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The door to Kenna’s left opened, and the old woman who’d been watching the boy raced in, blood on her forehead.
Navarro pulled a gun, pointed it at the woman, and squeezed the trigger. The kid flinched against Kenna, thankfully with his face turned away from the bloodshed. She held on tighter, smoothing her hand up and down the shirt over his back.
“Hector!” Ramon Santiago raced in, shoving men aside. She watched as he clocked the situation in two seconds. Followed quickly by the fact it was Kenna sitting behind the desk holding who she guessed was Hector’s son.
Navarro handed the gun to Ramon. He said something in Spanish, then strode around the desk and gathered the boy from Kenna’s arms. Navarro carried him from the room. The rest of his men except for one went with him.
Ramon Santiago stared at her. “It is you.” He stood facing her across the desk. Folded his arms in a way she could still see the gun.
Kenna didn’t have the strength for banter or anything else. “I need to get back to the compound.” When help came, she wanted to be standing right next to Jax so they could be rescued together.
“You think Navarro is going to let you walk free after what just happened?”
“You tell me. You’re the one who has apparently been working for him all this time.” She managed to shrug one shoulder. “I’m a captive.”
“So it’s true.” Ramon stared at her, ten years had given him lines around his eyes and a worn aspect to his demeanor. Though that was no surprise, given the life he had been living. “The Americans have an FBI agent in their compound? But that surely can’t be you. You haven’t been one for years.”
So the cartel had heard word of what was going on in Kart’s compound. “You know my story?”
Ramon’s expression hardened. “I’ve kept apprised of what it was necessary to know. But you only popped back up on my radar when you killed the FBI director in Vegas.”
Why she felt the need to say, “It was justified,” Kenna wasn’t sure. She didn’t want to contemplate it over much. She would chalk it up to exhaustion instead. The fact that nostalgia maybe made her want to defend herself. She sighed. “So what do we do now?”
Ramon stared at her.
For a man who had betrayed his country and gone to the dark side, he certainly seemed content with his decision. Or maybe the former undercover agent was extremely competent at hiding what was on his mind.
Had he been playing this part for years?
Kenna said, “If you need help, and I need help, then maybe we can work together and figure something out that will benefit both of us.”
“Like you grabbing Navarro’s kid during a raid to make the point that you could hurt him where it counts whenever you want?”
“I don’t think that’s how I convince any of you to give me a shot at getting Oliver Jaxton free of Kart and his friends.”
The skin around Ramon’s eyes flexed. “I’ve never heard of Oliver Jaxton.”
“Your loss. He’s a great guy,” Kenna said. “The kind of agent who always does the right thing and would never betray the oath he took to uphold the law with fidelity, bravery, and integrity.” She paused a second. “Unlike us.”
Ramon chuckled. “Navarro didn’t think you were going to hurt the kid.”
“Navarro has no clue what I’m capable of.” Kenna had to admit something, though. “But I could use his help. And in return maybe I can figure out what happened to his bride.”
Ramon turned and wandered to the altar, staring at the pictures tucked between flickering candles. Hiding his expression from her because he couldn’t hold back his reaction to that? For some reason talk about the missing woman affected him deeply.
Was the same true of all of Navarro’s men?
“Who was she?”
If they had that kind of loyalty for one woman, there wasn’t much they wouldn’t do for the man they worked for. Another stark contrast—if she considered Kart and his brothers in arms. They might be loyal to one another, but she had detected entirely too much independence.
Where Navarro’s men would live and die for him, their team was strong only up until one of them considered themselves above the others. Or decided to challenge Kart for leadership.
“What happened to her, Ramon?” As much as she would like to continue sitting in this chair, Kenna would have to get up at some point. And when she did, she was going to need a plan. A way to get Jax and get out.
Just making a run for it as fast as possible didn’t give her a lot of room to account for issues that might crop up—probably right in front of her, blocking her way to the gate.
“She disappeared months ago.” Ramon squeezed the bridge of his nose. “One day she was here, and the next morning she was gone.”
