Fearless: Complicated Creatures Part Three (24 page)

If Alejo and her other guard were confused by her interrogation, they didn’t show it. They were both professional enough to remain silent and focused on the men in front of them.

“Well hell if I know,” the barkeep replied with a huff.

“He leave a card?” Sam pressed. “Any kind of contact?”

The bartender turned to reach for something behind him and Alejandro stepped forward. “I’m feeling pretty mean-tempered today,
culero
. Give me a reason to shoot you. Please.”

“Whoa—
whoa—
!” the barman lifted his hands again, eyes darting to the business end of de Soto’s Beretta. “Just getting the number the guy left.” He pointed at a beat-up old Rolodex next to the register. “Said I should call if I remembered anything, but it was a long time ago now, and I already told him all I could recollect—”

Sam stepped over the hyena gingerly with the help of her cane. “Give it to me,” she said, holding out her hand.

“Sure—sure—” the bartender nodded. “Don’t want any more trouble, you hear?” He handed Sam a slip of paper.

She recognized the name and the bold scrawl before she saw the number. A hot zing of discomfort trilled through her.
Wesley Elliott.

“Sonofabitch,” she muttered under her breath.

“We done here?” Alejandro asked pointedly, gun still trained on the bartender.

“Yeah.” Sam tucked the paper into her jean’s pocket. As she turned to leave, ‘broken hand’ tried to struggle up to his feet. With a neat two-step, Alejo moved in front of him, backhanding him with his gun as her other guard shifted in front of her like a shield.

‘Broken hand’ groaned as he hit the ground next to his friend, blood trickling from his mouth.

“There’s three hundred bucks on the table,” Sam threw over her shoulder as she turned toward the front door. “That ought to take care of my tab.”

“You broke my damn hand!” the guy shouted hoarsely from the floor.

“You’re lucky that’s all she did,” Alejo replied, spitting on the ground beside him.

The late afternoon sunlight blinded her as she swung open the old door, the air was thick with heat and dust. Sam shielded her eyes, halting for a moment as she registered two of the ranch SUVs blocking in the parking lot. A third guard met her outside the door, slipping an arm around her elbow. “You alright, ma’am?”

“I’m fine,” she told him, shaking him off. “You boys can head on back to the ranch.”

“They’ll head back to the ranch when I say they can,” Alejandro snapped, striding out of the bar with the bartender’s Ithaca in one hand, his 9mm in the other. He looked mad as a hornet, not that she cared much. The two guards looked uncertainly between her and Alejo—tension crackling between them like spark plugs. Alejo handed the Ithaca to one of the guards. “You take Sam’s Mustang back,” he told the guard.

“Like hell he will,” Sam replied. “You forget you work for me, de Soto?”

“I work for the United States Government, Wyatt,” Alejandro’s gaze narrowed. “You’re just an irritating penance I’m stuck serving.”

“Feel free to go then,” she said over her shoulder as she limped toward the Mustang.

“I’d rather feel free to throttle you,” he said under his breath, just loud enough that she heard.

Sam rolled her eyes, ignoring the comment as Alejandro turned to speak to the two guards in a low tone. She had her seatbelt on and was just starting the Mustang when he swung open the passenger door and slid in.

“I don’t want any company, de Soto,” she snapped, already thinking about her next stop.

“Like I give a shit what you want, Wyatt. You’re compromising my ability to protect you.” Alejo slammed the door shut. “
And
you’re a real pain in my ass, you know that?” he continued, glaring at her like he wanted to set her on fire. “You just took off without telling anyone anything. Do you know how hard it is to do my job when you’re just peeling off like a bat out of hell?”

“Not my fault you can’t keep up with a cripple,” Sam replied. “All my cars are low-jacked. You had me on GPS the whole time.” She shook her head at him. “I’m surprised it took you so long,” she said, just to rile him up.

“You’re lucky we got here in time.” Alejandro gave her nasty look. “Couple more minutes and you’d be bent over that table by those two grunts.”

“Like hell.” Sam pushed on her Wayfarers. “Those idiots were under control.”

Sam shifted onto the highway, opening up the engine, feeling a little reckless and a little angry as the Mustang roared.

“You’re as irritating now as you were in college.” Alejandro shook his head. “Fuck that—you’re even worse now.”

“Well, consider my punishment having to put up with you trying to boss me around all the time.”

“You going to tell me why the hell you stopped at that Podunk shit hole of all places? The combined IQ of those three idiots could break a seventy,” he remarked, settling his big, rangy frame in the seat beside her.

Sam thought about the piece of paper burning a hole through her pocket.

Alejandro stared at her profile a long, tense moment before releasing a frustrated sigh. “Okay, fine. At least tell me where you’re dragging me now then, so we can at least try to figure out how to back you up if you want to start another barroom brawl.”

Sam didn’t answer. She was too busy thinking about what the bartender had told her.

Earl Childress was too drunk to drive.
Then why did he take the fall?

The CIA investigated a domestic matter in the middle of nowhere.
Why?

“I know you’ve been climbing the walls, Wyatt. Hell,
I’m
climbing the goddamn walls” Alejo admitted gruffly. “But I can’t protect you if you pull shit like this—”

I work for the United States Government. You’re just an irritating penance
I’m stuck serving
…

“Why are you here, de Soto?” she asked abruptly.

“You
know
why, Wyatt,” he answered, frowning at her.

Sam stamped her foot down on the accelerator. The Mustang surged forward like a bull charging out of a cage, eating up hard, gray asphalt cracked from heat and age. She watched the distance extending between the Mustang and the Wyatt Ranch SUVs in her rearview. All she had to do was lose those trucks again—easy enough to do with the torque of her classic hot rod. Sam reached carefully for the SIG Sauer she kept hidden between her seat and the door as Alejo glanced back at the trucks.

“We playing a game of chicken now?” he taunted, gripping the side handle. “You think the scariest thing I’ve ever faced is an angry
puta
driving like a crazy maniac? You’ve met my sister.”

She thought of Rox, his baby sister. Sam trusted Rox implicitly, but they had a different history. Sam and Alejandro had never really been on the same side. In college, they’d almost always been rivals, frenemies during the best of times—when they weren’t actively trying to take each other out. Their chemistry hadn’t changed over the years, but Alejandro’s role had. Sam was long retired from serving in the military, but he was still an active operative in one of the most elite and secret special ops fraternities in the world. Sam could only imagine the things he’d done during missions—the secrets he’d kept. The true question now was whether he was loyal to Rox and her by proxy or whether he was loyal to the same government who’d known the truth about what happened to her family all along. There was only one way to find out—and she knew exactly how to press his buttons.

Sam smiled grimly, jerking the wheel hard to the right in a fast move. Alejandro’s head rapped against the window with a jolt.

“Oww—
Jesus
!” he hissed, hand clutching his temple as he glared at her. “What the fuck was
that
for?”

“Answer the goddamn question, de Soto: how is it that an active duty Delta Force team commander can take three months off to protect a woman he doesn’t even like?”

“One, Rox asked,” he snapped back, holding a finger up. “Two, I owe you one, and you know I never like to owe anyone anything—
especially you
. And three, I had leave, you ungrateful bi—”

Sam lifted the gun. “Call me a bitch, and I’ll shoot your middle finger off, de Soto. Now answer the damn question honestly.”

March—Early Evening

Middle of Nowhere, Texas

S A M A N T H A

“I
f you hadn’t
saved my sister’s life, I would snap your fucking neck right now,” Alejandro told her, his voice low and calm.

Sam scoffed. “You’ve been wanting to kill me since I was eighteen, de Soto. You think I’m buying your
‘I’ll protect you with my life’
act now?”

“So what’s the plan, then?” he returned, brow raised. “Shoot me and leave me here?” He shook his head. “I’d like to know how you plan to explain my disappearance to Rox when she comes looking.”

“Tell me what you’re really up to and it won’t come to that.”

Alejo grit his teeth, jaw ticking as he stared out the windshield, ignoring her gun. “I don’t know what the hell’s gotten into you, Wyatt. First you rough up a few drunks over ancient history. Now you’re driving like a bat out of hell and threatening the one guy who’s been willing to put up with your grouchy, invalid ass. Why don’t
you
tell
me
what’s going on!”

Sam slammed the brakes so hard, Alejo hurled forward, forearms hitting the dash as the car juddered.

Sam swerved, quickly regaining control of the car. Their phones started going off again simultaneously. She didn’t need to look at the caller ID to know it was the security guards she’d lost, wondering what the hell was going on.

“Tell me how an active duty Delta Force member can afford to take off for months to play security guard to a civilian, or I’m shooting you. Those are your options, de Soto.”

He glared at her, but he knew the jig was up. “Look, when Rox called, I pulled in a favor to get the leave extended, alright?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Who did you pull the favor from?”

He looked aggrieved. “Why does it matter?”

“
Who
, Alejo?” she repeated, slamming the breaks again.

“Shit—
owww! STOP!
” his hands smacked the dash as she hit the brakes fast a second time, tires squealing.

Their phones kept ringing. The guards behind them had to be flipping out by now. Sam could see one of the SUVs gaining on them in the mirror.

“Don’t fucking test me!” Sam told him, aiming the gun at him.

“Sandro Roman, alright?” he spat out, gripping the dash. “He helped me get reassigned to you until Lightner is located.”

Sam blinked in shock. “How in the hell do you know Sandro Roman?”

“Watch the fucking road and slow down!” he snapped back before answering his phone. “We’re fine! Just stay close,” he barked before hanging up. “I know Sandro from way back, alright?” he told her. “I got busted when I was a runner for the Latin Kings back in Chicago. I was just a kid—trying to help my mom out after my dad got killed. I was one of Sandro’s
pro bono
cases back then, before he became a senator. Sandro kept me out of juvie. He’s the reason I went to college.”

“Are you
shitting
me?” The universe was playing tricks on her. Had to be. All roads led back to Sandro Roman.

Sandro helped Alejandro as a boy.

Sandro knew her father after he became a senator—he’d told her as much the first time they met.

Sandro had known that something terrible had happened to her family.

Sandro wanted Jack to stay well away from her.

Sandro gave Jack the file, expecting to drive a wedge between them
—

She slumped in her seat, her foot falling off the gas as the implication hit her. Alejandro grabbed the wheel, steering as she tried to wrap her mind around the pieces.

“Pull over!” he shouted at her. “Just fucking stop the car—we’re pulling over!”

Sam applied the brakes to the car. It took about a hundred yards, but the Mustang eventually rolled to a stop, the engine throbbing in the dust and heat.

“Look, believe me or don’t believe me, but when Rox called me and told me what was going on, I was already in the Middle East between missions. I flew to Germany immediately,” he told her, rubbing a hand down his face.

“When did you call Sandro?” she questioned.

“I didn’t.” Alejandro shook his head. “I saw him at the hospital. I guess his son was going through some pretty terrible withdrawals and he was getting him into rehab when we ran into each other.”

“Did Sandro know what had happened to me?” she interrupted. “Was he already aware of the mission?”

“Yes,” Alejandro said after a brief hesitance. “He knew more than I did.”

“And did he ask you to keep an eye on me?” She lifted her weapon. It was a SIG Sauer P226—the Navy SEALs weapon of choice, for its lack of a manual safety. Easy to fire in double action should the need ever warrant it—a big monster of a handgun. “Have you been reporting back to Sandro about me? Is that why you’re still here?”

His mouth tightened fractionally, his expression shuttering. “Whatever’s in your mind, Wyatt—it’s
not
what you think—”