“Why are we here?” Van sat back, eyes glinting like razors.
Tate didn’t owe anyone an explanation, so he decided to throw Van’s words back at him. “It’s the right thing to do.”
“Good answer.” With a wolfish smile, Van turned to Cole. “So tell me, hot shot secret agent, what happens if we leave the neighborhood?”
“Don’t call me that.” Cole pushed off the window ledge and knelt beside the map, pointing at an intersection of streets. “We entered the neighborhood here. Remember the men who approached the taxi?”
Tate nodded. The armed thugs had shared words with Cole through the open window. Since Tate didn’t speak Spanish, the short conversation had been abstruse. But when Cole slapped some bills in their palms, the gist was clear. Cole had paid an entrance fee.
“When I came here six weeks ago,” Cole said, “I made a deal with the gang that patrols that corner. Had to work my way up to the boss to negotiate safe passage. Which means that as long as I pay a toll each time I enter, they won’t throw a grenade in my car window. But that only works for me. The gang boss doesn’t know you.”
“So what you’re saying is, if we leave the neighborhood…”
“You won’t be able to return. And one more thing…” Cole scratched his stubbled cheek. “Matias Restrepo doesn’t have any sway here. Badell has more resources, more men, more guns, more everything. I’m not saying not to call him if you need help. Just don’t expect a fast and successful rescue. It would take him weeks to get his men into this neighborhood, and coming here would be at a huge risk to his cartel.”
Fucking great. Not that Tate intended to call him, but it had lingered at the back of his mind like a security blanket.
Cole glanced at his watch. “Lucia should be home any minute.”
They moved to the window, and Tate trained the binoculars on the entrance of the alley, his entire body wound tight with nerves.
He’d only seen her in photos. And that vile video. How would his first encounter with her go? What if there was nothing more to her story? No redeemable reason for her involvement with Badell?
No matter what happened, he would have to tell Camila when it was over. Christ, he wanted more than anything to be the bearer of good news.
Dusk began to move in, making the gloomy street all the more gloomier. The woman who was robbed earlier was still sitting on the curb, hugging her knees to her chest.
Five minutes later, a feminine silhouette emerged in the alley. He didn’t need the binoculars to see her, but he used them anyway, dialing in on her face.
The pale illumination of the moon haloed her head, giving her glossy raven hair an earthshine effect. The graceful curve of her neck, thinly arched brows, deep smoky eyes, and cheekbones so sharp they could draw blood—it was like staring into the face of Queen Nefertiti, one of the hottest women who ever lived.
Fuck him, but she was compelling. A living work of art. It wasn’t just her beauty that arrested him. It was the way she moved, as if cutting through water with finesse and purpose. Not a single motion wasted.
Her black pants and sleeveless top looked painted on, her lips full and parted as she breathed through each seductive stride. Then her chin lifted, and her gaze scanned the top floor apartments, pausing on the one he was in.
Breathless, he lowered the binoculars and stepped back.
“She can’t see us,” Cole said beside him.
Tate pressed a hand against the glass. During Cole’s previous stay here, he’d installed one-way window film. Even with the interior lights on at night, it was supposed to make the apartment look dark and vacant.
Sure enough, her attention quickly moved on.
“Let me see those.” Van grabbed the binoculars and trained them on Lucia. “Not bad. Objectively attractive, in a male model sort of way. Looks like she skipped a few too many meals. I prefer women with more meat on their bones.”
“You’re so full of shit.” Tate snatched the binoculars. “Your wife weighs a hundred pounds soaking wet.”
“Amber’s a fucking knockout, and if you mention her again, I’ll chloroform you while you sleep and hang you by an ankle from the ceiling with a thirteen-inch dildo shoved up your ass.”
Tate stared at him and blinked.
“Too soon?” Van asked.
“Yeah, Van. Fuck.”
“You two are giving me a headache.” Cole leaned a shoulder against the glass, staring down at Lucia. “We all know she’s a solid ten. Eloquent yet cute. She’s…”
“One of the billions of women who wouldn’t touch you with a fifty-foot pole?” Van grinned.
“I was going to say…” Cole squinted at him and returned to the window. “She’s beautiful in an innocent, unintentional way, and she knows how to use that to her advantage. Something to think about when you make contact.”
Tate raised the binoculars as she breezed past the sobbing woman on the street. The woman leapt up and said a string of words while chasing Lucia to her apartment door.
As the woman continued to speak, her body language grew frantic in her efforts to get Lucia’s attention. Without looking at her or acknowledging her in anyway, Lucia unlocked her apartment and shut the door in the woman’s face.
“Cold,” Tate muttered.
“Listen to me.” Cole stabbed a finger at the window. “Out there, every single person is your enemy. Remember that.”
“I get it, but that lady was just—”
“Trust. No one.”
Tate touched his brow to the glass and exhaled. Fuck this place. What on earth would compel Lucia to live here?
The distraught neighbor finally went inside her apartment, and a few seconds later, Lucia’s door opened. She stepped out and locked up again.
“Where’s she going?” Tate asked.
“I don’t know. She never deviates from her patterns.” Cole took the binoculars from Tate and watched her stride down the alley in the direction she’d just come. “She changed her shoes.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. She always carries two compact 9mm Berettas in her waistband and always wears the same black heels. She had the heels on a second ago.”
Tate hadn’t noticed those details. Because he’d been too enamored with the rest of her.
“She’s wearing flat-soled boots.” Cole handed the binoculars to him. “The guns are still at her back, wedged in her waistband.”
As Tate validated that, Van said, “Wherever she’s going, it’s too far to walk in heels.”
“We need to follow her.” Tate glanced at the door, calculating the logistics of tailing her.
The main entrance to their apartment building opened on a different street, a block over from Lucia’s alley. It made coming and going without her detection easier, but circling the exterior of the huge complex to catch up with her would take a few minutes.
“We’re not going anywhere.” Cole paced away from the window, headed toward the open kitchen. “You can’t see them from the window, but her guards are watching. They’ll see us coming from a mile away.”
Hard to argue. They didn’t exactly blend in. At Cole’s suggestion, they’d packed plain clothes—jeans and t-shirts—and ha
dn’t shaved in over a week. But the whiskers didn’t hide their Caucasian complexions and pale eyes. The three of them didn’t just look American. They looked like Marines on an undercover mission.
Given the total absence of body fat on their muscled frames, Cole and Van clearly shared Tate’s dedication to working out. If they strolled down the street together, the locals would notice.
But Cole had a plan for everything. A local woman would deliver groceries and necessities at a scheduled time every week. Vetted and paid handsomely, she would guard her job with the utmost discretion. In the meantime, they would be cooped up in the tiny one-bedroom apartment until Cole gave them the green light to venture out.
In the kitchen, he lifted a long duffel bag from the table. When they’d arrived at the apartment, the first thing Cole did was pull the bag from one of the tiles in the drop ceiling in the bedroom.
He set it on the coffee table and unzipped it, revealing an arsenal of firearms, knives, and high-tech gadgets. “I collected this stuff during my previous visit here.”
Made sense. It wasn’t like he could sneak an assault rifle into his carry-on.
“When we eventually go out there,” Cole said, “you’ll be fully armed and armored.” He held up a black t-shirt from the bag. “This is bullet-resistant.”
“What?” Tate reached out and touched what appeared to be high-quality cotton. “No way.”
“I was shot in the chest wearing something similar.” Cole lifted the hem of his shirt, baring flawless skin over washboard abs and sculpted pecs. “The bullet broke skin. Fractured ribs.”
“No scar.” Tate couldn’t believe it.
“The bullet didn’t enter my body.” Cole pulled another shirt from the bag and tossed at Van.
“Badass.” Van held it up to his chest. “Machine-washable?”
“Good luck finding a washing machine.” Cole laughed and nodded at the view beyond the window, where laundry hung from sagging balconies from one end of the alley to the other.
Who cared about laundry? Those shirts, though… If they could really bounce bullets, they were worth their weight in gold.