Navy SEALs Complete Series: 3 Books + 3 Novellas (Tempting Navy SEALs) (122 page)

The recording of the conversation would have to be slipped quickly to Reno and Macey. Kira was still at the rented villa questioning Tehya. The other girl needed to hear it as well. Though he knew she knew his voice, perhaps without the patronizing, falsely loving tone that he used with her, she could better pinpoint something about it.

“You had better call your friends and inform them of this new development.” Diego leaned back in his chair, crossed an ankle over the opposite knee, and lifted the cup of coffee from the side table that he had set there earlier.

Ian stared back at him silently as Diego sipped at the still warm brew.

“What friends?” he finally asked.

Diego shook his head. “Durango team. I am aware that they have been staying in the villa with Kira’s bodyguard, Daniel. You could have told me, Ian. I would not have turned down their help. I would be curious though, what price do you pay for this help?”

Ian reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. Patience wasn’t his strong suit, and the longer this operation played out, the less patience he had.

“There was no price,” he finally answered honestly, looking back at Diego. “They had information and the woman and came to me with it. They asked nothing in return.”

“And when this is over?” Diego’s voice tightened. “Will they return to their lives alone, or do you follow with them?”

He could never return. Ian was smart enough to know that. He shook his head slowly. “I think you know as well as I do that there’s no going back for me.”

He should regret it. Ian knew he should be furious over the fact that his SEAL career, no matter how this played out, was over. There was no regret though. A sense of sadness, yes, but he had been ready for something else even before coming to Diego.

Diego was nodding slowly, his gaze intent, locked with Ian’s, searching. What the hell was he searching for? Ian wondered.

“Perhaps I made a mistake in the way I brought you into my world, into my life,” Diego said slowly then. “But I would have you to know, Ian, that plans were already in place to help your friends. I would have let none of them suffer unduly because of our games.”

“Except Nathan?” Ian asked softly.

Guilt flickered in Diego’s eyes. “I know you are aware of the things I did to your young friend, but I also kept him alive. He was not an innocent bystander, Ian. You know this. He allowed himself to be captured. He made the choice to attempt to deceive not just me but Sorrell and Jansen Clay. Had it been me alone that he attempted to gain his information from, he would have fared much better.”

Ian leaned forward, his arms braced on the desk, murder in his soul.

“You tortured him for a year after Sorrell finished with him. You could have made certain he was rescued; instead,
you continued to torture him, to drug him, to make him break his vows to his wife.”

Diego sighed, but there was no regret, only knowledge and acceptance. “I will say again, Nathan Malone was no innocent bystander. You know this as well as I. He had information I could have used, and he placed himself at my disposal. It is the way of this world, Ian. It is the way of the world, period. He made his choices, and still, I made certain he lived, even knowing this was one thing you may never forgive me for.”

“And the senator’s daughters you kidnapped and had drugged?” Ian asked him. “Did you know one of them died, Diego, and one of your soldiers raped another? A sixteen-year-old child, a virgin, and that bastard raped her in front of her father.”

“At her father’s orders,” Diego snapped. “The kidnapping of those girls was not my decision, I will take no responsibility for it. This was the doing of Clay and Sorrell. To retain the power I needed to fight the bastards I had no choice but to allow the girls to be brought to my estate to be held. I am guilty of many crimes, but those I will not claim.”

It took a special kind of monster to compartmentalize people and torture, Ian figured. The type of man that deserved to die by whatever means possible.

“You have never understood.” Diego shook his head then. “You are like the religious fanatics. You have your view, your perception, and you never waver. Those who do not share this view and perception are worthy of nothing, no mercy, no chance at life. Is this not true?”

“You should have been shot like a rabid dog at birth,” Ian growled.

Rather than taking offense, Diego smiled in pride. “My word is my bond. I do not break it unless others break theirs. I confine my games to opponents who understand the rules. Both sides know death could result. Tell me, Ian, should your new Department of Homeland Security acquire
me, do you believe they would merely put me on trial? Would I not be beaten, tortured for the information I have on rival cartels, on suspects they wish to convict? Do you tell me that these agents do not kill senselessly when they are finished with those they abduct for information?”

“I haven’t.” It happened though, Ian knew it happened.

Diego leaned forward. “No, but you capture those they torture. You go in the dead of the night with your Durango team, you jerk them from their beds and you give them into the custody of those who do.”

“Murders. Rapists. Terrorists. Fucking animals that would turn the world into a sewer where nothing but death reigns. For God’s sake, Diego, it’s hardly the same.”

Ian came out of his chair and paced around the table, the anger surging through him demanding action of some kind, of any kind.

“You sit there and argue for your side like Satan himself, laying out your logic, so certain of your right to torture, maim, and kill. Because it’s a fucking game to you.”

“Because I know this world,” Diego yelled, coming to his feet as his own anger rose to the surface. “Do you think I do not see what you are doing to the cartel? Pulling back on the drug shipments, attempting to legalize our diversified holdings.” He snorted in disgust. “You would bleach me like dirty laundry. Why would you do this? What is in your mind?”

What was in his mind?

“Maybe I wanted something to leave to my children that wouldn’t get them murdered in their sleep,” Ian snarled.

Diego opened his mouth, snapped it closed, then stared at Ian in surprise. “You are considering having children?”

Son of a bitch. Damn the fucking bastard to hell. There was hope in his voice. Hope, fear, and a hunger that sickened Ian to his gut.

“I was being rhetorical,” Ian snapped, pushing his fingers through his hair as he glowered at Diego. “Look, I don’t have time for this fight. We’ll fight over this after I
deal with Sorrell. Since you know so fucking much about my business, I’ll take this recording next door and see about neutralizing this bastard for you. We’ll fight about the rest of it later.”

He stalked back to his desk, hit the eject button for the recorder, and collected the tape.

“Ian.” Diego stepped in front of him as he turned to leave, his expression tortured. Tortured, as though he had a heart, a fucking soul. “I would be a father if you allowed it. The Fuentes cartel would be as you want it, should you decide this is your way. The name Fuentes will live on, and there would be no need for strife between us. You know business. You have profited these months you have been here. I would give this all to you, if you stayed once Sorrell is taken out of the equation. We could do this, Ian.”

No they couldn’t, because one of them would be dead.

“We’ll talk about this later, Diego.” He shook his head as he pushed past him and headed for the door.

He couldn’t talk about it now, there were too many plans to make, too much to do. And he couldn’t make plans like this, couldn’t be a part of this even as he was plotting Diego’s death.

As he walked through the foyer, Cristo behind him while Trevor preceded him, he suddenly saw himself, not as he had thought he was, but how he might look through another’s eyes. A man cold-bloodedly plotting the death of his father.

Did it matter that the father was a monster? Did it matter that once the Fuentes cartel fell, he intended to leave it and the various businesses resulting from it in the dust for the vultures to pick over?

As he stepped into the Rover, Trevor taking the driver’s seat and Cristo moving into the front passenger seat as protection, Ian stared through the tinted glass of the door’s window and rubbed his hand over his face in frustration.

He had cold-bloodedly planned this before he ever came
to the cartel. Two years of planning, plotting, inspiring just the right amount of curiosity in the right places to draw Diego in.

A man alone, grieving for the loss of his youngest son, without an heir or a family with the exception of a few cousins. A man rumored to have cherished his wife and son. Diego had cherished his son to the point that he had infected the young man with the same evil that filled himself.

An evil Ian couldn’t afford to allow to survive.

As Trevor pulled from the gated villa estate and turned into the driveway to Kira’s villa beside it, Ian couldn’t help but worry about this thing with Sorrell.

He wasn’t known for his predictability, or keeping his word. Not that Ian could expect a terrorist to be known for his word; still, it would have been nice if he were the game player Diego was. With a man like Diego, you knew the rules. Adhere to them, or the game is off and there are no holds barred. In Sorrell’s case, it was no holds barred from the beginning. He dealt in terror, in death. It wasn’t a business to him, it was a religion.

Stepping from the Rover, he had Trevor and Mendez wait outside the house where Kira had obviously left Deke. Stepping up to the wide sheltered doorway, Ian knocked firmly and waited as Daniel opened the door.

“Come on in.” Daniel was back in bodyguard mode as he opened the door and stepped back. The minute Ian entered the house, the door closed and locked solidly behind him, and Daniel’s demeanor changed.

“We have them in a small servant’s room under the stairs, it seemed the most unlikely place to hide the daughter of an international terrorist.” Daniel shook his head at the thought. “That was a good idea sending the Fuentes soldiers to guard the warehouse in town. Kell is reporting some interest there by a few unidentified subjects, but so far, nothing on this end.”

They stepped beneath the curving staircase where Daniel pushed open a swinging door. It wasn’t exactly hidden, but
anyone swarming the house would bypass it on first look and continue on to the back of the villa or upstairs.

They stepped into a long narrow room. Ian pulled the recording from his pocket and tossed it to Macey as he stared around the room.

Reno leaned against the wall watching as Kira and Tehya sat on the half bed and talked. Macey had his laptop set up on a small wooden table and nearby dresser. Jamming equipment and satellite link antennae shared space with additional external hard drives and other paraphernalia that Macey considered his base setup.

Kira watched him silently. He knew the question running through all their minds.

“Sorrell made contact. It’s happening at midnight at the villa. What kind of support are we going to have?” He directed that question to Reno, whom he knew always had backup.

Reno’s lips quirked into a grin as he leaned lazily against the far wall, his M-16 cradled in his arms. Macey nodded and Tehya paled. The resignation that shadowed Kira’s eyes had him watching her harder, more intently. He’d had a feeling she was in Aruba for more than sex or love when she first arrived. He hadn’t altered that opinion, though he knew sex and love had definitely added in to the factors that had pulled her here.

That flash of emotion that he saw in her gaze proved it, and he prepared himself to defend against whatever might come from it.

She was a DHS contract operative, she had come there with DHS backing, and he knew it. She wouldn’t have come without orders. Orders that she hadn’t told him about, and he hadn’t pushed to find out.

Pushing meant possibly not liking the truth, and though Ian was the type of man who believed in facing reality at all times, he didn’t want to face reality with Kira until he had no other choice.

“We have two SEAL teams off the coast, waiting,” Reno
reported as Ian held his hand out to Kira. “They’ll move in when we give the word.”

“Move Miss Talamosi to the Fuentes villa after dark,” he told them as Kira took his hand and he pulled her to his side. “Diego knows you’re here. I don’t want to take the chance that anyone else does, and she’ll be better protected if we don’t have to split our forces.”

“How did he find out?” Kira bit at her bottom lip as he stared down at her, her expression concerned.

“With Diego, only God knows.” Ian shook his head. “He didn’t say how he knew, but he knows. We’ll pull together tonight and get things in place. Keep Durango team hidden at all costs until the meet; we don’t want Sorrell warned ahead of the game.”

He outlined the layout for the negotiations, watching as Macey frowned and made notes on a legal pad at his side and Reno nodded thoughtfully. Through it all, Tehya sat stoically on the bed, her head lowered, her hands clenched tightly together.

“He’ll have men move into place after he arrives,” Tehya said softly, once Ian had finished. “A large contingent of men, highly trained and heavily armed. Once he leaves, all hell will be laid on the villa.”

“He won’t be leaving alive,” Ian reminded her.

Tehya inhaled roughly. “And all hell will be visited the moment they believe there are any problems. Sorrell times everything. He’s fanatical about it. It’s nearly as important as whatever ideal he fights for. If he doesn’t call the attack off, then it will commence at a certain deadline, no matter where he is in the game. You must be prepared for that.”

Ian nodded toward Macey. “I recorded our conversation,” he said to Tehya. “You can go over it with the team, give him what details you may remember. At ten we’ll meet at the villa and prepare for the meeting.”

“I want that weapon, Mr. Richards,” she told him again, her voice low but throbbing with determination. “I can’t be taken alive by him.”

Ian glanced at Reno. The other man’s gaze was compassionate, and concerned.