Seduction Under Fire (21 page)

“Camille, are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Just tired.”

But she wasn’t fine, and the pain had only just begun. Planting a tracking device and staging a dangerous rescue was a piece of cake compared to this. Oh, God, she really did have the worst luck in the world. Her whole damn life was one big cautionary tale.

At some point, and she wasn’t sure when because she hadn’t been paying close enough attention, she’d let her guard down. She knew better than to get emotional about her affair with a man who treated casual sex like a hobby, yet she’d done it anyway.

She’d fallen madly, eternally, head over heels in love with Aaron Montgomery.

She drew a silent gasp, desperate for air as an involuntary shiver rattled her spine.

Before he’d shone his bright light into her life, she lived as if alone on a distant, dark planet. When they first met, she found his good humor threatening, as though levity were a sign of weakness. It took two years and being taken hostage by a drug cartel, but Camille finally realized the immeasurable value of Aaron’s optimism. She had no idea how she would survive without him.

When they took down Rodrigo Perez and their mission was over, her plan was to go on a grand adventure. She was supposed to figure out what made her happy. What if she knew what made her happy, but he wasn’t hers to keep?

Registering her agitation, Aaron hauled her onto his lap. “You’re shaking like a leaf. Are you sure you’re okay?”

She huffed. “I guess I have to be.”

“Do you think you could sleep? I’ll watch over you.” He pressed her head to his chest and stroked her hair.

His touch hurt. His ever-present chivalry hurt. She squeezed her eyes shut. She should push him away, start weaning herself from her dependence on him. Impossible. The weakling that she was, she’d cling to the brightest light in her life until she was forced back into the darkness.

That he would leave her was a given. She had nothing to hold him to her, no argument that could convince him to give her a chance. What was she supposed to say?
I’m broken and pessimistic and awkward, but love me anyway. I have no career, no prospects, nothing to offer you but my sorry self...but I need you. You’re the only thing in this world that makes me happy. Maybe you would be happy with me, too.

Yeah, right.

Yet even though they would go separate ways after their mission, their connections to Juliana and Jacob would link them forever. Aaron would always be in her life, at barbecues and birthday parties, weddings and funerals. She would have to endure the sight of him flirting and dancing. It had been painful enough watching him with other women before she realized she loved him.

Someday, maybe she’d be able to watch him with detached fondness, remembering the adventure they shared in Mexico.

Someday, maybe.

For now, though, it was time to figuratively smack some sense into herself. Once she rescued Rosalia, she’d have a lifetime to feel the heartache that came with loving the wrong person and watching him walk away. Until then, she had work to do.

She reached into her pocket and fingered the cell phone that was the key to finding Rosalia. To drown out the sounds and odor of the ferry, she tucked her face under Aaron’s chin. She drank in his fresh, familiar scent and let his heartbeat lull her to sleep.

* * *

Aaron woke Camille as soon as the heavy metal door to the auto level opened. Grabbing their packs, they slunk over the side of the pickup and behind a motor home, where they stood until car owners filed in around them.

Camille’s heart pounded against her ribs and her hands shook with adrenaline and stress as she thought about the next few critical minutes. They had to make it past the commercial port’s armed guards and into a taxi. Not to mention the fact that the man they’d captured had tipped someone off over the phone about the presence of people in the auto level. She just prayed that whoever it was wasn’t waiting to ambush them the minute they stepped off the boat.

Aaron rummaged through his backpack with a concerned look on his face, muttering about how he couldn’t find his cell phone. Under the pretense that he left it in their cabin, they pushed through the throng of people pouring onto the auto level and up two flights of stairs to the pedestrian exit ramp.

They kept their heads down, walking fast. Camille could see a line of waiting taxis on the other side of the chain-link fence surrounding the port, past two armed security guards. Fifty yards to relative safety.

She scanned the crowd on the dock. No black sedans in sight, no Perez. No thug-looking cartel types at all, only families and businessmen, truckers and vacationers. They had this. They skirted a slow-moving family on the ramp and tucked behind a tall, overweight man.

The exit ramp gave way to solid ground. Camille and Aaron stayed with the crowd moving toward the exit. Only twenty yards to the taxis.

Holding her breath, she kept her face on her feet as she crossed paths with the guards. No one stopped her or Aaron. Aiming at a tiny, white hatchback taxi, she hastened her steps. Aaron outpaced her and piled into the backseat first to give directions to the driver in Spanish. Camille tugged her door, but something kept it from closing.

She looked up to see the barrel of a pistol in her face.

Carlos “Two Down” Reyes sat beside her, sneering as he shoved the gun against Camille’s throat. A second man dropped into the front passenger seat, a gun trained on the driver, who put the car in gear and started down the road in the opposite direction from La Paz. Camille clutched Aaron’s hand.

Two Down gave a wheezy laugh and ground the gun into her skin. “Let me guess,
señorita.
You’re the brains and he’s the brawn of your little operation?”

“Wrong, dimwit,” Aaron answered. “She’s the brains and the brawn. I’m just the arm candy.”

She glanced sideways at him and saw that his door hadn’t latched and he held it steady with his other hand. A plan took root in her mind. It wasn’t perfectly thought out, but it might be their only hope.

She waited until Two Down started chattering in Spanish to the man in the front passenger seat. Slowly she reached into her pocket for the cell-phone detonator and the scrap of paper with the code and transferred them to Aaron’s hand.

His eyes grew questioning as he tucked the items into his jacket pocket.

“I know you’ll come for me,” she said in the barest whisper.

“What?”

The taxi slowed to maneuver over a speed bump.

“This is the only way,” she said. She lunged at Two Down, deflecting his gun as she pushed Aaron out of the car with her feet. “Drive,” she shouted at the driver. He stepped on the gas. Camille pulled Aaron’s door shut as Two Down’s gun connected with the top of her skull. She fought against unconsciousness, but a second blow landed on her head and she was out.

Chapter 15

A
aron inspected the bloody road rash on his arm in the yacht’s bathroom mirror. “Dreyer? Montgomery.”

“Did something go wrong when you planted the tracking device?”

“Device is in place, but Fisher’s been taken.” What he didn’t bother to mention was that Camille finally managed to martyr herself. Stubborn, stubborn woman. If those men laid a hand on her, he’d blow the entire Baja Peninsula out of the water. “Patch me through to Santero. We’re going in tonight.”

“Fisher was kidnapped again by the Cortez Cartel? Are you sure?”

Aaron picked a bit of blacktop out of his skin and slammed it into the sink. “Do I sound confused?” He bit back the rest of the rant on the tip of his tongue, remembering too late that he was speaking to his superior.

“No, you don’t. Take a breath, Montgomery. Flying off the handle isn’t going to save her.”

He scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “I know that, sir. But going after her as soon as humanly possible will.”

“Roger that. I’ll contact Santero and green-light his team.”

“I want to be a part of her rescue.”

“That’s not a good idea,” Dreyer said. “You’re too emotionally invested for a matter this delicate.”

Aaron sucked in a breath through gritted teeth. “She threw herself at the cartel so I could escape.”
And she’s the love of my life.
“I need to help get her back. Please.”

Dreyer was silent for a beat. “We can’t take a chance of this line being tapped or you being followed, so I’ll have someone pick you up in four hours and bring you to ICE’s secure location within the city.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He rattled off the first location that came to mind for a rendezvous point, then ended the call and looked at the bed he’d shared with Camille and the bathroom where he’d cut her hair. This would be the last time he saw the
Happily Ever After.
No matter what happened tonight with the rescue, he wouldn’t be back.

He grabbed a backpack and tossed in the binder of ICE intel and the rest of the cash and weapons. He dumped the contents of the dresser drawers on the bed, checking for anything he might need or any incriminating evidence of their time there. Out tumbled the box of condoms.

With a huff, he picked it up and sat on the bed.

Funny how life was. In the past few weeks, he’d done and experienced terrible things. And yet, in Camille’s arms, he’d found his life’s purpose—to be accountable to and cherished by a woman. This one particular woman. All his years in pursuit of amusement—years of fast women, fast cars and fast sports—had been ineffective attempts to stave off the emptiness that came with a lack of purpose. Camille had given his life substance. She made him invincible.

And she was gone.

He set the box aside. The possibility of having a baby with the woman he loved was wonderful and terrifying, but hardly pertinent. Camille’s life was in danger, if she wasn’t dead already.

Please, God, don’t let her be dead.

He flipped on the tracking device locator and watched a red blip on the map a good ten miles or more southeast of La Paz. The delivery truck had reached its destination. The only question was, had Camille been taken to the same place? Only one way to find out.

He slung the backpack over his shoulder and strode from the room. Knowing he’d go insane if he stayed stationary until the rendezvous, he decided to perform some preliminary surveillance.

Following the GPS coordinates from the tracking device along the road southeast of La Paz, he drove past the ferry terminal. The dirt roads became crude, the homes more dilapidated and sparse until there were no homes at all but endless miles of shrub and cacti-covered foothills.

Over a half hour southeast of the city, twenty estates rose up from the desolation and lined the mouth of the bay. Thick, barbed wire-topped walls of brick and plaster standing ten feet tall separated the properties from each other and the road. In case the cartel stronghold was located here, Aaron kept his distance. No need to tip off any guards to his presence.

The tracking device transmitted from within the fourth property to the right. Set far back from the gate was a massive two-story mansion. He doubted Rodrigo Perez could afford such luxury. This place had to belong to Alejandro Milán.

The entrance gate was a solid sheet of dark iron topped by as much barbed wire as the fence line. At least from the front and sides, the estate was impenetrable. Hopefully Milán wasn’t as meticulous about the security of his backyard.

In a text to Dreyer, he entered the GPS coordinates and requested satellite photos. After using the phone to snap pictures of the entrance gate, he watched for signs of activity until the rendezvous time approached, but all was quiet. As he waited and watched, his thoughts slid to his last moments with Camille and the expression of courage and resolve on her face as she shoved him from the cab.

She was incomparable to any person he’d ever known—and he’d destroy any man who hurt her.

With a final glare at Milán’s entrance gate, he retraced his route to the city, through the cobblestone side streets of downtown and up a steep grade into a suburban neighborhood, past the Gigante Market. A glance at his watch told him he had thirty minutes to spare. On a whim, he made a right turn on to Ana’s street.

Her car was parked curbside. He idled the bike half a block down and observed the quiet street. He might be connecting dots that weren’t there, but his instincts kept niggling at him that somehow Ana was involved with the cartel. He and Camille had too many run-ins with them while in contact with her. On the other hand, if she had an allegiance to Alejandro Milán or Rodrigo Perez, she could have killed them the night they stayed at her house.

A hand touched his shoulder. Drawing his 9 mm, he twisted toward it.

Ana stood next to him, flanked by three huge men holding firearms inside the flaps of their jackets.

“Aaron, what a wonderful surprise.” She sounded pleasant and not at all rattled to be standing at gunpoint.

Aaron held his aim. “Who are they?”

“This is my brother, Ramón.” She gestured to the most sharply dressed man of the three who looked to be in his early forties. “And these are a couple of our...friends. They are in town on business.”

He tried to play it cool, but the proliferation of firepower made it a tough sell. “Nice to meet you all. How have you been, Ana?”

She indulged in a throaty chuckle, but she was only a facsimile of the sexy teacher who had sheltered them for a night. The inhumanity exuding from her now made Aaron’s mouth go dry. It was either divine intervention or blind luck she hadn’t murdered them when she had the chance. “I’m well. How is Camille?”

Something about the way she asked set Aaron’s teeth on edge. Maybe it was the slight quirk of a smug grin on her lips or the blade-sharp glint in her eyes. But he was certain she knew Camille had been recaptured.

“She’s fine.”

Ana’s eyes narrowed the tiniest bit. “I’m sure she is. What are you doing outside my apartment, waving a gun in my face?”

He held the gun steady. “I was in the neighborhood.”

“How convenient for me. Shall we go inside before we’re all arrested for carrying illegal firearms?”