Hard Target: Elite Ops - Book One (5 page)

“It doesn’t seem fair to punish your son for his father’s behavior,” said Leland.

“CTC doesn’t operate like a democracy, and they aren’t social services. They give the limited number of organs accessible to the patients with the very best chances for recovery.”

“So they’re pragmatists?” asked Leland.

She nodded. “The administrators at the center define the word. In my more reasonable moments, I know it makes sense. Where do you think a donor heart has more chance of success? With a child whose dad beats her mother every night or with a child in a stable home with loving supportive parents?”

Leland swallowed audibly before answering. “I can see that, but it’s harsh, isn’t it?” He tossed the bloody gauze on the coffee table and reached for more. “It sounds like being on probation,” he added.

She held up her arm as he wrapped a sterile bandage around the injury. “That’s a good analogy. As the patient, you know this going in, but there is no recourse if you’re unhappy with CTC and their selection process . . . except to go somewhere else and start over with the waiting.”

“That sounds extremely difficult.”

“Understatement of the decade. We’ve been on the list for over a year. I can’t . . . I won’t start over again. Zach is number one in line now, but he’s out of time.”

She touched her shorts pocket containing the pager as she spoke. “He’s got a pacemaker and he’s about to have a heart pump installed. That could buy him up to another year if we need it, but the surgery for the pump itself is brutal.”

“So you and your husband have had an intense year?”

“Yes, but it got better when he moved out six months ago. At least I thought it did. Max couldn’t handle the doctors or the day-to-day uncertainty. I found it easier to do this without him than dealing with his issues on top of everything else.”

“Do you think you need a lawyer?” asked Leland.

“I don’t know what I need. But you were right when you said it was a mess.”

The officer returned with the water and asked if she would feel up to giving her statement. She didn’t want to. She had no idea what she was going to say “officially” to the police, and the walls of the room were closing in.

“Can you hold off on the statement until we get her arm taken care of?” Leland asked, seeming to pick up on her distress.

The officer nodded and gathered the used gauze before he backed off.

Leland’s fingers were especially gentle as he continued to clean the blood away, heedless of his dress shirt and slacks. “I’m sorry but there’s no way to avoid the ER. Stitches are inevitable here.”

“I tried to catch the mirror as it fell. That was foolish, I know, but Zach was standing beside me. I was scared it was going to fall on him.”

“Makes sense. They’ll get you to the hospital and stitched up as soon as this is over.”

As soon as this is over?

As far as she was concerned, this was just beginning. Before it had only been the LVAD and transplant, worries that were huge enough in themselves, but now it was Max trying to take Zach and kill her. While this man had listened and empathized with her concerns over Zach’s place on the transplant list, explaining the events of the past seven hours to Leland Hollis would sound fantastic. It was a lot to ask of someone, to believe such an outrageous story.

A sense of hopelessness overwhelmed her along with a fresh wave of nausea. “Can you excuse me a minute?” She stood and eased past the officers to walk toward the bathroom.

Feeling light-headed and dizzy, her mind raced as her emotions swirled. She was halfway across the room when her vision went dark around the edges. She tried to sit but missed the bed as the room began to spin and the floor rose up to meet her.

Leland rushed toward her and her last coherent thought was:
He moves awfully fast for a guy in a boot cast.

L
ELAND WATCHED
A
NNA
Mercado sinking to the ground, hoping he could catch her before she hit the floor. The damned boot slowed him down. He almost made it, but tripped at the last minute. They landed together in a heap. Breaking her fall with his body, he settled with a
humff
on his back—his arms full of soft, curvy woman.

The breath was knocked out of him, but he didn’t mind this type of assault. Anna Mercado wasn’t exactly a burden, and his body was going on autopilot in response to having a woman lying on top of him for the first time in longer than he cared to remember. He took a deep breath.

God she smelled good.
Her skin felt like silk under his fingertips as he ran his hand down her arm in an attempt to lift her off his chest.

“Hey, you okay?” he asked for the second time, gently rolling her from his body to the carpeted hallway floor. Her eyelids didn’t flutter, and he felt the first stirrings of alarm overriding his arousal. She wasn’t coming to and her face was chalk white. One of the officers called for an ambulance as her kid started to panic.

“Mom? Mom? Mom, wake up!” Zach slid to the floor beside them.

Leland was concerned on two levels. Anna was in a dead faint, and her kid’s lips had gone from healthy pink to pale blue in fifteen seconds. He checked her breathing. Jesus, she’d explained the heart situation. Now he was worried both of them would need CPR.

Her hair smelled like lemons. A completely inappropriate and out-of-context thought, but right there with him just the same.

“What’s wrong with her?” Zach demanded with a shaking voice.

“I don’t know. Has she been sick?” he asked.

The boy shook his head. “Not that I know of.”

Her breathing was shallow, but steady, as Leland checked her pulse. Her fingers were long and slim with medium-length nails painted fire-engine red.

Zach stared down at her and his eyes filled. “She’s been really stressed out lately with all my heart stuff, but nothing like this has ever happened before. What do you think is wrong?”

Leland shook his head. He had no idea, but keeping Zach calm was paramount while they waited on the EMTs. “Get me a wet wash cloth from the bathroom.” The boy leaped up, obviously longing for some way to help.

“What’s wrong with her?” Zach asked again, scurrying back seconds later with the dripping cloth.

Sirens sounded in the distance.

“I don’t know, but they’ll figure out what’s going on.” Leland nodded toward the door and the increasing noise.

Anna’s eyes fluttered open as the paramedics came in. By the time they had her on the gurney she was awake, if not fully coherent.

The EMTs were questioning Leland, and he didn’t have much information for them beyond the obvious. He didn’t want to be sucked into this any further than he already was. Zach was trying to answer some of their questions, too, but even between the two of them, they didn’t know much.

“We need to get her to the hospital, to see what the problem is.” The first EMT said. They started rolling the gurney out of the apartment.

Anna was now fully awake and agitated. “I don’t need to go to the hospital. I’m fine. Just a little dehydrated. I got dizzy.”

“I’m afraid they’re going to insist,” said Leland. “You were out for several minutes, plus with that cut. They need to stitch you up.”

“But what about Zach? I can’t leave him here alone.”

The boy was there beside her—leaning down, wild concern in his eyes.

“Mom, are you okay? You scared me when you wouldn’t wake up.”

She put her hand up to his face. “Honey, I’m fine. Really. They’re just going to fix my hand.” She turned her face to Leland’s. The question of her son’s well-being still in her eyes.

He didn’t hesitate, despite his earlier resistance to becoming any more involved. “It’s okay,” said Leland. “I’ll take care of him.”

“But I don’t know you,” she said, oceans of uncertainty in her eyes. “Who are you?”

The unspoken question was clear. Anna knew his name. What she meant was, who would offer to do such a thing for a stranger?

He answered the only way he could. “I’m someone you can trust.”

Chapter Five

W
HERE IN HELL
were they?

Sitting at Carlita’s bedside, Tomas Rivera wondered for the thousandth time if God had it in for him because of his past sins, or if all of life was just a crap shoot—the good and bad dying randomly, no matter what their paths in life. He didn’t have time to contemplate the implications because, at the moment, everything was going to the devil.

He’d had a good, workable plan. He always had a plan. A perfect candidate. Willing to give everything up for a price.

That price had been steep, but to save Carlita, Tomas would have paid anything. Had already paid in fact. A good portion of the funds being provided upfront “in good faith.”

Yet somehow the fool had managed to get himself killed in a drive-by shooting. That one of Tomas’ men had most likely pulled the trigger was the height of irony. One day, when this was over and Carlita was well, he might appreciate the dark humor in that—but not today. Because as of this moment, there was no recovering what Carlita needed. He was fucking tired of people doing stupid shit.

His phone vibrated and he stood to walk into the hallway so he wouldn’t disturb his wife’s nap. She had such trouble sleeping these days.

He listened for thirty seconds before interrupting. “Take care of the problem now.” Tomas’s blood pressure spiked as he gripped the phone even tighter.

“But sir, this is a major US city. It will be challenging to obtain the . . . ah . . . product without detection.”

Once upon a time Tomas would have been empathetic to the man’s plight, but today he didn’t give a damn. “I’m sure you’ll come up with a solution.”

“I don’t know how we’ll—”

Tomas cut him off. “I don’t want to hear excuses. Find them and don’t call me until you have the ‘product’ in hand.” He heard the deadly coldness in his voice and knew the other man could as well. Good, there would be no time lost in the message getting out to others.

“Yes, sir.”

Tomas hung up and turned off the ringer, fully confident his orders would be carried out to the letter. He considered Rivera lieutenants to be disposable, and they often were, if they didn’t do precisely as he asked.

The orders he’d just given were painful but necessary. He was deceiving an associate in a horrible way. Most likely there would be a scandal when the truth came out. But no one would wonder when it was over. And those that knew him wouldn’t be surprised when they heard. Tomas Rivera did what needed to be done, no matter the cost to him or to anyone else.

He’d been proving that since he’d changed sides twenty years ago. From decorated Mexican soldier to feared cartel operator in three short-but-violent years. You didn’t fuck with Tomas Rivera.

He was nineteen when he joined his country’s Special Forces program and twenty-one when he left to join the cartel he’d been pursuing. It had been a conscious decision, not that there had been much choice. The one upside was he’d kept his younger brothers and sisters out of the ugliness that surrounded growing up poor in cartel country—clawing his way to the top of the hierarchy and surprising everyone with his ingenuity, business acumen, and ruthlessness.

This opulent bedroom with its Aubusson rug, silver accessories and designer draperies was as stark a contrast to his upbringing as it was to the hospital bed and machines whirring and gurgling in the relative silence. He had no idea what the equipment was doing beyond recording each heartbeat and breath of the woman he loved. Measuring how many more moments she had on this earth before the disease ravaged her completely.

Tomas wasn’t a wise man in terms of academic learning, but there were two things he did know with certainty. One, he’d married far above his original station in life and two, his wife would be dead in less than a week if they didn’t secure a new candidate.

Why Carlita Vega had chosen to love him instead of the others begging for her hand humbled him in a way that would have surprised his enemies and friends alike. Last month it had been twenty years since the sister of his best friend, Ernesto Vega, walked down the aisle to him as a blushing bride. What should have been the start of a dynasty became the ultimate rivalry, ending with Tomas breaking away from the Vega family to start his own business.

Leaving the Vegas had been bitter, messy and the greatest challenge of his life up till now. Sadly, he and Carlita had no children of their own. While other men in his position might have taken mistresses and had bastard sons to bring into the business, Tomas had only Carlita as his family. His own brothers and sisters were no longer a part of his life, even though he’d delivered them from the devastating poverty of their childhood. But Carlita was all he’d ever wanted or needed. She was more than enough.

His reputation as a ruthless drug lord would have been irrevocably damaged if others knew what he was willing to sacrifice for her. Ironically, no sacrifice from him was necessary or could be even remotely helpful at this time. His heinous reputation, earned in the jungles of Columbia and Mexico, could do nothing to help in her struggle. Someone else would have to save the life of the woman he loved.

Carlita opened her eyes and moved the covers at the same time. “There you are,” he smiled through the pain welling up at the sight of her perilously thin body. “I wondered how long you would rest.”

“Am I at home?” She tried to peer around the room. “I’m so hot . . . so thirsty.”

He nodded as he brought a glass of water to her cracked lips. She was always thirsty now.

She roused a bit more. “This feels like a dream. Every time I wake up, something has changed.

“Don’t worry, we just moved you back here to make you more comfortable.”

She smiled and reached for his other hand.

“It’s lovely to be home. Thank you. I much prefer to die here.”

“No! Don’t say such things. You’re not going to die.”

“Oh, Tomas, we both know the truth. It’s too late. No one will swoop in at the last minute.”

“But what if they did?”

Her eyes took on a new light. “What are you saying?”