m taking you there? You’re crazy. Like I’d let you get anywhere near Bolton’s ex-wife and his son? I’m not going to let you even see them, let alone hurt them just to get revenge on Bolton for testifying against you.”
Dante trudged along in front. “You think that’s why I’m here? To kill them.” He barked a laugh. “You do. Oh, that’s precious. Had you all fooled, but it looks like you’re in for a surprise when you figure it out. Protecting people. You’re so good at it, aren’t you? The U.S. Marshals, oldest federal agency, all the good ole boys in their chaps with that star on their belt walking around like they’re better than everyone else.”
“We are.” Grant’s words echoed off into nothing.
“Not anymore you’re not. You’ll take anyone in, but do you know everything? No. The DEA is nothing but a bunch of cartel wannabe’s to you. A bunch of dirty feds you wanna lock up, like you don’t deserve the same for protecting murderers and thieves just for squealing for you.”
“Thank you, for that completely insulting over-generalization of the good work the marshals’ service does. And yes,” Grant said, “the DEA is nothing but a bunch of cartel wannabe’s. You know how I know that? Because of you. Lily white on the surface, flashing that badge everywhere you went. But underneath the table you’re taking bribes, transporting drugs, and pocketing the profits.”
“And Bolton? An FBI wannabe pretending to be a good guy while it’s useful. The minute it doesn’t go his way he’s back to lying, stealing from me, and burying it in that stash.”
Sanctuary Deceived WITSEC Town Series Book 4 Page 21