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“Hmm… Well, we need to eat, and coffee would help us get a plan going.” Charlie looked from Ian and Eric, already beginning to strategize, then to her. “How about you put on those sneakers and then you and I take those itchy feet of yours outside and go on a provisions hunt?”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Rhianne agreed.
Whatever was between her and Eric would have to keep for after.
Just as she had to trust there’dbean after.
20
It seemed to take forever to get finalized, but eventually, the four of them were ready and the SUV loaded up.
“Hey.” Charlie caught their attention before they took their seats. “Know something?”
“Yeah,” Eric and Ian chorused, Rhianne looking a little puzzled. “The only easy day—”
“Was yesterday.” Charlie joined in for the final line of the familiar SEAL saying, something they often recited before a mission. He thumped the side of the vehicle and they all copied, adding their own taps to follow his.
“Rhianne?” Charlie gestured to the side of the SUV in invitation, and a slight smile curved her full lips as she knocked on the vehicle too. “There you go,” he said. “One of us.”
Yeah. She was. Eric’s throat grew dry, and he had trouble swallowing. When this was over—when they’d won—he had a lot of other matters to solve. Personal matters. Funny how the mission ahead, with its danger and risk, seemed less daunting than talking to Rhianne and finding out if there was any chance for them to make things work.
The streets around the motel were stirring, coming to life, and would soon be teeming and chaotic. The hills they drove up into were a lot quieter and emptier, but not more restful. Not with what they were there to do.
“Oh.” Rhianne, at the wheel, spoke her first word of the journey at the guard shacks that flanked the entrance to the compound’s long drive. The twin structures were now smoldering heaps and the gate a mangled lump of metal on the ground. “From the bombs you planted last night?” she asked Charlie.
“Not just me. Ian did the one on the left,” Charlie replied dryly. “Okay—this is our stop.”
It was the plan that the three of them would get out before Rhianne drove into the compound proper. The three former SEALs would find their own way in. Eric agreed with the plan, knew it was the best option, but leaving her was hard. “Go slowly,” Eric reminded her. “Give us time—”
“To get there,” she finished before him. She paused, looking like she had earlier, as though she wanted to say something, but simply nodded instead, her face pale but set and determined. Her bravery wrung his heart.
“Go,” ordered Charlie, and Rhianne went.
Eric, using bushes and then small buildings as cover, followed, noting things that might be useful along the way, including the bus, probably the same one that had brought the guests here from Tijuana and taken the men up into the hills. He wondered where the other guests had gone…or what had happened to them.
Best-case scenario, they’d been taken back to the city, where fear of the cartel would keep their mouths shut about the events of the weekend. Eric had promised himself he’d track down each and every one of them and ensure each faced the maximum punishment US law could mete out for their sick, inhumane willingness to trade in human flesh. Their money and position wouldn’t protect them.
But that was for another day. He was here, now, in the somewhat ruinedfincathat looked to have fewer guards and be less organized than before, courtesy of Bronte Security Services’ first incursion. The compound wasn’t quite the impenetrable fortress it had appeared to be—but Arturo and his men were still a dangerous threat. Every single bit of his focus had to be on this.
If letting Rhianne drive into enemy territory was bad, seeing her barely get through the front gates before armed guards surrounded her was worse. And worst of all was watching them remove her from her vehicle, their laughter and jokes at her stupidity in returning there ringing out.
“But I was told to, to get my sister back!” Rhianne wailed loud enough for Eric to hear, her deliberately naïve tone making the men laugh harder.
Anger burned in him when a guard frisked her, taking his time patting her down and running his hands up her legs. When he ordered her to turn around, then cupped her ass, Eric nearly started forward, a red mist of rage descending.
But his intervention wasn’t needed. Rhianne pulled free, whirled around, and slapped the man’s face. None too gently either—Eric heard her hand connect and saw the man stagger backward.
Other guards restrained that one when he went to retaliate. Rhianne cussed him out in English, then Spanish, making the guards pause. Eric understood some of what she shouted next, about how she looked forward to telling the guard’sjefethat his junior had overstepped the mark. And what did he think would happen if the moron hit her and damaged hisjefe’s prize? Rhianne even forced a head-shaking laugh at his stupidity.
The man subsided, leaving Eric to marvel at Rhianne’s quick thinking and bravery. He recalled the confidence in her capabilities he’d felt while working alongside her on their joint mission a few years ago—he’d be proud to serve by her side in any branch of the armed services.
The small group of guards forced her to go with them, shoving her in the small of her back when she didn’t march quickly enough, or stumbled on the uneven ground. They’d be taking her to Arturo, like she was a trophy they’d won for him, a captive for him to do what he wanted with.
You won’t be alone for long, Eric silently promised her, slipping through the compound like a ghost. He’d memorized the maps, both the satellite images and the ones he and Rhianne had hand-drawn from their personal knowledge, and had a plan for getting into the house if the girls were still being held in the same sealed-off section.
But that didn’t end up being needed. The guards marched her to a separate building away from the house. It made sense to have moved the “merchandise” somewhere easier to guard, now that the auction had been blown and the only people left on the compound were prisoners and guards.
The simple square structure reminded Eric of a bunkhouse or dormitory. He took the long way around, hugging the wall of a nearby building…only to discover a stray guard loitering behind it, smoking. Damn.
