32. Chapter 32
Chapter thirty-two
Isabella was dead asleep by the time I slipped out from beneath her.
Somehow, I managed it without waking her.
I pulled a blanket over her and stood beside the bed for a moment, watching the slow rise and fall of her breathing. Her dark hair spilled across the pillow, and the lines of worry that had been carved into her face since bullets started flying in the compound had finally disappeared.
Good, she needed the sleep, and I needed to find out what the hell had happened while I’d been chained beneath the Salvadoran coffee farm.
After dressing, I eased the bedroom door closed behind me and headed toward the main cabin.
Nik was focused on his laptop. Rory sat across from him with a tablet resting on one thigh, while Gabriel occupied another chair with a drink in his hand. Lucian stood at the bar, pouring whiskey into a glass.
Four heads turned when I walked in.
Nik’s eyes traveled over me once. “You look considerably less tense. And by the sound of it, Isabella has been thoroughly distracted from her panic.”
“Fuck off.”
Gabriel laughed into his drink.
Lucian held the whiskey out to me. “Take this before he gets worse.”
“Finally, someone useful.”
I accepted the glass and lowered myself into an empty seat. My ribs gave a dull protest, a reminder of Marcela and the men who’d helped her—and the accounts I still had to settle with anyone who’d survived.
Lucian noticed and didn’t comment, which made him the only man on this plane with the good sense not to give me shit.
“She asleep?” he asked.
“Aye. Out cold.”
“That’s good. After everything you two have been through, I’m sure she needed it.”
I took a swallow of whiskey and let the burn settle into my chest.
For the first time since Marcela drove that needle into my neck, I was surrounded by my own men, headed home, and finally safe.
I’d never doubted they would come for me, but a few days in Ciro’s chair could make a man question damn near anything.
I rolled the glass between my palms. “All right. Tell me how badly I fucked up your week.”
Rory leaned back. “How much time do we have?”
I rubbed my thumb along the side of the glass. “Fair enough. I’m sorry I put all of you through this.”
Nik’s expression sobered as his gaze moved over the cut on my face. Of everyone on the plane, he understood exactly what being cuffed to a chair could cost a man.
“How about I give you the short version? You were less than two minutes ahead of us in Jersey.”
My hand tightened around the glass.
Lucian sat beside me. “Rory breached the house when you didn’t respond to his message.”
“The place was empty by then,” Rory added. “Your phone was still there, exactly where that bitch wanted it. And the exterior feeds showed no one leaving.”
“She took me through the basement.”
“We figured that out.”
Nik turned the laptop enough for me to see an aerial image of the New Jersey neighborhood.
“The tracker didn’t fail. You went somewhere no implant can reliably transmit from.
GPS is useless underground, and anything small enough to live under your skin has limited power.
Yours sends an encrypted signal to our receivers, but it can’t punch through concrete and earth simply because I want it to.
The moment they took you below the house, you went dark.
The moment they brought you back above ground, we had you again. ”
“So even your expensive paranoia has limits.”
Nik’s mouth twitched. “Good. They didn’t beat the sarcasm out of you.”
I smiled into my whiskey as I took another sip.
“We found the tunnel before your kidnappers reached the exit point,” Rory said. “Once we knew where it ran, we had a direction.”
“The tracker came alive again near Hudson Air Services,” Nik added. “By the time the DarkMatter team reached the field, Delgado’s jet was already rolling.”
“Seconds,” Rory said. “We watched the bastards lift off.”
Lucian’s jaw tightened beside me.
I knew exactly what those seconds had cost him.
Nik tapped a point on the flight route displayed across his screen.
“Delgado could hide in a tunnel. He couldn’t fly an international jet without leaving a trail.
We pulled the flight plan and found the destination was SAL.
Comalapa. Lucian was in Boston, so I called him as soon as we knew you’d been taken. ”
“I was airborne for New York within minutes. By the time I landed, Nik already had men moving, and within hours we were on our way to El Salvador.”
“The problem wasn’t getting into the country,” Nik said. “The problem was getting close to Delgado without announcing exactly who we were and what we wanted.”
“He had the place locked down,” Rory said. “Airport people, police, locals—men willing to take his money and others who were simply afraid of him.”
Nik nodded. “Your tracker gave us a few intermittent hits after the jet landed, then went dark again once they moved you into the mountains. It gave us a region, not an address.”
“Did you ever figure out where Delgado’s compound was?”
“Eventually.”
Nik’s fingers tapped once against the laptop, and a map displayed the location. The compound sat buried inside a maze of mountain roads and dense forest. No wonder they’d had trouble getting close without announcing themselves.
“We turned enough local people to narrow the area. By the time Ciro made his proof-of-life call, we already had a scouting team watching the finca from outside the perimeter.”
That surprised me.
“You were that close?”
“Aye,” Lucian answered quietly.
“Close enough to know you were in hell, but not close enough to get you out cleanly.”
The proof-of-life feed came back to me—Ciro standing beside the chair, Marcela climbing onto me in front of the camera, my brother and Nik on the other side watching it happen.
“We had the assault team ready, but then Marcela shot Ciro on a live fucking feed and the entire compound started eating itself.”
Lucian leaned forward, forearms on his thighs.
“We had no clear picture of who was loyal to Ciro, who belonged to Marcela, who was trying to get the hell out, or how many civilians and workers were caught inside. Going into unfamiliar mountain terrain with multiple armed factions shooting at each other would’ve been chaos.”
“And chaos is not a plan,” Rory added.
Lucian nodded. “Especially when the hostage we came for could’ve been moved. Once the feed died, we had no confirmation that you were still in the dungeon. If we stormed the compound while someone moved you out another gate, we’d be committing men to the wrong target.”
“Then your tracker started registering again farther down the southern slope,” Nik said.
“And by the time you called us from the chapel,” Lucian said, “we finally knew you were alive, free, and moving under your own power.”
I took another swallow.
“Barely.”
A notification appeared on Nik’s screen, pulling his attention back to the laptop.
“Speaking of the mess Delgado left behind, Marcela made it to a hospital. Isabella did an impressive job on her face, but not enough to keep her there. She’s already been discharged.”
I sat forward. “Where is she?”
“On the move with a man named Mateo Cruz.”
“He’s her second. I put a bullet through his upper arm before we got out.”
“Obviously, that wasn’t enough to damage his loyalty.”
“Should’ve aimed lower.”
Nik’s mouth twitched before he opened another file.
“You had other things to worry about. More importantly, Delgado’s organization is starting to split.
His senior people in the US are trying to hold the American side together while Marcela buys anyone willing to switch allegiance.
And she’s moving money so fast she’s practically lighting road flares behind her. ”
“Ciro underestimated how much she’d stolen from him.”
“So did everyone else.” Nik’s expression hardened as figures filled the screen. “She had accounts under multiple identities, crypto holdings, and access Ciro apparently didn’t know she had. Now she’s draining whatever she can reach before his people lock her out.”
Gabriel took a drink. “How much?”
“Less than she thinks,” Nik said with a smirk.
“What did you do?”
“I introduced Ciro Delgado to several highly respectable charities that he funded under a private identity.”
A laugh escaped me, earning another protest from my ribs.
“Christ.”
“He’s become surprisingly generous toward organizations helping women exploited by sex traffickers.”
Rory actually laughed at that too.
“Posthumous personal growth,” Gabriel said.
I lifted my glass. “Very touching.”
Nik ignored us. “Ciro’s death will hurt the trafficking operation. Routes will stall. Men will fight over money. Buyers and sellers will get nervous. But the demand didn’t die with him, and neither did the people financing it.”
“Whitaker,” Lucian said.
Nik’s expression went cold.
“Marcela reached out to him within hours of leaving the hospital.”
That got my full attention.
“She contacted him?”
“She contacted someone close enough to him that I’m interested. She’s moving too quickly and making mistakes she normally wouldn’t.”
“Panic.”
“And ambition,” Nik replied. “Ciro gave her access to a criminal machine she may not be able to manage, but she isn’t going to walk away from it.”
No—Marcela would crawl through broken glass before she surrendered power.
Gabriel stretched his legs in front of him. “What happens to Delgado’s estate in New York?”
Nik looked over the top of the laptop.
“Why? You shopping?”
“Depends. Good pool?”
“I haven’t checked.”
“Shame.”
I shook my head. “Burn the fucking place.”
Nik sighed. “That worked for The Sacrifice.”
For a few seconds, nobody spoke.
These men had crossed borders to find me, and I wasn’t sure how the hell to put into words what that truly meant.
“Thank you.”
Gabriel’s amusement faded, and Rory acknowledged me with a slight nod.