Her eyes search mine desperately, like she’s trying to determine whether I actually believe that.She shouldn’t.Mentally, I’m preparing for bloodshed.
I press a kiss onto her forehead before pulling back slightly and slipping my large hand around her small one. I head straight for the staircase with her in tow. “Go check hisroom to be sure.” As she races upstairs, I head straight for the command center.
The atmosphere inside is sharp and focused. Gunnar stands over one of the surveillance monitors, while Hawk sits at the central console, with Jagger leaning against the back wall, coffee in hand. All three of them look up immediately when I enter, each of them clocking my expression. “Damon?” Hawk speaks first.
“The ambassador is doing something foolish.”
Jagger’s brows furrow. “What are you talking about? He got so piss-drunk last night, he’s probably still upstairs sleeping it off. And the Marines are on him.”
“He’s gone.” I toss the note onto the table. Gunnar grabs it first, reading quickly before passing it to Hawk.
“Fuck,” Hawk grumbles.
“Exactly.”
Gunnar’s jaw flexes. “You think he went to them willingly? To take her place?”
“I think guilt makes people stupid.”
“And proud men worse,” Jagger adds quietly.
“He’s not there.” Mackenzi bursts through the doors breathless.
Hawk’s fingers flit across the screen of his cell phone. “I’m calling his Marine detail.”
The line rings twice before someone answers. “This is Hawk. Tell me the ambassador has a detail with him.”
“Are all of you still at the embassy?”
Another pause.
“Do any of you know he left the compound this morning?”
More silence.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” He tosses the phone roughly onto the desk. “They assumed he was still asleep.”
“Meaning, he slipped out alone,” Gunnar says grimly.
I pull my phone from my pocket immediately and call the ambassador directly.
One ring… Two… Three… Voicemail.
“Fuck.” My stomach tightens harder. I turn quickly toward Mackenzi and hold out my hand. “Give me your phone, trouble.”
Her brows pull together slightly, but she digs into the hoodie pouch and hands it over without question.
I dial the ambassador again using her phone. This time it only rings twice and I draw a breath of relief when the call connects—until an unfamiliar male voice speaks.
“Ah. I was wondering when you would call,” the man says smoothly, with a thick, Colombian accent. “I’m sorry, but Ambassador Bradenburg is a little tied up at the moment.”
Mackenzi goes rigid beside me, watching the screen flip from the voice call to a video one. She gasps. “Oh my God, Dad…”
On the screen, the ambassador hangs from a pipe running along a concrete ceiling, his wrists bound above his head,zipties cutting deep into the skin. His face is swollen nearly beyond recognition, and trickles of blood trail down his bare chest.
A man steps into the frame slowly. He’s mid-forties—maybe—with calm eyes for what’s unfolding behind him. The kind of calm that belongs to predators. He smiles directly into the camera. “Hola, Mackenzi.” Something vicious twists in my gut at the way his gaze lingers on her through the screen.
“I was looking forward to meeting you underverydifferent circumstances, princesita.” His tone darkens with an amused hunger, a wicked smile spreading across his face. “But since your father does not quite fill the role I had planned for you, he is going to have to be useful in a different way.”
