Broken Honor (7 page)

Toward the front of the plane, she stumbled over a leg and groped around for the owner, finding a very large boot attached to the leg. That didn’t belong to one of the women, and her heart fluttered with hope. “Travis?”

He jerked upright as if she’d electrocuted him. “Mara?”

“Yes, it’s me.” The darkness was too complete, and she couldn’t see him, but there was no mistaking his voice. She ran her hands over him, searching for his ties, and discovered handcuffs securing him to a metal pipe welded to the wall. She wasn’t going to be able to break through those like she had the women’s duct tape, but she could remove the burlap bag from over his head.

“Fuck,” he breathed and jerked on the cuffs. “What happened?”

“I tried to get away. I really tried, but I was afraid of being in the desert after dark and I ran for it. But they knew I was still here all along and they were ready for me.”

“Fuck,” he said again, and she couldn’t quite muffle the sob that worked its way up out of her throat.

The cuffs rattled again. “Mara, I’m not angry with you. Okay? I’m not, but—” Another vicious yank made the whole wall rattle. “Goddamn these things! Come over here. Please. I need —” His voice caught. “I need to know you’re okay.”

She swallowed down another sob and crawled up beside him, wrapping her arms around his waist. “I’m okay.”

“All right. All right,” he repeated as if trying to assure himself. He rested his cheek on top of her head. “Who’s in here with us?”

“Nine other women, most of them Mexican. I think they were kidnapped.”

“Yeah, they were. Nikolai Zaryanko is a trafficker. Humans, drugs, guns, organs—if he can get his hands on it, you can bet he’ll sell it. Rumor has it he sold his own sister.” He hesitated. “Mara, no matter what, he can’t find out about your, uh…”

“My pregnancy?” she finished.

“Yeah. That.”

Travis couldn’t even say the word aloud. And here she’d thought she had done the right thing by contacting him about the baby. Now, hindsight being twenty-twenty and all that, she saw it for the mistake it was. She backed away from him and immediately missed the heat of his body. She was so cold, down to the very center of her being. “He’ll try to sell the baby, too, won’t he?”

“Yeah. He’ll auction it off to the highest bidder.”

“Oh, God.” Sick dread surged into her throat. She swallowed it down, wrapped her arms around her middle, and huddled against the wall in the dark. Sobs and whimpers echoed around the plane from the other women. One was reciting the twenty-third psalm in Spanish over and over in a choked, hushed tone.

But she would not fall apart like them. She didn’t have that luxury.

“Mara,” Travis said softly. “We’ll be okay.”

“Please, don’t do that. Don’t coddle me.” She lifted her head and looked toward his voice. “Tell me the truth.”

He said nothing for several agonizing beats. “The truth is unless my team finds us, we’re screwed. But I swear I will do
everything
in my power to make sure they find us.”

Chapter Seven

El Paso, Texas

Jesse Warrick made it to the El Paso hotel that woul
d be the team’s temporary base just after ten p.m. and stepped into a wall of noise and activity when he opened the door. Seemed he was the last to arrive. Most of the team had still been in D.C. after celebrating the New Year, but he’d left for Wyoming right after the party, hoping to catch a few days of downtime with his son before another mission called him away again. He’d gotten only one day with Connor—one long day of trying to coax the kid out of his teenage shell of indifference—before the call had come in from Harvard about Mara’s kidnapping.

Christ, he was tired.

Between the nauseating worry for Mara’s safety eating away at his gut, his heartache at his son’s complete apathy toward him, and the emotionally draining fight with his ex-wife when he’d told her he had to send Connor home early, he was running on fumes. Not to mention the calls to Mara’s parents—who, he’d found out, had fucking disowned her, and that was a whole ’nother can of worms he didn’t have the energy to open yet—and his own horrified family, the last twelve hours had been the longest of his life. He felt like a big steaming pile of manure, and the noise in the hotel room did nothing to help the headache pounding behind his eyes.

He stalled out in the doorway, unsure if he had the patience to deal with the team right now. Marcus and Jean-Luc had claimed the suite’s couch and were arguing good-naturedly over the football game on TV. Harvard already had his tech stuff spread out on the large dining table and was tapping away at his keyboard while Ian stood at the sink in the kitchenette, filling a bowl with water for his dog, Tank. Seth sat in one of the two deep leather chairs that completed the living room arrangement and added his two cents to the animated football argument. The guy looked happy, more at peace with himself, worlds away from what he’d been only a few short months ago. Meeting Phoebe in Afghanistan had been good for him, had done what no doctors or psychologists had been able to accomplish: she’d given him a solid foundation of love and support on which to build his recovery. Yeah, he still struggled with his PTSD, but he was coping, and Phoebe was helping him do it.

At the thought of the happy new couple, a twist of longing snaked through Jesse’s chest. He didn’t begrudge them their happiness. He didn’t. He simply…wanted a piece of it for himself.

And wasn’t that goddamn foolish? You’d think he would have learned by now. He’d already tried the whole falling-in-love thing—not once, not twice, but three times, and they had all ended in divorce.

He glanced away from Seth and noticed a stranger looming in the corner.

Who the hell…?

Eyes narrowed, he studied the man. Big guy, close-cropped dark hair, olive skin—most likely of Hispanic decent. Recognition clicked. This was Jace Garcia, HORNET’s new pilot, hired on shortly after they had returned from Afghanistan. Jesse had met him only once, very briefly, when he was first introduced to the team, but he remembered the pilot wasn’t much of a talker, liked to keep to himself.

Garcia seemed competent and came highly recommended by Camden Wilde, who had served in the air force with him. Still, Jesse was surprised to see him here. This op wasn’t exactly situation normal for the team.

Marcus spotted him loitering in the doorway. “Hey, Jess. You have any idea why Gabe called us all back to El Paso?”

Yeah, he wasn’t in the mood for chitchat. Ignoring the question, he crossed to the window and stared out over the parking lot, but it wasn’t well lit and there wasn’t much to see but the blackness of a desert night.

“Hello to you, too. What bug crawled up your ass, Warrick?”

The door opened again, and Gabe Bristow’s quiet, commanding voice overrode the chatter of the TV. “All right, gentlemen. Everyone here?” He scanned the room, nodded in Jesse’s direction. “Good. Time to get down to business, then.”

Yeah. Business. Jesse snorted in disgust. Like they should’ve been doing hours ago instead of sitting here on their asses, watching football and twiddling their thumbs while they waited for him to arrive. Mara could be on the other side of the world by now, and he shuddered to think of the horrors his sweet, softhearted cousin might be facing at this very moment. She didn’t belong in this world—his world, so full of death and destruction. None of his family did, and he’d done his damnedest to make sure they never got involved in this portion of his life—which had cost him all of his marriages and, now, his son’s love. And yet despite his efforts to keep his two very different worlds from colliding, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d invited this danger to Mara’s doorstep by asking his teammates to help him protect her this summer.

Gabe shut off the TV and positioned himself at the front of the room. “We have a situation, gentlemen.”

Seth straightened in his seat and glanced around. His shoulders tightened. “Hey. Wait a minute. Where’s Quinn?”

For the first time since convening on the hotel, the rest of the guys took notice of their missing teammate. Both Marcus and Jean-Luc turned and scanned the room with nearly identical
WTF?
expressions. Ian stood propped against the wall with his arms crossed, his dog faithfully by his side. He merely lifted one brow in question, but his reaction was downright animated next to Jace Garcia’s impassive poker face. Harvard still didn’t glance up from his laptop, which was par for the course for the ex-CIA intelligence analyst.

“That’s who we’re here to talk about,” Gabe said.

“Goddammit,” Jesse said. “I warned ya, boss. Back in Colombia, I warned you.”

Gabe sighed. “I know.”

“Warned him about what?” Marcus asked.

Jesse started to answer—that Quinn was a walking medical case study for traumatic brain injury and shouldn’t have been allowed to go on missions—but Gabe spoke over him, bringing the guys up to speed on the situation. Mara had been abducted midmorning yesterday. Quinn had witnessed it and had been on the HT’s—hostage taker’s—tail with Harvard tracking him until the satellite moved out of range. There had been no word from Quinn since his last contact with Harvard.

Surprise rippled through the room.

Gabe held up his hands and spoke over the growing noise. “We’re assuming whoever took Mara now also has Quinn, and we’ll need all hands on deck to find them. This won’t be a paid op, and I know it’s asking a lot when we just came back from that clusterfuck in Afghanistan. I understand if any of you prefer to stay behind this time.” His gaze went to the new guy. “Especially you, Garcia. You have no stake in this. You don’t know Quinn from Adam, so if you want to bow out, nobody’s going to hold it against you.”

Garcia shrugged. “I have nowhere better to be.”

Gabe nodded and focused on Seth. “You’ve been through a lot in the last month and a half—”

“Fuck that,” Seth said. “Quinn saved my hide once. I’m not staying home while he’s in trouble.”

“Fair enough. Harvard, you—”

“Not happening, boss,” Harvard answered without looking up from his screen. “Quinn’s the only reason I’m sitting here right now instead of inside a box six feet under.”

A rumble of agreement came from everyone in the room.

Marcus got to his feet. “I’ll call Giancarelli and have the FBI—”

“What?” Jesse snapped, impatient with all of them. “What’s Giancarelli goin’ to do? He’s not even that high up on the FBI’s bureaucratic totem pole.”

“Do you have a better idea, Jess?” Marcus asked. “Because we gotta do something. I don’t plan to sit around while a friend’s in trouble.”

“Friend?” Jesse gave a bitter laugh, the word leaving a bad taste in his mouth. “Yeah, Quinn’s some friend. Last I checked, a friend doesn’t go behind your back and knock up your cousin. I told him Mara was off-fuckin’-limits.”

And…cue the crickets.

“Yes,” Gabe said with a
nice going
scowl in Jesse’s direction. “Mara’s pregnant, and Quinn confirmed to Harvard that it’s his kid. Which, in regards to this situation, only means we have to locate them a-sap. Harvard, what have you got for us?”

“Not much, I’m afraid,” Harvard said and fumbled to find his glasses in the mass of papers strewn across the table. “Quinn wanted me to trace his phone like we did yours in Colombia,” he said to Gabe. “And as long as he has it on him and the battery holds out…no biggie. The phone doesn’t even have to be turned on for my program to work. Thing is, the phone is still at the airfield in New Mexico, and that’s not sitting right with me because I’ve been monitoring the area via satellite and I saw a plane land shortly after I last spoke to Quinn. It took off again about an hour later.”

“What about Mara?” Jesse asked.

“Quinn said he’d stay with her, no matter what.” He met Jesse’s gaze with deep regret in his own. “I’m sorry. At this point, all we can do is hope that’s true. But I don’t believe either of them is in New Mexico anymore.”

“Do we suspect the Juarez Syndicate is behind this?” Marcus asked the room. “The FBI only got a couple low-level Syndicate punks this summer. Maybe they came back, figured instead of trying for another hit on Senator Escareno, they’d kidnap his stepdaughter and get some money out of him.”

“No.” Harvard finally found his glasses and rubbed his eyes before putting them on. He looked paler than usual, had lost some of the muscle weight he’d packed on during training this summer. The medic in Jesse sat up and took notice. The man had been severely wounded just over a month ago, after all, and he was still healing. He shouldn’t be involved in any of this. At the same time, if they had any hope of finding Quinn and Mara, he had to be.

“I wondered if it was El Sindicato at first, too,” Harvard admitted. “But this doesn’t fit their modus operandi.”

Jace Garcia spoke up. “He’s right. I know El Sindicato. If they kidnapped the woman for ransom, they would have disappeared over the border into Mexico. It’s not them.”

Unease slipped through Jesse’s gut as he studied the pilot. “How do you know El Sindicato?”

Garcia raised a brow. “How do you think? I grew up in Laredo, Texas, and everyone in the border states knows them.”

Jesse made a noncommittal sound. Sure, everyone in Texas was aware of the threat El Sindicato posed, but the way Garcia talked…

Something more there.

Garcia pushed away from the wall. “Are you implying something, Warrick? ’Cause that,
esé
, is textbook racial profiling. I’m a Mexican immigrant so I must be corrupt, is that it?”

Jesse winced. Shit, he really must be tired. “That’s not what I meant. I’m not—I don’t think like that.”

“I’d hope not, since your pretty little missing cousin looks to have some Mexican blood in her, too.” He nodded toward the photo of Mara among Harvard’s papers, then scowled at the rest of the group. “Way I see it, you
cabrones
need me far more than I need you, so I’d appreciate some respect. I can easily walk out that door and you can find yourselves a new pilot. No skin off my ass.”

Gabe waved a hand toward the door. “I told you you’re under no obligation here, Garcia. If you want to leave, leave. But if you’re going to stay, I need you 100 percent committed to this mission.”

“Hey, man,” Jesse added. “I apologize. I’m…freaked out. Mara’s like a sister to me.”

Garcia scratched his jaw but otherwise didn’t move. “Like I said, I have nowhere better to be.” He glanced toward the photo again, and his lips tightened. “And I don’t like seeing women hurt.”

“All right,” Gabe said after a moment of silence. “Marcus, I want you and Ian to check out the airfield in New Mexico. We need to know who we’re dealing with. Harvard will give you the directions. Take Tank, see if he can pick up Mara’s scent. I want confirmation that they are together and we aren’t dooming her by chasing after Quinn.”

Jesse’s gut tightened. As angry as he was at Quinn for fucking around with his baby cousin, he needed the guy to be with Mara right now.

God, please let him be with Mara.

“We’re on it.” Marcus nodded and got up from the couch to gather his gear from the pile near the door.

Ian followed, whistling to Tank. “If her scent’s there, we’ll find it.”

Gabe continued, “I’m going over to Mara’s place to take a look inside—”

“I’m goin’ with you,” Jesse said, leaving no room in his tone for argument. He had to do something. Couldn’t stand the thought of pacing around this suite with nothing to occupy his time except worry.

Gabe studied him for a long second, then gave an abrupt nod. “Good idea. Harvard, keep working the computers. And, Marcus, I do want you to call Giancarelli and see what he can do, if anything, to help. Everyone else, rest up and be ready to go. As soon as we know where Quinn and Mara are, we’re going after them.”

…

Istanbul, Turkey

The whore was a useless waste of air. Her mouth was so dry he’d get more pleasure out of rubbing his cock with sandpaper, so when his cell phone rang, Liam Miller was more than happy to kick her skinny ass out of his bed. She landed on the floor with an unseemly shriek.

He rolled over and grabbed his phone from the nightstand. “Get out.”

“What about my money?”

“I don’t pay for whores who can’t do their jobs right. Get out.”

“But—”

He grabbed his gun from its spot next to his phone and pointed it at her. She gasped and backed up a slow step, hands raised. But she showed no real fear in her dark eyes. In fact, her nipples puckered and that…was interesting. Was she turned on by the threat? His cock stirred from the slumber her untalented mouth had put it in. Yes, he liked that thought. Maybe she wasn’t so useless after all.