“No, please don’t kill him.” She was the only one who was on his side. And she had the guts to cry out, even in the face of an angry drug-cartel boss and his men.
Her voice gave him the strength he needed to hold on. All he had to do was last a little longer, but when a deafening blast erupted and shook the ground and walls around him, he knew the cavalry had arrived. When the first missile hit, he saw the brilliant flames light up the night sky through the barred window in the cell. And he heard stone walls topple. Dust filled the room, and Perez’s men yelled and ran for cover.
“What’s happening? What was that?”
One blast had them scrambling, but the second and third blasts had them running to save their miserable lives, scurrying like vermin into the dark.
Perez eased up on his grip long enough for Kinkaid to breathe. Air rushed into his burning lungs as Ramon Guerrero and Miguel Rosas emerged from the shadows.
“We are being attacked. If we don’t leave now, we will be trapped. We’ll die here.” Guerrero’s voice cracked.
“Give the order, and I will kill this man,” Rosas yelled as he pulled his gun.
Kinkaid couldn’t let that happen, not now. He heaved against the drug boss one last time, shoving him into his men. In the confusion, he grabbed for the hilt of the blade and twisted it, bending the man’s fingers back. The weapon slipped from Perez’s hands before he had a chance to fight for it.
“Kill him. Do it now!”
The drug dealer screamed his order as he crawled away like the coward he was, but he didn’t get away fast enough. Kinkaid gripped the knife and thrust it hard into the fat man’s leg. Blood spurted from the wound before the cartel boss clutched his leg to staunch the bleeding. When he cried out, Guerrero rushed to him and grappled with the man, lifting his weight off the ground.
“We have to go. Now!”
The night sky lit up with more explosions. And when the sound of automatic gunfire erupted, Rosas aimed his weapon. Kinkaid had nothing to defend himself with except the knife in his hand. On his knees, he grabbed the tip and threw it at Rosas. The blade spun end over end until it struck the armed gunmen’s flesh with a meaty sound. It embedded in his chest, hilt deep.
Wide-eyed, Rosas staggered back, his jaw slack, staring down at the knife protruding from the center of his body. The hilt of the blade pulsed, moving in time with his still-beating heart. And as blood blossomed from the fatal wound, it saturated his shirt with a deep crimson. The man dropped to his knees, still aiming the weapon at the prisoner.
Kinkaid held his breath. If Rosas had the strength to pull the trigger, he’d be dead before the bastard took his last breath.
Chapter 13
Garrett watched the air assault from a distance as his team fell back to the designated rendezvous point and checked in. One by one, he heard from each of his men but still hadn’t seen or heard from Alexa.
Garrett and his team were firing back when the armed men behind the compound walls got off a few rounds, but the attacks were sporadic. The air assault had split the drug cartel’s forces, and some of Perez’s foot soldiers were running for cover and scattering into the hills, the ones who had had enough fighting an unmanned drone that could target their positions with precision. In this attack, they weren’t after the small fish.
“Whisky Two, reporting in, sir.” Hank’s voice came over his com unit. “Not that I’m complaining, but who’s operating the Reaper?”
“Don’t know. One of Kinkaid’s men, I’d guess.” Garrett couldn’t tell Hank who was operating the UAV, but he couldn’t help smiling. He had a grin on his face as he watched more missiles hit the Perez estate.
“If you take fire, return it, but stay put until the UAV is done. Wait for my order.”
Even with the Reaper UAV’s sophisticated technology, Garrett knew his teams would have a hard time joining the battle. They would have no way to communicate they were “friendlies.” And a thermal-scanner surveillance didn’t have the capability of distinguishing his team from Perez’s men.
But from the looks of things, apparently Kinkaid had thought about that. So far, the UAV was only blowing the shit out of Perez’s estate and punching holes in his stone walls. The Reaper was paving the way for Garrett’s ground teams to clean up. Within minutes, the unmanned drone would let them get to work.
“Martini One, come in.” Garrett kept his voice steady. “Do you need assistance, Martini One?”
When Alexa didn’t answer, Garrett took a deep breath and focused on the rest of his team.
“Whisky Two, are you getting a transmission from inside?” Garrett knew it was a long shot, but he had to know. “Is our boy still alive?”
He was breaking protocol by saying too much, but he had to know. If he got confirmation that Kinkaid was still alive, he’d push his men to move in as soon as the last rocket was launched. While he waited for Hank’s response, Garrett got out his binoculars and searched the flaming rubble below for any sign of Alexa. Her men had checked in, but she was still missing. And the longer she stayed that way, the more he worried.
“Where are you?”
He had a bad feeling that she hadn’t waited for the air assault to be over. If she thought there was a chance she could save Kinkaid from the fate he had planned for himself, she would go in with guns blazing. And she wouldn’t risk her team to back her play. She’d go it alone.
“Damn it, Alexa,” he cursed.
Garrett had the rest of his team to think about. He couldn’t give a command that he knew would put his men at risk. He had no idea why Alexa wasn’t answering him, but either option wasn’t good. She was either dead or badly injured, or she’d gone in after Kinkaid on her own.
Alexa Marlowe and Jackson Kinkaid were two of a kind.
With her binoculars, Alexa had seen movement and a flash of light coming from a barred window right before the air assault. From the belowground prison cell, she had heard men shouting until the UAV launched its deadly payload—and she and her men had run for cover.
But in that split second, she had made a decision.
When the missile had blown a hole through a main wall, the initial blast had blinded her. She saw her team retreat, and she should have followed. They motioned to her, and she saw their mouths move, but her hearing was nearly gone. Instinct told her she should have gone with them, but her heart sent a different message. She couldn’t leave, not without knowing what had happened to Jackson.
In the noise and confusion, she made a run for it, only she didn’t do the smart thing like her men had done. She ran toward the breach in the stone wall that surrounded the Perez estate. And when a second rocket hit the main house and sent stone and debris flying, she felt rocks pummel her body, and she had no way to protect herself. She went down, and everything went black.
It had taken her precious minutes to recover. She’d lost consciousness. How long she’d been out, Alexa didn’t know. By the time she got to her feet, she stumbled deeper into the hacienda, with everything a blur. She’d gotten caught in the fallout, and shards of rock had cut her face. Smoke from the intense flames billowed black into the night air, making it hard to see and breathe. And it took all her concentration to hold on to her H&K MP-5 assault rifle. Men escaping the burning estate ran into her, but they never looked back.
“What the hell . . . ?”
When she realized where she was and remembered what was happening, she had no choice. The air attack had escalated. She had to look for cover and go farther into the compound. That was when she remembered the prison cell where she had heard the angry men shouting before. Since Kinkaid had a way of riling people, that seemed like a likely place to begin her search.
“Damn it.” Disoriented, she raised a hand to her ear and looked down the front of her shirt. “Where is
