Marked man, p.9
Marked Man, page 9
I’m fucking sick about leaving the captain behind, even though I know it was the right call. We don’t need Amador catching wind that there’s a rogue group of mercenaries not attached to Delgado’s cartel coming after him. If he finds out, he’ll start to put the pieces together that something else is going on, and the op will be over. I trust Captain Watts to know how to play things as a hostage. If it were me, that would mean simply not talking unless it’s to misdirect.
“They won’t kill him,” Martinez says, as if trying to convince himself of the idea.
“Not if they think he knows anything,” I say. “We’ll get him back when we go in.”
“Hope he can hold out that long,” Hearn says.
I don’t say it, but it isn’t the captain I’m worried about.
Sadie reports in once more that we weren’t followed before going silent. I stare down at the face of the man we took, wishing I hadn’t been sworn to secrecy about his identity long before I set foot in Belize. No one knows his significance except for my family and his, so I’ll defer to how he wants to handle things once he comes to.
Only a few minutes later, he begins to stir, blinking blearily at first, then closing his eyes again. I’m onto him, though. His previously slack body has tensed just enough that it’s clear he’s no longer unconscious. His hands flex against the zip tie binding his wrists, and his jaw twitches behind the tape covering his mouth. Then he opens his eyes again and carefully scans the interior of the Humvee without turning his head.
His gaze lands on me, and I incline my head slightly. I have no idea how to convey that we’re on the same side without giving him away, but he’ll come to his own conclusions once we get back to camp.
It’s not that far, but the roads here don’t offer a direct route, which is better for us anyway. It takes an hour before we pull in and Whiteside kills the engine. We’ve barely stopped when the tailgate opens and Sadie stands back for us to haul the man known as Cal Logan to his feet.
He remains quiet and doesn’t fight as she leads us to the command center. The front room has been cleared of all but one of the handful of folding chairs that once lined the walls, and we settle our captive down on it. Garcia produces several fresh zip ties and proceeds to bind him to the chair, then steps back for Sadie to rip the tape off his face.
“You guys are a talkative bunch,” Cal quips. “Anyone want to clue me in on where the fuck I am and why I’m here?”
“Doesn’t fucking matter,” Sadie says, planting herself in front of him, arms crossed. She’s livid, a five-foot pressure cooker about to explode. “All that matters is the man you work for. We need everything you know about Amador and his compound.”
He smirks and darts a glance at me, eyes narrowing as he tilts his head to one side. Then his gaze slides back to Sadie and he sizes her up. “Why would I share anything like that?”
It’s terrifying how fast she’s on him, same as when she vaulted herself at the snake in the shower my first morning here. She leaps on top of him, yanks his head back by his hair, and presses her knife to his throat.
“You’ll tell me every fucking detail until I decide I’ve heard enough, or I’ll slit your goddamn throat.”
His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, his eyes flicking around like a terrified animal’s. They land on me again and seem to beg. Knowing he’s actually on our side, I really ought to come to his rescue, but it’s not my decision whether to reveal the identity of the DEA agent who’s been concealed inside Amador’s organization for the better part of a decade. Chris Longo wasn’t part of our briefing packet, so as far as the US Government knows, he’s still dead. He may want to keep it that way.
“You may want to start talking,” I suggest. “Because the man we left behind is her dad.”
His gaze shifts to her and he blinks. “I see. Let me guess—he was the dummy who decided to break into my bedroom in the middle of the night without checking for alarms. I take it he’s also the reason I have this monster of a headache. What’d he dose me with, horse tranqs?”
“Where did they take him?” Sadie snaps, digging her blade into his neck hard enough that a small trickle of red seeps out from beneath the steel.
He winces and gives a slight nod. “Where your daddy is isn’t what’s key here, short stack. I’ll talk, but you might want to put on some coffee and get breakfast going. This is going to be a long story.”
It takes Longo a couple hours to get through his explanation, over the course of which Sadie gets more and more agitated, and eventually outright manic. I suspect her fatigue is the root of it, so I step in, resting a hand on her shoulder to stop her pacing when the light outside announces dawn’s arrival.
“Let’s give it a rest for a few hours. Let everyone take a breather. The captain’s in no imminent danger, from the sound of things, and we still have time to regroup.”
The entire team, or what remains of us, is holed up inside the trailer, and it’s getting pretty rank.
“Thank fuck,” Garcia mutters.
Hearn stretches and stands, pulling out a multitool and crouching down to snip Longo’s bindings.
“Don’t you dare cut him loose!”
Hearn freezes and stares at her. “He’s on our side. You heard his story. Why the hell do we need to keep him zip tied to a fucking chair?”
To his credit, Longo never once complained. He still seems pretty wary of the petite, but obviously highly strung woman who’s spent the last four hours conducting what might be the most thorough interrogation I’ve ever witnessed. He didn’t even ask for water, though Hearn disappeared shortly after it started, returning a few minutes later with a full canteen that he personally fed Longo from every twenty minutes or so.
I give her shoulder a squeeze. “You can let him go. The rest of us will keep an eye on him.”
Longo nods. “I’m not going anywhere. I know how valuable I am. I’m just as valuable to Amador, though. In fact, what you should do is use me. Trade me for the captain. Amador will agree to it in a heartbeat.”
Sadie clenches her jaw and looks like she’s about to object, but the fast blinking she does then is a dead giveaway that she’s toast.
“You don’t have to decide now,” I tell her. “Come on, Rocket. Let’s take a beat, get some grub, get a shower and a nap, and talk about it later.”
She finally relaxes and looks at me, her eyes bloodshot. “If he dies . . .” she says at almost a whisper. What she leaves unsaid makes my insides twist.
“I know,” I say in a low voice. “But we’ll do him no good if we’re too exhausted to follow through with the op.”
“We’ll take care of Longo. You two go crash,” Hearn says, proceeding to clip Longo’s zip ties.
Longo gives Sadie a slow nod. “Trust me, you guys nabbing me was the out I was looking for. And if you decide not to trade me for your dad, I won’t complain. I’ve been Cal Logan too long as it is. I’m ready to get my life back.”
Sadie glances down at her watch and nods. “Everyone meet in the mess at sixteen hundred. Get some rest until then. You . . .” She points at Longo. “You screw us over, I’ll hunt you to the ends of the Earth.”
“I believe you,” he chuckles.
“Let’s go.” I squeeze her shoulder and urge her toward the door. Thankfully she relents, pivoting on her heel and pushing out into a morning serenade of jungle music.
I remain by her side to make sure she doesn’t keel over from exhaustion. She heads to the mess tent—which is usually self-serve, since our main cook is pulling double-duty with ops assignments—but we find Garcia already set up and cooking a full breakfast. The food smells amazing, and he serves us eggs, toast, and bacon without a word. He looks as wiped out as I feel, but I thank him and dig in.
Sadie’s only halfway through hers when I finish, so I refill my coffee and wait.
“You don’t have to babysit me, you know. I’m a big girl.”
“I’m not . . .” I sigh. “Fuck, fine. I’m worried about you, that’s all.”
“I’ll be fine, so long as Longo’s intel pays off. If we don’t find the captain where he says he’ll be . . .”
“He’ll be there. We can trust Longo.”
“How do you know? Just because he says he’s an agent doesn’t mean it’s true. How was the name Chris Longo left out of literally every report we were given?”
“Because they believed he was dead all this time. He also left out the identity of his mother, whose name is in the reports if you look. She’s the one who signed all the authorizations for this op. He probably assumed you’d put it together.”
She frowns and starts to shake her head in denial, but I lift my eyebrows at her, hoping I don’t have to remind her that these are details I wouldn’t forget.
“Fine. Tell me what you know.”
“Katherine Longo is the senator who chairs the committee that approved this op to begin with—I’ve met her, in fact. Not only that, my brother’s engaged to her daughter, Longo’s sister. I don’t think he knows who I am, but he probably guessed, even though we didn’t share names in there.”
“Did you know who he was when we decided to take him?” When I don’t immediately answer, her eyes blaze. “Fucking hell, Santos, you knew and didn’t tell us? How deep are you in this? I thought it was just about your family’s ties to Arturo Flores.”
“Listen, I don’t know Longo. But my younger brother Sam had contact with him a few months ago. It’s . . . complicated.”
“Explain it anyway,” she snaps.
With a sigh, I settle down and give her as many details as I can about the last few years of my family’s entanglement with Flores and the mutual vendetta between him and Amador. The secret daughter angle makes her laugh at least, especially when I explain that not only are two of my brothers involved with two of Arturo’s daughters, but my own sister is also Arturo’s daughter. I leave out the part about Elle’s relationship with Ben and Baz Quin and Drake Stavros. I decide it isn’t relevant, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around it anyway.
The operatic scope of the story manages to distract her from her current worries for a little while, but when we get up to head to our tents, she goes silent, which is the surest sign her mood has taken a dive again. When we reach my tent, she grabs my forearm, and I glance down at her.
“Meet me in the shower in five, okay?”
“Um, sure, but wouldn’t you rather do that alone now? It’s not like we’re fighting for time.”
For the first time in hours, some color returns to her cheeks. She turns away and clears her throat, squinting at the horizon. “I guess I consider our morning chats therapy, and if there was ever a time I needed it, it’s now.”
I can’t help but smirk. I cross my arms and arch one eyebrow. “So what you’re saying is you actually like baring your soul to me, while naked?”
“Fuck off, Santos. Just be there. That’s a fucking order.”
I laugh as I watch her stomp off toward her tent.
15
Marco
It feels strange to head to the showers in daylight. One of the most cathartic aspects of my shared shower time with Sadie is that we usually keep the light off. Something about talking in the darkness lends our conversations a confessional quality, and both of us being raised mostly Catholic makes it easier to share secrets we might otherwise keep inside.
The camp around us is quiet, the mood subdued. At this time of day, we’d normally hear some signs of men training, because the training never really stops, even during down time. But after last night, we’re all too wiped out.
The cool water feels good when I step beneath the shower, and I’m already lathering up when Sadie arrives, her thong sandals slapping against her heels and nothing but a towel wrapped around her compact frame. She gives me a half-smile, and her gaze darts over my body, then away, quickly focusing on setting her small toiletry pouch on the shelf on her side as she steps out of her sandals and hangs up her towel.
It’s still early morning, and the camp is shrouded in a light mist, so some of that silent, sacred quality remains, but I’m not used to us being able to see each other so clearly. It isn’t until she peeks over her shoulder at me that I realize I’ve been staring squarely at her ass for a good five seconds without blinking.
I turn away, clenching my eyes shut as I silently reprimand myself. The last thing she needs is me acting like a fucking lech.
“I’m all ears for whatever you need to get off your chest this morning,” I say, though simply speaking the words calls to mind an image of her naked breasts, something I definitely should not be thinking about in daylight. Or ever. I’m normally a very disciplined man, but all that self-control goes out the window around her.
Thankfully she doesn’t jump on my slip and turn it into a joke. She’s silent for far too long, and when I turn to ask what’s up, I find her hunched over beneath the spray, hugging herself as she shakes with silent sobs.
“Sadie?” The other side of the small space is barely more than an arm’s reach away. I stretch out a hand and rest it on her back. My touch incites the first sound from deep inside her—a soft sob bursts forth and her entire body tightens, her hands turning to fists where she has them tucked beneath her arms. I recognize the stubborn resistance to being overcome by emotion. I’ve seen it often enough in my family. Around my dad it was safer to wear a mask of indifference, because anything overtly positive or negative could be thrown back at us.
She’s trying so hard to hold it in, I have to give her credit, but it hurts me to know what she’s forcing herself to bury. “He’ll be okay,” I offer, stepping closer and rubbing my hand in a slow circle over her back.
“You don’t know that.” She shakes her head and sniffs, her voice thick. “Amador is a fucking monster. We might not make it to him in time.”
“How many missions have you and the captain completed together?” I reach for her bottle of body wash while I wait for her answer and squeeze some into my hands, then begin to rub a lather into her back. She relaxes by increments, still staring at her feet.
“I’ve lost count. Nothing as involved as this one, though. Most were just the two of us. We’re a good team.”
“I believe it. But you know he’s a survivor. He’ll do what he needs to do to make sure this op succeeds.”
She sighs and finally drops her hands to her sides. I keep rubbing, digging both my thumbs into her neck and shoulders, working the tightness out.
Sadie leans back against my hands a little and lifts her head. “I don’t usually get like this. Don’t want you thinking I’m some crybaby who loses her shit every time her daddy gets into trouble.”
“That’s the last thing I’d ever think about you, Sadie. I also doubt this is a common occurrence.”
She shakes her head, then glances over her shoulder at me. “It isn’t. But if Amador finds out who he is, he will kill him.”
“This is why we have cover identities, Ana.”
“We do, but Dad doesn’t. He wasn’t supposed to be on the inside. It’s been a while since we’ve been in this deep. We’ve had some tight situations before, but nothing that scared me this much. You’ve seen the intel we have on him. The bastard fucking flays his enemies alive and hangs their skin on his walls like art.”
She shivers despite the growing heat of the morning. The mist still hovers around us, but the sunlight has broken through the canopy and is gradually burning the fog away. I reach for her shampoo next and squirt a blob on top of her wet head, then gently begin working it into her hair. I’m not sure what compels me to keep bathing her, but at least the contact has made her stop crying. She heaves another shaky sigh and tilts her head back, surrendering to my fingers as I work a thick lather into her dark hair.
I move my soapy hands back to her shoulders, then reluctantly drop them and step back to my side of the showers. She turns to face me, tipping her head back again, this time beneath the spray to rinse. The foamy suds drift down her naked torso in cloud-like streaks that follow her contours. My self-control is flagging, my weariness making it hard not to let my gaze follow the path of one large swath of suds as it slides between her breasts and down the center of her toned abdomen.
Christ, I need to get a handle on my impulses. I close my eyes, but only see the afterimage of her naked body. When I open them again, she’s right in front of me, her body wash in one hand, the other grabbing mine to squirt more into it, then another measure into her own palm before setting the bottle aside. Then, without a word, she rubs her hands together and proceeds to scrub the soap into my chest.
I study her face for a second and see only a strange mix of uncertainty and determination. Her touch is both relaxing and arousing, and I know if I accept this invitation, there’s no going back. But maybe I don’t want to go back. Maybe she doesn’t, either. If anyone knows how to plow forward with a plan, it’s her.
My nostrils flare, and it’s all I can do to keep my cock in check. “Sadie, if I touch you again, I won’t want to stop,” I warn, just for the sake of putting it out there.
“Who says I’ll want you to stop?”
Our gazes remain locked as I rub my hands together to work up a lather, then reach for her. I start at her neck, cupping both hands around the sturdy column, gently tracing the hollow of her throat with one thumb before coasting my palms down. She arches into my touch when my hands cover her breasts. They’re small and firm, her hard nipples pressing into my palms. I’m too enthralled with the feel of her to pause for long, enjoying the friction of her smooth skin beneath my hands.
Her touch grows bolder as I slide my hands lower. I don’t bother hiding my arousal now, and her gaze drops to my crotch. Her cheeks flush, and she lifts her eyes to mine as her hands slip down.
“Is this okay?” she whispers, gently wrapping one hand around the base of my shaft.
I swallow and nod, every cell in my body hyper-attuned to her contact. She strokes me once, and I’m on fire.
