Betrayed (Hostage Rescue Team Series Book 9) (14 page)

Stretching his arms over his head, he let out a huge yawn. “I’m beat. Gonna go crash for a bit, because I’m getting old. You guys catch up, I’ll see you in the morning.” He headed for the stairs.

Georgia watched him go, still suspicious, her brain working overtime.

“Your soup’s gone cold.”

She jerked her gaze to Miguel, found herself falling into those dark eyes for a moment. “Oh. No, it’s fine.” She’d completely forgotten about it. Picking up her spoon, she took a mouthful of the soup, suddenly famished.

“You’re gonna need more fluids than that,” Briar said, getting up and crossing to the fridge. She came back with a bottled sports drink and set it down in front of her.

“Thanks.” It was weird, having others make a fuss over her after she’d been alone so long. But she kind of liked it, in a way.

She ate a few more spoonfuls of soup, aware of the lingering strain between the three of them. Out of nowhere a memory surfaced, of back when they were in the Valkyrie program. After receiving yet another punishment Georgia had been locked in a cell, so hungry she felt sick. She’d lost her temper during a training session and as punishment she’d been put into solitary confinement for a day without any food.

A key scraped and squeaked in the windowless cell door. Georgia sat up, tensed as she waited to see who had come for her. It was dinnertime; no one should be at the barracks except for the guard posted outside her door.

But when the door opened, Briar and Trinity stood in the opening. “Hey,” Briar murmured, giving her a cocky smile as she sauntered inside.

Georgia pushed to her feet, shooting a wary glance out into the dim hallway. “What are you guys doing here?” she demanded in a whisper. “You’ll get a day of solitary as well if they catch you here.”

“The guard never saw us coming and Briar disabled all the security cameras in here,” Trinity answered, walking over to hand her a brown paper lunch bag. Her lips curved in a sharp smile. “They’re not the only ones who know a few tricks.”

With a hesitant smile, Georgia took the bag. It was heavier than it looked. Opening it, she found two sandwiches, some fruit and bottles of water. She looked up at her friends, felt an unexpected lump in her throat. “Thank you,” she said, her voice catching.

Briar reached out and squeezed her shoulders. “The cadre are assholes and their methods of breaking us are medieval. We didn’t think you should starve just because they’re assholes.”

Georgia laughed, precariously close to tears. No one had ever looked out for her like this. Before meeting Trinity and Briar, no one had ever cared. “They are assholes.”

“Yep. And misogynistic assholes to boot,” Trinity added. She scrutinized Georgia for a long moment. “You gonna be okay in here for another nine hours?”

I will now.
“Yeah.”

Briar glanced behind them out into the hallway. “We’d better get going. The sleeping agent we slipped into his coffee is weak, it won’t last long.”

Georgia gave them a wide smile. “I love you guys.”

Briar winked. “We know. See you when you get out.”

They left and locked the cell door behind them, but Georgia didn’t feel alone anymore. Not when she knew she had friends like Briar and Trinity to have her back.

Georgia blinked and pulled herself out of the past, got to the issue at hand. “Rycroft’s offer, it’s legit?” she finally asked Briar.

Briar nodded. “One hundred percent. I’m happy with my position at the agency. I still get to do the things I loved most about my previous work, only now it’s all legal. He’s a good boss, never asks you to do something he wouldn’t do himself. The hours are way better than what I was pulling on my own, and I travel less. I consider both those things big perks now,” she added with a contented smile. “I like being close to home these days.”

“You still with DeLuca then?” The commander of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team. The ones who had nearly killed Miguel.

“Yes. Couldn’t be happier. I’m a lucky girl.”

Georgia smiled back, glad for her. She’d never envisioned any of them falling in love and having a normal relationship, but it seemed Briar had done just that. “That’s good to hear.” Gathering her nerve, she turned her head to look at Miguel. “And what about you? Are you happy you signed on with the agency?”

“That remains to be seen,” he answered, his dark eyes delving into hers. It was so damn hard to read him. He was the ultimate expert in poker faces. Even back when they’d been together in Miami, she’d always known he was keeping things from her. It had surprised her that he’d tried to warn her at all.

I’m not the man you think I am
, he’d told her.

But the reality was, she’d known exactly who and what he was. And that still hadn’t been enough to make her keep her emotional distance.

She glanced away, nerves coiling tight in the pit of her belly. Rycroft and Briar had known he’d be her weak point. She had to be careful not to prove them right.

Briar cleared her throat and pushed her chair back, the legs scraping over the floor. “I’m gonna leave you two alone for a while. I’m sure you’ve got a lot to talk about and would rather do it without a fifth wheel hanging around.”

Startled, Georgia stared helplessly after her as Briar jogged up the stairs, abandoning her to her fate. It felt like she took all the oxygen in the room with her.

In the oppressive quiet that followed she focused back on her soup, barely tasting it at all with Miguel’s silent stare making her want to squirm in her seat.

But he was patient. And shrewd. He waited until she’d nearly drained the bowl before speaking. “Rycroft really would do it,” he began. “Grant you a clean record in exchange for you signing up.”

It seemed unreal, given all the things she’d done, the lives she’d taken in the name of duty. All except Garcia, whose murder of course hadn’t been sanctioned by the government. She’d done the world a favor by killing that piece of shit for poisoning Frank. “Is that what he did for you?”

Miguel nodded. In this lighting she noticed there were shadows beneath his deep-set eyes, whether from exhaustion or because he hadn’t fully recovered from his injuries, she wasn’t sure. And it…bothered her to think of him tired and in pain, especially after everything he’d already been through. He hadn’t had an easy life, especially as a child.

She had to resist the urge to reach out and trail her fingers across his bristled cheek. “How long do you have to work for him?”

His lips quirked. “I think until death, basically.”

That’s what she’d figured. “So why did you sign it?”

He shrugged those broad shoulders, lean with muscle. “Better than rotting away inside a jail cell for the rest of my life. After I was shot I wasn’t expecting to ever wake up again, so when I did that was one hell of a shock. And the job has certain perks I wouldn’t have enjoyed otherwise.” A beat passed as he watched her. “I got to see you again.”

Georgia stared at him, aware of the way her heart rattled against her ribs. “That’s why you did it? To see me?” It was stupid, to hope that was the case after everything she’d done, but she couldn’t help it. During those months in Miami when she’d got to know him, he’d slipped beneath her skin without her being able to prevent it.

“No.” A muscle twitched at the side of his jaw and he folded his arms across his chest, the move making her aware of his size, the sheer power of him.

Even with twenty pounds less muscle on him and legally having turned from the dark side, the man still radiated danger. He was still deadly. A predator to his core.

His eyes chilled as he spoke again. “I’m here because I want answers.”

Bautista was done with waiting.

Georgia was sitting right in front of him, they were alone with at least the illusion of what little privacy they were going to get for the duration of this mission, and she wasn’t going anywhere until he got the information he wanted.

He didn’t expect her to just spill her guts, however, and she didn’t disappoint, giving him the same frosty look she had Rycroft earlier. Then she grabbed her bowl and made to stand, as if she planned to leave.

Not happening.

He flashed out a hand and grabbed her forearm, squeezed with just enough pressure to freeze her in place. “Sit. Down.” His voice was quiet, but held the sting of a whip.

She jerked her arm from his grasp and lowered herself into her chair, thunking the bowl down on the table hard enough to rattle the spoon around. She tossed her hair over one shoulder, squared her shoulders and shot him a hostile glare. “Fine. Let’s do this.”

Bet your sweet ass we will
. “Who are you?”

She scoffed. “If you’re on this mission, then you know exactly who I am.”

“No, I don’t. I know your name, that you used to be some kind of government assassin and that you were trained with Briar. I know you suddenly appeared at my
abuelita’s
care facility out of the blue one day and posed as a volunteer there. For months. And the whole time you were doing it to get close to me.”

The worst part was, he’d actually fallen for it and let her in.

He narrowed his eyes at her, fighting the anger snapping through him. “So who the hell are you?” It felt good to finally ask it.

She gave him a sarcastic look. “I’m supposed to believe you haven’t already memorized everything in whatever file on me they gave to you by now?”

He shook his head, increasingly frustrated by this entire situation. He didn’t like being off-center like this, working under parameters he was unfamiliar with. It unsettled him. “It was made crystal clear to me from day one that I operate on this team on a need-to-know basis, and so far they haven’t told me shit.”

A frown creased her brow, as though she was trying to figure out whether to believe him about that or not.

He sighed, decided to try a different question. “How did you find me?”

“You messed up,” she said, flinging his earlier line to her back in his face.

“Yeah?” He had to work to keep from grinding his back teeth together. “How’s that?” Because he’d been damn careful during his time as Perez’s enforcer. No one should have been able to figure out his identity, much less find him. He’d changed his name from Miguel Salvador to Miguel Bautista, and in the criminal underworld he’d gone by the moniker
el Santo
.

“The short answer? You didn’t cover your tracks well enough. Even the legendary and terrifying ‘
el Santo
’ had to have a real name.”

“
El Santo
is dead,” he growled.

“Maybe so. But there were plenty of rumors going around about you back then. So I started pulling on threads I’d heard about relating to your background, beginning with your grandmother. I figured out you settled her in the care home under a fake name, but given her injuries and the story of the attack, after a lot of digging I managed to verify that it was her. Once I knew that, I went to Miami and began volunteering at the care home. My gut said it was only a matter of time until you showed up, given how close you were to her. And I was right.” She shrugged. “Wasn’t rocket science.”

It was damn hard not to react to that explanation, and the little verbal barb at the end. “Who told you?” he growled.

He’d paid an obscene amount of money to put her in that home because she’d not only get the best care there, but because it was renowned for its privacy and the staff’s discretion. He hated seeing her lying there like that in her bed, limbs all twisted from the brain damage, being fed by a tube. But he couldn’t stay away. He loved her and owed it to her to visit whenever he could.

Dammit, he’d made absolutely certain that the staff didn’t know who he was, using a fake ID on all the paperwork, and he’d been careful not to ever talk about the cowardly attack that had resulted in such horrific brain trauma that it had left her brain dead.

A terrible case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He’d purposely left his lunch behind that day in grade school because he’d planned to skip class to avoid the bullies that kept tormenting him and made his life a living hell. Not realizing his intentions, she’d raced home to get it for him. She’d walked in to find two neighborhood thugs robbing her house and when she’d confronted them they’d split her skull open with a baseball bat and left her for dead.

In a way, it was his fault. Not really, he knew that on an intellectual level, but he still blamed himself. His grandmother had given him the only loving home he’d ever known, taking him in without question or hesitation when her only daughter had died of a drug overdose, leaving him an orphan. Before that, he hadn’t known what unconditional love looked like. Felt like. Hadn’t known what it meant to have a safe, clean place to lay his head down every night and go to bed with a full stomach.

And she’d paid dearly for her decision to take him in.

He still remembered the horror of finding her that day. Lying on the floor with the back of her head caved in, eyes partially open. All the blood. He’d screamed and screamed, raced in a panic to the neighbor’s house to get help.

But he’d made certain those fuckers responsible for her suffering paid dearly, he thought as he curled his hands into fists. Because of the opportunity and intel Perez had given him, they’d become
el Santo’s
first victims. The first of many. He would always owe his former boss for that.

Now he was faced with the unwelcome knowledge that all his efforts at secrecy since then hadn’t been good enough. But who had verified his
abuela’s
tragic story to Georgia?

Then it hit him and his mouth twisted into a sneer of disdain. “The doctors. One of them must have either talked about her story, or leaked her records.” Either way, it was unacceptable.

Another shrug. “It wasn’t one thing or one person in particular. More like I got bits and pieces of info from various sources and put it all together on my own. When I began volunteering I broke into the security area and first saw you that way. You matched the description of what
el Santo
supposedly looked like, and you were the right age.