Her Reluctant Hero: A Romantic Suspense Boxed Set Read online

“You were with him all the time.” Probably the only person she had to talk to, the only person she could trust. What had she called him? Her pure?

  “Except when Santiago needed me.” Her voice took on a hard edge.

  “But Santiago didn’t spend much time with him.” Not exactly the father figure she’d been talking about.

  “Hector was afraid of him. It was mostly my fault. I’d get upset when Santiago would send someone to take Hector away. Hector would sense that and cry.”

  He’d take the child away so Isabella could whore for him. But the idea, while it still twisted his gut, didn’t disgust him the way it had. Yeah, she’d made some bad decisions, but she’d tried to make the best of it. She’d tried to make a home for her son. Better than his own mom had done. She couldn’t get rid of him fast enough to get to her whoring. Sometimes she hadn’t even bothered.

  He tightened his grip on the pillow to keep from reaching for Isabella. She still wasn’t right for him. He wasn’t right for her. But it felt better knowing what she was about.

  “Do you think Saldana could be making up for lost time with Hector? Sometimes, once kids reach a certain age, men finally want something to do with them.”

  Her soft gasp in the dark told him she’d taken his words wrong.

  “Not that. Men just—babies scare them.” Damn, he was trying to make her feel better, and he was rusty. “Not—I didn’t mean—” Though he knew it was reality in too many cases. Saldana was a depraved son of a bitch. “I meant in a fatherly way.”

  She snuffled a laugh. “No. Santiago only wanted Hector to prove he had a son. He won’t be having more. He just—having a son made him feel like a man.”

  “Like hurting you did.”

  “I’m a grown-up. I made the choice. Hector didn’t.” She sounded so lost. His hand slid marginally closer to her.

  “How did you end up there?”

  She shifted, and he could almost feel her breath on his skin. “I’m not like you, Alex. It was scary for me to be in a strange place. Santiago made me feel safe. At least for a while.”

  “Yeah, you said, but how? I mean, you probably had a lot of admirers. Why him?”

  “Because I’m shallow. He was wealthy and charming, and that appealed to me.”

  Alex was strong and brave, just what she needed now. Good to remind him.

  He pulled back. “We better get some sleep.”

  He heard the soft intake of breath that told him he’d surprised her, but he deliberately closed his eyes and shut her out.

  “Alex?”

  “Go to sleep.”

  “Did you make that call to the DEA?”

  He swore and swung out of bed, reaching for his phone. He walked out into the hall to make the call, and when he slipped back into bed, she whispered, “Thank you.”

  Alex got up, trying not to disturb the mattress and the woman sleeping on it. Isabella had managed to stay on her side of the bed and he still had a raging hard-on, just from smelling her, hearing her soft breathing.

  Being around her was going to be great for his self-control.

  “I can take care of that for you.”

  He froze at the end of the bed. “What?”

  She sat up, pushing her dark tumbled hair back from her face. In the dim light through the crack in the curtains, she looked like a wet dream, even in the kitten pajamas.

  She was looking at his tented boxers.

  “Christ.” He shifted his weight to hide his erection.

  “Come here.” She gave him her seductress smile.

  “No.”

  “Are you afraid of me?” She tossed back his question from last night. “I’m very good at it. It might get rid of some of the tension between us.”

  Were they talking about the same thing? “You think us having sex again is going to get rid of the tension? It’s only going to add to it.”

  She smiled slowly. “I was talking about a blow job and yes, if you let go of your ideas about sex, it will release the tension.”

  He turned to face her, leaning one shoulder on the wall. “So it really doesn’t mean anything more than that? A physical release?” She was trying too hard to convince him.

  She drew her legs up and wrapped her arms around her knees, cocking her head and smiling. “I can’t afford for it to be anything else.”

  “That’s sad as hell,” he said, and pushed away from the wall to go into the bathroom. Christ, what a sad life she’d had if that was her perspective. Sure, he was no virgin, and he’d hooked up out of desire more than love most times, but there had to be something more to sex than just getting off.

  He was in the shower when the door opened. He shoved open the shower curtain and glared. “Damn it, Goddess, I told you—”

  She held out his cell. “You have a call. I thought it might be about Hector.”

  She’d answered the phone. Christ. He was going to catch hell.

  He took the phone from her and closed his eyes to avoid her hopeful gaze.

  “You’re in her hotel room?” was the first question from Captain Winters, his tone disbelieving. “In her shower?”

  Alex couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “You were supposed to follow her, not move in.”

  “She got into some trouble last night. I stepped in.”

  “You’re there to find Saldana, not to protect her.”

  “If she gets hurt, she’s not going to do us any good,” he said, choking back his frustration. Hadn’t the captain put him in this position, told him to do whatever was necessary?

  “You don’t know if you can trust her to lead you to Saldana.”

  He looked at Isabella, who watched him, lips pressed together anxiously. “You think she’s working with him?” He had a suspicious mind, but even he could see she never would do that. Of course, he knew her better than the captain.

  He motioned for her to leave but she folded her arms under her breasts and shook her head. He widened his eyes at her to assert his point and gestured toward the door. She unfolded her hands and moved toward him. Jumping back, he tugged the shower curtain across his hips and scowled. With a chiding look, she reached around to shut off the water. Then she leaned one hip against the sink and waited for him to resume his conversation.

  “We’re looking for the kid,” he told his captain. “We think Saldana might be where the kid is.”

  “What kid?”

  “What kid?” he repeated. “Her kid. Saldana’s kid. He took him away from her to punish her.”

  “We don’t have any information on a kid.”

  Chills rose up over his skin that had nothing to do with being wet in the draft from the open door. Had she lied to him? He didn’t want to believe she would lie about something like that, so he pressed.

  “His name is Hector. He’s three years old. Born at the compound.” He looked to Isabella for confirmation. “He was born…” He waited for Isabella to supply the info.

  “September 12, 2006,” she said.

  He repeated it into the phone.

  “We don’t have any intel on a kid,” Captain Winters repeated.

  Alex scrambled for an explanation. “So Saldana hid the info, didn’t let him go near windows or anything so you couldn’t get pictures.”

  “Except he had to order his supplies from the outside world. There were no diaper deliveries, bottles, none of the stuff you need for a baby. There was no baby.”

  Alex’s stomach heaved and he barely registered the info he was given as he looked at Isabella’s stricken face.

  “Yeah, okay,” he said to acknowledge the list of names and places Saldana might be.

  “We’ve got people on these men already. We need you to stick with the girl, get her to trust you.”

  Trust. What did she know about trust? But the minute he flipped the phone closed, he took two steps toward Isabella. He yanked the waistband of her pajamas down and pushed her shirt up.

  “What—?” She shoved at his hands and he lowered his
head. “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for stretch marks.” And not finding any. He traced his fingertips across her smooth—very smooth—skin. Watched it jump under his touch. Backed away and glared. “You didn’t have a baby.”

  “What?” She tugged her clothes back in place, her movements shaky as she stared at him as though he’d lost his mind.

  “You never had a baby.” He snatched up a towel and whipped open the door.

  Isabella stood frozen for a moment. What had they said to him to make him think she was lying? Not that it took much for him to think badly about her. She dragged her hair back from her face, pushed away from the sink and followed him.

  He was pulling on jeans even though droplets of water still glistened on his back and chest. She strode past him to her suitcase, popped it open and pawed through it, her eyes blurry.

  “What are you looking for?”

  She tucked her hair behind her ears and battled the tears. “Do you think I would come all this way and not have proof he’s my son?” She found the bag she was looking for, turned with it in her fist.

  A bag of camera film, undeveloped.

  He looked at them. “What’s this?”

  “Pictures of me and Hector.”

  “Pictures.” He paused in the middle of pulling on his shirt, with the T-shirt caught at his elbows. “Not even developed. You don’t have like a birth certificate or something?”

  “I looked.” Her voice rose in desperation. “I couldn’t find it. Santiago must have hidden it so I would never claim my boy.”

  He pulled his shirt on the rest of the way. “My people said there were never any diapers delivered, no baby food, none of the stuff babies need.”

  His words staggered her and she pressed her palm to her middle in shock. “You know what was delivered to our house?”

  “Sweetheart, I know what kind of tampons you used.”

  Embarrassment threatened to swamp her. She fought back against it and lifted her chin. “Then you know that for nine months I didn’t get any tampons.”

  He blinked at that. “I’ll check into it. Do you have any other proof?”

  She set the packet of film down and went back through her bag. Santiago had sent most of Hector’s things away with him, hadn’t allowed her to keep any of Hector’s belongings in her room in case his clients saw them—mothers weren’t sexy—but she’d smuggled some keepsakes, kept them buried beneath her silks. She found the locket, squeezed her fingers over it before turning to hold it out to Alex.

  “A lock of hair from his first haircut.”

  Alex took the locket, opened it, touched the fine dark hair inside with his fingertip. She could sense something softening in him.

  “You could get a DNA sample from it, couldn’t you?”

  He looked up, considering. “Maybe.”

  “I don’t have stretch marks because Santiago insisted I take care of myself. His housekeeper, Senora Gamez, made a cream for me, and she helped me apply it twice a day. Santiago wouldn’t pay for diapers, and we’d have too much trouble disposing them anyway, so we used cloth diapers. I had a wet nurse, a girl from nearby. Santiago didn’t want any more wear and tear on my body than need be, and besides, a lactating woman is not sexy.” She couldn’t hide the bitterness in her voice. Her hand hovered near the locket. “So, do you need the hair for DNA?”

  He snicked the locket shut. “No, we don’t need to do that.”

  The tension that had been humming through her since the phone rang eased a bit. “You believe me?” she asked, not wanting to hope.

  “Yeah.” He held the locket by its chain. “Yeah.” He stepped back, not looking at her. “Look, stay here. I’ve got a meeting to get to.”

  “I’ll go with you.” The last thing she wanted was to be prisoner again, no matter how luxurious the room.

  He shook his head and dropped to the edge of the bed to put on his boots. “You draw too much attention. You need to lay low.”

  “I thought you wanted me to draw him out.”

  “We don’t even know if he’s here. You’ll be safer waiting for me.”

  “I can’t. I need to find my son. Every day he’s away from me is another day he’ll have the chance to forget me.”

  “I don’t have any leads on the kid.” He sounded like he regretted it.

  “So what do we do?”

  “We wait. We think. We reason it out. But I want you to stay here.” He picked up his jacket and strode toward the door.

  “Shepard.” Captain Winters greeted Alex at the doorway of the DEA office.

  The man was in full uniform, and Alex only had a shirt to throw over his tank top and cargo pants from the previous night. He hated being out of uniform when the situation called for it, and it seemed the situation called for it.

  But the captain didn’t say anything about his state of dress, only turned smartly on his heel and started down the hall. Alex stayed in step.

  “You connected with the girl last night.”

  “Yes, sir. I found her at a nightclub. She’s determined to find someone who knows where her child is.”

  Captain Winters made a sound in his throat.

  “Sir?”

  “We were able to decode some of the files she smuggled out.”

  Alex was unprepared for the slap of emotion that accompanied the news. Would he be free of Isabella then? Did he want to be?

  Hell, yes, he did, before he made a damn fool of himself again. “Anything useful?”

  “We know what happened with the girl and Agent Cortez.”

  A ball of ice dropped into his belly. “Sir?” he managed.

  The captain looked at him with something like sympathy. “Come see for yourself.”

  He led Alex into a darkened room with a large computer monitor on the desk. The captain introduced Alex to the agent in charge, Agent O’Malley, and the two techs at the table. Alex nodded greetings to them but his attention was already on the screen. What would he see, and why was it important that he see it?

  “The first file we were able to open is Cortez.”

  At the captain’s nod, the tech started the video. Alex took a step closer.

  “Why was this encoded?” Alex asked, hiding a wince as Cortez’s battered face appeared on the plasma screen.

  “Because it’s proof they had a US agent,” O’Malley said.

  Alex distanced himself from the man being tortured on the screen. He let himself think of it as a TV program as the man silently suffered random blows to the face from a guy with fists the size of a Mack truck.

  A door opened on screen, and Isabella stumbled in. After a moment, Alex could see someone had his fist wrapped in her hair, holding her head at a painful angle. She made a choked sound when she saw Cortez, and he went stiff at the sight of her. Too late, he’d given himself away. The agent was in love with her.

  “What is he to you?” the man holding her demanded.

  “Nothing,” she gasped.

  “Liar! What is he to you?” the man screamed.

  She flinched from the sound and cried out when he twisted her hair. Cortez said her name, very softly, and Isabella opened her eyes to look at him, her expression sorrowful.

  The ham-fisted man moved in front of Cortez, but not blocking his face from the camera. He lifted a knife to Cortez’s cheek.

  “Do you want this to be the last thing you see?” the man—Saldana? Alex couldn’t tell, his face was obscured—asked, leaning close to Cortez, dragging Isabella with him.

  Cortez’s gaze flicked to Isabella’s. She was sobbing.

  Mack Truck dug the knife in.

  “Do not close your eyes,” Saldana growled to Isabella, “or you will be next.”

  So she didn’t. She watched. Because she didn’t look away as they carved out Cortez’s eyes, neither did Alex. Winters let the video play out until Isabella’s keening died away and Cortez slumped in his chair.

  “The next video,” Winters said crisply, as if they hadn’t just
watched a man die, “is her punishment.”

  “Why would they—? Jesus.”

  Saldana shoved Isabella into the room on the screen, and Alex’s heart lurched before he reminded himself this was months ago, that she was safe in a Miami hotel room now. Mack Truck followed. Saldana stepped aside and Mack Truck spun Isabella toward him, tore her dress from her body with hands still stained with Cortez’s blood.

  She didn’t fight as the man pushed her to the bed and lowered his big body over her. Of all things to help him distance himself from what he was watching, that helped the most. The woman he knew would fight. This broken woman was not her.

  “Turn it off,” Alex said softly, lowering his head.

  Winters gave him an unreadable look, then nodded to the tech, and the room was silent.

  “The kid appears later in the video. She was telling the truth. But the boy’s probably dead now. Saldana probably told her he sent the kid back and just dumped his body in the jungle somewhere.”

  “It’s his kid.” Even as he said it, Alex knew it didn’t mean anything. He of all people knew parentage didn’t make someone human.

  “You need to prepare her.”

  Alex shook his head. “I can’t do it. It’s all she’s got to hold on to now.”

  “Shepard. You’re too involved.”

  Panic hit him hard in the gut. He’d never been accused of that before. “Don’t pull me.”

  “I’m not. Just watch yourself. Be aware you may never find the kid.”

  “Do you have any leads at all? Where Saldana might be?”

  Agent O’Malley led the way out of the media room. Not that it mattered. Isabella’s screams still echoed in his ears.

  “A team went back to the compound, but it was burned to the ground,” O’Malley said. “They salvaged what they could, but we haven’t been able to get any information. Now the list of people Isabella gave us in Honduras was more helpful. We were able to track two of the people on that list into the US. We might have been able to track more if she’d known their full names.”

  “I don’t think they were people she really wanted to know,” Alex said, wondering how many times Mack Truck had been her punishment.

  And wondering if she’d been thinking about that when he’d come to her room in Honduras. Christ.