They passed the rest of the time making small talk, playing with Jorge, and simply enjoying these unexpected moments together. They hugged. They laughed. They teased one another, as sisters often did. If EM Security’s plan went well, they could do this every day for the rest of their lives. Laila wouldn’t go so far as to trust the trio of warriors who ran this business, but they knew who paid them. If anything happened to her… Well, since becoming a mother, Valeria had become both cautious and vicious. Her sister would avenge her.

  But she truly counted on Trees. Somewhere over the past few days, she had learned to trust that he would never let anything happen to her.

  Of course, he did not want her to risk herself at all.

  Despite her bedroom door being closed, she heard raised voices. Trees’s, for sure. Logan’s followed. Then Joaquin entered the verbal fray with a growl. She couldn’t hear the exact words, but she couldn’t miss their tone. This wasn’t a simple disagreement.

  “Then fucking fire me,” Trees roared. “I don’t give a shit. But you aren’t using Laila as bait, and that’s final. Now get the hell off my property. And don’t fucking come back.”

  The following night, a sharp pealing from both his alarm panel and his phone jolted Trees awake. He sat straight up in bed and grabbed his cell from his nightstand.

  Fuck. Someone had opened a door or window around the house. Since he hadn’t received any warning about the perimeter of his property being breached, that meant one thing.

  Laila was trying to leave him.

  That fucking hurt.

  Trees vaulted out of bed and disengaged the alarm before hopping into sweatpants and steel-toed boots. Without bothering to lace up, he grabbed the Benelli by his bed—just in case—and a pair of cuffs from his nightstand, then pocketed the nearby flashlight.

  Trees prowled across the house until he reached Laila’s bedroom. He wasn’t surprised to find the door closed.

  After her sister and his bosses had departed yesterday morning, he and Laila had spent hours arguing. She insisted on being the decoy for Kimber’s rescue. He swore he’d let that happen over his dead body. Apparently, he was the bad guy for not letting her put herself in harm’s way, because she’d barely spoken to him since and insisted on sleeping in her room—alone. With the door locked.

  She thought that would keep him from her? Ha.

  Trees had her door open in a handful of seconds. Sure enough, her bed was empty. Her window was shut, but the air was chillier in here. She had obviously opened the window, set off the alarm, hopped out, and darted away.

  Son of a bitch.

  He doubled back through the house to the front door, plucked his jacket off the nearby hook, and shoved it on over his bare torso as he hauled ass onto the porch. Thank god he had a pair of thermal night-vision binoculars in his coat pocket.

  Trees lifted them to his face and found Laila in seconds.

  She was alone.

  Sure, he was grateful someone hadn’t tried to take her from him, but he was beyond pissed she was so willing to risk her life. Stubborn, stubborn woman. Stupidly brave, too. If she put herself in Geraldo Montilla’s path, she might not get out alive. Surely she knew that. Why didn’t she value her goddamn safety?

  Because she valued her family more.

  Trees refused to let her go on this suicide mission. There had to be another way.

  Cursing, he bounded off the porch and ran after her. He’d catch up to her quickly for four reasons: First, she had nothing on her feet but flimsy flip-flops. Second, it was thirty-seven degrees, and she was covered only by her itty-bitty tank top and those damn short shorts. Third, since he was six foot eight, he had hella long legs, and her soft curves proved that, unlike him, she didn’t run a few miles a day. Fourth—and most important—she might want to leave him badly enough to brave the elements at three o’clock in the morning, but he was far more determined to keep her under his roof.

  Hell, he’d do almost anything to keep her in his bed. In his heart. In his life.

  Time to drag Laila back, put his foot down, tell her exactly how things were going to be—as soon as he came up with another fucking plan.

  She wouldn’t budge otherwise.

  It didn’t take him long to catch her. He saw the flash of her sleek, naked legs in the moonlight, along with the puffs of her breaths in the cold.

  Laila had no idea he even chased her until he was practically on top of her.

  She whipped her gaze over her shoulder just as he hooked an arm around her waist and lifted her from the ground. He yanked her kicking, writhing form into his arms and against his body. Her flip-flops went flying.

  “Let me go!”

  “Nope.” Despite her struggles, he managed to retrieve her shoes and shove them in his pocket.

  The vixen did her best to wriggle free, even biting him. But, as his mother would have said, bless her heart. Every attempt Laila made to get free was both ineffectual and pointless.

  “You cannot keep me against my will.”

  “Watch me,” he said as he headed back toward his house. “I’ve already done it once.”

  “My sister and my nephew need me.”

  “To put yourself in danger? No, they don’t.”

  “They are in danger.”

  “And you putting yourself in a drug lord’s crosshairs isn’t going to help. You’re not going anywhere.”

  “I do not belong to you.”

  “I’m happy to fix that right now. Wanna get married?”

  Laila gaped at him. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “You have gone insane.” She turned away and went stubbornly mute.

  Actually, he’d been serious, but as proposals went…it hadn’t exactly been romantic. Or practical. He got it. But the silent treatment? Fine. Two could play that game, and she’d figure out quick that he could get his point across without uttering another word.

  Trees contained her wriggling form, bypassed the front door, then headed around to the back before flipping on his chipper shredder. It made a god-awful rumbling in the dead of the night. Thankfully, he didn’t have any neighbors who might wake.

  “No!” she screamed in terror, scratching and clawing, scrambling to get away from him as if her life depended on it.

  What the hell? Did she think he intended to feed her into it?

  “Calm down, honey. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  She looked at him with wary eyes. “Then what?”

  He didn’t bother to explain, simply plucked her flip-flops from his pocket and fed them into the machine, watching a pile of pink rubber emerge on the ground. Then he flipped it off. “Making sure you can’t run.”

  “Are you crazy? Those are my only shoes!”

  “Were. They’re not shoes anymore. Let’s go.” He hoisted her farther up his body so her feet never touched the wintery ground, banding his arm around her tiny middle.

  Gasping, Laila clung, wrapping her arms and legs around him to ensure she didn’t fall. Being so close to her made him instantly hard. No surprise there…

  Trees climbed the front porch, made his way inside, and set her on her feet. By the ambient security lights he’d installed last night to serve as nightlights for her, he watched anger and mutiny cross her beautiful face.

  God, she had the power to steal his breath. He shouldn’t be shocked since she’d already stolen his heart. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t touched her in what felt like forever. He hated the fact that, right now, she was hating him. Everything was a fucked-up tangle, but no one would risk her, even Laila. He intended to make damn sure of that.

  “I needed those.” She stomped her bare foot.

  “Not if you were going to walk your pretty ass into danger.”

  Laila fumed—and tried to stifle it. She’d probably figured out that battling head on with him wasn’t the way to get what she wanted. But she was clever. And she was desperate to save her family. She wouldn’t give up.

  Neither would he.

  He took her by the arm, hauled her to the kitchen table, thrust her into the first chair, then wrapped his meaty hands around her shoulders. “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

  “I understand your English. I simply have my own thoughts, and I disagree with you.”

  “I’m aware of that. I’m just making it incredibly clear that, whatever ridiculous scheme my bosses have cooked up, you’re not getting involved. You’re under my protection. As long as either faction of the cartel warring for control is after you, it’s my responsibility to keep you alive. Since you don’t seem to grasp that concept, we’re going to make some changes around here until you do.”

  Without waiting for a response, he began patting her down. It was fucking hard not to notice her soft, lush breasts when he had to cup them. Impossible not to remember having them in his mouth or feeling them against his chest when he’d gripped her hips while riding her hard and fast. But now wasn’t the time for this trip down memory lane—or his erection. He needed to find her phone.

  Laila pushed at his hands and turned her body away protectively, but he finally felt his way from her chest to her ass and pulled the phone from her back pocket.

  He saw three messages from her sister, which was no surprise. And one from Hunter Edgington—twenty minutes ago.

  That motherfucking bastard.

  “What were you planning exactly?”

  Stubbornly, she pressed her lips together, crossed her arms over her chest in a way that made her tits look even more luscious, and jerked her stare out the window.

  Damn it. How the fuck could he get her to talk? Turning her ass red and stripping the starch from her attitude sounded great. But he’d never tested her trust that way, and they were both too angry for a consensual spanking now, even if she needed it. Hell, did she even trust him to protect her anymore?

  Undeterred by her silence, Trees waved her phone in front of her face until it unlocked, then he started prowling through the device.

  “No!” She lunged out of her chair and reached for it.

  Trees merely held it at eye level, kind of amused as he watched her jump for it. There were occasional benefits to being freakishly tall.

  He found the message string he’d been looking for, scanned and scrolled, reading as he went—and lost his fucking temper. “You were running to the edge of my property to meet up with Hunter tonight? Where the fuck was he taking you?”

  With a frustrated huff, she plopped in her seat again. Because she realized the jig was up? “It is none of your concern.”

  The hell it wasn’t.

  With a snarl, he flipped on the overhead light and headed to the coffeepot. If he was going to interrogate her, he needed some damn caffeine. Days and days—most without a full night’s sleep—were catching up to him.

  The instant he turned his back, she shoved out of her chair, legs scraping across the tile, and sprinted for the door. She’d barely reached it and pulled it open when he caught her around the waist again, lifted her, kicked the door shut, then carried her back to the kitchen. He pulled out the cuffs.

  Her eyes widened. “What are you doing?”

  He ignored her, managing to slap one cuff around her wrist before she started fighting like a hellcat. But she was too late. He’d already looped the chain around the rungs of the chair and grabbed her free hand.

  “You cannot do this.”

  He clicked the second cuff into place. “I just did. Now we’re going to talk. Want a blanket?”

  He hoped like fuck she said yes because he was getting a full frontal of her under the kitchen lights, and it was impossible to miss her thick, beaded nipples.

  Fuck, her body was his weakness.

  “What will I owe you for it?”

  This again? “Nothing. You’re only borrowing it, not taking it.”

  She hesitated. “Fine. Then yes. Please.”

  He nodded as he grabbed a quilt from the corner of his bed. When he draped it over her, they both breathed a sigh of relief.

  Then Trees turned the nearest chair backward and straddled it, resting his arms over the top. “Let’s start over. Tell me why—exactly—you were meeting Edgington tonight. Have they figured out where Geraldo Montilla is holed up? Or contacted the person who sent the colonel the ransom note to set up this supposed hostage swap?”

  Laila proved once again she was as strong-willed as she was beautiful when she looked away and refused to answer. He took her chin in his grip and forced her to look at him. As always, her soft hazel eyes undid him—not to mention that pouty, fuck-me mouth he remembered kissing feverishly in the dark.

  “Or are they past that? Do they have a plan? A date? A location?”

  Predictably, since he’d told all of his bosses to fuck off nearly forty-eight hours ago, they hadn’t looped him in on their strategies to rescue Kimber from Geraldo Montilla—using Laila as bait.

  Her white teeth bit into that pillowy lower lip, and Trees stifled a groan. She had no idea what she was doing to him, and he couldn’t let on. She knew how to use his desire against him. He couldn’t let it happen again.

  Since she still stubbornly refused to say a word, he’d have to puzzle the answer out himself.

  Laila glared at him and yanked her chin from his grasp. “Do not touch me.”

  He backed away. “Then answer me.”

  “I am going. And you cannot stop me.”

  That’s what she thought. “I’m not going to let you put yourself in needless danger, Laila.”

  “But my sister and my nephew—”

  “There’s another way to neutralize this threat, and we’ll find it.”

  She shook her head. “Geraldo is a dangerous man. He will keep coming. He will never stop until they kill her and take her son. He and all his men are animals. They will never give up.”

  “Then neither will I. I can be an animal, too. And I’ll prove it.”

  That clearly worried her. “What will you do?”

  “Tell me what’s going on first. Have they come up with a plan?”

  Laila pressed her lips together, saying nothing for a long moment. But she was thinking, so Trees let her. “I do not know.”

  “Seriously?” He laughed bitterly. “Who do you trust more, them or me?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “You.”

  Her answer poured relief through his system, but it also pissed him off. “When we met, you didn’t trust them at all, but now you’re willing to run off in the middle of the night to jump into danger for them when they don’t even have a fucking plan?”

  “They will have one. I was going to help. So was Valeria.”

  What the fuck? “Neither of you are trained operatives.”

  “Perhaps not, but we are the only ones who have met Geraldo Montilla. Together, we may be able to figure out where he is hiding and even identify any weaknesses he may have.”

  That was a fair point. He didn’t know how useful her and her sister’s information would be, but it was a tactic they hadn’t tried before. And his bosses had never cut him in on their progress. Because they had their hands full? Because they’d believed he was their mole? Probably both.

  Trees turned the situation over in his head. Bottom line? Everything needed to change.

  He swiped through Laila’s phone again and found Hunter’s contact, then hit the button to call.

  His boss answered quickly. “Where are you, Laila? I’m at the meet point, but I don’t see you.”

  “She’s in my kitchen and she’s not going anywhere, asshole. Did you honestly think she could just sneak out my window and I wouldn’t know?”

  “Listen, I get that you want to protect her. I know damn well you’ve been fucking her, which is against the rules, and we’ll be discussing that later. But goddamn it, she wants to save her sister and I want to save mine. Who the fuck are you to get in the middle of that?”

  “Who the fuck are you to dangle Laila out as bait? Montilla wants Valeria, but you’re holding back the queen and sending the pawn instead. It’s bullshit, and I won’t let you do it.”

  Hunter sighed raggedly. It was one of the few times Trees had heard the man be anything less than rock solid. “You’re tying my hands and condemning my sister to a torturous death. I haven’t slept in days. My dad… He’s falling apart. He won’t eat. He won’t rest. The colonel isn’t a young man anymore, and I’m goddamn worried about him. Deke is at the end of his rope, and the kids are crying themselves to sleep… I don’t know how much longer this family can hold it together, especially since Deke got word last night that if we don’t produce Valeria this week, my sister dies. We’re desperate. We won’t let anything happen to Laila. Hell, we’ll never let Montilla even touch her. Please. Right now, we just want to talk to her.”

  Trees sighed. Edgington was in a shitty position. His whole family was, and the time to save Kimber was ticking down. It was his own protective instincts that had him snarling and fighting his bosses. The way they’d been snarling and fighting with him.

  That wasn’t getting the job done.

  “Maybe you ought to try working with me, instead of going behind my back. Maybe collectively, we could come up with a better plan, one that doesn’t require you to put Laila in danger.”

  Hunter paused. “Maybe you’re right.”

  Damn straight, but Trees wouldn’t give Hunter more shit now. It was counterproductive. But there would be a reckoning later, he was sure. “Go home and get some sleep. I’ll interrogate Laila about what she knows. You do the same with Valeria. We’ll circle back in a few hours and see what we’ve come up with.”

  “To be honest, you don’t know what we know. Dad, Logan, Joaquin, Deke, and I have all been working on this for”— he choked—“God, it’s been the longest fucking week of my life.”

  Forever in terms of keeping a hostage. He could only speculate that Geraldo hadn’t killed Kimber yet because, if he did, he’d never see Valeria or her son again.

  “So clue me in. But you don’t know what I’m capable of, either.”

  Through the line, Trees heard Hunter start his car engine and pull away. “Fair enough. And I’m sorry we thought you were our mole. We should have just come to you.”