Chapter Fifteen
Saint ‘Pete’ Young
Pete breathed through the fire in his lungs.
Rafael Quintero was very dead.
His sister Mia was safe in Idaho with her husband, Cole.
The man couldn’t hurt anyone anymore. But that didn’t mean the unspeakable things Rafael had threatened to do to Mia had stopped waking Pete up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat.
Threats that Pete couldn’t shake even after he’d ended the man making them.
Rafael was the reason Pete had pushed Mia out of the organization she’d helped build.
The team still had safe houses around the world.
There were still women and children occupying some of them.
Women who had escaped domestic violence, who were still getting on their feet.
Those houses would be available to them for as long as they needed.
But Mia going out on missions and helping the women and getting them safe—that had ended the day Rafael threatened to violate Mia in such graphic detail, Pete had thrown up after he’d slowly and meticulously carved out Rafael’s insides. And it wasn’t the disembowelment that had made him queasy.
Pete had also lied to his sister and Cole and told them he and Mason, Fallon, Aiden, Ryan, and Gavin were officially retiring and concentrating on the Dirty Plank, the bar they owned together.
Not that he was under any illusion she actually believed him, it was just she was so loved up with her husband, she hadn’t called him out on it.
Pete looked across the room, caught his best friend’s gaze, and saw the same revulsion in Mason’s eyes.
Mason was the only person Pete had told what really happened in Mexico.
The rest of the team knew Mia had needed an extraction when she’d caught the attention of the wrong people.
They knew she’d reported Rafael had possession of a seven-year-old little girl.
And they knew what that meant, and why Pete had used himself as bait to be captured.
Further, they knew Pete had taken out the warlord, but they did not know how or about the threats.
“What about him?” Mason casually asked.
That calm, cool tone was deceiving. Mason adored Mia like a sister. If it hadn’t been Pete in Juárez, Mason would’ve hung the warlord by his balls and taken his time torturing him.
Tom’s gaze found Pete’s. With a lift of his brow, the man nonverbally asked a question.
“My team knows I took him out. He’s dead. Why are you bringing him up?”
“Do you know what happened to his crew after you left?”
“You mean after I rescued his prostitutes, most of whom were children?”
Tom held up his hand in surrender and, for the first time since he’d entered the room, showed emotion.
That being extreme disgust.
Maybe he wasn’t a total prick after all.
“I’m not condemning your actions. I’m asking you a question.”
“Other than checking on the safe house we have in El Paso, I haven’t been near Juárez since I left. Why?”
Tom shifted his gaze to Berta and gave her a small nod of respect.
“Rafael’s cousin, Carlos, has taken over.
He knows you took out Rafael. He knows Mia was in Juárez, and why .
. .” He let that hang. Undoubtedly for dramatic flair.
The prick wanted a favor and bringing up Pete’s sister was a surefire way to get his attention.
“Carlos has put out feelers as to her whereabouts.”
Goddamnit.
That was going to be a problem, and not just because Mia could be in danger.
Stopping Cole from going out on the hunt to put Carlos down was going to take no small amount of effort.
But if Pete couldn’t talk Mason down, shit would turn catastrophic.
There was taking out a threat, then there was Mason off his leash.
No one threatened to harm the people Mason loved without swift retribution that assuredly would turn messy.
On the contrary, Pete’s reckoning would be carefully planned and executed in a calculated manner.
Before Pete could question how Tom had come to this intel or why he hadn’t shared it earlier, the man went on, “Carlos did away with the loans, kept the gambling, but only because he can get payoff in trade.”
That was not shocking nor surprising. Taking out warlords was like a game of Whac-A-Mole. One goes down, and two others pop up.
“And he’s expanded his stable,” Tom finished.
Pete didn’t have to ask if Carlos’s stable of prostitutes included children.
He knew it did. The disgusting truth was there was a market for fresh young girls, and he’d learned a long time ago that the only way to survive in his line of work was to remember the people he saved, and not all of the ones he couldn’t.
It was the only way to keep a sliver of sanity.
“Explain why you sent Catarina to Honduras to find Berta and give her bogus intel,” Jack demanded.
“Because I need her expertise to find a woman for me, and she needs access to Berta’s network.”
From across the room Jack made a strangled noise, clearly not pleased with Tom’s request.
“Cut the shit, Tom. You said you needed all of us in the room for this conversation. Not just me and Berta. And if that was the case, you could’ve told me that in Virginia. This isn’t about me or Berta. It’s about Pete and his men. Spit it out already.”
Pete stopped his lips from twitching, but just barely. Catarina Keys was something else. She reminded him of his sister, but more ballsy. Jack was a lucky man.
“I need Saint and his team to go back to Juárez with you.”
“Who is this woman?” Mason asked.
“Calista Ventura.”
“Dios mío.”
Everyone’s attention went to Berta. The woman looked ravaged.
“How long, Tom?” Berta seethed.
“Three weeks.”
“And you did not call me. Instead you . . .” One of Berta’s hands came up and swept the room. “Set this up.”
“I can’t have any involvement in this, Berta. None. If the CIA knows I’ve breathed a word of this, I’ll be prosecuted for treason.”
Treason?
“Why doesn’t the CIA want this woman to be saved?”
Tom looked uncomfortable for a moment before he said, “Because she’s an enemy of the state.”
Well, that didn’t mean shit to Pete. If the government knew what he and the team did, they’d consider them felons. There was this gray area where the real world happened. The place where good people did bad things for the right reasons.
“What’s she accused of?” Fallon joined in.
“Murder.”
Again, that meant nothing; murder was up for interpretation. The deceased was not always the victim.
“Who did she murder?” Pete took over the questioning again.
“A senator’s aide.” Tom paused, then under his breath mumbled, “And two other men.”
Well, shit on a shingle.
“If she’s wanted for the murder of three men, why are you helping her?”
Tom seemed to be considering his options.
Berta had obviously grown impatient. “Calista is a brave woman. Young, still learning how to be patient and when it’s time to strike.
Many years ago, her older sister was taken.
Her family searched and searched. Years passed but she never gave up hope.
Then her sister was found overdosed in Berlin. ”
“She was trafficked,” Catarina noted.
“Yes. Calista has made it her mission to bring awareness but also to rescue and return victims home. Much like what Saint here does. These women need a champion, a savior, and she has a beautiful soul, so she’s decided that savior will be her.
She reminds me of you, Catarina. Mia too.
Brave. Strong. But not as smart. She wants to save the world, not just those she can.
“I have counseled her and warned her; if she continues on her path, she will drive herself mad. But for her, they are all her sister, someone’s sister, possibly someone’s mother, and she cannot see past it.
I also warned her to be careful in Juárez.
She wasn’t ready for the danger that lurks there, the evil. They are devils preying on the weak.”
Pete didn’t have to look at Catarina to know she was all in to rescue this woman. The same as he didn’t need to look at Jack to know the man was in danger of a stroke.
Berta made her position known. “You may use any and all of my resources to find her.” She stopped and scooted to the edge of her chair.
“But hear me, Mr. Washington, this is your only warning. Don’t ever play games with me again.
And don’t ever set a young woman in harm’s way to get my attention.
Yes, I got word there was a brown-haired, doe-eyed American who was ripe.
Yes, I had my people in Tegucigalpa trying to find her before she got hurt.
But anything can happen, and she could’ve gotten hurt.
There are other ways to get what you want.
Never again, or our arrangement is over. ”
Tom looked properly chastised but not sorry.
“Why is Calista so important to you you’d risk your freedom, Catarina’s life, and Berta’s censure? Not to mention, drag me and my team into this?”
“Her father saved my life.”
Pete studied the man. That might’ve been true, but there was more to it.
“We can sit here all day and play this game; it’s not someone I care about in the hands of a madman,” Pete said. “Or you can stop wasting my fucking time and tell the truth.”
“That’s the truth,” Tom lied.
When no one spoke, Tom looked at Catarina.
“After you left the Marshals Service and became a free agent, I looked into you and your last op. I knew about Las Vegas. I knew you had a connection to Jack, and I knew Jack worked with Pete. I knew what happened in Juárez, and that Mason would be all in to take Rafael’s cousin down once he learned of Carlos’s interest in Mia.
If Mason’s in, Pete will have his back, and I’d have an off-the-books team to rescue a woman I care a great deal about.
I used you to get to them and Berta. I’d apologize for that but I’m not sorry.
I’d do anything, including betraying my oath, to save Calista. ”
“You’re a fucking dick,” Jack growled.
“I’m more than that, Jack. But right now, I’m a man desperate to save a woman.”
Goddamnit.
Pete knew what was coming before it happened.
“I’m in,” Mason readily agreed.
Tom had been right; Mason was all in. If he couldn’t get his hands on Rafael, the cousin of the man who’d threatened the violation and murder of Mia would do.
Pete had come to understand his own demons and how to tame them.
Mason had no interest in taming the beast within.
This was going to get messy.