Warrior Mine (3 page)

“You will never have my loyalty. But I will have Sophia. You will tell me, if with your last breath,
brother
.”

He didn’t look at the gun, which froze her heart. His gaze trained on hers. “If I die, they have instructions to kill her. If you don’t return in one month’s time from the day you left in your futile search, they have instructions to sever a piece of her each day until you return or she dies. Whichever comes first.”

Dread slashed her belly and threatened to drag her back to her knees. How had this gone so wrong… This family. This fight for freedom. This search for the only person in the world she loved. How had he turned the table when his balls were almost literally in her hands?

Leverage.

He had nothing to lose. She had everything. And one way or the cursed other she would keep it.

Her tears fell,
plopping
in the puddle of her soaked shirt. “I hate you.”

“And I love you. If only you’d see that I’m trying to protect you. The world is a cruel place for a woman.”

“And I stare into the face of the merciless.”

“Hurry home now. By my estimation you don’t have long. I’d say take me with you, but Tucker doesn’t have the key and I’m fond of my limbs. Fond of my dick too. If it doesn't work right, you’ll pay.” He gestured as though brushing her away with his gnarled fingers. “Go, run things in my absence. Prove your loyalty. Then I’ll send her to you. But…if my men even think you’re leaving, they’ll end you both. Tell Javier to go ahead with the deal. And I’ll be home soon.”

“
T
he fuck you say
,” Vail barked. “Where you’re going from here, they don’t make daylight.”

He’d held his tongue way longer than he could stand. The shit spewing from Carlos Ruez’s mouth made him sick—and it took a damn lot to goad him. And, maybe, it wasn’t the bastard’s words so much as it was the woman’s gut-rending reaction to them.

As if she’d know he was thinking of her, she scored him with her gaze. Her wide, wet eyes begged his words to be true. He could plainly see the thought of Carlos free terrified her almost as much as the thought of losing Sophia. Their sister? Her daughter? Her lover? He didn’t yet know. He had boxes of files on Carlos and his associates, but his blood relations had been thought dead.

Apparently not. One was alive and kicking. Or punching and hammering, as the case may be.

Vail’s arms were crossed. His fists wedged in the crook of tensed muscles. And despite everything—his unwilling detainment, her relation to Ruez—he nodded his promise to keep that piece of shit locked up for all eternity. Not that the man would live long in the prison where he was headed.

A token of relief settled her shoulders. She wiped the stream of tears from her face and swatted back the long, dark tendrils crowding her brow. He would keep his word, just as she had to him. An accord among strangers with a common enemy seeking justice. The woman hadn’t gotten what she wanted. Not even close. The least he could give her was that pledge. The reassurance.

She turned her gaze on Carlos. Her thick lips pressed in a line of rage and her head shook once. “Goodbye, brother.”

Something about her resignation, like a fine animal beaten into submission, seared his insides in a way nothing had in a very long time. He’d give her case a closer look, use his considerable resources to track this Sophia. If for no other reason than it would annoy the hell out of Carlos. Then again, he could always drink that coffee he’d sent Rhonda for and continue the man’s torture. It was all a matter of leverage. And now he had a bit more than he’d had an hour ago.

It didn’t matter how tough the bastard was, if he didn’t receive medical treatment shortly, he’d walk with a permanent limp and never get off again. When faced with the decision of forever-defective goods or a little information dump, any man would cave.

Carmen swiped the detonator from the floor, flipped the rubber band around her left wrist, and glanced back at him. He couldn’t discern the expression in her round, lash-rimmed eyes. Regret? Appreciation? She’d planned this little fiasco beautifully, knowing she’d have to threaten more than just his life to get his compliance. He had no doubt that she’d find a way out from under her brother’s thumb. With or without his help. She’d chosen the perfect spot in the room to make him completely worthless and unable to strike an attack.

They bowed their heads toward one another. A bit of a truce. She spun on her heels to go and he let her.

“Before you leave…” The tone of Carlos’s choked voice razed Vail’s nerve endings and pulled Carmen to a stop.

“What?” She regarded him over her shoulder, her eyes narrowing to slits.

The son of a bitch’s mouth spread wide and curled at the edge, despite the swollen part he could see. “Show me you mean to run the family business. Kill him.” The thumb he’d pried the nail from earlier hitched in his direction, as if there were any question to which
him
he referred.

Son of a fucking cock-sucking whore
! Screw torture. This guy needed killing.

Carmen’s gaze darted from Vail to her brother and back. The thin line of her mouth morphed into a snarl. She yanked the compact gun from the holster. The barrel rammed the side of Carlos’s head. Her jaw flexed. “So help me, brother, you’ll die before he does.”

“I’m surprised you’d give his life for Sophia’s,” the scum provoked.

“He’s innocent,” she retorted.

“Please, he’s killed more people than I have.”

“Your causes are very different,” Carmen ground out.

“Make your choice, sister. Who deserves to live? Him or sweet Sophia?”

A scream, feral and pained, ripped from her throat. She bore down on the grip. Her arms shook. The shriek pitched high then rumbled into a growl. “One day, brother, your sins will come for their retribution.”

She lifted the barrel, aimed at Vail’s middle, and fired once.

C
armen dropped to the ground
, happy to leave the blackness of the ducts. She just couldn’t escape the blackness of her mind. She sprinted toward the vacant building where she’d left the rented sedan. Though the standing water in the pitted alleys she fled through crystallized in the chill, the flames of hell licked her cheeks. Sweat suctioned the front of the black shirt to her stomach. In the dark of night and the gleam from the street light it looked like blood. She smacked the moisture from her eyes with the hand she’d used to pull a trigger. She imagined Vail Tucker clutching his abdomen, fighting to stem the flow of blood as futilely as she tried to dam her tears.

“Damn you, Carlos. And damn me too.”

Up two flights of stairs she found the white car she’d left four hours earlier. Retrieving a key from a lower cargo pocket, she unlocked the indistinct wheels, opened the door, and tossed herself into the back seat. She hurled the detonator in the small confines and released her disgust in a yell so loud her throat burned and her ears rang. With a limited wind-up the dummy mechanism did little more than
tink
off the dashboard and then plummet to the floorboard.

“Fuck!”

Her brother hurt people. She didn’t. She hadn’t intended to harm anyone, only learn where Carlos’s men held her daughter.

In her search for Sophia through the family’s Mexican holdings, she’d heard murmurs about her brother’s capture in the States and little more than a whisper about the organization that had taken him. Not FBI. Not CIA. Similar, but much more shadowed with a much broader reach.

Carmen pulled civilian clothes from the duffel on the seat next to her. She peeled the wet and all too conspicuous clothing from her body, slamming it into the bag with vicious slaps of her fist. One week. They had been one week from leaving. She’d gone for her five a.m. run as usual and returned to find her daughter missing. Sophia’s sheets spilled from her bed, her closet was ransacked, and a note lay in the middle of the floor.

One way or another, I will have your loyalty.

Your adoring brother,

Carlos

She’d been so high on the thought of holding Sophia in her arms again. So wrapped up in the nearly impossible job of breaking into a building so heavily secured she half-expected to be tossed into a cell with her brother for the attempt. So stupid. She’d been so stupid to overlook the possibility that Carlos had planned for his capture on his first border crossing into the US as leader of the cartel. Floundering these days, the Arellano-Félix Organization had maintained its status on federal alert systems thanks to the early work of her treacherous extended family and father.

And now it seemed she’d never be free of her cursed family.

She climbed into the driver’s seat, stuffed the Beretta into the center console, turned the car on, and headed for the exit. At the street level, she stared at the empty road, unable to move. West to the interstate. East to the tall dark building with a man bleeding to death inside.

So help her, she couldn’t leave him to the worms. Not him, of all people. The sadness, heat, and depth in his eyes deserved life. Deserved happiness. She’d pulled the shot as far right as she could and still hit him. But the building had been deserted. That made her entrance and escape easier. It would make his dying all the more probable.

If he died, he couldn’t plaster her face on the Most Wanted list.

Rubber burned onto the parking garage floor as she turned right—back to the scene of the crime.

“
H
ome at last
,” Oliver yawned from the back row of the Tahoe.

“You live in the parking garage? Ah, it explains your perma-stench,” Hunter prodded from the middle.

From the rearview mirror Khani Slaughter watched Oli whack
Hunter’s yolk. Curses and laughter filled the vehicle and rocked it on its wheels. She smiled in spite of the hour and the number of hours strung together she’d been awake. By now it crept toward the fifty mark.

“All right, ladies,” Tyler’s voice rumbled from the passenger seat, “let’s thank our LTC for getting our sorry asses back in one piece.”

“Ever grateful, Lieutenant Commander,” Hunter said, tightening his hold on Oliver’s throat.

She slid the SUV into the parking space, shifted to park, and turned to regard the overgrown children in the back seat.

Oli—still restrained, but making headway with a twisting grip on Hunter’s ear—winked and flashed a wide grin. “Thanks, LTC.”

“Get your gear and get out of my sight. I’m tired of staring at your ugly mugs,” she ordered.

“Yes, ma’am’s” rained all around and they—some of the most ruggedly beautiful and extremely capable men of her elite Base Branch team—hustled out of the Tahoe.

Tyler opened his door, but turned and offered his hand across the console. “An honor, Lieutenant Commander.”

“My duty and pleasure to return you to your misfit lives.” Khani accepted the large hand with her equally firm grip, shook, and released his hand. Only, her subordinate’s fingers remained wrapped around her slight hand, detaining her with gentle pressure. “Release my hand or lose yours, Tyler.”

Her English accent thickened along with her anger. She’d crossed an ocean to get away from this kind of puppy-love shit, and she wasn’t about to move again. Last time it had been her bad judgment, and the puppy in question. Now she was older, wiser, and a hell of a lot meaner.

“Sorry, ma’am. I just—”

“Get your gear and go home.” A little more loudly she added, “It’s been a long few days for us all. Right, guys?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Oli and Hunter called from the back hatch.

The men scattered to their respective vehicles, but Khani sat staring ahead. The level sat full of Base Branch transportation. Commercial grade utility vehicles. Police cars. An ambulance. A hearse. Beater cars. Fancy cars. Blacked-out SUV’s like this one they’d had at the airfield at the edge of the county. You never knew what you’d need to complete a mission.

Khani dragged her sorry arse from the seat, collected her gear, and trudged halfway up the ramp to her dark-grey Benz. The sight of the prowling little car eased the weight of her load and her bone-deep weariness. It was just like the one she’d had back home. Sleek. Fast. Ticketed?

“What the hell?”

A rectangular piece of paper lay pinched between the clean windshield and wiper blade. The parking level wasn’t impenetrable, but it was blocked by a thick lift gate, a pass code, and spikes. Automatically on alert, Khani’s gaze swung left and right. She catalogued the classic Chevy in the space to the right of hers—Tucker’s truck—the empty space to the left—Rhonda’s spot. Nothing stirred in the otherwise deserted section.

She dropped her gear and herself to the ground looking for trip wires, bombs, or boogiemen, but found none. Maybe it was no more than a note placed there by a member of her team. Tyler. If the paper pimped that man’s signature, his next mission impossible would be cleaning the locker-room johns for the next six months.

On her feet with a hop, Khani neared. Still watchful, she plucked the small sheet from the car and read.

Your commander is shot and bleeding out in the interrogation room with Carlos Ruez. Help him. If he lives, make certain Carlos believes he is dead.

Hurry!

Whether from her grogginess or the shock of the note’s content, she read it again. And once again, she looked around but saw no one. Adrenaline rushed her veins like football fans storming a World Cup field. With the click of a button she popped the trunk and placed the note deep in back for analysis. Next she slung the duffle. It clattered and the car’s chassis gave under its bulk. She screamed the zipper open on the bag.

Over her black T-shirt she strapped her vest. She slung the M4 over her head and right arm. Sidearm in holster, she slammed the trunk and took off for the stairs. Khani beat them into submission with her powerful strides. One flight up, a large metal door blocked the way. To the right a silver keypad built into the wall. She tapped off the code, distinct to each member of the Base Branch, opened the door, and then threw herself through it.

Down the sight of the assault rifle she cleared the entrance foyer. Elevators. Main entrance. Stairwell. Not much to behold. She sidled up to the hazy glass double doors, hating the exposure, also knowing no way around it. Millimeter by millimeter the door opened under her slow, steady force. Using one eye, the dull, drab corridor came into focus. Walls. Glass. But no bodies. Alive or dead.

She flung the heavy thing wide and rushed across the hallway to the corridor to Tucker’s office. No bullets bit her rump and no one moved to gain better ground on her. All good there. Five silent, hungry strides brought her to his door. Like this was any normal day she knocked twice. “Commander Tucker?”

Silence. From inside. From all around. Nothing moved.

Khani shoved the door wide with her hip and confronted an empty room with the tip of her M4. The chair sat far back toward the wall. Above it hung a dull silver vent grating. Her insides—not prone to drama—danced about as though they’d never seen battle. And they hadn’t…not on their home turf.

Khani bolted down the hallway, into the main corridor, and hooked a right at the prisoner’s wing. All the while she scanned the offices she blurred past, the conference and break rooms. All sat vacant. She skidded to a halt at the last chamber. Her fingers slammed in the access code, slipped as the sweat and nerves got the best of her, and she was forced to clear and reenter the digits.

She inhaled one long, fortifying breath and opened the door.

Or, at least, she tried to open the door. The damn thing only gave an inch. In that inch a streak of wet blood seven inches wide and nearly five feet long sliced across the floor, as though a body had been dragged. Khani heaved again, but only gained two inches. One of Tucker’s wingtips showed in the crack, along with the end of a pant leg. She ground her boots into the concrete and shoved with every honed muscle she possessed, knowing that the commander’s body blocked his own rescue.

A chuckle started and grew into a cackle. She stopped and drew her pistol, but the noise didn’t change position to hide or jump at her. The vest added width to her chest, not allowing her access. So, smart or not, she shucked it and the rifle before slipping through the crack.

Carlos Ruez sat chained with his balding head glistening under a layer of sweat. The cackle grew louder. “You see what happens…when your great leader…messes with me.”

Khani cleared the two steps to Ruez and slammed her pistol against the side of his head. The laugh still rang in her ears, and when she saw Tucker’s prone frame laid out on the concrete, it roared. But the bastard no longer made the noise. Her father did, in the cold recesses of her mind.

“Tucker, it’s Slaughter. If you can hear me, say something.” She slid on her knees to Tucker’s big shoulders. Gun holstered, she went straight to the carotid. She repositioned her hand. Pressed harder. And finally found a pulse. Weak, but there.

She sat on her heels and looked him over. Blood soaked his lower back and pooled around his torso. The exit wound blew a nice hole in his shirt. She would hate to see what it had done to his flesh, but she’d have to. Looking left, she followed the track of red twenty feet to the far corner. Every two feet the line of blood-covered forearms and smeared handprints showed Tucker’s fight to save himself.

Now it was her turn to fight for him.

One hand on the shoulder, another on his hip, she pulled. He rolled like a rag toy, slack and life-less. But there was life left in this bloke.

“Tucker, if you can hear me, I need your help. Just a little, all right?” She moved as she spoke, standing over him at the tops of his shoulders and securing her grip in the hollows of his armpits. “I’m going to lift your big arse. If you can hear me at all, when I get you up, lock your legs for as long as you can.”

His lids fluttered. “Yep,” came dulcet between his dry lips.

“Great job, Commander. Let’s get you out of here.”

Khani hefted him to a sitting position. A groan rumbled beneath her hands, the most reassuring sign. Pain equaled life. She hugged him close, locked the tips of her fingers around his chest, and drove her legs and all the weight they held toward the sky. “Lock ’em,” she grunted.

Bracing his back with her body, she grabbed his right wrist with her left hand, and spun around in front of him—like they twirled on the dance floor of a honkey-tonk, as Tucker had called it. She crouched, shouldered his right thigh with her right arm, wrapped his left over her other shoulder, and bore his body mass in a fireman’s carry. Her legs shook under his weight, but held firm. She’d never been so happy to be a member of the 300 Club in squat max.

“All good, sir. Here we go.”

“Slaughter,” he whispered, his head lolling beneath her pit.

“Yes, sir.”

The door was a bitch and a half, but she made it down the maze of hallways at a swift walk, leaving her vest and rifle by the interrogation room and hoping like hell she didn’t need them. Khani leaned their backs against the double doors and eased through them without a problem. She opted for the elevator to the lower parking garage with all the Base Branch vehicles.

With another tap of her ten-digit code, she tugged the keys for the ambulance from the box and prayed her quivering legs would hold out long enough to get him inside the thing.

“You still with me, Tucker?” She gritted the question in an effort to turn her mind outward, where it needed to be.

Nothing.

Thankful it was close to the door she veered right for five more grueling steps, unlocked the back doors, and opened them wide.

“Damn it.” She panted at the nearly two-foot step up.

A growl breached her clenched teeth as she boosted them through the door and over to the gurney. The judges would’ve given her a three on dismount. One of his arms and one of his legs hung off the edge, while she landed atop him in a knotted heap. With a wiggle and shove she righted them.

The interior light illuminated his pale complexion. She clapped and spoke louder than her norm—unless she was pissed, and, now that she thought about it, she was bloody pissed. “Tucker! What the hell happened?”

While she hoped for a response, but didn’t expect one, she extended the IV rod and combed the drawers and bins for the supplies she needed.

“Commander, I’m putting in an IV drip, and then I’m going to wrap your wound to stem the bleeding.”

Khani did as she said, glancing every few minutes at the clock that seemed to speed with her growing fear that she’d be too late. It might be far too easy to convince Carlos Ruez that Commander Tucker had died, because the Reaper hovered just over her shoulder, waiting for him.

She fished her phone from a pocket only to have the thing slip from between her fingers and slide across the floor. For the first time in a long while she looked at her hands and found them slick with blood.

“Tucker, who shot you? Why did they shoot you? Is everyone in danger?”

While rattling off the questions, she soiled a towel wiping his blood from her hands and then snagged her phone from the floor and cleaned it also.

“No.” His eyes remained closed and his voice, a nearly imperceptible rasp, hardly penetrated her eardrum.

“No, not everyone is in danger?” she asked, while depressing the speed dial for the Base Branch doctor.

“No, she didn’t…want…to shoot.”

“Who?” Khani leaned so close she could feel the waft of his shallow breaths on her cheek.

“Don’t…kill her…or Carlos.”

“Don’t kill who?”

“Hello?” On the speakerphone, Doctor Williamson answered.

“Operative: Lima. Echo. Oscar. Papa. Alpha. Romeo. Delta. One. Nine. Nine. Four.”

“How may I be of assistance, Lieutenant Commander?”

“I need a miracle, doc.”