Heated Pursuit (Alpha Security #1)(71)
“You.” Chase crooked his finger at a baby-faced DEA agent. “This has been the compound you guys have been focusing on for the last few months?”
He nodded. “This entire region.”
“Why?”
The kid looked at him as if he had two heads. “Because according to our footage, this is where all the activity was happening. The drug runners couldn’t have advertised their presence more if they’d sent up smoke flares and wore reflective gear. There was no reason to look anyplace else.”
Rafe’s stomach dropped like a lead ball. He didn’t give a damn that it wasn’t professional or that his teammates shouted at him to calm the hell down. He fisted Doogie DEA’s shirt and brought the kid to his toes. He prayed that for once in his life, his gut was wrong. “Who’s the agent who stumbled on this intel?”
“A-Agent Collins,” the kid stuttered. “He’s the one who has to sign off on all missions—intel gathering, surveillance…raids.”
“And what’s been done with the east and northern quadrants?”
“Nothing. We’ve been throwing most of our focus out here.”
With a disgusted curse, Rafe dropped the kid to his feet. One look at his team indicated they were all on the same page. They’d found Fuentes’s inside man.
And he was back at HQ.
With Penny.
*
A steady thwump-thwump-thwump filled Penny’s ears, ricocheting pain from her hairline to all points north, south, east, and west. She blinked, winced, and blinked again. The sharp contrast of the dim interior and brightly colored control panel seared her retinas, but it was the explosion of memories that stole her ability to breathe.
The raid.
The explosion.
Rafe.
She’d witnessed the blast, seen the screen of white fuzz, and heard the aftermath of the chilling silence. But wouldn’t she have felt something if Rafe was gone? An ache? An all-knowing gut feeling? The irreparable shatter of her heart?
She’d always known there was a chance she’d have to let him go, but not like that. Not before she had a chance to tell him how she felt, and not because he was trying to bring back her family.
Finding the one thing people dreamed of finding and having it so viciously taken away—ripped away from her by both Collins and Fuentes—was inhumanely cruel. With Rachel, they’d taken her family, and now they’d taken her heart.
A rush of anger yanked Penny’s arms toward the large shadow sitting behind the helicopter controls, but the handcuffs anchoring her to the chopper door kept her from throttling Collins in the seat next to her.
A moment after he navigated the helicopter to the ground, the agent slid her a knowing smile. “Sorry about sending you to dreamland, but it’s the nature of the business.”
“If you’re so sorry, how about you take these off?” She jiggled the cuffs. “I mean, plastic ties and handcuffs? Isn’t that a little overboard?”
“My sources tell me you have quite the lively spirit, and I couldn’t take any chances. It’s the same reason I had to leave your friend behind.”
Logan. “I swear to God if you hurt him, you haven’t even begun to see lively.”
“Lucky for him, I didn’t have time to inflict too much damage—just enough to make sure he’s incapable of following us.”
“Why?” She choked on her words. “Why are you helping a man like Fuentes? He’s hurt so many, and if Freedom gets out to the general public, he’s going to hurt so many more.”
“Money. It can buy a man anything. A tropical island. A new life. I can buy myself a high-end whore instead of one of Fuentes’s f*cked-up space cadets. Maybe I’ll have Fuentes make you part of my payment, huh?” Collins scraped the back of his hand down her cheek. “Just you, me, and a little bit of Freedom to make sure you don’t try swimming away with the dolphins. What do you think of that?”
When his hand neared her mouth, Penny bit into the fleshy part of his hand, a brassy move that earned her a stinging slap across the face. It was worth seeing the bastard bleed as he exited the chopper and came around to the other side. Still anchored to the grip bar, she spilled onto the ground when he flung open her door.
“Get the f*ck up.” Collins uncuffed her, but the plastic ties still cut off the circulation to her fingers. He fisted her hair and yanked her back to her feet before giving her a hard shove forward. “Now move it.”
Penny locked her jaw against the sting of tears. No way in hell was she giving him the satisfaction of knowing that anything he did to her hurt.
A warehouse structure loomed in front of them, half-hidden by the surrounding wildlife. It looked eerily like the building Rafe and the team had entered, but this one wasn’t spewing flames and ash.
Collins pushed her into a stumble. Just when she would’ve face-planted to the jungle floor, a set of arms caught her midfall. Relief her head had been spared another blow disintegrated the second she looked into Marco Fuentes’s eyes.
“Hello again, Se?orita Hanlan. I believe I told you that we’d be running into each other again.” Marco’s smile left Penny cold.
“Why the hell are you here?” Collins demanded. “And where the f*ck is Fuentes?”
“I’m afraid Diego won’t be able to make it to the meeting. There’s been a slight shift in family dynamics.”