Several hours later we were rudely woken up by a harsh rapping at the door. I groggily checked my phone, feeling like I’d been up all night drinking, my brain fuzzy and my eyes sore. I had been up all night, but for once in the past week, it hadn’t involved any alcohol. Derrick stirred next to me and fumbled on the nightstand for his glasses. He slid them on and stood up, his taut butt flexing as he strode toward the door.

“Uh…boxers?” My voice sounded like a chain-smoking frog.

He nodded and grabbed them off the floor, pulling them on before heading to open the door. And there stood Chase, big and tall and handsome as hell, with a grisly scowl on his face but also three steaming cups of coffee.

His eyes snagged mine and then drifted a little lower before quickly flying off to the corner of the room. Oh shit, I was naked, and the sheet was not covering my chest. I hastily wrapped it around myself and then hightailed it to the washroom, emerging a few minutes later in some sweats and a hoodie.

“Here,” he said gruffly, thrusting the frothy mug into my hand. “Show me the stuff.”

I took the coffee willingly and cupped it in both hands, while Derrick wandered into the bathroom and retrieved the bag and envelope from the toilet tank. I glared at the Ziploc full of contraband. I could be in prison right now because of that bag; I wanted to destroy it and anyone associated with it.

Chase set his mug down and took the bag, examining it and its contents. He nodded once. “It’s Fentanyl.”

“Fuck!” I took a sip of my coffee to steady my nerves and quell my building rage. “What about the cash?”

“Most likely drug money. Haven’t figured it all out yet, but we’re getting close.” He nodded again. “I’ll go back to the airport with you guys, just to be on the safe side, okay?”

He set the bag down on the bed. “Is there anything that you’ve had on you the entire time? During every encounter and attempted theft?”

I scrunched up my nose and bit my lip, trying to think. “My passport? I’ve kept it on me this entire time. I have one of those small discrete money belts. But I didn’t want people watching me go in and out of it for money, so I just put my passport in it, tuck it under my shirt, but I don’t take it off until I go to bed.”

His lips twisted in thought. “And was it ever not on you?”

I went to shake my head but then stopped. Shit! I nodded. “Yeah. I spent nearly a week in Panama City, and they had pretty decent security at the hostel I was staying at, even offered to hold your passport in their safe, so I left it with them.”

“Let me see your passport.” He held out a big hand the size of a Christmas ham.

I went into my backpack and retrieved the small money belt, unzipping it and pulling out the blue- covered Canadian passport. He took it from me and started flipping through the pages, and then suddenly he stopped, reached into his back pocket and pulled out a Swiss Army knife. Then he proceeded to dig with expert precision, using the tip, along the spine, and a little chip, about a quarter the size of my pinky fingernail, popped off.

“That is how they’ve been finding you. These fuckers are dangerous if they went to the length of putting a tracker on your passport.”

“Fucking Eduardo!”

Chase nodded. “Fucking Eduardo, indeed.”

I had hoped that finding out how they’d been able to locate me, even up in Cusco, would be some kind of closure, but instead, it just stoked the burning rage inside me. And now more than ever I wanted to go bust a cap in some Panamanian hostel worker’s ass.

He tossed it to the ground and stomped on it until it crumbled beneath his boot. I tried to sigh in relief, but couldn’t. We all grabbed breakfast in the hostel dining room, and then after Derrick and I packed up and checked out, we loaded into the car that Chase had hired and set off for the airport.

“Shit!” Chase spat as we turned a corner around one of the many, identical stone buildings. Cusco was an old-world Labyrinth. Everything looked vaguely similar; there were dozens of tiny side streets and alleyways. I’d guess even the locals got lost from time to time.

My head whipped around to look out the back window. “What? What’s wrong?”

“We’re being followed,” he said blandly, his face blank, though his eyes held a murderous gleam, as if he were preparing for battle.

“You’re sure?” Derrick asked, spinning around to look behind us.

Chase nodded. “Yeah, we’ve been deliberately driving around aimlessly for the last ten minutes, and that car behind us has always been no more than two car lengths away. We’re being followed.”

My eyes darted between Chase and the driver, and then back to Derrick and then to the car behind us. Its windshield was tinted, so I couldn’t see the driver.

“What are we going to do?” I asked, panic in my voice, not only for my life, for Derrick’s life, and Chase’s and our driver’s life, but also because, well, we had to catch a plane in a few hours. I wanted to get the hell out of this place, and the only way I could do that was by getting our asses to the airport on time.

Chase murmured something to the driver, and then we took a hard right around a corner, my body whipping across the bench seat only to get slammed in the chest by the seatbelt. Derrick’s hand came out, and he caught me, even though I didn’t need to be caught. “You okay?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine.” Our vehicle came to a sudden stop, and both Chase and the driver got out. The driver, whom I hadn’t caught a glimpse of until now, was just as big as Chase, maybe bigger, and had the most luscious head of shaggy blond surfer-bum hair. He caught my eye as he walked past my window and flashed me a panty-dropping grin before he and Chase continued walking behind the SUV. “What the hell are they doing?” I asked, unbuckling my belt so I could pivot around in my seat completely.

“Get back in your seatbelt!” Derrick ordered. “If they all of a sudden come rushing back in and gun it, I don’t want you getting hurt.” My head snapped up to his face at his harsh tone, and even though his voice was rough, his eyes held sadness, a plea almost, if I wasn’t mistaken. He wasn’t really telling me to do something; for once, he was asking me, practically begging. I did as he asked and buckled my belt.

“What do you think they are doing?” I asked again, more cautiously this time. Something was going on in his head. He’d shut down last night after we’d talked about what was going on between us. Right after I’d told him I was heading home today, he had a chip on his shoulder again, the walls were back up, and he wasn’t letting me in, so I needed to tread lightly.

He ground his molars together. “I don’t know, but you need to duck down.” He did the head push, only there was nothing sexy about it, forcing my body to double over, my head in his lap. He draped his coat over my body until all I could see were his big booted feet on the ground and darkness. Damn, even his coat smelled amazing. I grabbed the edges of it and pulled it tighter around me, so it felt like Derrick was protecting me, and not just his coat.

Suddenly there was a loud and jarring noise outside, and on instinct I threw the coat off me and sat up, coming face to face with Chase and the blond guy duking it out, punching and kicking street-fighter style, with two men in leather jackets and ripped jeans. Chase and his companion had at least a hundred or more pounds on their opponents, but where the bad guys lacked strength, they made up for it in dirty fighting. Both had knives and were wielding them around like swordsmen.

“We have to help them!” I turned to Derrick, whose eyes were as wide as dinner plates. “They could die!”

He grabbed my head and pushed it back down into his lap, snatching his coat off the floor and throwing it back over my head. “They’ll be fine; they’re SEALs or Joint Task Force or something…though I’m going to guess Chase and that blond guy are Black Ops. They seem too funded to be Joint Task Force.” He shook his head and turned back to look out the window again. “Those guys out there are after you, Piper. If they see you, you’re in trouble. So stay hidden and keep quiet.”

I did as I was told, the grunts and snarls of the fight outside making me jump and wince. The sounds of fists hitting faces making me cringe and pray that it wasn’t Chase or his friend’s face. There were sirens off in the distance, but they were growing closer; someone had called the police. But if the police in Cusco were anything like the police in Lima, we were better off getting out of Dodge and taking off. We heard some more grunts, a cry of pain, and then suddenly two car doors opened and slammed shut, followed by the engine revving. And then we were moving again. I motioned to pop my head up, but Derrick’s hand was pressed firmly down on my neck, keeping me in place.

“They’re going to follow us, aren’t they?” Derrick asked.

“There were four of them,” the driver said, his voice was a lot more chipper than Chase’s, so it was easy to tell the difference. “We incapacitated the first two easily, as they were unarmed, but the other two proved to be more challenging. It’s only a matter of time before the cops come after us and/or they all come to track us down.”

“So…what do we do?” Derrick’s voice was a boon of comfort above me.

“We’re going to get you guys on a plane out of here,” Chase said. “We’ll make sure the guys know Piper doesn’t have the envelope. We’ll dangle it in front of their face if we have to. And then you two board your plane, and Heath and I will take care of the rest.”

Heath, the driver’s name was Heath. I liked that name. It was strong but friendly, just like him. I pulled the edge of the coat off my face so I could see out, my head still snuggly in Derrick’s lap. “Hi, Heath.”

He turned around for half a second in his seat and flashed me another giant smile. “Hi, Piper, nice to meet you.”

Chase made an irritated noise in his throat. “They’re together. Stop flirting.”

Heath gave Chase a mock face of surprise. “I wasn’t flirting. I was simply saying ‘hello.' He smiled back at me again. “Ignore my asshole brother. He’s always this grumpy. Probably because he hasn’t gotten laid in like forever. Dude, I keep telling you, there are some lovely women down in Mancora, and you don’t even have to pay for them. They’ll sleep with you for free because they want to. You just tell them you have a big willy and say something dirty to them in Spanish and they’re chomping at the bit to get your pants off.”

Derrick snorted above me, while Chase shot his brother a deathly stare, but Heath was all grins and started laughing. That’s when I noticed the red, what would soon be a big ugly bruise on his cheek, and the cut lip. I took in Chase’s appearance, and he was a tad beaten up too, but I’d guess the other guys looked a whole lot worse.

“All right, we’re here,” Heath said, the car coming to a stop once again. “Alejandro Velasco Astete International Airport.”

Derrick’s hand on my neck relaxed, and I started to pop my head up, grateful that we’d managed to make it to the airport with only a minor inconvenience along the way. The only thing left was getting inside, getting on the plane and then getting the fuck out of this country.

I was just reaching to unbuckle my belt when I looked out the window past Derrick and saw it. A car coming full speed and straight for us.

“Look out!” I cried, but it was too late, and the medium-size sedan, which was going a million miles an hour, or so it seemed, T-boned us on the passenger side, right where Derrick was sitting.

I screamed as my body was rocked and jostled around the SUV, the world spinning out of control around us as the car did donuts in the parking lot. When we finally stopped, I took a quick ten-second inventory of my limbs and body; nothing felt broken. I could move my neck, my arms and my legs; everything was good. Then I looked for Derrick. He was slumped unconscious in the seat next to me, a gash on his head from some broken glass, but otherwise, he seemed okay. Chase and Heath both moaned in the front seat, but I saw their bodies moving, and neither had flown out of the vehicle. We’d all been belted in. We were all okay.

“Everyone all right?” Heath asked woozily.

Chase groaned. “Yeah.” His head lolled to the side, but he opened his eyes, and they still seemed bright and aware. “Piper, you all right?”

“I am, yeah. Derrick’s unconscious, but I think he’s okay. He has a gash on his head from broken glass—”

“They’re coming,” Heath said, cutting me off.

Chase sprang to life in the front seat and then spun around to face me. “When I say ‘go,’ you grab your bags, and you and Derrick go. You run for the airport as fast as you can, got it? You hide until your flight is called.”

I swallowed and nodded, gently tapping Derrick’s cheeks to wake him. “Come on, Derrick, wake up. You need to wake up.” He stirred slightly, and then one eyelid lifted just a fraction. Oh, good, his pupils weren’t dilated; he didn’t have a concussion.

“What happened?”

“We were T-boned.” I tore the bottom piece of my undershirt off and held it against his forehead to stop the bleeding. Head wounds bled like a bitch.

Noises outside the car caused my head to spin around, and then Heath’s door was opened from the outside, and fast and angry orders in Spanish were barked. I heard Heath’s voice, and he was speaking perfect, fluent Spanish back.

I saw the handle on my side of the car move and hastily locked the door before anyone could get in. Derrick’s door was completely smashed in and useless. The only other way out would be through the sunroof or the hatch in the back.

“When I say ‘go,' got it?” Chase’s eyes locked on mine. I nodded. He gracelessly crawled over the gear-shifter and into the driver’s seat and then outside. We heard more arguing in Spanish, and then my door was unlocked from the outside by the fob. I knew that it was either Heath or Chase and didn’t bother to lock it again. Instead I continued to try and rouse Derrick, grabbing both of our backpacks from the back seat and strapping them to our backs, thanking God for tinted windows and that no one could really see what I was up to.

“Derrick, you need to be ready to run. When Chase says go, we have to jump out and run for the airport, okay? Can you run?” He nodded and then blinked a couple of times as he winced and put his hand to his head.

“Yeah, I can run.”

They were still arguing, loud voices and heated threats, and we heard more fighting, fists colliding with faces, followed by loud and close-by sirens. The flashing lights of the approaching police sent a frisson of fear up my spine, settling at the base of my skull. And then, suddenly, my door opened, and Heath was standing there nodding and telling me to get out. “You guys need to run.”

I shook my head. “I…I was told to wait until Chase said ‘go.’”

He nodded impatiently. “Yeah, well, my brother is currently otherwise occupied.” He helped me climb out. At that moment, I saw Chase being handcuffed at gunpoint and led away by the Cusco police.

“What the hell is happening?” I made to lunge for Chase, only to have Derrick and Heath both pull me back before I even took a step. Derrick seemed to have composed himself and was set to run.

“He’s turning himself in as the trafficker,” Heath said. “He’ll be okay. We’ll get him out before anything bad happens to him. This was the only way to get the henchmen off your back, keep the drugs from getting distributed and the cops from going after you guys. He’ll be fine.” He started to usher us toward the “Departures” wing of the small airport.

But I dug in my heels, my head shaking until my neck hurt. “But we can’t just leave him. You can’t just leave your brother. We need to help him.”

A firm hand came up under each of my triceps, and they flanked me, lifting me up until my feet dangled, and they carried me off into the airport.

“Do you know what they would do to you in prison here?” Heath asked gruffly, suddenly reminding me more of his stoic brother and less like the cheerful jokester he’d been earlier. He was worried about his brother as well but trying to keep it together.

I swallowed and shook my head in ignorance.

“Chase is way safer going to prison here than you are. And if you try to help him, you’ll end up in prison too. He’s trained in this…he’s a…” Heath paused for a second, considering his words. “And you’re a foreigner. You’re a woman. You’re beautiful.” He sucked air quickly in through his teeth. “That doesn’t mean I don’t think you’re tough as nails…it’s just, well… He can hold his own, I promise. I’ll even have him call you when he’s free, okay?” We stepped inside, and they finally put me down. I shot them both a menacing glare. Heath’s mouth twisted, but he couldn’t quite muster a smile. “Get on the plane, Piper.”

Derrick grabbed my hand. “We need to go.”

I clenched my jaw and looked up into Heath’s eyes; they were the most intense midnight blue I’d ever seen, with flecks of white, like stars against the backdrop of a crystal-clear night. “You have him call me.”

His mouth jerked again at the corner, and this time he managed a small smile. “I will, I promise.”