“Why aren’t you telling me where we’re going?” She pressed her nails into the denim on his inner thigh. “And why don’t I have weapons like the rest of you?”
His breath hitched as hope warred with suspicion. Did she want to shoot him or… “Would you fight alongside us?”
“Yes.” She lifted her chin. “I mean, as long as we’re not headed to some meeting place to pick up more slaves.”
Chispa coughed into his fist, and she whipped her head toward him. Matias clenched his teeth.
“Sorry, it’s…” Chispa gave her a sheepish look. “It’s the stale air in here. Makes my throat tickle.”
Motherfucker. Matias schooled his expression, and she looked back at him, shaking her head with wide eyes.
“Tell me that’s not what we’re doing. You wouldn’t…” She searched his face, voice reedy. “You’re taking me on a slave run?”
A swallow caught in his throat. It was the moment of truth, a moment of courage, the testing point of her instinct, her trust, and her love.
He held himself still and confident as his stomach flipped inside out. “What does your gut tell you?”
She glanced around the cabin at the guys, and none of them made eye contact with her.
“Look at me, Camila.” When her teary eyes returned to his, he said, “What do you see?”
Her hands balled against her thighs as she stared at him, long and hard. “I see a man…the man I—”
“Sir!” the pilot shouted from the cockpit behind him. “We’re being tracked.”
“Who?” Matias twisted in the seat and scanned the glowing panel of gauges. “Something on the radar?” He didn’t have a clue what he was looking at.
“I have it.” Chispa bent over a tablet on his lap, gaze focused on the screen. “There’s a jet above us. Probably Colombian military.”
“Or American.” Nico rubbed a hand over his scowl. “We can lose them. It’s the helicopters and puddle-jumpers below and around us we need to worry about.”
As predicted, it didn’t take long for the first helicopter to buzz by, swooping and circling. Matias’ pilot outmaneuvered and outran it, allowing a few minutes’ reprieve before the next one showed up.
Despite his strung-out nerves and heart palpitations, Matias kept his breathing tempered and mind clear, watching Chispa as the man stared unblinking at the radar on his screen. They’d been through this countless times.
But never with Camila in tow.
Her hand clung to his leg, her complexion bloodless beneath a sheen of perspiration.
“Who are they?” Her voice was strangled.
“Deep breath. Good girl. Now another one.” He laced their fingers together on his lap. “We’re flying over rival territory, so it could be another cartel. Or the military. They’re always looking for us, waiting for us to come out of hiding.”
“What the hell, Matias?” Her knee bounced wildly against him.
“This is Colombia, baby.” He clamped a hand on her leg, stilling her. “The conflict between armed groups like us and FARC and governmental forces has been ongoing for the last fifty years.”
“What happens if we don’t lose them?”
“They’ll track us until we land and try to take us into custody.” Or kill us if it’s another cartel.
“You weren’t kidding when you said you had a lot of enemies.” She offered him a strained smile.
“No.” His mind went through the worst-case scenarios, all of them ending with them getting shot out of the air and her body burning in an inferno of metal and debris. “But I bought this helicopter for its speed. We always lose them.”
Two hours and several reroutes later, they slipped beneath the radar and landed out of sight in a sweeping field of darkness.
A collective sigh breathed through the cabin as Nico opened the rear clamshell door. The guys filed out, leaving Matias alone with Camila. He unlatched his safety belt and crouched before her to remove hers.
As he rose to lead her out, she grabbed his hand. “Wait.”
He lifted a questioning brow and lowered to a crouch before her. “Camila—”
“Let me just say this.” She slid a hand over her collarless throat, her expression deep and serious. “There’s always a basis for justifying an action and an outcome for that action. A motive and a result. You told me, in not so many words, that I might not like the result, but to trust the reason you’re doing it.”
His heart slammed against his ribs as he nodded.
Nudging him backward, she slid off the seat and knelt before him in perfect form—spine erect, shins flat against the flooring, arms behind her, and head held proud. His pulse went crazy.
“I’m giving you the power to break me inside and out, and I trust that you won’t.” She stared into his eyes and pulled in a jagged breath. “I’m scared, Matias, fucking terrified of where you’re about to take me, but I’m relinquishing that to you, surrendering my vulnerability without shame, because that’s what you want, and what you want, I crave.”
Tingling weightlessness filled his chest as he pulled her against him and crushed his mouth to hers. He kissed her frantically, devotedly, for as long as he could, but not long enough. When he pulled back, she gazed at him with unfettered trust.
“When I look at you, I see the man in the boy I loved.” She brushed a finger over the dimple in his cheek.
“I fucking love you.” He kissed her again, smiling like a lovesick asshole.
“Wanna know who I love?” She returned his smile and pointed at his chest. “That guy.”
“Gracias, mi vida.”
“Now where’s my gun?” She held out her hand and arched a sexy brow.
He laughed and gave her the 9mm from his boot. “I trust you to not shoot me in the ass.”
CHAPTER 25
Camila held tight to Matias’ hand as a leathery-faced man named Burd drove them along a dirt road in a black sedan. Ice-cold dread swelled in her stomach, and she couldn’t swallow past the clot
