Chapter Sixteen

Right on time, morning broke like it had a schedule to keep. Seth groaned as one retina-searing ray of startling bright sunlight pierced the billowing sheers at his right and set his room—and the inside of his cranium—ablaze. Jack Daniels was not a good friend.

It took Seth a minute to weave his way into the bathroom and sit without falling down. There was no way he could aim straight this morning. He didn’t even try, just sat there like a woman and let the three bottled waters and one helluva lot of Jack Daniels leak out of him.

Then he remembered. He had a new friend, probably because that new friend had just lumbered up to the bathroom doorway, his lizard claws shattering the silence in the quiet shack like nail guns. Clickety. Clackety. Click. Click. Click.

“Ouch, damn it. Shhh.” Seth winced at the reptile sprawled there with his chin up in all his iridescent emerald green glory. Wow. In the light of day, the lizard was a looker, even if you could only open one eye to see him.

“You… you’re kind of handsome, you know that?” Seth whispered to the scaly gentleman. “No wonder Devereaux likes you.”

Pivoting as if he abhorred the praise, Gru scurried away in a flash of green, his head raised high and those dastardly toenails punctuating every board in his path with another sharp rat-a-tat-tat-tat.

“Do you have to be so loud?” Seth called out after him, instantly regretting the volume. Both eyes rolled back in his head. His brows lifted. For a second, he contemplated what people would say if they found him nude and dead on his throne. Not. A. Pretty. Sight.

Groaning now, because a helluva good night spent feeling sorry for yourself didn’t feel so good just because the sun came up, Seth finished his business, eased to his feet, and faced one ugly SOB in the mirror.

“Way to go, McCray,” he whispered extra quietly. “You know better, yet you do stupid stuff like this.” Ah, well. Today was a brand-new day, and for once, Latoya hadn’t come calling during the night. He’d slept straight through, and what was up with that? Even drunk, Seth hadn’t had a single, complete night’s sleep until…

Leaning around the bathroom door, he asked, “Gru? You still out there?” For having been murdered, this lizard had a lot of get-up and go. “Oh, there you are. Under the bed. You must need to rest, too.”

Seth let the creature do his thing, which had better not lead to any cleaning up of messy reptilian bodily functions, not today. Most definitely not after guzzling half a fifth of Jack. Just the thought of what he’d done to his body sent a nauseous wave rolling around Seth’s stomach. Yeah. The day after a good drunk never felt as good as the night tying it on.

Slowly, he shuffled to bed. He had some sleep to catch up on, but Gru was alive. Wouldn’t Devereaux and Scottie be surprised?

“You what?” Dev nearly shrieked, she’d whispered so loudly. If not for Scottie still being asleep in his room, she would’ve screeched. What was Cord thinking?

He came back at her with, “What else could I do? Leave her there? You don’t know half of what we were up against or what she went through.”

At the moment, they stood near her front door, as far away from Scottie’s room as they could stand. It was early morning, too early to be fighting, yet there they were. They’d both grabbed a shower, yet neither of them had had any sleep. Cord wore his standard: black jeans, black t-shirt, and work boots. She’d opted for denim summer shorts and a red tank top. But the humidity was already stifling. She’d have to turn her air conditioners on if this kept up.

Trish had returned during the night to check on Miguel and Lianna. Both were sleeping comfortably, but Seth was still gone, and the more Dev thought about what Trish had said, the more she resented all that Cord expected of her. Trish was right. Dev was Scottie’s mother first, not Cord’s.

“She’s a princess,” Dev reminded her high and mighty brother. “You can’t keep her here. The State Department will have your neck over this. Mine, too. We could go to jail! Scottie’s had a tough enough life without losing his mother. Did you ever stop and think that he could be taken away from me? That I could lose him? Damn it, Cord. You should’ve handed that woman over with everyone else.”

The veins in Cord’s temples bulged, whether in anger or frustration, Dev was past caring. Still, they were in this together. Cannibalizing each other over something they could no longer change wouldn’t help. But shit. A real Arabian princess now rested in Dev’s bedroom, sleeping on her bed while the Shepherds’ house of cards collapsed.

Reaching for every last shred of her inner calm, Dev lowered her voice and tried again. “You know how much I love you and what you do, Cord. Honest. I’m proud to serve at your side. What you’re doing is a good thing, and more people like you should be fighting this plague of human trafficking. You’ve changed my life—hell, you saved my life,” she emphasized. “You love Scottie as if he’s yours and I can’t complain, but I need to understand. Tell me why we had no choice. Why does Lianna Khadeem have to stay here?”

Cord’s jaw clenched tight and his lips pursed like they did before he blew his cool. His shoulders twitched and rolled like the giant draft horses did when annoyed by flies. He hadn’t always had a temper, but with every deployment he’d been away on, it had escalated. He didn’t often snap at her or Scottie, but she’d witnessed his men take an unnecessary butt reaming when he blew.

Taking a deep breath, Dev faced her brother. He might not like it, but he had some explaining to do.

One dark brow spiked imperiously, but at last he said, “We need to keep her off the grid, that’s why. Now drop it.”

Not good enough. “No, Cord. This is my son’s life we’re talking about. He’s my first responsibility, not you or the women you save. Tell me now. All of it.”

The man swelled with the rage. “She doesn’t want to go back, Dev. That’s why, now let it go. We have to keep her safe, so stop fighting me on this.”

Still not good enough. “Why was a princess in Montego’s basement jail to begin with?”

Cord sent her another controlled roll of flashing black eyes. “Her husband, that mother-fuckin’—”

Dev put one hand up to stop the tirade before it began. “Not in my home, Cord. Keep your voice down. Scottie’s four. He doesn’t need to cuss like a man before he starts pre-school.”

Another deep breath. Another shoulder roll. And Cord spilled. “Remember Twila Judge?”

Dev nodded. “The Hollywood starlet. Yeah. I remember her. Sort of. Wasn’t she the gal who disappeared—?”

“She didn’t just disappear, Dev. The authorities found her in a shallow grave outside New Delhi after a photo shoot, where, by the way, she was last seen with Bagani. Her fingers were missing and…” Cord swiped a hand over his hair. “Other parts were missing, too. Bagani takes souvenirs.”

Oh. My. Hell. “Is that why…? Are Lianna’s fingers…?”

Cord shook his head. “No. She was just… She’s just…”

Please don’t say raped. Dev caved and went to her big, brave brother before he could answer. She’d never seen him so pale or so undone. “She’s been tortured, Cord, I know that. Who did it? Bagani? Is he in league with Montego? Is that how she ended up with those other women?”

Cord’s chest heaved, stretching his unembellished t-shirt into a solid wall of muscle. “That’s what we don’t know yet. Right now, Wonder and Sonic are back in Varadero. Rabbit’s working as discreetly as possible behind the scenes to get diplomatic immunity for Lianna. He knows people, but this…” Cord’s throat muscles seemed not up to the task of swallowing. He turned his head to the side as if he needed to spit. Dev surely did.

“This mess has the potential to put the United States in the middle of another Mideastern war, Dev. Farraq Khadeem’s a powerful, greedy man and his reach is worldwide. When he discovers that a Saudi Prince handed his only daughter over to human traffickers, and that those men reduced her to a sex slave…” There went Cord’s hand again, his biceps bulging as he made another pass over his head. “When he finds out that we rescued her, that she’s in the States and has requested I seek asylum on her behalf…”

“He’ll be mad,” Dev stated what Cord didn’t seem able to equivocate. “So? Let him be mad. He’s the one who sold her in the first place, didn’t he? Where was his righteous indignation then?” Men!

She didn’t want to seem heartless, but surely the elder Khadeem had known what he was getting in the trade. Bagani wasn’t the king of Saudi Arabia. He wasn’t even a close relative. There was no direct blood connection between him and the ruling power. He was nothing more than the product of an in-law who’d married royalty generations back. What had Lianna’s father really needed from Bagani’s father that he’d bartered his only daughter away?

“That’s not the real problem, Sis. The real problem is the peace treaty Ambassador Miller had been hammering out between the Saudis and Khadeem. This marriage was intended to join those two families once and for all. For the last sixteen years, there’s been an uneasy peace in that part of the world, only now…”

Dev cocked her head, pissed at what men in that particular part of the world did with and to their women. “There’ll be another war, is that what you’re trying to tell me? Oh, my hell, I am so freakin’ surprised. Another war in the Mideast, what a shocker. Like we haven’t heard that before. Khadeem sold his only daughter when she was a three-year-old, Cord. For Christ’s sake, pull your head out of your ass. If there’s to be another war, it’s on his head. Not hers.”

Cord turned deathly still. “Understood, Baby Sister, but you’ve never been to war, have you? You’ve never seen what I’ve seen, and you sure as hell have never had to do what I’ve done. So back your self-righteous shit up and think for a damned second. Who gets to clean up behind Bagani and Khadeem when this shit blows sky high? And it will, trust me. It sure as hell won’t be Soldier Boy.” He stabbed a thumb into his chest. “Hell, no. They might’ve been first into Iraq back in ninety-one, but it’ll be Marines like me who hit that desert this time around. Marines. You feel me? My brothers and my sisters!”

Dev took a step away from Cord, never more aware than at that moment, that her brother, her hero, the guy she’d always believed could do anything, had suffered greatly during his time served. Yet he’d never let it show. Never talked about it. He’d just kept on keeping on. Stepping up for one more deployment. One more push back against the evil in the world. Always fighting the good fight. Which had now come to her front door.

“How did you know Lianna was there?” she asked quietly, needing to defuse the tension before Cord punched her wall or something. “Or did you already know? Was finding her there with those other women just a coincidence or did you have prior knowledge?”

“I knew,” he blew out on a sigh. “I have a man inside Montego’s organization. George McCray hired him. That’s how we know when to go in and when to lay low. He feeds us the numbers, how many women, how many guards on shift, and when the women are the least guarded. He tells us when they might be moved, only now…”

Shit. Dev hung her head, overwhelmed and underpaid, overworked and underappreciated. “Let me guess. You have to go back to Varadero for him. You can’t leave him behind. Do you even know his name?”

“Julio Juarez.”

That name meant nothing to Dev. “He’s not one of your guys?”

Cord shook his head. “No, he’s a fool who works undercover. Used to be a SEAL, I think. Not sure who he works for now. Nobody knows.”

Dev swallowed hard. The United States had been going to war to bolster other countries’ economies and borders or to right their wrongs, for so, so long. In the name of freedom, Marines, soldiers, airmen, and SEALS had become the world’s police force, ever ready to fight for the cause of capitalistic greed in the name of democracy. Why now? Why again? It didn’t seem fair that honorable young men like Cord should feel obligated to put their lives on the line over and over again.

Standing here in front of her was the reason Dev did what she did. Because of her brother. Yes, she truly cared about every last woman and child he’d saved, but they never would’ve made it to her house without Cord’s and his men’s dogged persistence and their bone-headed courage. She herself wouldn’t be standing there arguing with him if he’d been anyone else. It all came down to the brother she loved and that crazy, hard-as-nails USMC heart beating in his chest.

“What do you need me to do?” she asked on a breath of resignation.