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“But then!” He held his finger in the air. “Like a telenovela, another twist ensued, and the girl, she turned on him.” He made a gun motion with his fingers and placed them against my head, and I squeezed my eyes shut at the contact. “Boom. She shot him.”
My shoulders moved up and down as I tried to catch my breath, but my brain was on fire, trying to put everything together, but I knew. I knew what he was saying. And it all started to make sense. The secret phone calls, the men who had turned up at the cabin in the middle of the night. They were there for him. They were there to take him home.
“My son, Miss Easton. My dear son killed because he loved a woman.” I opened my eyes. “Killed by you.”
The air was sucked out of the room at his words, and I couldn’t catch my breath. His stillness was frightening, and I screamed as he yanked onto my hair and bent my head back. “How silly not to introduce myself to you.” He leaned down, his face centimeters from mine. “I’m Eduardo Garza, Cartel boss, and your worst fuckin’ nightmare.”
* * *
FORD
The blades above us drowned out any noise, and the person flying it told us we’d be there in four minutes. It was a stark contrast to the amount of time it would have taken for us to drive, but it still felt too long. Garza wasn’t just a cartel boss who I’d gone undercover to bring down. He wasn’t just a man we’d fooled into believing I was dead. He was Curtis’ father. The father of the man Belle had killed.
Brody sat one side of me and Ky on the other, and across from us were three more DEA agents. We had no idea what exactly we’d walk into, but we’d been given the okay to shoot to kill. Our lives were in danger, but so was Belle’s. There was no way Garza intended for her to leave there alive, and it was making me antsy. The longer it took us to get there, the more time he had to hurt her.
And that thought had my hands shaking. I couldn’t lose her, not after everything we’d been through. We’d come out on the other side, and yet, we were still fighting just to live another day. It wasn’t fair, but I’d learned a long time ago that life wasn’t fair. We made of it what we did. Bonds were made and torn apart, but I’d tied ours as tight as I could. I just hoped the knot would uphold and not break.
“Sixty seconds out,” the pilot said over the headsets we were wearing. I pushed to the edge of my seat and adjusted my helmet, goggles, and bulletproof vest. We were dressed in tactical gear because we knew there was no way the place wouldn’t be overrun with cartel members. They’d do anything to protect their boss, but they had no idea what I would do to save the woman I loved. My rifle was loaded and ready to go, but I still checked that the safety was on, and I was good on bullets. We all went through our own safety checks, and then the helicopter lowered, hovering a hundred feet off the ground.
“Ready?” Brody asked.
“Ready,” I responded, and together, we were the first two to push forward, grab on to the rope, and slide down it into the abandoned grounds. Two buildings were ahead of us, one to the right that looked smaller, and a bigger one with its doors open ajar. The sound of a gunshot reverberated around us, and the helicopter moved higher now that we were all on the ground safely.
“You three around back,” Brody told the other DEA guys. “We’ll go in the front.”
We all moved in formation, Brody in the middle, me behind, and Ky at the front. Shots continued to be fired from the big building, but Ky pulsed out two shots from his rifle, and then they stopped. A van sat near the door, and I recognized it immediately as the one Belle had been put into at the grocery store. “She’s here,” I said through coms, and Brody nodded to let me know he’d heard me.
We halted at the doors, our backs to the wall, and Brody lifted his hand, signaling for us to wait. He lowered his arm and made a shooing motion toward the door. Ky burst in first and was met with more bullets, and Brody went in second. My legs vibrated as I shot inside, lifting my rifle and firing off three bullets into the heads of guards littered around the building.
And then I saw her. Her arms and legs tied to a chair, tears streaming down her face and a cut lip oozing blood. But it was what was behind her that had me halting and my world spinning.
“I’m glad you found us so soon,” Garza said in his deep, accented voice. His hair was shorter, and he had scruff on his face. He looked…older. “I wouldn’t want you to miss out on the show.”
He gripped Belle’s hair and pulled her head back, exposing her throat, and I caught the glint of the knife next to her throat.
“Put it down, Garza,” I warned, holding my rifle up and lining up the shot. I wouldn’t let him do this, not to her. Not to Belle.
Garza tutted and shook his head, but his eyes were wild with fury. “Or what?” he asked, and his arm flinched. I stroked the trigger with my finger, ready to pull it at any second. “She took everything from me, and now…” He yanked on her hair harder, and she flinched. “Now, I’m gonna take everything away from you.”
* * *
BELLE
I’d never heard the sound before, but whatever it was had everyone on edge and darting for the barn doors. Everyone but the man still holding on to my hair.
Gunshots rang out, ricocheting in the open area, but I didn’t look away from him, not until people dressed in what looked like SWAT gear burst into the barn, firing shots and dropping the guards before they even had a chance to lift their arms and aim.
Eduardo gripped my hair tighter but moved behind me, letting me see every move of the people who had come into the barn. And then I saw him. The man who Eduardo had been talking about. The man who had fooled them all and let them believe he was dead. The man who had put him behind bars.
Ford.
“I’m glad you found us so soon,” Eduardo greeted. “I wouldn’t want you to miss out on the show.” He pushed his front into my back, and I tried to extend my fingers for any kind of traction, but I was starting to lose feeling in them. And then something cold pressed against my throat, and I held deathly still. The sharpness of it could only mean it was a knife. He had a knife pressed against my throat, and there was no way I could move away from it.
Eduardo yanked on my hair, pulling my head back even more. I could see Ford as he stepped toward us, and I wanted to yell out and beg him to save me, but as I stared at him, I knew I didn’t need to. He was here. Here for me. Here for us.
“Put it down, Garza,” Ford growled and held his rifle up, aiming it at him.
“Or what?” Eduardo asked, and I felt the sting of the edge of the blade start to cut into my skin. “She took everything from me, and now…” He yanked on my hair harder, my scalp burning, and I flinched. “Now I’m gonna take everything away from you.”
