Chapter 28

Devolin

“You’re heading to Mexico today?” It didn’t make sense. I hadn’t even gotten the results of my latest triangulation efforts and the new vectors I’d mashed into my algorithms. If that didn’t work, I wasn’t quite sure what my next recourse would be.

“When Brycen can’t sleep, he works,” Dalton said, as if that served as a suitable answer, all the while pouring each of us a travel mug of coffee. It didn’t, so I looked over at him while I buttered our breakfast toasts. “He went in early this morning only to find your system going off.”

“Motherfucker!” Surprised at this news, I dropped the knife into the margarine container, then spun around to face him.

“Listen—”

My excitement got the better of me. “It worked?” I took the coffee he offered me as he nodded. “It actually, freaking, honest to God worked?”

“Dev—”

“I didn’t think I’d have a chance in hell with what you all gave me for the search parameters. The algorithms I had to modify to—”

Dalton lost his patience. “Fuck your algorithm talk, woman. Quit rambling like a lunatic, finish up because we need to get out of here.”

My mouth snapped shut, lips pressing tightly together. Disregarding his snippiness, I folded our toast in napkins, walked over to the couch. Shouldering my purse, I turned to the short-fused man. “Well, you coming or what?”

The man smirked as he approached. Grabbing me around the waist, he kissed the dickens out of me before leaning his forehead to mine.

“Sorry for snapping.”

“It’s okay.” I tilted my head back and swiped his lips with mine.

“Let’s go,” he growled against my mouth.

The morning had flown by in a whirlwind of activity.

Men were walking around with what I’d dubbed their game faces on. They all looked so threatening.

It wasn’t until I saw Dalton, Theo, and Tate come out of the conference room discussing firepower, shells, night-vision goggles, and a slew of other items that I didn’t quite know about, that reality started to sink in.

These men were taking off to save Minister Wentworth’s fiancée. My supposed soon-to-be-aunt to be more precise. The man himself had only given me three other aunts over the years. Each one younger than the one before. But Dalton didn’t know this. It wasn’t important in the grand scheme of things. What was, however, was that these men stayed safe and came back unharmed.

And I was part of that operation.

I wasn’t sure when it was that I’d forgotten that I would be assisting these men from HQ. Men who’d come to mean the world to me, despite my lingering skittishness. Men who would enter a crime-ridden country, infiltrate a cartel undetected, and rescue a woman who’d been kidnapped because of my fucked-up cousin and politician uncle’s shady dealings with that same cartel. I’d read up and done my research on the Juan Cartel and its many chapter leaders: Enrique Ortiz specifically. Getting caught would surely mean war. They wouldn’t be safe down there. Hell, I wasn’t sure if they’d ever be safe again if Ortiz ever got his hands on their personal information. Fuck, this whole thing was insane and a massive clusterfuck waiting to happen! I could feel it.

Panic struck me in that instant.

My breathing became choppy. My hands grew cold and sweaty. If I had a mirror, I was sure the color had drained from my face.

Is it hot in here?

“Babe?” Dalton sounded far away.

Why is the room spinning?

“Sweetheart?”

“She’s gonna drop, D.” This came from Theo.

Within seconds, I felt the warmth of Dalton’s arms picking me up, then I gave into the darkness that seemed to have crept up on my periphery from nowhere.

I came to in Dalton’s office, cradled against him on his lap.

“You’re back,” he murmured against my temple. “How are you feeling?”

I didn’t want to tell him that I was freaking out, although I figured it was pretty evident. I didn’t want to say that I felt guilt for leading my uncle to Dalton and his team in the first place. If it hadn’t been for me, Dalton wouldn’t be going off on this potentially deadly mission. I also didn’t want to tell him that I thought that we’d missed something. Something crucial. Something that made me doubt my capability for this operation, despite his utmost confidence in my skills.

No, I didn’t tell him any of that.

He needed to focus.

For himself.

For his team.

Pasting a smile on my face, hoping to all hell that I was convincing enough, I looked up at him and said, “I’m okay. Just a little overwhelmed is all.”

He didn’t seem entirely sold on my reassurances, if the expression on his face was anything to go by. “You’re sure?”

I nodded, then leaned up and kissed him.

I would be fine.

I had to be.

I would be the pillar of support the team needed. The eyes and ears to their brains and brawn.

I wouldn’t fail.

Because failure was not an option.