Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 97134 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97134 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
“Shit. I wish I could see you,” Riggs said, and I remembered Marisol saying, “He never takes his eyes from you.”
I blinked that away.
“This is all my fault,” I whispered, moving closer to Riggs on the cramped seat. “You were right. The capybaras weren’t the worst thing. We should have stayed in Gelada. Instead, I made us come up the mountain, and I still couldn’t really help Luz, and now we’re being taken to a ranch by men in a Mad Max mobile, and if Marisol says anything, they’ll hurt her—!”
“Breathe, Carter,” Riggs said firmly.
I nodded obediently, though he couldn’t see me, and sucked in a shaky breath.
“Marisol knows better than to say anything to anyone. She’s going to be fine. Luz is as well as you could possibly help her to be. And you and I are going to be fine too. What I need you to do for me is to calm down as much as you can. Hear me? Panicking helps nothing. You know this.” His voice was dry and devoid of sympathy, which was exactly what I needed in that moment. Clear thinking. Logic.
“Right. No, you’re right. Okay.” I took another breath, more naturally this time. “I still wish you’d stayed behind—”
“Fuck, no. I am exactly where I need to be.”
“Tied up in the back of a Jeep, careening down a mountain road, perilously close to the edge?”
“No, with you,” he said, which was really sweet. Then he added, “Because it’s my job to keep you safe.”
Right. His job. Obviously that.
“You need to not do anything stupid,” Riggs said.
“I won’t!” I promised.
“That includes things like telling the bad guys that you can go off without me.”
“It was a solid plan,” I argued.
“Solidly stupid,” Riggs shot back. “If Marisol hadn’t gone along with it when I said you were useless without me, they might have left me there.”
I smacked Riggs in the arm. “That’s what you told them?”
“Yep. Marisol said you don’t like to get your hands dirty.”
I gasped. “That’s so untrue.”
“I know,” he said quietly, deflating all my outrage in two simple words. “You’re extremely good at your job, Carter. Now it’s time for you to let me be good at mine.”
7
Riggs
Champ was going to kill me, and rightfully so.
I was a shitty personal security agent if I’d allowed my asset to get captured so easily. After seeing the kid with the handgun, I should have trusted my gut about us being close to some drug activity and not relied on the intel. I should have never gone out back without Carter.
Carter’s voice was too low for the men up front to hear him over the rumble of the tires on the rocky trail. “Can we please take a moment for my bodyguard to throw himself a pity party? I’m sure it won’t take but a min.”
I hated that he could read my mind. “Shut up, I’m thinking.”
“Please do. We could use some thinking right about now.”
“Can you breathe okay?”
“Uh… yeah?”
I realized his voice didn’t sound muffled at all. “Do you have a hood on?”
“Negative.”
I rolled my eyes. Why me? Why did I get one and not Carter? Maybe they’d shown up only expecting to rudely steal one person instead of two. “Pay attention to where we’re going. Note landmarks. Try to remember.”
“Landmarks,” Carter muttered. “Sure. I see… a big leafy tree? It’s directly next to an even leafier tree in a darker shade of green? It’s all rainforest, Riggs. But we’re going uphill, if that helps.”
It helped just enough to make me nervous. Especially when I tuned into the conversation the two men up front were having. I couldn’t hear much, but at one point I heard the name Gustavo a couple of times. That wasn’t good.
Gustavo Santiago was a high-level member of the Cartel de la Luna. His name had come up on a list of about ten active cartel members who had ties to this region. Even though he’d been born in nearby Socopó, my intel from Champ’s DEA friend had placed Santiago in Caracas.
If we were being taken to Gustavo Santiago’s mountain compound, we were in some serious shit.
No one knew very much about the man, but rumor suggested he was incredibly intelligent, as well as wildly unpredictable and temperamental. Suspected associates of his went missing with troubling frequency, but no charges ever stuck thanks to the liberal bribes he allegedly gave local and federal law enforcement agencies.
“Improvise, adapt, and overcome,” I muttered, mentally scanning the contents of the trauma backpack to figure out what resources we’d have access to once we arrived at our destination. The portable AED was a decent option, but it wasn’t exactly ready to shock the minute you turned the thing on.
“Don’t you have a gun?” Carter whispered.
I wanted to laugh. Even if I’d been able to attach my holster to the flimsy waistband of the scrubs, my little Glock wouldn’t have been very effective against three men with AR-15s.