She turned in her seat and looked directly at Gil. “My brother isn’t what the authorities make him out to be. He didn’t jump bail because he’s guilty of anything. He came here to rescue his daughter.”

  “And was kidnapped himself in the process?” Gil asked.

  Sonny laughed wryly. “You still don’t believe me.”

  “Would you?”

  She thought a moment. “Maybe not. But if you check out Manuel Turgis and Eduardo Sanchez, you’ll find out enough to realize I’m telling you the truth.”

  A tear trickled down Sonny’s cheek. Gil had a strong urge to reach over and brush it away. Sonny looked beaten down. Whatever she’d been through these past few months had taken its toll on her.

  He forced his gaze away from her face. “The baby’s hungry,” he said, nodding his head at Ellie, who was gumming her fist.

  Sonny rubbed her temple. “She needs a bottle.”

  “Get Ellie back to sleep and then we can talk more.” Sonny nodded and took Ellie from Cooper. “I want the rest of it, Sonny. All of it. Despite what you think, you can trust me.”

  She hesitated a moment, searching his face, and then nodded again. He wasn’t sure if she believed him or had simply resigned herself to the task of feeding the baby.

  “I’ll be right back. Do you mind warming a bottle for me while I change her diaper?”

  “I’ll get it,” Cooper said.

  “Thank you.”

  Gil watched Sonny go to the bedroom in her bare feet. Her wet hair was starting to curl as it dried. He longed to touch those curls, to let her hair spill into his hands. And he hated himself for wanting even that much.

  She closed the door behind her without looking back.

  “If this isn’t really Eduardo Sanchez’s baby, why would he appear on television saying that it is?” Marco asked skeptically. “Why be that brazen? I mean, news like this would get picked up by the wire services and be all over the world in minutes.”

  “No one is going to pay any attention to this kidnapping outside of Colombia,” Gil said. “It might be news for a day, but the rest of the world will move on quickly.”

  Gil glanced at the television screen. He picked up the remote and flipped through several channels. The news was only on one station so far. He went to the window to look at the military trucks. So far, the soldiers were just sitting there. He let the curtain fall back in place.

  Gil agreed that Sanchez’s actions were bold. Chances were he wouldn’t make that kind of move on U.S. soil. But he had so many supporters in Colombia that no one would question him. They’d just rally behind him.

  Which didn’t bode well for Gil and his team. Or Sonny and Ellie.

  Marco headed for the kitchen. “Boss man, I’m going to go do some digging.”

  “That’s a good idea. You heard the lady. Dig deep. I need to know exactly who and what we’re dealing with. And let me know as soon as you find something.”

  “Will do.”

  Gil needed space. Pushing the double doors open to the courtyard, he went outside for some fresh air. It was hot and the sound of commotion in the city altered the space that had been a serene refuge last night when he’d been thinking of Sonny.

  Cooper appeared at the French doors but didn’t venture outside. “I gave Sonny a bottle for the baby.”

  He could read her expression. “What’s on your mind, Cooper?”

  “Not for nothing, Gil, but if this were anyone else, you’d be making plans to fly us out of here.”

  Floored by her abrupt remark, he said, “What does that mean?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Come on, Gil.”

  Irritation spiked inside him. Not at Cooper, but at himself for being so transparent. If this were anyone else other than Sonny Montgomery, would he be acting any differently?

  He didn’t like the answers that came to mind.

  “What I need you to do right now is help Marco. Will you do that for me?”

  Cooper sighed and turned on her heels. He couldn’t win this fight, he decided. Mostly because Cooper was right.

  For the first time since he started bounty hunting with Bruce, his first partner, he’d gotten in over his head on a job. He knew he needed to do whatever it took to protect his team. He learned that the hard way with Bruce.

  The logical thing to do wasn’t even an option in Gil’s book. Turning Sonny over to the Colombian authorities was unimaginable. And he didn’t want to think of what they would do to Sonny if they found her here with Ellie. Yet he had an obligation not to endanger Marco and Cooper.

  Gil stayed in the courtyard a few minutes more, letting the warm breeze ease his senses and calm his mind. It was the woman and not the situation that had him so rattled. He knew that, even though he didn’t like it very much.

  “It’s going to take a while to find out what this Eduardo Sanchez is all about,” he heard Marco say to Cooper in the kitchen.

  Gil decided to go inside. He had to figure out what they were dealing with.

  “The press treats him like he’s royalty,” he heard Marco say. “Cleaning up run-down parts of Colombia and bringing jobs to impoverished villages has practically made the man a local hero.”

  The door to the bedroom opened and then closed, quietly. Sonny appeared to be considerably calmer at first glance, but Gil’s heart nearly broke when he realized she was terrified. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her face was sheet-white. But she kept her shoulders straight and her chin high.

  She was prepared to fight and fight hard, Gil realized. He hadn’t understood it at the time, but he’d seen that same look at the airport. She hadn’t backed down then.

  If she was dealing with the kind of trouble he thought she was, he admired her strength. But her stupidity for allowing herself to get involved in something like this in the first place irritated him to no end.

  “I got a photo of Eduardo Sanchez and his wife holding their new baby at a press conference,” Marco called from the kitchen.

  Sonny closed her eyes slowly, shielding her emotion from him.

  “It’s grainy so it’s not going to tell us much about the baby.”

  Gil continued to look at Sonny, who hadn’t moved from where she was standing in the middle of the living room. “What’s the date?”

  “I’m guessing it will be around three months ago,” Sonny said, looking directly at him.

  “About three months ago,” Marco called out.

  Silence hung in the air for a few seconds as Sonny and Gil looked at each other.

  Gil finally asked, “Who is really Ellie’s mother?”

  Sonny shook her head. “How many times are you going to ask me this? My sister-in-law, Serena Davco-Montgomery, is Ellie’s biological mother. She gave birth to her at home, so you won’t find any birth announcement under that name. You won’t even find a wedding announcement about Cash and Serena, so don’t even waste your time trying. I’m not sure how much you’ll find about Serena’s parents except that her mother died in the tragic fire that Manuel Turgis set. You’ll find information about the fire, but not about Turgis’s involvement—I only learned that myself about two months ago. There won’t be much on Serena, if anything at all. Her father, Byron Davco, worked hard to keep her out of the public eye.”

  “Why?”

  “To protect her.”

  “From Eduardo Sanchez?”

  “Among others. I’m not really sure how many people are involved in the deals Byron Davco made to launder money.”

  “Serena Davco-Montgomery.” He said the name as if he were trying it on for size. “Cash’s wife.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why is there no record of the marriage?”

  “That story is going to take a while.”

  “I’ve got time. Lots of it.”

  She shook her head. “You have less time than you realize. Those military trucks you heard outside probably were sent by Eduardo Sanchez.”

  “I figured as much,” Gil said. “It’s hard to believe a businessman has the power to move the military. Even here in Colombia.”

  “He’s a high-ranking kingpin who wouldn’t hesitate to kill any one of us right now if his people found us with Ellie. He’s decided she’s his. That’s all that matters. His wife wanted a baby but couldn’t have one. So when the opportunity presented itself, he took Ellie.”

  “Forgive me if I find this a little farfetched,” Gil said. “He couldn’t just waltz right into the United States and take a baby, Sonny. And why Ellie?”

  “None of this is out of the blue. Taking Ellie was just one way in a long list of ways that Manuel Turgis has tortured this family. Byron Davco made the payments to Manuel Turgis for years, which Turgis in turn used to satisfy Eduardo Sanchez. All that money filtered into these poor hill towns that made Sanchez a local hero. In part, it was Byron Davco’s payments along with drug money they laundered.”

  She sighed and sat down in the empty chair.

  “Now that Byron Davco is stricken with Alzheimer’s in a nursing home, no payments are being made. The trouble for Cash, Serena and Ellie started when Turgis stopped receiving the protection money.”

  “What did Turgis do?”

  “He planted an informant inside the Davco home. Her name was Susan. She earned Serena’s trust and the trust of the staff. All the while, she filtered information back to Turgis to use against the Davco family.”

  Sonny covered her face with her hands for a moment. When she lifted her gaze to him, he saw the toll the past few weeks had taken on her.

  “Go on,” he urged.

  “Obviously, Manuel Turgis has been working with Eduardo Sanchez for years. Sanchez is the hero around these parts. Turgis does the dirty work.”

  “Okay, so Sanchez wanted a kid. Why not just adopt legally?”

  She laughed humorlessly. “You’re not asking the right questions, Gil.”

  “Then tell me what they are and I’ll ask them,” he said, his voice booming with frustration. “I have a feeling we don’t have time for playing games.”

  “You’re right. And I never intended to. If you recall, I would have been back in the United States twenty-four hours ago if you hadn’t stopped me. You went looking for a man who, in your mind, is a criminal. Yet you took an innocent woman and baby and put them in harm’s way, just so you could collect your precious bounty.”

  Sonny practically spat the words at him. Gil could feel her anger as if it were a sledgehammer hitting him square in the face. She’d been desperate to get on that plane. And he’d been determined to stop her at all costs. How big a price had he asked them all to pay?

  “There’s nothing we can do about that now.”

  She laughed incredulously. “So Ellie and I are to pay for it? That’s easy for you to live with as long as you collect your money, right?”

  He couldn’t blame her for thinking that way. But she was dead wrong. However, he wasn’t going to get her to believe that now.

  “Just tell me what you know about Eduardo Sanchez.”

  “He’s a twisted man. He didn’t want just any baby. He wanted Ellie in order to send a message to the Davcos after the protection money stopped.”

  Marco came charging into the living room. “Gil, buddy, you’ve got to see this. This is bad.”

  “I know that.”

  Marco shook his head quickly. “No, man, I really don’t think you do. I tapped into the Aztec Corporation server. Piece of cake. There’s nothing there that can’t be found on Google. But there’s a small private file—”

  “Hidden within the corporate mainframe,” Sonny finished for him. “But there’s a rotating security code that resets the password. You’ll have trouble getting in again. You won’t be able to use the same steps.”

  “How do you know?” Marco said.

  “Because that’s how I found out where Ellie was.” At his look of awe, she added, “Don’t look so surprised. You know what I do for a living.”

  “So after you found the file, you came down here to kidnap the baby.”

  She pleaded with her eyes and it broke his heart. Many criminals had pleaded with him over the years. They all begged him to let them go. But it was Sonny whose tender smile and fiery determination broke him down.

  “Gil, Ellie belongs with Serena and…” Sonny seemed to catch herself. “And if it’s God’s will, then with Cash, too. Regardless of what you believe or what the district attorney believes, Cash didn’t skip bail. If he could have been there to prove his innocence, he would have been. He came down here for the same reason I did—to get Ellie.”

  Gil frowned, unable to comprehend it all. “He had to have been out of his mind to allow such a thing.”

  “Cash has no idea I’m here.”

  “And Dylan? Did he willingly put you in this kind of danger?”

  Sonny rubbed her temples with her fingers. “He had no choice. I was the only one who could do it. It was too dangerous for my parents, or any of the other family members.”

  “What about Dylan?”

  She hesitated a moment. “He’s busy.”

  Gil’s jaw clenched. Unable to stay still, he paced the floor. “Too busy to talk his kid sister out of coming down to Colombia and possibly getting herself killed? Too busy to take the heat for you, to protect you?”

  She threw her hands up in the air. “Oh, you’re a fine one to judge.”

  “You were already knee-deep in this trouble before I showed up on the scene. All I did was stop you from finishing what you set out to do. You shouldn’t even be here. If I loved…If you were my sister, there’s no way I would have let you leave the United States and get anywhere near Eduardo Sanchez.”

  She lifted her chin. “Then it’s a good thing I’m not your sister.”

  They held each other’s stare for a moment, locked in a challenge. Gil could look into those dark-blue eyes all day, which was a problem he could no longer ignore. Her fire and tenacity hit him square in the face one moment and brought him to his knees the next. He didn’t like admitting it much, but he was deep in his own trouble.

  Never in a million years could Gil think of Sonny as a sister. But he almost wished he could. It would make it infinitely easier to think about his next move if he weren’t so distracted by her, wanting to pull her into his arms and gaze deep into her eyes every time she looked at him.

  Terror began to course through his veins as he thought of all the things that could have happened to Sonny over the past few weeks—and what might happen to her if he didn’t think fast.

  “I screwed up,” he said. “I should have seen this coming.”

  Instead of thinking about Cash, he’d been thinking of Cash’s little sister. He’d had tunnel vision where she was concerned and look where it had gotten them all.

  Marco shoved a picture he’d just printed off the computer into Gil’s hands.

  “Whatever we do, we’d better do it fast. This was in Eduardo Sanchez’s private file. He wants Ellie back alive. And whoever finds her is to show no mercy to the person who took her.”

  Gil glanced down at the picture and felt the earth crumble beneath his feet.

  “What is it?” Sonny asked.

  He flipped the picture over so Sonny could see and she gasped.

  “It’s you. At the airport. Holding Ellie.”

  EIGHT

  The morning had started out so well. Sonny had actually gotten out of bed feeling less afraid than she had since learning of the kidnapping. She felt safe, as if all the horrible nightmares she’d been having were just that—nightmares that would vanish as soon as the sun came up.

  Boy, what a delusion that was. Nothing had changed. If anything, the nightmare had only gotten worse.

  “I won’t give this baby over to Eduardo Sanchez.”

  “I know.”

  “Gil?” Marco moved closer and lowered his voice, although there was no way for Sonny to avoid hearing him since she was standing right there. “Gil, if they come here we won’t have a choice. They’re not the kind of people who will say ‘pretty please.’”

  “Then we’d better hope they don’t come here,” Gil answered resolutely.

  “Too late,” Cooper said, looking out the window.

  Gil charged toward her. “Why?”

  “They’re banging on doors.” Cooper turned and looked at Sonny. “I’m surprised they are even bothering to knock.”

  Gil blew out an exasperated breath. “It just gets better by the minute. Sonny, do you recognize that man talking to the soldiers?”

  Sonny came to the window and peered outside into the parking lot.

  “Oh, no!” she said in a harsh whisper. “That’s Manuel Turgis. I’ve seen his picture. He’ll know who I am.”

  “Gil, Turgis can’t find Sonny here,” Cooper said.

  Gil looked around the room, at the windows, at the door to the courtyard. “Come in here,” he said, advancing toward the bedroom.

  Sonny followed. “The hotel knows we have a baby here.”

  “Cooper and Marco, do something to stall them,” Gil said, pushing the bedroom door open.

  “Are you kidding?” Marco said. “How do you stall Colombian military?”

  “Figure it out, Marco.” He pulled Sonny into the bedroom. “Come with me. They know we have a baby with us, but they don’t know we have Ellie,” Gil added. “If the hotel knew for sure Ellie was the baby the authorities were looking for, the soldiers would have been in here by now. My guess is they’re on a hunt. We don’t have much time to hide you.”

  Startled, she stopped short of picking Ellie up from her crib. “What do you mean me? We need to hide Ellie.”

  Gil turned to her and held her back from taking the baby. “Get in the tub.”

  “What?”

  Sonny heard the pounding on the door to the villa and her blood ran cold. Lord, what are we going to do?

  “Trust me, Sonny. Get in the tub.”

  Sonny stared at Ellie in the crib. She was still asleep, even though she was stirring. But in a matter of seconds she’d be wailing from the noise of the soldiers bursting into the room.