Chapter Twenty-Three
Guilt coated Gia’s conscience—thick, ugly as tar.
Vincente hadn’t believed her when she told him she’d return to Miami. But kidnapping Jennie?
She hadn’t expected that.
She’d retreated to the bedroom after Vincente’s message. Caleb filled the doorway now, solid and steady.
“It’s not your fault.”
“Stop making excuses for me.” The words burst out before she could stop them. The anger felt sharp. Real. Almost…good.
Better than fear.
“Vincente tried to kill you because of me. They took Jennie because of me.”
“Lopez is responsible for his actions, not you.” Calm. Not a flicker of emotion in Caleb’s eyes.
Damn him .
All it did was make her angrier—not at him. At herself.
“It is on me. Because I’m a coward.”
His gaze narrowed. “How’s that?”
Later, she could mourn what might have been.
He stepped all the way into the room. “What aren’t you telling me?”
The composure s he’d cultivated through med school and years spent treating patients had shattered the moment she’d learned of the attack on Caleb. She’d acted on impulse, ruled by fear.
“Vincente tried to have you killed.” She paced the bedroom, hands tangled in her hair. “I called him that afternoon—threatened to expose him if he didn’t back off.”
If he didn’t leave you alone.
But Vincente had found a loophole. He hadn’t gone after Caleb again. Instead, he’d seized an innocent woman to force both Gia’s silence and her return.
Caleb’s jaw hardened, a chill darkening his eyes. “Expose him how?”
Guilt stabbed deep. Her breath hitched. Words clawed their way up, but she forced them down.
“Gia,” he pressed, “if you have information we can use, I need to know. I can protect you.”
“No, you can’t.” His face blurred through her tears. “Not from this.”
Vincente kept proving, again and again, how futile escape truly was.
“You’re hiding something.” Caleb’s voice carried an edge now. “Tell me.”
She shook her head. Saying it out loud meant reliving it—the gunshot. The helplessness that had rooted her feet while a man bled out in front of her.
The chill in Vincente’s eyes. Juan’s laughter. The crew’s indifference.
Caleb stepped in. Close enough that she could feel his heat.
He cupped her chin in his palm. “Whatever it is, baby, we’re in this together.”
His tenderness shattered her walls.
The truth she ’d choked down and kept hidden for over two months spilled from her lips.
“Vincente…he shot him.” The words wobbled out. “I saw him die.”
The fingers on her chin tightened.
“So much blood.” Her voice dropped. “It stained the white deck. I can still smell it.”
A metallic, sweet odor. She saw blood, smelled it often in her practice. But this…Not even the stiff ocean breeze could wash it away.
She shut her eyes, too late to stop the flood of memory.
“I tried to help him. Vincente held me back—said Antonio was a DEA spy.” Her laugh was bitter. “That this was an unfortunate part of his business and as his future wife, one I needed to understand.”
Her throat swelled, nearly choking her. “Vincente’s cousin, Juan, dragged Antonio’s body to the railing…I watched him sink.”
And she’d screamed, the wind ripping away her cries.
Silence stretched between them.
Caleb's hand dropped away. He exhaled, rough and quiet. “Jesus.”
“I stayed a few more days. Tried to act normal, so he wouldn’t watch me too closely. Made a plan. Then I took out as much money as I could from my accounts and hopped on a Greyhound bus headed west.”
His lips thinned. “You were afraid.”
“I was selfish.” She swiped at her tears. “Vincente and Juan would be in jail now if I possessed an ounce of moral courage. Antonio’s family doesn’t know what happened to their loved one. Did he leave behind a wife? Children who will grow up without a father?”
It sickened her every time she thought about it.
Her Louis Vuitton suitcase sat in the corner. Reliving the memory brought back the suffocating terror, the helplessness.
A tremor shook her.
Run. A new name. Another city.
She could still do it.
But Jennie was out there.
Scared. Alone.
And Caleb was here.
Standing beside her. A rock who stood firm in the lashing rain.
Her fingers curled into fists.
She was done running. “I need to contact the DEA. Tell them what happened to Antonio.”
There. She steeled herself for the condemnation. The disappointment that she wasn’t the woman he thought she was.
Caleb’s head tilted to one side. “Keeping the murder quiet, was that your leverage?”
“Yes.”
“And he agreed to leave you alone?” The disbelief in his voice scraped against her already raw nerves.
She couldn’t look at him. “I told him I’d return to Miami. By the end of the week.”
“Over my dead body,” he snarled.
Her head snapped up.
Caleb had that cold, hard look. The same one she’d seen the first night they’d met at the bar, when she hadn’t known if he was on the side of the angels or darkness.
Her hand shot out, clutching his arm before she could stop herself, nails biting into his skin. “If you stay with me, that’s exactly what will happen. Vincente will come after you. But I never had any intention of going back.”
“What was the plan then? Run again?” Now his voice went dangerously soft.
Exactly as it had before he took out Vincente’s men in a blur of movement she’d had trouble tracking.
A shiver crept up her spine. “Run. Stay and risk everyone I care about.”
Including you.
“Or turn myself in, testify against Vincente, and end up in Witness Protection.” Her mouth trembled. “I guess I’ll end up in a new town with a new identity after all.”
If she lived. And even if she made it into Witness Protection, what kind of life would she have without friends, a career?
Without Caleb.
How, in such a short time, had he come to mean so much to her?
He’d freed her. Emotionally. Sexually. She felt strong around him.
Cared for.
She squared her shoulders. “Clearly, he didn’t believe me. I’m ready to go to the DEA,” she repeated, “and tell them everything I know if it will save Jennie.”
There would be questions. They’d tear apart her Abigail Winters identity. She might even lose her medical license. Watching a man die and staying silent—it had to violate the Hippocratic Oath, at least in spirit.
Caleb shook his head, rejection in every line of his taut body.
“If you go to the authorities, Lopez will lawyer up and paint you as the liar—a woman who misled him about her true identity and then disappeared. Maybe he’ll claim you stole money, and that’s why you ran.
He’ll gaslight you. We’ll never find Jennie. ”
“Then offer him a trade. Jennie for me.”
His eyes flashed fire. “No way in hell.”
Stubborn man.
She stepped in close, pressing herself against his chest to force his full attention. His muscles were hard, his fists clenched—but she didn’t miss the sudden flare in his pupils at the contact.
“Listen to me . Vincente doesn’t know about your estrangement from your family, and though he might suspect something between us, he has no proof. Tell him Jennie’s your cousin. That you won’t let family suffer for some outsider. Tell him it’s me for her.”
“He won’t buy it.”
“He will,” she insisted. Her stomach bottomed out at the thought of being anywhere near her ex-lover again. “He’s arrogant enough to believe it.”
When his expression didn’t budge, she threw out her trump card. “You can get justice for your mother.”
Caleb spun away, raking a hand through his hair.
Gia held her breath. Waited.
He wheeled back around, jabbing a finger toward her. “As much as I’d like to avenge my amá , this isn’t about her. This is about you.”
His voice dropped, rough with emotion. “I won’t sacrifice you.”
Her heart fluttered at the look in his eyes. “It’s the only way,” she whispered.
Surely he could see that.
She saw the moment his eyes registered defeat. Then his gaze shuttered.
“I have a call to make.”
The missing DEA agent.
Caleb stepped outside the cottage in nothing but his navy t-shirt and jeans, letting the bite of high desert winter air slap against his skin.
Maybe it would shock some sense into him.
Make that t he murdered DEA agent.
Nathan mentioned the DEA had put a man in Lopez’s Miami operation—an agent who vanished two months ago.
It could be the key to putting Lopez away for good, and a crippling blow to Espina Negra.
Exactly what Caleb had wanted.
But if Gia had to testify, she’d never know peace again. She’d spend her life in hiding.
And he’d lose her.
Fuck.
He couldn’t do this. Couldn’t use her, not after everything she’d survived. Not after she finally started to feel safe with him.
But there was no other way.
One of the horses grazing nearby nickered softly, its tail swishing. Caleb envied the animal’s uncomplicated existence.
Zach, he could trust.
The rest of the Navajo Police? Gallup PD? Too many unknowns. Cartel informants were everywhere—and if Espina Negra didn’t have someone in the area, the Aztec Kings did.
No , whatever plan he made had to be airtight. On a need-to-know basis.
Gia’s life depended on it. Jennie’s, too.
He scrolled through his contacts.
Stopped on Ryder’s name.
His thumb hovered over the call button.
Old instinct kicked in—stay detached, be the steady one, never need anyone.
His childhood had wired him that way.
Military service and executive protection work had taught him the value of a team—had made him a damn good teammate, even.
But relying on others— really relying on them—had never come easy. Not unless it was part of the job.
He didn’t need anyone.
Except now he did.
For Gia. For Jennie.
Because Gia was right. The only way to draw Lopez out and get Jennie back safely was to offer her as bait.
His fingers clenched around the phone, knuckles white.
He’d wanted intel from Dìleas, but hadn’t wanted to draw the agency into his personal confrontation with a cartel.
Now he needed his teammates.
They had his six. They were his family. Always had been.
He just hadn’t let himself believe it.
His jaw flexed. One sharp inhale, then he placed the call.
The phone rang once before Ryder picked up. “Caleb.”
“I need help.”
“Name it, mate.” No hesitation. No questions. Just loyalty.
Caleb exhaled. “One of Gia’s friends is missing. Lopez took her to force Gia’s hand.”
He hesitated, then pushed through. “There’s more. That missing DEA agent Nathan mentioned? Lopez killed him. Dumped his body in the ocean. Gia witnessed it.”
“Bloody Hell,” Ryder muttered. “Lucas Caldwell needs to know.”
Fuck no.
“Lopez is cartel royalty. He’s got too many connections for me to believe this will end well if law enforcement gets involved.”
Caleb had no time for the red tape of the FBI, even if Lucas Caldwell—godfather to Ryder’s fiancée, Nathalie—had proven to be a valuable friend to Dìleas.
As far as he wa s concerned, his mission was simple: Vincente Lopez was a high value target. Eliminate the threat and disrupt Espina Negra—a terrorist organization in practice, if not in official designation.
“Lucas will be discrete,” Ryder said.
“I need to get Jennie Tsosie back and make sure this asshole never comes near Gia again.”
“Has Lopez given her a deadline?”
“End of week. But I don’t trust it. Going after Jennie was an escalation we didn’t anticipate.”
He paused, choosing his words carefully. This wasn’t just his boss. Ryder was a friend.
“Bring in law enforcement, and Lopez might kill Jennie. Gia would be next. If he wants her, he can come and get her himself. And when he does…” The fury in Caleb’s voice iced. “I’ll either get a confession or bury him.”
Silence.
Long enough for Caleb to shuffle his feet, his shoulders tightening.
“You love her.” Ryder didn’t phrase it as a question.
Caleb opened his mouth to deny it, but no words came.
Ryder let out a quiet breath that was half chuckle, half resignation. “All the rules go out the window when we’re protecting the women we love, don’t they, mate?”
His voice hardened. “Keep your head down. Help is on the way.”