Deadly Intent Read online

  But he was telling the truth. While she may have touched him, he’d never laid a hand on her, lying there like a statue.

  Yeah, he’d known better. Known being that close to her sleeping body and not able to strip her naked and make her moan was the worst form of torment.

  He did it anyway.

  Hello, my name is Nelson and I’m addicted to Sophie Diaz.

  Women. Always his downfall. The one vice he’d never given up.

  Until Sophie.

  He touched the scar over his eye. In his post-Sophie world, the only woman he’d wanted was her. The one who’d screwed him over, literally and professionally, and left him with a souvenir so he’d never forget her.

  This morning, with her only inches from him again, her curvy body, sexy hair, and clean skin giving him another round of sledgehammer cock, he was finding it hard not to act out every one of the fantasies she was accusing him of.

  But the look on her face bode evil for him if he so much as smirked. So instead of goading her more, he took his fantasies, and his treacherous addiction, and headed for her bathroom.

  When he emerged after a quick shower, he smelled like Sophie’s gardenia shampoo. He had no clean clothes, so he skipped the underwear and ruined T-shirt and pulled on his dirty jeans.

  She was in the kitchen, dressed in a hot pink number that dipped in the back, exposing her graceful shoulders. He remembered tracing his tongue down her spine, sucking at the indents above her heart-shaped ass.

  Mind blank except for damning memories of their all-too-brief set of nights together, he stood motionless for a long minute, watching her now sip from a coffee cup and move something that smelled of eggs, peppers, and onions around in a skillet with a spatula. A jar of hot sauce sat next to a stack of tortillas. For a moment, it reminded him of his mom, cooking breakfast for him and his brother.

  Without looking at him, Sophie said, “There are clothes on the couch for you.”

  His brain struggled to shift gears. “Huh?”

  She set down the cup and spatula and started spreading a pale pink, creamy concoction on a tortilla. “Rodrigo had the maid bring a set of clothes for your trip into town today. He wants to walk you through how the team handles our trips into Tijuana. If Guido knows you’ve jumped ship, and he’s found someone else to take a shot at killing me, it will be in town.”

  “Oh, uh, okay.” Clothes from the cartel leader? That was weird, but Nelson guessed Morales didn’t want his head of security looking like a biker. “What are you making?”

  “Breakfast.”

  Answered his question without actually answering it. “Smells delicious.”

  She scooped some of the mixture from the skillet and laid it in the middle of the tortilla, then rolled. Once finished, she lifted the burrito, turning to face him. The tortilla stopped midway to her mouth as her eyes landed on his naked chest. Her gaze surfed across his pecs, dropped to his ribs, and lingered on his bruises. Whirling back around, she set the breakfast burrito down and hastily worked filling another. “Coffee?”

  “I’ll get it.” He crossed the small kitchen and took a cup from the open shelves, his elbow brushing her shoulder.

  She shifted sideways, giving him more space, although there really wasn’t any. After he poured a cup that was the color of mud, he leaned a hip against the counter and pointed at the bowl of pink stuff. “What’s that?”

  “Secret ingredient.” She shooed him out of the way and spread some on the next tortilla, repeating the process and handing it to him. At least six more lined a platter.

  “You made me breakfast?”

  “You’re too skinny.” She busied herself cleaning up and eating her own burrito. “Plus, I owe you for last night. For relieving my headache.”

  He was not skinny. Sophie never allowed herself to be in anyone’s debt, and that was the real reason she’d made him breakfast.

  He bit into the burrito and savored the simple ingredients that made a glorious and satisfying meal all wrapped in a small package.

  Small package filled with spunk. The thought made him take a second look at the chef.

  She avoided glancing at his chest. At him.

  He sipped his coffee. “I hardly think rubbing your temples and massaging your neck for a few minutes is worth anything more than a thank you, but if that’s all it takes to get you to cook for me—”

  She slapped him with a dishtowel. “Get out of the kitchen.”

  He took his coffee and burrito and went to get dressed. A pair of black jeans and a deep blue button-down were folded and tied together in a neat bundle with string.

  He was buttoning up the shirt when Sophie appeared in the living room. Her eyes were serious. “Can we talk?”

  “Sure.” He shoved his ragged biker jeans and leather vest aside from where he’d tossed them on the couch. After a shower and a filling breakfast, he was ready to get down to business and discuss the op. “What’s our plan for getting that ledger?”

  “It’s not our plan.” She sat on the edge of the couch, looking up at him. “It’s mine, and although I understand the fact that you need to complete your mission to bring me back to the States safely, I do not need a bodyguard. I know what I’m doing, and… I’m sorry, but I can’t involve you in this, Nelson.”

  Such a Sophie thing, trying to give him the boot. She was the same old Fed she’d been two years ago. Operation Gangs Without Borders was her op and she didn’t want him honing in on it.

  He’d gotten too close to her with Chica Bonita and that had ended badly. She’d never worked with another agent again. Now, here they were, and she was trying to give him the shaft.

  “I’m not going to take credit for anything you accomplish here, Soph. All I’m here for is to watch your back and help any way I can.”

  “That’s just it. You can’t help. In fact, I’m still worried about the way you usurped Chavez and got hired on the spot by Morales. He doesn’t do that, Nels, not ever.” She reached out and touched his hand. Softly, fleetingly, her eyes wide and pleading. “You could be in some serious danger here.”

  Oh, she was good. Playing him with the eyes and the touch and the troubled voice.

  He didn’t take her hand, instead stepping back. “You find that ledger, I’ll handle Morales. This isn’t my first cartel rodeo. I can take care of myself.” And you.

  She stood, brows furrowed, and moved in close. “Nels, I’m worried about you.” She reached out and skimmed her fingers over his ribs, down his side. “Did you use the yam cream on your bruises?”

  The woman who claimed she hated him was pretending to care? Like I’d fall for that.

  If only her eyes didn’t look so damn sincere.

  In his mind, he saw the vet feeding the snakes, heard the hiss of the snakes in the pit. “It’s not the first time I’ve been beaten up.”

  At some point when he had been lying stock still next to her during the night, he’d thought over his experience at the compound so far and wondered how Sophie had known he had been getting his ass handed to him by Morales’s men. “How did you know I was here, yesterday, by the way? What brought you to the snake pit?”

  Her hand fell to her side. She backed up, hesitating for a second before her eyes lost their concern and went hard. He’d seen through her bluff and she was pissed. “I heard you crying like a baby. I wanted to know who was about to be killed.”

  He hadn’t made a noise. “The ledger’s hidden somewhere in there, isn’t it? That’s why you were there.”

  For half a second, she looked surprised. “Good thing I was, or like I told you yesterday, you would have been snake food.”

  “Where do you think it’s at? Under a cage or buried in the pit itself?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But you have a guess.”

  “Sunday is the anniversary of Rodrigo’s father’s death. He’s taking his little sister down the coast this weekend. Ciro is buried behind their vacation home. I’ve been through every square inch o
f the house and most of the out buildings. Everywhere but that damned snake pit. I plan to thoroughly check everything again, that’s why I need forty-eight hours. I hope the ledger isn’t hidden in the pit, but if it is, I’ll find it.”

  “You don’t have forty-eight hours. You have twenty-four.”

  “But that’s not enough. I already told you”—

  “The Feds took your information on Morales to the Attorney General yesterday. Morales’s arrest warrant is in the works as we speak. I bought you twenty-four hours, but that’s all you get.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “No. I need more.”

  “What you need,”—he leaned in, putting his face in front of her—“is me. Fucking snake pit or not, I’ll find that goddamned ledger, all right?”

  “Oh, Nelson.” Her voice shook and she looked like he’d hit her with one of those damn snakes from the pit. She sunk down onto the couch again. “What have I done?”

  Chapter Seven

  “Sophie?” Nelson sat beside her on the couch. One of his hands went to her knee, the other to her back. “What’s going on?”

  Those hands were warm, the one on her bare back calloused but gentle. The one on her knee gave a slight squeeze as he shifted an inch closer. “You can tell me,” he said, his voice comforting.

  But she couldn’t tell him. She’d screwed up and let herself get attached to a criminal’s little sister. Displacement. She shook her head. Classic Psych 101, Sophia. The very thing the Bureau teaches you not to do.

  What was I thinking? Lexie was not a replacement for Angelique, and it had been wrong of Sophie to let herself get emotionally close to the girl. The old guilt was too hard to get around. She hadn’t protected her younger sister and fooled herself into believing she could protect Lexie to make up for it.

  And then there were the others. The girls she was helping get across the border in the most illegal of ways…

  Lifting her head and standing, she shook off Nelson’s concern, and his hands. Emotionally vulnerable was the last thing she’d ever let him see her as. She had to act cool and in control, keep her reputation intact. I still have twenty-four hours. “It’s nothing. I’ve just been undercover with this assignment for so long, I can’t believe it’s almost over.”

  The weight of his gaze rested on the back of her shoulders as she paced away from him. His silence suggested he didn’t believe her, so she wrung her hands a little as she faced him. “You said it yesterday… I’m in deep. For months, I’ve been thinking this operation was never going to end, and now you’re telling me it’ll all be over in a day.”

  Again, total silence. He shifted back on the couch, one arm coming to rest across the back. She glanced out the window and gazed at the garden below. The morning air was still cool even as the sun climbed higher in the sky. The peacock pecked at the ground and preened. A couple of other nondescript birds bathed in the birdbath, flipping water out on him.

  Nelson’s intense stare didn’t let up, his silence sucking at her energy. She’d known he was in bed with her during the night and she hadn’t kicked him out. For the first time in months, she’d slept soundly and didn’t startle at every noise.

  No way was she letting him know that.

  But she’d gone and put her foot in her mouth. Distract him. Change the subject, kiss him, do something!

  Distracting Nelson wouldn’t buy her more time, however, and in the end, time was the only thing that could save Lexie and the other girls.

  There were so many lost girls…

  Swallowing hard, she walked back over to the ICE agent and forced herself to kneel in front of him. It took all her willpower, but she batted her big eyes and added a pleading tone to her voice.

  For the girls.

  Giving him a dose of his own medicine, she placed her hands on his knees as she looked up at him. “Nels, is there any way you can buy me more time? Please. You know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

  His dark eyes studied her, his arm still resting on the back of the couch like he didn’t have a care in the world. His body totally insouciant. “What’s in the ledger, Sophie?”

  She had to tell him the truth. It was the only way he’d help her.

  First, he’d tell her she was a fool and shake his head at her ridiculous pie-in-the-sky hope after all these years.

  Maybe I am a fool. She took a deep breath and considered her options. He wasn’t leaving, and if she only had twenty-four hours to find a home for Lexie and a way to secure her personal human smuggling operation, she really had no choice.

  Sitting back on her heels, she dropped her hands and put them in her lap. “I believe it holds a link to finding Angelique.”

  Chapter Eight

  Downtown Tijuana

  Two hours later

  The bingo hall was hopping with a motley assortment of senior citizens, the jobless who’d scrounged up a few dollars to gamble away, and tourists with plenty of disposable income. The building had once been a church and pictures of saints still hung on the walls, watching the gamblers with solemn, stoic faces.

  The sinners didn’t seem bothered, and as Nelson scanned the room for exits and potential troublemakers, he saw a husband and wife team take turns holding up their winnings next to a painting of St. Paul so the other could take a picture for those back home.

  “B12.” The caller read from the chip she’d pulled from the basket. In unison, a bevy of those with B12 marked their cards with stamps.

  After Sophie had laid the Angelique bomb on him, Nelson had endured a tug-of-war with his conscience. While Sophie had always assumed responsibility for her sister’s disappearance, Nelson knew he’d played a hand in it. A part of him strongly believed it was the only reason Sophie had become a Fed in the first place—to track Angelique’s movements from the time she’d run away from home. The trail had gone cold by the time Sophie had earned her badge, but she’d managed to find it again. That cold trail had led her to Chica Bonita.

  And him.

  Now she’d confessed that there was more than one ledger she was after—not only one with the European money-making operation, but also one that held a complete timeline and history of all the girls shipped into and out of Chica Bonita during the past seven years.

  He wanted to kick her square in the ass for not being upfront with him in the first place, but he’d known what he was getting into when he agreed to follow Director Dupé’s orders and bring Sophie home.

  Home. He’d promised his sister he’d be home in time for Thanksgiving. She and his niece, Carly, were counting on him. He’d promised he’d be there to carve the turkey.

  If he gave in and bought Sophie another day or two, he’d still have a day or so to spare.

  Why are you even considering it? Angelique, if she was still alive, had been gone for years. The last whiff of her had been on the failed CB op two years ago. Even if the mysterious ledger held the information of where she’d been shipped to, it didn’t mean she was still there.

  But what could he say? He was a sucker for family. Sophie was alone. Angelique was her last living relative—if she was still alive. He still had his father and several siblings with their extended families.

  Heading for the upstairs back room where Sophie was working, Nelson absentmindedly kept an eye on everyone he passed. After the previous night’s crash course in Morales’s security setup and a discussion that morning with his team, Nelson had hit the ground running. The first thing he’d done was switch up today’s schedule. Morales came to town with Sophie in tow once or twice a week to exchange money and lean on the businesses in a multi-block section of Old Tijuana that resembled the hood, to produce protection fees. The routine never changed and Nelson was sure that Guido Ruiz knew it as well as the rest of the hood.

  Instead of hitting the dry cleaners first and ending at the strip clubs, Nelson sent a small team ahead to scout the other locations while he did a sweep of the bingo hall. No one had tripped his warning system, but he’d posted several lookou
ts and was on his way to position himself next to the woman who drove him crazy.

  A flight up the stairs showed she wasn’t in the office. A heartbeat of panic shot through Nelson’s chest. Taking the stairs back down, he hustled through the kitchen, down a hall, and into a back storage room, spotting her at a back door, handing a pyramid of wrapped burritos to a young boy dressed in ragtag cutoffs and a plaid shirt two sizes too big for him.

  Burritos? Where had those come from? She hadn’t been carrying them in her money bag.

  Her voice was too low for Nelson to hear as she spoke urgently to the kid. The boy nodded, his tongue slipping out to lick his lips as he juggled the stack of burritos.

  Sophie lifted the edge of her skirt, and suddenly, her transportation method became clear. From pockets sewn under the long skirt, she withdrew a roll of money and a handful of colorful bracelets made from thread like his niece, Carly, liked to make. Friendship bracelets, she called them. Nelson had a stack she had made for him—the school therapist said it helped calm her. A better outlet for her autistic mind might have been a new school.

  But his sister didn’t have money for that.

  Nelson hugged the shadows, not wanting to alert Sophie to his presence. She slipped the roll of money into one of the boy’s pockets, the bracelets into another. After a second nod from him, he slipped off, Sophie watching him with a sad expression on her face.

  In the background, Nelson heard the bingo caller over the speaker and a cheer erupted. Bingo, someone yelled.

  At the noise, Sophie turned, saw Nelson watching her. Quickly, she fluffed her skirt and headed for the stairs to the office.

  He caught her before she could pass. “What were you doing with that kid?”

  “Nothing.”

  She tried to go around him; he blocked her path. Crossing his arms over his chest, he stood there, looking down on her. “Sophie…?”

  Her chin rose. “Wipe that threatening look off your face and stop trying to intimidate me. The boy and his mother are homeless, like so many around here. I brought them some food.”