The informant’s reply was immediate. You ask me to betray a man who will kill me for such disloyalty.

  But you will be in favor when you give him both the location of his precious car and his worst enemy. If you are smart, and you must be, he will not suspect you of betraying him, she argued.

  Who are you?

  No one you need to know. What is your answer?

  Laila’s heart pounded as she waited a long moment for his reply. Why should I trust you?

  She had to think about how to answer that. If I tell you where to find the car, you tell me where to find Kimber. Once I have verified that information, I will give you Victor’s location.

  The reply was a long time coming. Laila bit a ragged nail and double-checked Victor’s still form.

  Finally, a new message popped up. That is acceptable. The location of the Ferrari?

  Laila clutched the phone, her mind racing. Finally, she rattled off the name of a small market she remembered thirty minutes up the road. It should take her informant at least that long to get there, right? Now where is Kimber?

  Not so fast. Once I get the car, I will give you the location.

  She wanted to argue since she hadn’t anticipated taking Victor’s phone with her, but she didn’t have a choice. Immediately, she turned off not only location services but cellular data, so neither Victor nor Trees could ping the device.

  Fine. The car will be there. If you want Victor’s location, I will need Kimber’s.

  She received no reply, so she pocketed Victor’s phone and looked back at him, wishing she had another zip tie or some way to secure him. But she didn’t and she didn’t dare waste time looking for one. She had to get the car to the drop-off point.

  Laila let herself out of the motel room without a backward glance, driving north until she reached the little family-owned market just off the highway.

  Since it was the middle of the night, the place was closed. Laila didn’t see a soul. She breathed a sigh of relief as she backed the classic sports car out of the truck and parked it behind the building, ensuring it wasn’t visible to traffic. Then she hid the keys before hopping in the truck again and steering it down a dirt road behind the market. She parked behind some overgrown brush, between some trees, and waited in the dark, fighting the demands of her overtired body for sleep.

  She had nearly drifted off when a car with squeaking brakes stopped near the Ferrari. The sedan’s interior light came on as a man exited the passenger door and slammed it shut. Another man remained behind the wheel of the idling car.

  Quickly, she dashed off a text. Keys are under the driver’s-side floor mat.

  It took a few minutes before the man circling the classic car looked at his phone, then he bent for the keys. That told her that neither of the men sent to retrieve the Ferrari was the informant. That also told her he had some power and position in the organization since he had men of his own.

  The lackey started the sports car, then dashed off a text to someone. Three minutes later, Victor’s phone lit up with Kimber’s location and a schematic of the compound, which the Edgingtons had been desperately seeking for nearly two weeks. Still, she had to be cautious.

  She typed out a question. How do I know Kimber is really where you say she is?

  Moments later, a picture of the woman herself, all matted auburn hair and big, terrified eyes filled the screen. Laila had never met Kimber, but her heart went out to the wife and mother suddenly torn away from her comfort, her family, and her life. Kimber was holding a phone displaying a map that pinpointed the location the man had told her.

  As a precaution, she will be moved tomorrow or the next day. Montilla does that often. That is beyond my control.

  Laila would do everything she could to ensure Kimber was rescued before then.

  Now where is Victor Ramos? the man on the other end demanded.

  Since she had the information she needed, Laila answered in kind. She typed out the name of the motel, which she had noted on her way out. Our business is now concluded. I will not answer again.

  Yes, you will, Laila. As you pointed out, it is good to be a hero. Montilla saw the video of you helping Ramos steal the car. He wants blood. My boss would definitely think me a hero if I brought you to him.

  Laila’s blood ran cold. She sat frozen, not daring to reply. When the men who’d come for the Ferrari both started coming toward her, guns in hand, she started the truck and floored it, putting as much distance between her and them as possible.

  Blindly, she flew down dark roads, heedless of where she was going, simply relieved she’d been too fast for them to follow. But she needed to ditch this truck, to find safety, and to tell EM Security where to find Kimber before Montilla moved her. She had to return to the villa outside of La Pesca and try to retrieve Trees’s guns and her clothes. And as much as it killed her, she would have to send Trees the email meant to break his heart and hope that he hated her too much to ever want to save her.

  A few hours later, Trees found himself sitting beside Logan in a rented van, rumbling away from an airstrip northeast of San Luis Potosí in tense silence. The bosses had called fifteen minutes after Laila sent her backstabbing video and told him that his mission to find her was on hold. They needed all hands tonight to rescue Kimber.

  Fuck.

  Of course the bosses wanted to save their sister. But the timing goddamn chafed. Laila was out there, double-crossing him and EM Security. Hunter, Logan, and Joaquin had to know he’d been the fidiot who allowed that to happen. So he had to be the one to stop her. But Trees itched to hunt her down, tie her up, and extract some fucking answers. After she confessed when and how she’d decided to play him so he wouldn’t make the foolish mistake of trusting her again, he would do whatever necessary to exorcise her from his stupid, shattered heart.

  While Matt had driven them the 250 miles from the doctor’s office to meet Logan, Trees had tried to close his eyes. But the visual of Laila being touched by Victor Ramos—and her obvious pleasure—replayed through his brain in an endless, destructive loop. Fury boiled his blood and jacked up his mood. Sleep wasn’t happening. His one consolation? If he couldn’t get his pound of flesh from Laila now, he’d at least get to fuck up assholes pushing drugs.

  That thought had kept him going until he’d stood to greet Logan at the airstrip. Then he’d puked everywhere.

  “You still look green,” Logan remarked an hour later, steadying the wheel as he drove down an empty highway just after three a.m. Once their plane had landed, he’d sent the rest of the team ahead. Matt was now sacked out in the back of the van.

  “If you’re looking to get laid, flattery won’t work.”

  “Ha ha.” Logan shot him an acidic stare. “Matt says you have a concussion. You probably shouldn’t be turned loose with a gun.”

  “Matt should keep his mouth shut. I’m fine.” Well, good enough.

  As long as he didn’t think about Laila…which was proving impossible. How had she suckered him so badly? How had she lied and so thoroughly convinced him of her sob story? He would have sworn everything about her was painfully honest, but maybe life with a cartel had carved the need to survive—fuck her scruples—into her psyche. Maybe she’d decided she could stay alive most easily by mesmerizing schmucks like him with her body. Maybe she’d never felt anything for any man who’d been inside her, except Victor. Maybe her wide-eyed surprise when he’d supposedly given her both her first kiss and her first orgasm had been bullshit designed to make him feel special. And maybe he’d believed it because he’d wanted to.

  If he were a forgiving man, he’d reconcile himself to the fact she was damaged and simply let her go. Too bad for her. Laila was about to find out that he was a nice guy…until he wasn’t.

  “You’re full of shit. You seriously look ready to puke again.”

  Trees shook his head and lied through his teeth. “Nope. I’m solid.”

  “Stay in the van and be our lookout.”

  So he could…what? Fixate on how he’d repay Laila and miss his chance to kill some motherfuckers? “Is that an order?”

  Logan sighed. “Fine. You’re a big boy, and we need all the guns we can get. But you better not be BSing me. I don’t want to take anyone back in a pine box.”

  “If you do, it won’t be me.” Not when he had a score to settle.

  “Hunter is going to kill me.”

  Trees didn’t care. “What’s the plan?”

  Since most of EM Security, along with Deke Trenton and Caleb Edgington, Oracle agent Trevor Forsythe, and Ghost had flown in together, they’d powwowed on the plane midair. Once everyone had landed, Matt had warned his bosses about Trees’s injury, so no one had felt the need to clue him in.

  He was going to change that bullshit now.

  “Fine. According to our intel, Kimber is being held in one of Montilla’s haciendas. It’s remote, up in the mountains. Getting up there will be a bitch. Deke, Dad, and Hunter took Ghost and went ahead to do some recon. Once they return, they’ll join Joaquin, Matt, Trevor, Zy, Walker, and the two of us. We’ll split into two teams.”

  Trees guessed Kane had stayed behind to guard Valeria and Jorge. “Roger that. Then what?”

  “The preliminary plan is that one team will go in from the south, near the stables. The other will go in from the west, between some storage buildings. Supposedly, security is more lax around those sides of the estate. We’ll avoid the front altogether. We’ve got a schematic of the place, so I’m confident that, if the security pattern holds, we have the right approach. But…”

  The bosses were meticulous strategists. They could be motherfuckers, but they were smart. He didn’t remember a time any of them had sounded less than confident. “What’s the catch?”

  “We got here as fast as we could, but the information is already a few hours old.”

  “That’s why we’re inserting on top of recon?”

  “Yeah. We were warned that Montilla moves Kimber frequently as a precaution. But this also might be a trap. Are you sure you want to do this if you’re not one hundred percent? It’s going to be rough.”

  Then it would match his mood, but they weren’t leaving him behind. “And abandon everyone else when another gun could make the difference between success and failure? No. How reliable is the information?”

  Logan hesitated. “We really have no idea. Laila called it in.”

  Trees scowled. “Tonight?”

  “About four hours ago.”

  Around the same time he’d received the video of Victor fucking her. “Then I hate to burst your bubble, but it’s probably bullshit. She’s proven she’s a really good liar.”

  “Matt told us what happened.”

  “Happened?” Like the universe had just shit out that horrible fucking video to rip out his heart. “No, what she did. Let’s be clear. And I’m fucking sorry I fell for it.”

  “This is why you shouldn’t touch a client. But that train left the station. I know.” And Logan looked pissed. “Did you ever think she sent that video to stop you from coming after her because she didn’t want you in danger?”

  Logan still believed there was a chance Laila hadn’t played him? It was a nice fantasy, and definitely something Laila would do—for Valeria and Jorge. He’d just been an annoyance, a toy she’d been done playing with, so she’d made sure he wouldn’t bother her with his protectiveness, his affection, or his heart beating for her anymore.

  “No. I learned a while ago that when people show you who they really are, you should pay attention. Let’s just say she opened my eyes with a crowbar.”

  Logan winced. “I know you don’t trust her, but my baby sister’s life is hanging in the balance. We have to try.”

  “You do.” Trees and his attitude backed down. Laila had stabbed him in the back, but he’d recover…eventually. The Edgingtons and Deke Trenton had a hole in their lives that would never be filled if they didn’t recover Kimber alive. She had children who needed her, and she’d done nothing to deserve death at these monsters’ hands. “Just…watch your six.”

  “That’s your job tonight.” Logan hesitated. “No idea where Laila is now?”

  With Victor Ramos, probably celebrating the moment that asshole had shot him and he’d conked his fucking head on the pavement. “No. Don’t you? You’ve talked to her.”

  “Not me. She reached out to Valeria, but Laila refused to even tell her sister where she’d gone. Valeria said she sounded rattled. She was crying. That’s why I thought”—he shrugged—“I don’t know, that maybe the video she’d sent was fabricated so you’d keep your distance.”

  There was a time he would have thought that, too. Now he knew better. “Nope.”

  Logan must have realized that was a closed subject since he changed it. “We’re less than ten away from the meet point. You need anything?”

  Like a pep talk? Fuck that. “No. I’ll gear up when everyone else does.”

  “All right. The colonel is supposed to call with—”

  The phone rang, interrupting whatever Logan had been about to say. He lunged for it, putting it on speaker. “Talk to me, Dad.”

  The team’s former owner sighed tiredly. “We poked around as much as we dared. We don’t know if Kimber is there, but the place is as quiet as it’s going to get. We need to go in now. If this security is their version of a skeleton crew, it’s heavy duty. It’s obvious the Mexican army is rubbing elbows with DEA to protect the cartel.”

  Trees couldn’t say he was surprised. He’d seen plenty of evidence over the years that both were corrupt to the core.

  “Money talks,” Logan drawled.

  “Sadly, it does,” the elder Edgington agreed. “But I suspect security will get even more serious after sunrise, so it’s now or never.”

  “South and west still the best ways in?” Logan asked.

  “Yeah. There’s only a handful of guards by the stables, all armed to the teeth, of course. But something’s…off. As far as Hunter and Ghost could tell, there were no horses in the stables, so why bother guarding them?”

  “Maybe that’s where Montilla is stashing drugs or counting money,” Logan surmised.

  “Or holding hostages,” Trees added.

  “I’m wondering that,” Caleb Edgington said. “Deke and I got a brief peek inside the main house. It’s ostentatious as hell and over the top, like Hugh Hefner and Liberace decorated the place together. Booze was flowing, and there were naked women everywhere.”

  “So Montilla is there partying?” Logan surmised.

  “I caught a glimpse of the son of a bitch, yeah. And since he has others in the house, I doubt he’d keep Kimber where anyone might find her.”

  “Why not? No one will double-cross him, unless they want to die,” Logan pointed out.

  “For the right cash incentive, people will risk anything.” The colonel smiled tightly. “He knows that.”

  “True.” Logan turned to Trees. “Maybe you’re right about what Montilla is really stashing in the stables.”

  “How far are you from the meet point?” Caleb asked.

  “About three. The others there waiting?”

  “Yeah. Listen, Hunter is talking to Kata now. I think you ought to—”

  “I was already planning to call Tara. I’ll see you soon.”

  The Edgington brothers were both notoriously devoted to their gorgeous, gutsy wives. But missions like this would rattle even the strongest women, despite the fact they’d dealt with their husbands being Navy SEALs once upon a time.

  “Tell her you love her.” The colonel hesitated. “I’m worried about this.”

  Since Laila had provided the intel, Trees was, too. If she was playing for Victor Ramos’s team, it stood to reason that her lover—fuck, that term made him grind his teeth—wanted them all dead. If Ramos pulled that off, he’d have a nearly open path to Valeria and the means to pull Montilla’s strings.

  Caleb said goodbye, and Logan immediately dialed his wife. Trees heard a sleepy female voice answer. “Hello?”

  “Cherry,” Logan murmured.

  Trees tuned out their intimate conversation, giving his boss what privacy he could, but the tones of their devotion still seeped into his ears…then stabbed his wounded heart. He’d never have that since he’d been dumb enough to fall for Laila. Yeah, she’d done something shitty, but even knowing that, he couldn’t seem to wrest the organ in his chest back from her cold grip.

  God, he was a stupid bastard.

  He was getting hardcore on his mental flagellation when Logan braked in front of what looked like an abandoned barn in the middle of nowhere.

  “I gotta go. I’ll call when I can. I love you and the girls, Cherry.” Logan clenched his jaw, then hung up.

  The doors in front of them opened, then his boss drove in and parked beside a pair of other vehicles. Trees hopped out, fighting off the queasiness again. Wordlessly, he and Logan began to gear up.

  The colonel took over. “We’re going in with two teams. I’ll lead Joaquin, Walker, Trevor, Matt, and you, Ghost.”

  Trees wasn’t surprised when Ghost merely nodded, then looked toward the doors with burning eyes, like he was itching to get into the fight.

  “Hunter will lead Deke, Logan, Zy, and Trees.” The elder Edgington singled him out. “If you’re sure you’re up for this.”

  He wasn’t a pussy, and there was no fucking way he would sit around while the others, with so much more to lose, risked their lives so he could mope like one. “Locked and loaded, sir.”

  The colonel didn’t look convinced but carried on, which told Trees how desperate they were. Caleb communicated their plan of attack, places of interest, timeframes, and the extraction point. “Anyone who doesn’t reach that helipad by oh-five-hundred…”

  Would be left behind. They all understood the risk. They had no permission nor coordination with the government. They hadn’t talked to the right people, and they hadn’t greased the right palms. If Montilla called for help, Trees had no illusions about what would happen. Every operative caught would be arrested, and Mexican prison wouldn’t be kind—if they even lived long enough to see it.