As soon as the vehicle took off, Maggie knew she was in trouble.

“Chase!” she cried out. With the sudden goosing of the accelerator, the open door to the back seat slammed shut. She reached for the door handle and pulled hard, but it wouldn’t open. The child locks had been activated. The only way she could get out was if someone opened the door from the outside.

She spun in her seat and looked back, praying Chase and his friends could somehow stop the vehicle and free her.

Chase ran after the car but was soon left behind as the cab shot forward, moving faster and faster. Before long, Chase stopped running and turned back to join his friends.

Despair fell like lead to the pit of Maggie’s belly. All their planning to get out of the country went up in the smoke of the burned rubber from the tires spinning across pavement. She had no doubt she was on the way to Raul Delgado, the leader of the Jalisco cartel.

Sure, she was afraid for her own life, but now that she was a prisoner, she knew Chase would come after her. He’d be tortured and killed. Possibly like the men who’d been hung from the bridge a week before.

Maggie couldn’t let that happen. In the short time she’d known Chase, she’d discovered a decent human being. A man others should be more like. A man who would selflessly defend his country and those weaker than himself. He’d come for her and put himself at risk.

Chase had faced untold horrors and risks as a Navy SEAL. He deserved to enjoy his life now that he was out of the military. She couldn’t let him risk everything to save her. She had to find a way out of this mess before Chase met Delgado at the proposed deadline.

The particular cab she was in was more modern than most. Maggie searched the interior for a weapon, anything she could use to crack a window or the unbreakable Plexiglas barrier between the front and back seats. She couldn’t reach around to grab the driver by the neck and force him to stop, but she had to get out of the vehicle before she was delivered to the cartel leader. Once in his hands, she’d be surrounded by far too many of his minions to make an escape. Escape had to be now or never.

Banging against the shield between her and the driver did nothing to make him slow the vehicle. Maggie kicked at the window, knowing her soft-soled shoes wouldn’t be effective, but she had to try. She dug in her purse for anything she could use to break the window, but all she could find was a pen and an emery board, neither of which were strong enough to break through the glass. She tried sliding the emery board down between the window and the door to trigger the locking mechanism. When the driver took a turn too sharply, Maggie lost her grip on the emery board, and it slipped out of her grip and was lost inside the door. She tried ripping the door apart, but only managed to break her fingernails. The seat had been cleaned of all objects. Not even an umbrella existed inside the confines of the back seat.

When all her efforts failed, Maggie turned in her seat and looked out the back window at the disappearing resort hotel. With no cell phone, she couldn’t call and tell them which way they were headed, and she couldn’t use the hard case of the cellphone to help her break the window. She was stuck and on her way to meet a killer.

The cab weaved between the streets and alleys, leaving the more affluent neighborhoods of timeshare condos and vacation homes and heading into the outlying areas of tin-roofed shacks and concrete-block buildings with laundry hanging from clotheslines and windows. The farther away from the beach they went, the deeper into despair Maggie sank.

How could Chase find her? He would be left with no other choice but to show up when Delgado demanded. The problem was, even if he did show up, Delgado probably wouldn’t let her go in exchange for Chase’s cooperation. He’d have Chase and no other reason to keep her alive. He’d certainly make an example of Chase to his men and everyone else in Cabo.

Her heart beat fast, and her chest hurt at the thought of Raul Delgado hanging Chase from a bridge. She couldn’t let that happen. Somehow, she had to get away before midnight and let Chase know he didn’t have to meet with Delgado. She’d find her way back to the airport, they’d catch the next flight back to the States and she and Chase would live happily ever after.

And pigs would learn to fly.

The cab weaved through narrow streets and roads, climbing into the hills surrounding Cabo San Lucas. Soon, they turned into a gated compound surrounded by high stucco walls. Armed guards stood on either side of the vehicle. The driver spoke in Spanish to them. One of them relayed a message via a hand-held radio. The staticky response came back, and the gate opened. The driver pulled into the compound, and the gate slid shut behind them.

Maggie studied the fence, the gate and the surrounding grounds, committing to memory everything she could see. If—no, when she escaped, she would have to navigate the grounds in the dark. How she’d get over the seven-foot walls, she wasn’t certain, but she’d cross that hurdle once she was free of her confinement.

The vehicle came to a halt in front of a sweeping, white marble staircase leading up to rich mahogany double doors.

The doors opened, and several men, armed with what looked like military-grade rifles, emerged and surrounded the vehicle.

Maggie forced calm to her hammering heart. She couldn’t show fear. To escape her current situation, she had to use her head. Cowering in terror would get her nowhere.

The door opened, and a man reached inside, grabbed her arm and dragged her out onto the brick paving stones of the driveway.

“Let go of me, you Neanderthal.” Maggie jerked her arm free and straightened.

Laughter sounded from the top of the stairs. A Hispanic man dressed in white trousers, a black button-up shirt and sunglasses looked down on her. He was surrounded by four men dressed in black, wearing sunglasses, radio headsets in their ears and carrying more military-style rifles.

The man at the center nodded to the men surrounding the taxi. He spoke quickly in Spanish. “Traeme a la mujer,” he commanded.

The man she’d shaken loose from grabbed her arm. When she struggled to be free, another man gripped her other arm. Together, they half-dragged, half-carried her up the stairs to stand in front of the man in the tailored, white trousers.

All Maggie could think of was how much she wanted to bloody those white trousers. The man had to be Delgado—a dangerous man, full of his own sense of self-worth, bent on retribution for being bested in front of his men.

Maggie glared at the man who terrorized entire cities and preyed on innocents. Carson had told her of how Delgado steals young girls and sells them into the sex trade, and how his thugs make millions trafficking drugs and humans across the border into the United States. She had no respect for this man. Especially when he wanted to make an example out of her husband. To hell with that. Maggie vowed to get out of Delgado’s compound as soon as possible. She just had to play along and pretend to be a poor, weak female who didn’t have a brain in her head. Then, perhaps, he’d think she was too dumb and wimpy to find a way out of captivity.

“You are the gringo’s esposa,” he said and touched a hand to her hair. “Tu eres una mujer bonita. Beautiful.” He captured strands of her blond hair between his fingers and rubbed them as if testing the texture.

Maggie longed to slap his hand away and wipe the smirk off his face. But she let her poker face fall into place, masking any emotion the man could use against her. She’d learned to play poker from her father. He was a master of poker faces and had taught her the secrets of bluffing from a very young age. Her father had made a killing in the oil speculation business by cloaking his emotions and making the best possible deals through patience and cunning.

If Maggie hoped to get out of Delgado’s compound alive, she had to use her mind. Though she was physically fit, she was no match for the superior strength of Delgado’s male entourage.

“Your esposa will be at La Casa Loca tonight. He will not want anything to happen to his pretty bride.” He clasped her chin in his grip and turned her face up to his. “But once I’m done with him, tú me perteneces. You will be mine.”

Maggie bit down hard on her tongue to keep from telling the man to go to hell.

Delgado jerked his head. “Encerrarla en la bodega.”

The men holding her arms carried her up the steps and into the house. They passed through a grand entryway and through a dining room. All the way, Maggie studied her surroundings, memorizing the number of steps, the doors and windows she could see. The place was opulent, decorated with rich mahogany furniture, expensive Persian rugs and paintings on the walls.

The men carried her into a large kitchen with ultra-modern appliances and wide granite countertops. A windowed door led off the kitchen to the outside. But it wasn’t through that door that she was carried.

Another door opened to a wooden staircase leading down into a darkened cellar with rack after rack filled with bottles of wine. At the back of the wine cellar was another wooden door, shorter, stouter and hinged with iron.

Maggie shivered in apprehension.

The men were headed straight for that little door. As they neared, Maggie struggled to free her arms, bucking and kicking with all of her strength.

The men were much stronger than she was. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t work herself free. They only tightened their hold on her until she was certain they would break her arms. At the least, she’d have bruises where they’d held her.

One man lifted a metal latch, opened the door and, together, the two men shoved her inside.

As soon as she got her feet beneath her, she scrambled toward the door and pushed against it. But she was too late. The door closed, the latch slid into place and she was trapped in a dark, cool cell beneath a killer’s lair.

“Where is my daughter?” Dwayne Neal asked as soon as Chase, Trevor and Carson entered the hotel room without Maggie.

“Have a seat, Mr. Neal,” Chase said.

“I will not sit. I demand to know what you’ve done with Maggie.” He stood his ground, his face a mottled red, his brow deeply furrowed. “Where is my daughter?”

“Oh, my God.” Gina’s eyes filled with tears, and she walked into Carson’s arms. “He got her, didn’t he?”

Chase nodded. “The cab driver took off with her before any of us could get into the vehicle with her.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket preparing to dial the only man he could think of who could help.

“What are you talking about?” Mr. Neal asked. “Why did the cab driver take off with her? Where did he take her? Who has my daughter?” He stalked across the room, grabbed Chase by the collar and got in his face. “I want answers. Now!”

Chase held stock-still. He understood the man’s rage. He deserved it. “Mr. Neal, your daughter has most likely been taken by Raul Delgado, the leader of the Jalisco cartel here in Cabo.”

“The leader of a cartel has my daughter?” Mr. Neal’s face grew redder. “You said you’d protect my daughter. How’s that working out for you? My daughter could be killed because of your incompetence.”

Chase couldn’t refute the man’s accusation. He felt the same way. If he’d gotten in first, he’d at least have had a chance of saving Maggie. Now he had no idea where they were taking her or what they’d do to her. His chest was so tight, it hurt. “Excuse me, sir,” He pushed past Mr. Neal and hurried to the bedroom where Maggie had slept, closing the door behind him.

He hit the phone number for Hank Patterson, praying he’d already come up with a solution to his problem.

Hank’s phone rang and rang. He didn’t answer. Chase stared at the phone.

Out of options, and with no help coming, Chase couldn’t stand around and feel sorry for himself. It wasn’t his way. He had to take action. If they only had three Navy SEALs, then they had to come up with a solution that involved just the three of them.

A knock on the door made him stop in the middle of pacing the floor.

Gina pushed the door open and stuck her head inside. “We need a plan.”

“I know,” Chase said.

“Any ideas?” she asked.

He nodded, a plan starting to form, but it depended on information they didn’t have. “We need to find where Delgado lives. I bet that’s where he’s taken Maggie. If we can find him quickly, we take the fight to him.”

“I’m in,” Gina said. “I can fire an AR-15. I qualified on an M4A1 rifle in Army Basic Combat Training. I shot expert every time we qualified. That brings our number up to four.”

“Against potentially one hundred cartel members?” He shook his head. “It’s a suicide mission.”

“Yeah, but you can’t go it alone,” she said.

“No,” Trevor pushed through the door. “You can’t go it alone. So, you’ll have to take us along with you. Carson left a few minutes ago.”

A stab of disappointment ripped through Chase. He’d thought the Navy SEAL would stand with them.

Trevor grinned. “Carson went to check with his contacts. They should have a good idea of where to find Delgado. As soon as he finds out, he’ll be back to take us to his place to pick up the contraband weapons he’s stockpiled.”

A wave of hope washed over Chase. Since seeing the cab drive off with Maggie inside, he hadn’t been sure he’d ever see her again. But with the help of his fellow SEALs, he began to think it might be possible. “Whatever we do, it has to be at Delgado’s place, not at La Casa Loca. I can’t imagine he’s taken Maggie to the bar. He probably has her locked up at his place. We have the rest of the day and into the evening to make this mission happen.”

“God, I hope Maggie is all right,” Gina said. “I can’t imagine how she felt being kidnapped and driven away by one of Delgado’s thugs.”

Chase knew how it felt to stand in the street, helplessly watching the woman he’d married on a whim being driven away to God knew where. It felt like crap. He’d failed her completely. All his focus now was on getting her back. Whatever he had to do. If it meant giving himself into the hands of a murderous cartel leader, so be it.

Waiting for Carson proved to be painfully tense.

Mr. Neal paced the sitting room of the suite alongside Chase. Maggie’s father called every one of his own contacts in Mexico, searching for someone who could help. No one offered assistance against the Jalisco cartel. The US State Department offered to look into the matter if Mr. Neal would go to the consular agent in San José del Cabo and file an official request. Mr. Neal told them what they could do with their request, hung up and resumed pacing.

On a couple of occasions, Mr. Neal and Chase almost ran into each other. When that happened, Maggie’s father would glare and mutter something to the effect of Chase having failed his daughter, and what was she thinking getting involved with a washed-up SEAL?

Chase held his tongue, determined to conserve energy for the fight ahead. If Delgado had an army of cartel supporters behind him, it could be a bloody battle in which he and his friends might end up dead. And if that happened, what would Delgado do with Maggie?

Chase refused to consider that as an option. Whatever he and his friends did, they had to get Maggie out of Delgado’s hands and back to her father. Until he had her somewhere safe, Chase couldn’t leave Mexico for the wilds of Montana. Hank would wait for him to come to work for the Brotherhood Protectors. He was a reasonable man with a wife and child. He’d understand Chase’s desire to protect his own wife and bring her back to a safe and secure location. If it meant taking on an entire army of cartel members, Hank would do it for his family. Chase would do no less for his wife.

Despite the fact he’d only just met the woman he married, he liked her. Hell, he’d broken all his self-imposed rules about never marrying. He would never consider leaving her at the mercy of a dangerous man as Raul Delgado.

In the meantime, he waited for Carson to return with word on where to find Delgado and, hopefully, Maggie.

Minutes later, a knock at the suite door heralded the return of Carson with the news he’d been waiting for. Maggie’s father stood beside Chase as Carson, the resident former SEAL of Cabo San Lucas, shared what little information he’d been able to attain.

“Delgado lives in a compound west of town,” Carson said. He pulled a piece of notebook paper from his back pocket, unfolded it and spread it out on a table. Someone had drawn an image of Cabo with the main roads noted and an arrow pointing to a location northeast of town.

Carson pointed to the location. “Delgado has a compound with walls seven feet high. The guy I spoke with has been inside the compound. He helped to build it and knows all the places Delgado could have stashed Maggie. He thinks Delgado will have incarcerated her in the wine cellar. There’s a small storage closet at the back of the cellar with a lock on the outside of the door.”

Chase’s fist clenched. The only reason to have a lock on the outside of a door was to imprison whoever was on the inside. When he got hold of Delgado, he’d make him pay for taking Maggie and subjecting her to being imprisoned in some dark, dank cellar.

“Okay.” Chase drew in a deep breath and looked up into Carson’s eyes. “Now that we know where he is, we’ll need your stash of weapons.”

Carson met his gaze. “You know going up against the cartel is suicide, don’t you?”

Chase nodded. “I can’t leave her there, and we can’t shoot up a bar full of innocent people.”

A slow grin spread across Carson’s face. “I was beginning to go crazy here with so much sun, sand and relaxation. I’m ready for action.”

Chase’s heart skipped several beats and then thrummed a steady, strong tattoo. Calm determination spread through him like it did with every mission he’d undertaken as a Navy SEAL. “Let’s do this.”