The Protected

He had showered and changed, dressed in a suit that cost more than she would have made in a month working for Jones in the Bureau.

Jones. She’d needed that out and she hadn’t had time to so much as call.

Life really was a bitch, she decided. A mean, sucker-punching bitch.

As he came to a stop in front of her, she spat out a mouthful of blood at his feet. Nalini watched his eyes narrow in distaste as he moved his shiny, slick shoes back from the small bit of saliva and blood.

So careful with his clothes, with his shoes, with his home. So arrogant.

People around him scraped by for every damn thing they had. People died acting as his mules . . . died or were jailed, and they took the risk because they felt it was their only option.

A monster, that was what stood in front of her. One who sent mercenaries after his son, so he could . . . what? Use that kid?

The frustration she’d been feeling abruptly died.

Okay, so she hadn’t gone after the bastard she’d promised herself she’d find. But she hadn’t wasted the past few weeks, either. This son of a bitch wasn’t going to touch the kid, and she’d had a bit of a hand in that. She’d help save a kid from dealing with some of the hell she’d had to deal with. It was enough.

Ignacio’s face smoothed and he came closer, sat on the bed across from her. “You have proven to be such a problem, Nala . . . or is that your real name?”

“A name,” she said, heaving out a sigh. “What’s in a name, really?”

Jorge moved to stand behind her, tangling his hand in her dreads and twisting so hard her scalp screamed at her. She smiled through the pain. “Is that the best your trained monkey can do, Iggy? Come on. I had schoolyard punks pound on me harder than this.”

There was a table just outside the narrow pool of light, and she watched as he turned and reached for something. Her gut clenched as she saw what it was. A knife. A big-ass machete. “We’re going to talk, Nala. About my son. How you know about him. Where he is. How I can find him. And for every time you fail to answer me, I’m going to cut off a finger. If we go through all your fingers, then I’ll move to your eyes. I’ll save your ears and tongue for the last. Am I understood?”

Horror twisted inside her, but she didn’t let herself babble in fear.

In the end, there wasn’t a damn thing she could tell him, really.

The boy was probably safe, but she’d deliberately avoided learning anything about him. Defeat settled over her and she slumped in the chair. “You might as well start cutting, then. Have fun getting bloody. I don’t know where he is, who has him . . .” Then she lifted her lashes and stared at him. “Even if I did? I’d lose my eyes, my ears, my heart, my kidneys, every damn thing I have before I’d turn some poor kid over to the likes of you.”

Ignacio simply smiled.

TWENTY-ONE

“WE walk from here.”

From where he’d stopped the car, he could see Reyes’s villa.

His gut was tight and every sense was on red alert.

It was too quiet.

Too quiet and the skin on the back of his neck was crawling, like something or somebody was breathing down on him.

But there was nobody there.

He wanted to ask Vaughnne if she felt something, but she was focused on the big house, sprawling out under the silvery sheen of the moon. It was as though something had enchanted her, and she just couldn’t pull herself away. Even as he went about readying himself, checking his Kevlar vest, knives, the Sig Sauer, slipping the strap of the Heckler & Koch MP5 over his shoulder, Vaughnne was moving toward the house.

“Vaughnne.”

She didn’t even slow down.

“Esta chingadera,” he muttered, grabbing the vest he’d found among her belongings and heading off after her. He caught her arm right before she started down the hill. The scraggly, low- lying bushes would offer them some concealment, but she was not barreling toward that house without some sort of protection. What had he been thinking, bringing her here . . .

Abruptly, Vaughnne stopped and looked at him. “Whatever happens, you didn’t make me come, got it?” She caught the vest from his fist and pulled it on.

“I thought you didn’t read minds.”

She shrugged. “I don’t. But what you’re thinking, for once, is actually written all over your face. I’m here because I gave my word I’d watch over that boy. And I know too much about Ignacio Reyes. People have been chasing after him, trying to shut him down for years, and they are no closer to doing it now than they were a decade ago. If we’re going to make Alex safe, then we have to do it the hard way.”

He lifted a hand and touched her face. “It’s my problem, Vaughnne. My responsibility, and I’ll accept the risks. If you cross this line, there may be no turning back for you. You don’t need to do this.”

A sharp scream, female and full of pain, rang out from the house.

Vaughnne swore and turned. “Yeah. I do.”

* * *

FEAR was a strange thing.

Sometimes it was like an icy tickle down the spine.

Other times, it was a dragon screaming inside her brain.

And it could hit on so many things in between.

Right now, her fear was a nasty little twist in her gut, and in the back of her mind, there was a voice, almost like she was talking to herself. Hurry, Vaughnne. Have to hurry. Have to hurry!

There was another scream and everything in her wanted to run, barrel into that house.

But she couldn’t. Had to be smart. Had to creep across the ground, following Gus’s oddly reluctant lead. All along, he’d been warning her, making her very aware of just how far he’d go, what lines he’d be willing to cross —just about all of them. And now they were here, and he wanted her to . . . what? Leave? Let it go?

While he went on ahead and probably got himself killed, she knew.

He was ready for it. She wasn’t stupid. She knew the look on a man’s face when he was ready to face down death. She’d seen it more than once. There had been a time or two when she had worn that look.

But she hadn’t come down here to walk away now.

Another scream rang out, and they were close enough now that she could hear a voice as the scream faded—it had come from the building ahead, set apart from the big house. So close. It was so close.

Where is everybody? she asked, searching the perimeter.

He’d already done a check for the guards and hadn’t seen a damn soul. That bothered her. A lot.

He looked at her and shook his head minutely, but she didn’t know how to take that. Did that mean he didn’t know? There wasn’t anybody? What?

They inched forward another few feet, following the sound of that voice.

Low and smooth, it sounded like the voice of an educated male, the accent all but gone. “Come now, Nala . . . there’s no reason for this. If you answer my questions, I will not hurt you . . .”

Nala—

That name sounded an alarm in Vaughnne’s mind.

But then she heard the voice. A woman’s. Ragged and hoarse, but familiar, all the same. “Why . . . don’t . . . you go fuck . . . yourself?” she panted.

Nalini—

Shit . . .