Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 84102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
What the hell was going on?
Patience. This was one of those times when she needed to reassess and give this situation a minute to play out because she didn’t understand what was going on. She was starting to think what was going on might work in her favor.
Mateo grunted and said something about how Marta better not fuck things up.
She kind of hoped Marta was about to really fuck things up.
Marta simply shrugged again and gave him another yawn.
“What’s happening? I feel weird.” Tessa slurred her words. Marta had given her a cue and she was going to take it. She yawned. “What was in the juice?”
“Just go to sleep, little girl,” Marta said with a long sigh.
Mateo seemed to take that as a good time to get out of there. He told his friend they could grab some lunch. Marta would handle things here.
She heard the door shut and the sound of the men walking down the hall.
“Are you going to do the American operative thing? The one where you break all the furniture and attack? It’s dramatic, but I brought a knife.” Marta reached into her pocket and pulled out a small knife. “I can get you out or I can wait for you to look like Charlie’s Angels or something.”
Or Marta could be intelligence. The bitter sarcasm totally gave her away. “Argentinian intelligence?”
She rolled her eyes, and the accent was completely gone when she spoke again. “Agency. You know we’re not all twenty-five-year-old models. Eddie Montez has business dealings with some people we’re interested in. At least he did until these morons came along. I’d like to keep my cover. I already called in the big guns, but god only knows how long it will take Taggart to get the message.”
Hope sprang up inside her. “You called my boss?”
“I had someone call him. I don’t know his number. I just thought he would like to know that his brother’s stepson was about to be kidnapped. Are you really a bodyguard? You know you shouldn’t have told them.” Marta…probably not her real name…expertly sliced through the zip ties. “Also, the next time you want to pretend like you don’t speak a language you shouldn’t smile at jokes you’re not supposed to understand.”
“I’m a bodyguard, not a damn spy.” She didn’t want to do undercover. She wanted to stand to the side and jump in front of bullets if she had to. Easy-peasy. Tessa rolled her wrists to get the circulation flowing as Marta worked on her ankles. “When did you send out the message to Ian?”
“Yesterday afternoon, when I realized they were going to make their move. They offered to pay me a lot to help out, and I thought I should take the cash and do what I needed to do,” Marta explained.
“Or you could have given us a heads-up so I could have gotten my client out of here.”
A brow rose over Marta’s eyes. “Seriously?”
“Fine. My boyfriend.”
“I had to decide whether or not I wanted to put a year-long op in jeopardy to save your asses,” she admitted. “The truth of the matter is it could help me enormously to have something to hold over Eddie’s head. It would have given me some real nice leverage to use.”
It was good to know her death could have been useful to the Agency. “What changed your mind?”
“I sent your info to my handler and he crapped his pants.” Marta straightened up and slid the knife back in her pocket. “I was hoping Taggart would show up and save the day and my op, but we’re out of time.”
Tessa stood, stretching for the first time in hours. “Why does your op have to be ruined?”
“Well, I don’t think you can handle them all on your own. Once Eddie sees me kill a man, he’ll wonder where his cook learned to do that.”
It was Tessa’s turn to roll her eyes. “I might not be a spy, but I can handle these assholes all on my own. You can be the helpful employee who saw something going wrong and waited until you could do something about it. He’ll trust you like no one else after this. I won’t say a word.”
Marta’s eyes narrowed. “My handler was clear. He doesn’t want Taggart to think we prioritized a mission over his kin.”
They wanted Big Tag to owe them a favor. Good luck cashing that one in because Big Tag tended to do what he wanted. “He won’t. I’ll fill him in on everything you’ve done, but it’s up to you. You want to keep your cover, then tell me what I need to know and let me do my job.”
Tessa retrieved her gun and breathed her first deep breath in hours. She could do this. Everything was going to be all right because this was her stage now, and she knew exactly how to perform.