Chapter 7
CHAPTER 7
Everything in Jacin’s body ached, even his scalp. His captors had yanked and pulled on hair he’d let grow down to his shoulders. Now that he was stateside, he wanted to cut it short. He would never wear it high and tight again like he had in BUDs during SEAL training, but he wasn’t about to put it into a man bun like so many young civilian men were now wearing.
A haircut was the first item on his to-do list when he got out of this damn hospital.
“Feel up for visitors?” his new babysitter/guard dog asked as he practically bounced into the room. Bill Smedley was way too excitable to be a good CIA agent.
Who exactly is the CIA recruiting these days? Children? The kid doesn’t look to be twenty years old. Or maybe he had aged that much while living in Colombia. He was definitely too old to continue playing this game.
“If they want to bring another herd of interns in here, tell them to go to hell.” Jacin had been poked and prodded by enough twentysomethings to last him a lifetime.
“Not this time.” The kid pulled down the cuffs on the crisp white dress shirt he wore under the store-bought suit. “They’re from…” The idiot actually made air quotes with his fingers as he said, “the company.”
Did anyone even call the CIA by that term anymore? Jacin didn’t know. He’d been so out of touch with things in the United States, he felt as though he’d entered a foreign country without a completed briefing that had leapt forward in time.
“Who are they?” Jacin hoped Melina had returned. Part of him wanted to beg forgiveness for the giant green alien of envy that had taken over his brain, and the other part wished her and Rafe well in their new life now they were back in the U.S.A.
“He said you might know him.” The kid rolled onto his toes and swung his arms back and forth like a second-grader with a secret. “Does the name Rafe Silva ring a bell?”
A bell? Not hardly. That name rang a huge gong that reverberated through Jacin’s entire body. Why the hell was he there? To rub in the fact that he got the girl? The only woman in the world Jacin had ever wanted, heart and soul.
Before he could answer, the door opened.
“Time’s up. We’re on a fast clock here and can’t afford to waste a minute more, Junior.” Rafe’s voice seemed to echo around the room and inside Jacin’s bruised brain.
“What the fuck do you want?” Jacin asked as Rafe strode across the room.
Jacin’s gaze dropped to where his archenemy held hands with a pretty brunette who kept pace beside him.
“Answers.” Rafe walked up and stood beside Jacin’s hospital bed, looking down at him as though in disapproval. “You look better than the last time I saw you.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Jacin had to search his memory for the last time he’d seen Rafe. Oh, yeah, they’d both been at a cartel party, and Melina had been hanging all over the tall man who now slipped his arm around the woman next to him. Anger threatened to overtake Jacin’s good sense.
It was then he remembered the beautiful Brazilian actress who Turi Solis had given him that weekend. Sure, he’d enjoyed her body and the things she did to his, but that had been his job. He had to maintain his cover. If he hadn’t fucked the bitch for hours, Solis wouldn’t have respected him and may have questioned his dedication to the cartel.
But the way Rafe and Melina had acted at the party, they looked to be a solid couple. Anyone could tell by the sultry look in her eyes, the loving smile he returned, they’d slept together.
Jealousy had put Jacin in that hospital bed. It had driven him to leave the sleeping actress and covertly make his way to Melina’s house hours after the party had ended. Every memory, from that point until he woke up yesterday, was snippets of pain, blurred visions of agony, and a black void.
“Do you—” Rafe started to ask but the woman interrupted.
“Do you remember me?”
Jacin stared at her pretty face. Cartel parties were filled with beautiful women. Maybe he’d met her at one, or more, of the over-the-top private events they seem to hold every few weeks. “Maybe. I’m not sure I can place you.” Terror struck him as he wondered if he’d slept with her. Solis had surrounded himself with some of the most gorgeous women Jacin had ever seen, stateside or in Colombia. As a cartel lieutenant, he was often given the ones his boss rejected. “Have we…did we…” Damn. He didn’t want to come right out in front of Rafe and ask her if they’d fucked, because those two were obviously now involved, and if Rafe was with this woman, Melina was available.
She quickly answered, “No.”
“Do you remember helping us escape from Cali?” Rafe’s question brought more internal searching.
He’d been to the Colombian cesspool more times than he wanted to remember. The city was the cartels’ playground. You could buy, sell, or do the most depraved things he’d ever seen and hoped to never witness again.
“I helped you in Cali?” Jacin’s mind was blank.
“You helped us both,” the woman claimed. “In retrospect, I’m not sure we were properly introduced. You were pretty out of it, but we did speak briefly. I’m Harper Tambini.” She shot out her hand and quickly grabbed his for a brief shake.
“We can revisit this line of questioning later,” Rafe announced. “I need to know, when was the last time you saw Melina?”
Jacin sighed. “She was here yesterday afternoon.” Then his brain kicked in. “Why?”
Rafe took in a deep breath before he let it out slowly. “She’s been kidnapped by Pablo Valez.”
“What the fuck does that pipsqueak want with my wo…Melina?” Whew. He’d almost slipped and called Melina his woman. She wasn’t his anymore, damn it. Once again, he’d screwed things up with her. But what did Valez want with her?
“He’s trying to take over his uncle’s cartel and thinks by killing me he can make that happen,” Rafe explained.
“And what, Carlos Narváez is just going to step aside and give a multibillion-dollar business to his nephew who kept flunking out of college?” The idea was ridiculous. Most cartel capos were actually highly educated businessmen, often with advanced degrees earned in the United States or England.
Rafe looked at Jacin for a long time. “Narváez is dead.”
“You killed him?” The question popped out before Jacin could hold back.
“No.” Harper lifted her chin proudly. “I did. But unfortunately, Pablo doesn’t know that, or he’d be coming after me, not Rafe.”
Rafe pulled her closer to him. “I’d rather have the man-child coming after me than you. You’re lethal.” He grinned and gave her a quick kiss on the lips.
“But we’re going after him together,” she insisted, staring directly into Rafe’s face.
“What does Melina have to do with this?” Maybe Jacin’s brain was still a little jarred, but he was missing something.
Rafe reached into his pocket and extracted his cell phone.
Thirty seconds later, only the beeping monitor assured Jacin his heart was still beating as he watched Valez smack the woman he loved. “Again,” he croaked out. Now that the shock factor was over, he could try to objectively watch the video.
Harper gently laid her hand on his sheet-covered knee. “Jacin, we’re doing everything we can to find her. In the twelve hours since Rafe received this message, we’ve assembled a team here at Fort Cavazos, and we have the best people working on this case.”
“We’ll find her, I promise.” Rafe grabbed the metal side rail. “When Melina left here yesterday, did she mention she was going to go somewhere? Was she meeting someone?”
Anger flared deep inside Jacin. “Yeah, she was going to D.C. to meet up with you.”
“Actually, she was going to meet with both of us.” Harper laid her free hand on Rafe’s shoulder. “We’d offered to take her out to supper to thank her for helping us escape Cali. Without her, and you, we never would’ve made it out of there alive.”
“That’s the second time you said I helped you back in Colombia.” Jacin closed his eyes and dug into blackness. Nothing. Not a sliver of memory. “What did I do?”
“You rode shotgun from Melina’s house to the airport where we took Narváez’s helicopter.” Rafe waited.
“I don’t remember any of that.” He hated the blank spaces more than anything.
Harper picked up the story. “Melina was taking you to Bogotá to the embassy.”
Jacin nodded, not that he agreed or remembered, but the action made sense.
Rafe returned to questioning. “So, did Melina say where she was going when she left here yesterday?”
Disgusted with himself, Jacin admitted, “She didn’t say much of anything as she left my room. Not even good-bye. We…we had a fight.”
“Okay,” Harper said. “So, she was upset.” Her gaze went back and forth between the two men. “What does she do when she’s upset? Some women jump into a tub of ice cream, one woman I know hits the range and starts naming the targets. My friend, Katlin, cooks as though we’re being invaded and she needs to stock up enough food to feed an army.”
Rafe looked at him as though in agreement. At the same time they said, “She cooks.”
Harper’s excitement filled the room. “Was she staying in a hotel? Maybe one of those extended-stay places that are almost like a condo?”
Jacin slumped back into the bed. “I don’t know. We had so little time alone together. When she said she had to leave to get to D.C. and see you, I lost it.” An action he would regret the rest of his life.
“Does she know anyone in this area?” Harper inquired.
“Her brother is stationed here.” Jacin rubbed his sore eyes, thankful they’d given him medication to reduce the swelling and placed cold packs on his face while he was unconscious. “I’m such an ass. I didn’t even ask her if she’d seen her brother. They’re very close.”
Rafe whipped out his phone and had a man on the line within seconds. “Melina has a brother stationed here at Fort Cavazos. It’s a point to start.” There was a pause as though he was listening. “Will do.”
“Have you ever heard Melina talk about a woman named Chanda Reiser?” Rafe asked.
“No, that name doesn’t sound familiar. Why? Is she important?” Jacin mentally chastised himself. “Of course she’s important. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have asked.”
Rafe fiddled with his phone for a minute. “Watch the video one more time. Tell me if you’ve ever seen this place before.”
Jacin watched the video this time from an analytical point of view rather than emotional. It was hard to ignore the fury and hatred that stirred deep within him every time he saw Melina’s head wobble to the side after being hit. He was certain, though, he didn’t recognize the room.
“Thanks for all your help.” Rafe was obviously winding things up.
“Get me out of here.” With great effort, Jacin pulled himself into a sitting position.
“Whoa.” Rafe laid a hand on Jacin’s shoulder. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Jacin stared at Rafe then glanced to Harper. “If our roles were reversed and it was Harper who’d been kidnapped, would you allow a few bumps and bruises to keep you from the woman you love?”
“Fuck no.” Rafe’s answer was immediate.
“That fuckwad has my woman.” Jacin started unhooking wires. “I’m going to kill the son of a bitch…slowly.” If there was one thing the cartels had become experts at, it was torture.
When all the machines started going haywire, Jacin’s new watchdog threw open the door. “What’s going on in there?”