Sinful Deception (Covert Affairs Book 3) (16 page)

Marcus’s
“I don’t like anything about this”
played over and over in her head as they finished identifying two dozen more men—none of them Cedro.

The smells, the darkness, the information floating between the agents, was getting to Tova. She drew closer to a back door, and the fresh air urged her to step away from Marcus. “I just need to go outside a minute.”

“We’re almost done,” Marcus said. “Just three more.”

But Tova was already stepping out onto the cracked cement patio, the back of her hand over her mouth and nose. Agents clustered at the edge of the dirt patch that should have been a lawn, so she turned the other way, searching for privacy near what looked like a garage. The unfenced property backed to more dirt, and the afternoon sun had heated the air to an uncomfortable ninety-something. The thought of all that heat baking the bodily fluids inside that house made bile rise in Tova’s throat.

Eyes closed, she leaned her shoulder against a wall of the house beneath an overhang.

“Tommy grabbed the principal three blocks down.” One of the agent’s voices reached Tova, and she tried to block it out. She didn’t want to hear about any more crimes, strife, or strategy. She just wanted this over. And something other than worry started to kick up in her gut over Cedro’s disappearance. She recognized a flicker of anger—

“But Sorensen’s in the wind.”

Her name halted her thoughts. She opened her eyes and sharpened her attention on the agents.

“Did he run?” someone else asked. “Or was he ever here?”

“Principal says he was here.”

That trickle of unease Tova had been feeling opened into a river of fire. She swiveled toward the group but couldn’t see them past the corner of the house.

“They’ve got aerial support searching,” one of the agents said.

Smuggler?

They had to be confusing Cedro with someone else. She pushed off the wall, turning toward that side of the house. She had to explain—

A hand touched her arm, and Tova startled and turned. A dark face peered out at her from behind a hidden panel on the side of the house.
Cedro’s
face.

Her mouth dropped open. Her heart tripped. “Wha—?”

He held up a finger to his lips.

“The hell with you,” she spat, her relief at seeing him alive pushed aside by anger and hurt. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

He pushed the panel open farther, exposing a space big enough to hide one person. Lunging for her arm, he jerked her closer, coming halfway out of the hiding spot. “What are you doing with them? Why are you here?”

“No, Cedro. I’m the one asking the questions. Do you ever think of anyone other than yourself for a minute? Do you know how worried Mama and Papa are about you? I
told
you not to run alone again—”

Cedro yanked her arm so hard a pop sounded in her shoulder, and a gurgle of surprise and pain bubbled from her throat.

* * * * *

Marcus waited as one of the agents finished fingerprinting the last of the three left unidentified. Tova had been through enough. The principals had said the smuggler was the first one out of the house. Whether it had been Cedro or not, he was gone.

And it killed Marcus to think about putting Tova through another hellhole like this.

Zoe stepped up beside him. “This is an amazing haul, Smoke.” Her voice was low and serious as she glanced over her list of the men in the house, their origins, and their crimes. She shook her head, her expression grim. “These are really bad guys.” She pointed to a Carlos Nuñez, twenty-nine, from Guatemala. “He’s mutilated eight different families as retaliation for Columbian drug lord Cortez.” Her finger slid down the list to an Alfonzo Quiroz, twenty-five, Mexican national. “Known to have beheaded over thirty people, including Mexican military. And this guy”
—
she pointed to a different line
—
“has ties to Al-Qaeda. This guy”
—
another line
—
“Hezbollah.”

Marcus’s gut churned with excitement, fulfillment...sickness, and guilt. He’d never experienced this opposition before. Right and wrong where his job was concerned had never overlapped. The black-and-white that had always been so clear now turned gray. He suddenly needed Tova right the fuck next to him. Better yet, out of this hell.

“I’m going to take Tova to the car.” Marcus stepped out onto the porch and paused in the shadow of the overhang. He drew deep breaths to rid himself of the rancid smells and wiped both hands down his face. Bringing her here was wrong. Keeping her here even after they’d identified the principals and received word the smuggler had run was even worse.

He lifted his head and scanned the yard. Unfenced, the back of the property opened up to abandoned dirt lots. Air support’s chopper blades whapped in the distance, but all the other agents had moved to the front of the house and were processing prisoners, leaving the area empty--no Tova.

A flicker of unease tightened his gut. “Tova?” He walked farther out to see around dead shrubs near the house, scanned the property. “Tova.”

A shuffle sounded toward the right. A sound as familiar to Marcus as his own voice
—
feet shifting on dirt. He’d heard it countless times in the dark in the desert. Heat pounded through his gut. He drew his weapon. Lowered into a partial crouch and started that way. After glancing behind him, finding the area empty, he called her again. “Tova.”

More shuffling along the side of the house, then a muffled, irritated “Stop it—”

Tova’s voice. Cut off by a hand over her mouth. He knew every sound associated with running, struggling, hiding.

He quickened his step, used the corner of the house as a shield, and peered around the edge. The sight of Tova registered first, then of the weapon held near her shoulder and the Hispanic man with an arm across her shoulders, pinning her back to his chest. A shed blocked the side yard from the front of the house and other agents.

Marcus blew out a hard breath, pivoted around the corner, and pointed the gun at the man’s forehead. “Freeze.”

Their gazes darted to his.

“Drop the weapon,” Marcus ordered.

Tova lifted her hand and pried the man’s hand away. “No, Marcus, this is Cedro. He’s just scared. Cedro.” She tried to twist toward her brother, but he tightened the arm across her shoulders, holding her still. “Stop this before you get hurt.”

“
Drop
the weapon,” Marcus repeated clearly, forcefully, the need to slam the bastard into the ground—for smuggling psychopaths into the country, for betraying Tova—intense, “and let her go
now
.”

“Marcus,” she said, breathless, one hand held up in a
wait
gesture as Cedro dragged her backward, darting looks over his shoulder, trying to decide where to run, “this is my brother. He doesn’t even know how to use a gun. He’s confused.”

“He’s not confused, Tova.” Marcus inched forward, angling for a clearer shot. He held off calling in other agents, because Cedro’s eyes were wide and squirrelly, his mind clearly all over the place. And ten more guns pointed at him wouldn’t help the situation. “There’s nowhere to go, Cedro. We’ve got choppers out. Two dozen agents surrounding the property. You don’t want to hurt your sister.”

“He won’t hurt me.” Tova pried at his arm, squirmed against Cedro’s chest, but he just jerked her hard against his body and took another step toward an open field. He was breathing hard, and sweat covered his face and drenched the armpits and collar of his denim shirt. “Cedro, that’s
enough
.”

“
Let. Her. Go,”
Marcus said. “I won’t tell you again.”

Tova did something to Cedro’s wrist that shot pain across his face. He swore, and his grip loosened. Tova slipped out from under his arm. But Cedro made a quick grab for her and got a fistful of her hair. She jerked backward and cried out. The sound exploded in Marcus’s gut like a bullet.

“What the
fuck
is wrong with you?” she cried, her face twisting as she slammed a fist into her brother’s gut. The move shocked Marcus but wasn’t enough to make Cedro release her. “Knock this off…right
now
, or I’ll shoot you myself.”

He’d laugh about this later. He had to believe that. “Listen to her, Cedro. There’s no way out. If you run, the Knights will find you and kill you for stealing their business. If you put your gun down now, you live.”

“You’ll just send me back,” Cedro spat. “They’ll kill me anyway.”

“What?” Tova’s voice remained demanding, angry, but also confused. “Marcus, what’s happening?”

“Cedro’s not
being
smuggled, Tova,” Marcus said, still moving forward, even as Cedro dragged her back. “He’s
smuggling
for the Zetas. That’s why those guys came after you last night. Cedro’s stealing their business.”

“Don’t listen to him, T,” Cedro said. “The second you walk away, he’ll kill me.”

Her head jerked toward her brother. “You
smuggled
these men over the border?”

“They would have come anyway,” Cedro said.

“Wait just a fucking minute.” Her voice was breathless with disbelief. “You had the ability to get into the US, but you smuggled for the Zetas instead?”

“I couldn’t find another job,” he said, his voice a mix of defiance and complaint. “And the pay was good.”

Tova shot him a glare over her shoulder. “Those are the same kind of men who came after
me
, Cedro,” she said. “The men who kidnapped me. The men who
beat
me.”

His dark eyes darted to hers and held. That realization seemed to penetrate. “I…I’m sorry, T. I was trying to...was going to...help Mama with her medication.”

“The hell you were, you piece of
shit
.” Tova gripped Cedro’s wrist and dug her nails in. “Let go.”

“Don’t leave me, T,” he pleaded.

“We’re your best bet now, Cedro.” Marcus tried to intervene. “Let your sister go, and we’ll work out a deal. You’ll be safe.”

Tova’s gaze whipped toward Marcus with all her rage suddenly beaming at him. “
That’s
why you wanted me to come. You
knew
. You knew all this…
this morning
.”

The look on her face, the realization of what he’d known and hadn’t told her, how he’d gone along with the plan and let her be used against her brother, tore at his gut like claws.

Her brother hooked his fingers into the Kevlar vest and pushed the gun against her head. “I’ll kill her.”

The look on Cedro’s face was the trigger. Marcus had seen that desperate, determined look too many times just before someone shot a weapon or thrust a knife. In an instant, the entire situation flashed in his mind. If he let Cedro go, he risked allowing him to lead more men like those in the house into the country another day. If he didn’t, he risked Tova’s life, right here, right now.

All his turmoil fell away. Only one thing mattered now. And for the first time, it wasn’t the job.

He recoiled, pulled his aim from Cedro, and held his hands out in front of him in surrender. “Okay,” he forced out the words, “You win. You let Tova go, and I’ll let you go.”

“I let Tova go, and you’ll shoot me,” he said.

“I’m putting the gun down.” Slowly, Marcus crouched, lowered the hand with the gun, and set it on the dirt. “Look, Cedro, look at me. I’m letting go of the gun. You let go of Tova.”

“You first.”

Thirteen

So many thoughts and emotions spiraled through Tova, she couldn’t keep anything straight. Her head throbbed, her shoulder ached. And her entire chest felt like it was caving in. All because of these two men.

In front of her, Marcus released his grip on the gun and slowly rose out of the crouch, hands up. The sight of him standing just yards away, nothing protecting him but Kevlar over a small portion of his chest, shot a wild sense of chaos through Tova. He was going to let Cedro go? After all this?

Cedro released Tova but stayed behind her, the fucking coward. “I’m sorry, T. Tell Mama and Papa I love them.”

There was real regret in his voice, the same regret shining in Marcus’s eyes. But it wasn’t enough. Not near enough. From either of them.

“Fuck you both.” She reached for Cedro, grabbing a fistful of T-shirt and jerking him forward. “You tell them yourself.”

With her other hand, she gripped his wrist—his bad wrist, the one he’d broken in several places as a kid—and ground her fingers into the surgical scars. Cedro’s mouth dropped open, his face twisted in pain, and his fingers loosened on the gun while choking sounds bubbled from his throat. And after what he’d put her through, she didn’t care.

“And while you’re at it,” she said through gritted teeth, “you can tell them what you’ve been doing out here while Papa’s been working two jobs and Mama’s been worried sick about you.”

Tova released his shirt and put all her hurt and anger into her elbow, jamming it into Cedro’s ribs so hard he bent double as his air exited his chest. The gun fell to the ground. He yanked his hand from her grip and cradled it to his belly, sucking air. With one shocked and confused look at Tova, he turned and ran.