11. Hope
11
HOPE
T his morning, I’d been living in a blissful bubble, excited about spending more time with Vaughn in the peaceful surrounds of my home.
The cartel’s arrival had torn that foolish daydream from me and shattered it.
Despite Vaughn’s assurances that the Mexican Army general would respond quickly to his call for support and that fleeing was our best move, it still felt cowardly and unfair. But he was right. The only way to end this was by bringing down the cartel from the top, and we couldn’t do that from the village.
We pulled up out front of a grand timber-and-stone residence, which Sage had just finished telling me contained thirty-something rooms and functioned as a halfway house for the trafficking survivors they rescued. A top-notch medical team provided them the best physical and mental health services available with the hope that they’d recuperate and transition back to regular life.
Of course, some responded better to treatment than others, and not every case was a success. But Sage told me that what they offered here was better than the victims becoming a number in the health-care system. Here, each woman was treated as an individual and given the care, patience, and respect she deserved. Being around others in the same situation also helped.
Vaughn held the car door open for me, so I stepped out and sucked in a deep lungful of crisp Montana air. It smelled wholesome—a combination of fresh-cut grass, smoke from a wood fire, and horse shit. Or cow shit. Probably both since there were a group of people on horseback riding toward a nearby barn as well as cattle grazing in the surrounding grassy plains.
My eyes roamed over the impressive two-story log mansion cast in the day’s dying glow. With its imposing stone chimneys and expansive deck, the lodge made the stunning abode from Yellowstone look like a guesthouse. It was so large that I wondered if it’d operated as a hotel or wedding venue at some point.
There were several other structures within a short walk from the lodge. Two barns and a stable made from aged timber, and a steel-roofed horse arena that must be a more recent construction. A dapple gray mare whinnied as a teenage girl let it to a corral.
Seated on Adirondack chairs around an open firepit, a group of women sipped hot drinks and talked quietly among themselves. One gently strummed an acoustic guitar while another tended a cast-iron pot hung over the fire’s glowing coals.
Brandon grabbed the bag from the truck bed and made his way up the wide stairs to the porch.
Sage stood beside me and folded her arms. “I’m a city girl, but there’s something about this place, right?”
“It’s incredible.” I nodded and glanced up at Sage, who was taller than I’d expected. With her long dark hair pulled up in a messy pony, and dressed in leggings, a pink hoodie, and tennis shoes, she looked like she’d finished a workout not long ago. Sage’s toned physique and no-nonsense attitude gave her an air of confidence. I supposed she had to be assertive to manage a team of badass black-ops mercenaries. “Where are you from?” I asked.
“Philly born and raised. I had no farming experience before moving here to help run the team, but Brandon grew up country.”
“Really?” My brows shot up. “He doesn’t look it.”
Sage sighed wistfully when her eyes landed on her husband at the top of the stairs. “That fine-ass man is full of surprises.”
Aside from him wearing his Wrangler jeans as well as any hotshot bull rider, there was nothing about Brandon’s appearance that hinted at a rural upbringing. He was tall, dark-haired, and broad like Vaughn, but where my man was tattooed and broody, Sage’s husband was clean-cut and handsome in a movie-star kind of way. His clear-blue eyes and easy smile gave off a warm, if a little mischievous, vibe.
“Come on.” Sage slapped her hands on her thighs. “You must be exhausted. Let’s get inside where it’s warm.”
She headed for the stairs just as Vaughn placed his arm around my shoulder, tugging me to his side. “You okay?”
I stared up into the eyes of the man who’d become my rock this last week. “I’m really not sure.”
He curled my hair behind my ear. “Brandon and Sage are good people. They’ll look after you.”
I wrapped my arms around Vaughn’s taut waist and pressed my cheek to his chest, inhaling his scent and soaking up his body heat. “I only want one person looking after me.”
I almost melted when he fully enclosed me in his strong embrace. “Good, because you’re stuck with me now.” He kissed the top of my head.
We walked to the stairs, where Brandon and Sage watched us with matching expressions of amused curiosity .
Without taking her eyes from us, Sage held her hand out toward Brandon and wiggled her fingers. “Told you so. Pay up, big guy.”
Brandon groaned, pulled out his wallet, and slapped a wrinkled Benjamin into his wife’s open palm.
Sage opened the solid wooden door to the lodge, motioning for us to enter first. Vaughn directed me to a large den off the entrance hall.
The rustic decor was both stylish and cozy. Landscape artwork and beautiful Native American tapestries decorated hewn log walls, and richly textured rugs covered the dark floorboards. Sconces and a deer-antler chandelier, as well as the flickering flames from a large stone hearth in the back wall, illuminated the room with a warm glow. Before the fireplace, two brown leather sofas packed with throw cushions faced each other and the low coffee table between them.
This place was so different from my Mexican home, but I felt instantly at ease.
Brandon slid closed the room’s double doors, giving the four of us privacy. “Have a seat.”
Vaughn slumped onto a sofa, and when I went to sit beside him, he snagged me around the hips and pulled me onto his lap. “It’s been a long day. Don’t even argue with me.” His raspy voice made my belly tingle. And when he nuzzled my neck and inhaled, I just about combusted.
Sage sat on the sofa directly opposite us, still seeming delighted by my closeness to Vaughn. “Looks like you’ve had a breakthrough with the haphephobia.”
Vaughn tilted his head. “Of sorts.”
“Just out of curiosity”—Sage tapped one finger against her lips—“if a random stranger were to try to touch you?—”
“Limbs will be broken.” Vaughn ran his fingertips up my bare thigh until he reached the hem of my dress. “Only one person lays their hands on me, and that’s this woman right here.”
I curled my arms around his neck and pressed my forehead to his temple. “Only you could say something both terrifying and romantic within the same breath.”
“Drink?” Brandon asked as he walked toward a built-in liquor cabinet on the far side of the room.
“Bourbon,” Vaughn and I said at the same time. “Bring the bottle,” he added.
Brandon dipped his head. “Copy that.” He handed out glasses of neat bourbon and left the Woodford Reserve on the coffee table. “Sorry. I should’ve asked if you wanted something to eat first.”
Vaughn took a sip. “We’re here now. Let’s talk. General Martinez?”
Brandon sat beside his wife. “A small patrol arrived in Playa de la Palmera two hours ago. Martinez assures me more will be on-site first thing tomorrow morning. From then, the village has their protection for five days.” He pressed his lips together. “That was the best I could negotiate.”
“That’s not a lot of time,” I said.
“Agreed.” Brandon nodded. “Which means we need to move fast. When does la Mano Roja want you to make their shipment?”
“Not for two weeks.” Vaughn sighed. “What about the Manzanillo search? How’s that going?”
Sage reached for a laptop on a side table. “We’ve compiled a preliminary list of possible locations for the compound.”
I sat up. “Already?”
She shrugged. “Manzanillo is a smaller region to search. Our intel consists only of Google Street View and overhead satellite images until we can get a surveillance team to capture drone footage of each of the properties of interest. If you’re not too tired, you could look at them now. ”
“Please,” I said.
Sage opened the laptop and placed it on the coffee table. I climbed off Vaughn’s lap and knelt before the screen.
There were around a dozen folders, each containing photographs of luxury residences similar to what I’d described during our first phone call a week ago. As I clicked through the files, a heavy feeling settled in my stomach. None of the properties were the one I’d seen Carlos stroll through during our FaceTime calls.
I shook my head. “I don’t recognize any of these places.”
“What about the first folder?” Brandon asked. “That was our strongest lead. It’s close to a school, surrounded by a large perimeter wall, and has a lush garden. Tight security, too.”
I shrugged. “Unless they’ve painted the wall and given the gardens a makeover, it’s not Carlos’s home.”
Sage’s expression tightened as she closed the laptop and moved it aside. “We’ll keep looking.”
I returned to the sofa beside Vaughn, and he folded his arm around me. “I’m sorry. I wish I could be more help.”
“Hey.” He gave me a squeeze. “We’re not giving up. We’ll keep working this angle, all right? We’ll find something.”
I’d believe him, except the silence in the room told me everything I needed to know. The intelligence on that laptop had been the last hope of finding the PCC compound anytime soon. Maybe Carlos wasn’t in Manzanillo after all. Maybe he wasn’t even in Mexico.
We were running out of time. Every day, more women were stolen from the streets to become slaves, lives of innocent people were destroyed to benefit the cartel, and narco henchmen drew closer to taking over Playa de la Palmera.
I massaged the intensifying headache from my brow as distress, anger, and futility warred within me. We couldn’t let my father’s atrocities continue. We had to do something, but locating Carlos was like looking over a football field of anthills and trying to single out its most elusive resident.
If only we could?—
Wait .
An idea took root in my mind, one that filled me with equal parts optimism and anxiety. There was a way to get to my father. The problem was it involved walking into my own personal nightmare.
“We’re not going to find him,” I said quietly, mostly to myself. “Not fast enough, anyway. He needs to come to us. And I know how to make it happen.” All eyes in the room landed on me.
Beside me, Vaughn tensed. “No.” The single, stern word suggested he’d caught on before the others. “No fucking way, so you can get that idea out of your head.”
“But it’ll work, and you know it.”
“Does someone want to tell me what she’s talking about?” Brandon asked, his eyes volleying between Vaughn and me.
“She’s talking about using herself as bait, that’s what.” Vaughn swallowed his bourbon in one gulp and slammed the glass onto the coffee table. “You heard my answer. No.”
I folded my arms. “I don’t see how we have any other choice.”
Vaughn’s wild eyes were unblinking. “So, what? We throw you out there like a piece of cheese and wait for a giant rat to show up?”
“Exactly. I’ll make contact with a street-level cartel member, get them to filter the message that I’m alive up the food chain, and then someone will come for me. I’ll be taken to Carlos at the compound, so all you’ll need to do is follow me and you’ll know where to hit.”
I put on a brave face, making my proposal sound easy so Vaughn wouldn’t realize how scared I was of returning to my father. Just thinking about being in the same room as Carlos made panic surge inside me.
Deep in thought, Brandon scratched the dark stubble on his jaw. “It could work.”
Vaughn stabbed a finger at his teammate. “You shut the fuck up.”
I placed my hand on Vaughn’s thigh, hoping that would calm him. “Carlos won’t hurt me. I’m probably the only person alive who can say that.”
My father was inextricably linked to every painful moment in my life. I couldn’t think about him without an overwhelming sense of dread. The idea of being in the same room as the man who represented death, torment, and devastation made my stomach turn watery. Psychologically, our reunion would be traumatic, but Carlos had never been physically violent toward me. If anything, he should be elated by my return.
“We can put a tracker on her,” Sage said. “We’ll know where Hope is the entire time.”
Vaughn ignored Sage’s comment and faced me, seething. “This is bullshit,” he spat. “What if something goes wrong? There’s a reason we haven’t been able to nail Espinoza already. He’s slippery as fuck. If you go back to him, he’ll hide you away again and never let you go. You know that.”
He was right, and it was something I’d already considered but hadn’t wanted to highlight to Vaughn for fear of his reaction. If Carlos had been paranoid about my safety before, he’d increase my security tenfold once he found out I was still alive. It was a risk I was willing to take.
“We’re out of time.” I squeezed his thigh. “You can’t find him without me.”
Vaughn let out a frustrated growl and dragged his hands through his hair, rocking in place.
“Hey.” I shifted my palm to his chest to soothe him. “I’ve spent most of my life wishing there were something I could do to end my father’s cartel. Every life he’s snuffed out, every family suffering the loss of a loved one, their sadness feels like an anchor weighing down my soul because I’ve done nothing to stop it. But I can do this. I need to do this.”
Vaughn understood me better than anyone, so he knew how important this was to me. Contributing to my father’s downfall would help heal me in ways no therapy ever could.
He took my face in his palms, and the furrow in his brow deepened as his dark eyes bored into mine. “Don’t hand yourself over to him, please.”
“Don’t ask me not to.” I held his stare, and his pained expression made a thick knot lodge in my throat. “If Brandon and Sage think it’ll work, then I’m all in.”
I didn’t tell them about the other part of my plan. The part that truly would put me in danger but would mean Vaughn and the team wouldn’t have to risk their lives to achieve our goal. Losing even one more innocent life in the hunt for my father was something I couldn’t allow.
So when I finally came face-to-face with Carlos Espinoza, I was going to kill him myself.