Authors: Cristin Harber
Maybe it was a bad idea to report it first because as nice as this man was, he was slow, and all she could think about was how fast someone could order a warehouse full of appliances and electronics before her credit-card companies caught on.
A blaring car horn and then a second one stole her attention from the police officer. The jarring noises, longer than what could be expected in normal congestion, took the officer’s attention too.
They both stared out the window. He shook his head, mumbling something. But she caught “PC.”
PC?
Her head tilted on its own accord as a stronger, more urgent voice came from the radio on his hip. It crackled, and she picked up words but was most struck by the immediacy of the policeman’s tone, his mumbled
PC,
and his stiffening demeanor.
“What’s going on?”
He shook his head. “I have what I need. You should follow up with your credit card and phone company.” Standing, he closed his notebook and tore off a page from his carbon copy notebook, handing it to her. “
Gracias.
”
“Uh, okay. Thank you.”
Without so much as a grin good-bye, the man had morphed from pleasant neighborhood friendly face to a no-nonsense brute ready to enforce the law. Whatever that particular law was.
Sophia wanted to follow him, more from nosiness and instinct than anything else, but the commotion was most likely a convenience-store robbery or dispute. Right? Or someone had died. That happened all the time.
But she was sure the car horns had to do with the Primeiro Comando. She needed to find Hana.
Sophia pushed out of the cafe, speed walking around the corner. A loud interruption of angry voices carried from what was a known PC breakfast and lunch spot that served
baliada
,
pastelitos
, and gossip. A small group of men were banded close, grousing and grumbling boisterously enough that despite walking down the street, eyes straight ahead, she could feel the tension leaching into her. No question. Something was going on with the PC.
In front of the sushi restaurant, Hana’s chauffeured sedan waited. Or it should have been, would have been Hana’s ride except for the disconcerting three men who leaned against it. Against Marco’s wife’s ride. Panic clutched Sophia’s heart.
Between what she saw ahead and at the lunch hangout, unease crept deeper. She needed to talk to Hana. She really wanted to call her, but what option did she have? More men approached the sushi restaurant, the crowd growing at a concerning rate.
Her heel caught in a sidewalk crack, and she tripped forward, righting herself as she came face-to-face with the shopkeeper of a boutique Hana frequented. The woman jumped back as though Sophia radiated an infectious disease. Her eyes were wild and wide, and her mouth formed an O but no words came out.
“What’s happening?” Sophia straightened her shirt, righting herself from the almost tumble as she pushed the pointless purse to her shoulder.
The shopkeeper gave her a painfully slow, panicked—no, scared—head shake as she stepped backward, bumping into the boutique’s door.
“Please tell me.” The air crackled with uncertainty, with foreboding. Sophia’s skin prickled with an uneasiness she couldn’t classify.
The woman paused, looked toward Hana’s car, and then scanned across the street. “
Traidora.
”
“Traitor?” Her stomach sank as thick dread pushed heavily through her heart.
“Hana Ferrera.” Her hand reached to the doorknob. “And you.”
Oh no. If Hana’s assistance to the US had been discovered, the PC would likely kill her. As the mob formed around the car and in the area where they were going to meet, Sophia picked up the pace, needing to get to Hana, needing to shut down rumors and play her part as an American aid worker.
Sophia picked up the pace, jogging to the group, which was growing louder with angry conversation. This was still in the gossipy stage of unknown whispers and guesses. The embassy could play this down. Couple that with the fact that an attack on Hana might as well be an attack on Marco, and they could defuse the unrest. Damn, she needed her phone more than ever. All she had to do was get inside and use the phone there—talk to Hana and find out exactly what the hell was going on.
The front door to the sushi spot was a few feet away, and Sophia pushed into the tight group. Angry jeers encircled her. Specifically. Shit, how much did they think they knew? Sophia didn’t know their exact words, between the pace at which they flew and the anger behind them, but the intention was clear.
As she pushed harder toward the door, there stood Hana, tears streaking down her face. She wasn’t inside? Where was her driver?
A man Sophia didn’t recognize shouted into Hana’s face.
Traitor. The United States.
Those were the words that stuck out.
Shit. This was a bigger issue than Sophia realized, and the crowd became thicker with each second. Across the street, police cruisers sat—doing nothing—and Sophia needed to get Hana inside or to the police car.
“Stop! You’re scaring her!” But as she looked to each face, she realized that was their aim: to humiliate her. Hurt her. An eerie voice in Sophia’s head said no, it was more like they wanted to
kill
her. “No! Don’t do this!”
A large man grabbed her arm, pulling him to his chest. His elbow trapped her in a throat hold, and his voice rang in her ears. “The American!”
That
got Hana’s attention, her hands reaching toward Sophia, shaking her head, shouting “No,” proclaiming a misunderstanding.
The scent of perspiration and anger loomed in the area. Sophia was jostled, and vitriol-lobbing men pushed her toward Hana as their heated taunts surrounded her. Sophia gritted her teeth together, dragged into the melee, to the front of the circle, and her heart shredded as she was thrown toward Hana.
The traitor and the American.
Her mother’s disappointed face flashed in her head, cold chills of terror running down her arms and spine. Sophia had failed.
She’d failed Hana. Her country. Her parents. Herself.
And she was going to die for it.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
One Hour Earlier
“I’m sorry.
What?
” Javier’s arms hung numb as he tried to wrap his head around the words their team leader had said in perfect English. It could’ve been perfect Portuguese or Spanish, languages he understood perfectly, and Javier still would have needed the repeat.
Brock’s forehead pinched, a mixture of annoyance and understanding clouding his eyes. “Jensen can’t get ahold of Sophia. Whispering Willow—and a shit ton of other classified operations—have been compromised. Classified documents were leaked online, and they’ve gone viral. Her name and contact have been publicly identified.”
“I thought she was an aid worker.” Ryder stepped forward.
Brock grumbled. “Guess she’s not.”
The steady pounding of his heart echoed in his ears. Processing straight facts wouldn’t compute. This wasn’t like a normal op. It wasn’t even like being thrown into a street fight where he had little intel on his opponent nor a surefire map to victory. The unknown was terrifying, and Javier couldn’t remember feeling like this ever before.
“Sophia’s
missing
,” he murmured. “And working on Whispering Willow, which has been compromised.”
Brock nodded.
“
What
exactly is Whispering Willow?”
Their team leader’s jaw flexed, restraint and resolve as evident as aggravation in his demeanor. “Whispering Willow has been classified as
need to know
. Which we don’t know.”
Motherfucker. A growl began in Javier’s chest, quietly seeping through his grinding teeth. “Okay.”
Brock pushed his sleeves up to the elbow. “What we do know: Sophia was on her way to meet Hana Ferrera. As you’re probably familiar with the name, she’s the wife of Marco Ferrera.”
What?
“How is this need-to-know, and we
don’t
need to know what she was working on
?
”
“Not my call, Brazil.”
Ryder slapped Javier on the back, a cue that he needed to take it down a couple hundred notches. Brock wasn’t the bad guy. He was working off what they had, which wasn’t much. But Delta didn’t need much. Give them a high-value target and a general idea of where in the world it was, and they would find it.
But the target was Sophia? And within a few miles of his location? It was as if he couldn’t have enough intel to make the operations happen swiftly or surely enough. Couple that with anything PC related, and his mind was spiraling, hungry to destroy those assholes.
And Sophia was working on something with the PC? How did he not know that shit?
Brock’s phone chirped, and the team waited, agitated that Colin’s little sister, that his… interest had become the focus of their work. Brock listened and made notes, requesting coordinates as Javier prayed to get to her.
“Roger that.” Brock dropped his phone back into the holster. “Titan’s HQ pinpointed her cell phone and credit cards. They’re running a mile a minute, likely stolen. They’ve got suspicious activity near Calle República de Ecuador, police and PC both on scene, locals doing what locals do.”
Fuck. What locals did was let mob law take place whether the police were there or not. “So we go?”
“We have to,” Ryder added.
Brock nodded. “Hostile urban environment. But yeah, we go. Sophia Cole will be back to the embassy, safe. No alternative.”
No shit. With locations and a working plan of attack, they loaded into the vehicle and sent gravel spinning as they headed west with Ryder at the wheel, Brock riding shotgun.
Grayson watched Javier in the backseat as though he could read his mind.
“What?” Tension pushed through Javier’s veins with each eager breath.
“She’s fine. She’s a Cole. Smart.”
His fists bunched. “Yeah, I know. She’s also in a lynch mob that we have crap for intel on.”
Gray nodded. “Which is why she has us.”
It was Javier’s turn to nod. Anxiety was unfamiliar and clouded his thoughts, but there was no time for that. It wasn’t who he was or what made him good at his job. Javier turned off the emotion, returning to ground zero of the cold, emotionless epicenter he had for a heart—a heart that noticeably still pounded.
He flexed his fists, bunching and cracking knuckles in silence as they pulled closer.
Brock turned as Ryder began to negotiate the traffic, honing in on the danger zone. “You good, Brazil?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“She’s important. We get that. It will be fine. Just keep your head on straight.”
“Straight as a motherfucker. No one else could be more calm.”
Brock gave a nod that said
bullshit.
“Whatever you say.”
Ryder stopped and slammed into park. Their earpieces were in and comm equipment checked. Javier was the first one out. One, two, three, four doors opened and slammed. The men swept the streets and identified their target. They were armed to the teeth and looking like a Hollywood action movie, strapped with an arsenal and wearing clothes that showed they were no strangers to blood or war. Delta walked en force toward the center of a PC hurricane, focused only on Sophia and not on a single goddamn Primeiro Comando piece of trafficking shit.
***
Parker Black’s words crackled. “Got you on sat feed. Looks like tangoes have clued in to who she is.”
“Roger that,” Brock replied.
Who she is…
Parker hadn’t meant to disturb Javier’s thoughts, scoring terror into his soul. But it was there. Her cover was likely blown. Some major world fallout was happening across the globe, and his girl was trapped in the middle.
“How deep’s the shit she’s in, mate?” Ryder mumbled as Brock pointed to them to fan around the unaware crowd.
“Deep, brother. Get. Her. Out.”
Fuck.
Deep.
Definitely, that word would haunt him—maybe for the rest of his life. The ache, the panic, and the pure, 100 percent need to get to Sophia made him faster, smarter, and more ready to kill than he’d been in his life.
The small crowd pulsed with angry energy. He understood every harsh, deadly word directed at Sophia and Hana.
Javier got the go from Brock and pushed hard toward the humid, sweat-stinking center, finally setting eyes on both women. One attractive brunette was pressed against the wall, the barrel of a 9mm pushed into the soft spot under her jaw, and then there was Sophia: strong, angry, scared, and trying to protect her point of contact more than herself.
What he’d known of her was soft and delicate, hidden and unsteady. But here she was, putting herself at risk for a woman she didn’t really know and a cause that she might not understand. She might deal with the ins and outs of the PC world, but Sophia didn’t know what they were capable of outside of headlines and safety reports.
With complete tunnel vision, Javier went in strong, knocking jeering men aside as though they were weightless obstacles. Ryder moved in the corner of Javier’s peripheral vision with more finesse. Grayson did the same from the other side. But Javier was on a mission: get to Sophia, removing any obstacle in his path.