“You think they got out somewhere and we just didn’t see the exit?” Marcus asked Cade. They had been walking for what seemed like hours. They were both winded; the gas in the tunnel earlier had left them with pain in their lungs and the decreased oxygen down in the tunnel didn’t help.
“No, we’ve been watching the whole way. There was absolutely nothing that looked like an exit. Plus,” Cade said with a grimace, “I’m pretty sure this is Billy’s blood trail we’ve been following.” He sighed, both glad Billy was still moving and extremely pissed at him for taking off on his own. “They just got a jump on us.”
“This tunnel could go on forever.”
“It could, but I somehow don’t see Dominguez as a guy that likes to spend much time walking, much less in a dark, underground tunnel. I’ll bet he gets all those muscles of his in a gym…a home gym.”
“That would be a shame,” Marcus said lightly, “considering he has huge fields of opiates he could take his morning and evening strolls in.”
Cade laughed, which prompted a coughing fit. When he was finally able to stop coughing, he said, “I’m in love with her.”
He was in front of Marcus and couldn’t see his face, but he knew him well enough to pretty much hear the smile on his face when he said, “Who?”
“Shut the hell up. You know who. You all think I don’t know that you discuss my personal life behind my back every chance you get.”
Marcus laughed. “It’s not all about you, boss.”
“If I die down here, make sure she knows that, okay?”
“Now you shut the hell up. None of us are dying, here or anywhere else. Just think about what a wreck poor Nate would be on his wedding day if one of us were missing.”
Cade chuckled. Marcus was right. Nate would blame himself even if it had nothing to do with him at all. “Well, for Nate’s sake, I’ll try to survive,” Cade said with a smile. Then feeling that pang in his chest that he got when he was missing Bobbie he said, “Just do me a favor and promise me. I should have told her myself before I left.”
“Hell yeah, you should have. One thing I’ve figured out is that none of us know how much time we have left, and those of us who run around the country chasing criminals know even less. I never leave Sadie and the babies, not even for a minute, without telling them that I love them.”
“Let me ask you a question. Do you think Bobbie and I will be doing our son a disservice, maybe even messing him up, by taking him away from the people that have raised him since he was born?”
“He’s what…almost four?”
“Yeah. He’ll be four in about a month.”
Cade heard Marcus sigh. “You know, the unfortunate thing about raising kids is that you worry every day that you’re going to do something that will screw them up. But in the end, the only thing that matters is that you’re a family and you love each other. He will probably have some trouble adjusting at first…but he’s still a baby. He’ll probably forget it all by the time he’s grown. You just have to love him hard…at least, in my opinion.”
“I think…” Cade suddenly stopped talking and walking. He held up his hand to signal to Marcus to be quiet. He’d heard something, but he wasn’t sure what it was. A silent second passed before he heard it again…it was a man’s voice. It sounded like a faint echo off the walls. Cade started moving again, but slower and careful not to make any noise. Marcus was moving behind him, or at least he assumed that he was. He wasn’t making a sound either. Marcus used to freak him out a little when they were kids. Cade had never known anyone that could move so soundlessly. Billy, as big as he was, ran a close second. Cade hoped that meant he’d gotten the drop on Dominguez and whoever was with him.
They followed the sound of the voice until it got louder and when they were close enough to make out the words, Cade stopped walking again.
“Fuck. You.”
He almost smiled. Billy’s voice sounded like he was exhausted, in pain, or both, yet he was still as defiant and foul-mouthed as ever.
“You’re not so bright, are you?” That was the voice that had spoken to him and Marcus earlier in the tunnels. It was Dominguez. The next thing he heard was a cry of pain from Billy and then a string of curse words that a sailor would have been proud of.
“Now,” Dominguez said in a calm and controlled voice. “I’m going to ask you one more time before I put a bullet in your head. What does Cade Travers love most in the world? Because you see, when my friend, the dearly departed Agent Simms told me that your team was coming after me, I didn’t have a lot of time to research. What I found out about Cade Travers is that he’s a workaholic and, besides the four of you who work for him, a loner. He doesn’t seem to have any relationships or family. Not that I was able to find on such short notice. If you give me a name, just one, I’ll let you live. If I was sleeping with that hot little pop star you’re seeing, I’d want to live to see another day.”
Mentioning Joy set Billy off again and Cade saw their opportunity. While his friend was rattling off curse words that even he had never heard before, he and Marcus moved in. They passed through one opening with guns drawn, but no one was there…it was after they went through the next opening that they saw Dominguez with his gun pressed to Billy’s temple. Everything happened quickly after that. Marcus and Cade didn’t waste time asking any questions. Marcus took out the two big guys with semi-automatic rifles. They were standing with their backs against the wall and didn’t have time to even react before Cade took out Dominguez with one shot to the head. His death was instant and there was no time for his body to react and pull the trigger on the gun he’d held to Billy’s temple.
“Jesus!” Billy said in a hoarse voice. “Talk about showing up during the final hour.”
Cade walked over and checked to make sure Dominguez was dead. Marcus was doing the same with the two men in the corner. When he looked down at Billy, he had a sarcastic retort planned. But Billy was looking up at him with a deep cut over one eye while the other was swollen shut. His cheeks were swollen and bruised and his bottom lip was split. Most pathetic of all was his right arm. The sleeve was saturated with blood from his shoulder down and his exposed fingers were caked with it. If there were any part of his face that wasn’t bruised, he had to be as pale as a ghost. He’d been losing blood for hours.
“I love you, man,” was what Cade said instead. That garnered him a shocked look from Billy, who looked over at Marcus.
Marcus smiled and shrugged. “He’s trying something new.”
“Alright,” Billy said slowly, “I’ll play along until the kissing starts. I love you too, man. But this shoulder hurts like a bitch. Can you untie my hands please?”
********
Agent Simms never regained consciousness before he died. Cade was disappointed at first. He wanted so badly to ask him one question…why? Simms had been a respected and decorated Army Ranger. He’d retired with rank and he’d gotten the job with the DEA almost immediately. He had a wife and two children. His record was immaculate, so it was driving Cade crazy trying to figure out what would have made him work for a man like Dominguez? He also struggled with the fact that Simms didn’t try to save himself that day. Cade and Marcus smelled the gas and immediately tried to make it to the door. Simms had lain where he was, breathed it in, and died. It was all confusing and disturbing. But as much as his investigator’s mind wanted to figure it all out, when they all got home from Colombia, he had a lot more to deal with.
Nate was flown home first, along with Angel, by Cade’s associate who owned the life flight service. He was taken to the San Antonio University Hospital and within a day of being back in Texas, he regained consciousness. That was a week ago and he was scheduled for release already that day. Angel never left his side and once he was home, his mother didn’t either. Billy liked to think his fast recovery was because he was back in Texas. Grant joked that it was because he had two stubborn women who weren’t going to leave him alone unless he did. Marcus wrote it all off to love. Cade didn’t care what the reason was, he was just so grateful that his youngest and morally strongest team member was going to be okay…especially since his wedding was only two weeks away.
When Nate went home, Cade tried to send Billy as well while the rest of them stayed behind to sort through the red tape of all that happened while they were there. Of course, he was too stubborn to go. He was given three pints of blood at the hospital the day they took him in. It was the same amount of blood that he had given to Nate. Billy met the man that donated the blood. He was a Colombian farmer who lived in a small village in one of the nearby jungles. He only spoke Spanish and crazy Billy told everyone that now that he had the man’s blood, he could understand it…fluently. Joy was the only one not amused by that. She was mad as hell at him when she found out that he’d gone off on his own after a Colombian drug cartel leader. The last time Cade saw them, they seemed to be working through it. Joy wasn’t crazy about Billy’s job from the beginning, but she was crazy about him. Billy told Cade just the night before that Sadie was going engagement ring shopping with him the next day. He was going to wait until after Nate’s wedding, so as not to steal their thunder, but then he planned to propose.
Marcus was just happy to be home with his wife and their twin babies. He was in his element in Blossom Hill, in the little cabin they lived in up in the foothills. When Marcus and Sadie married, he’d lived way up in the mountains where he’d lived all of his life, except for the stint he spent in the Navy SEALs. He didn’t have internet or television or even a phone.
Sadie grew up in town and living without those things would be hard on her. She also worried that their children wouldn’t develop social skills and have the tools they needed for a good education if they raised them on the mountain. That was what really convinced Marcus to move. He didn’t want his children to grow up and then have to struggle to relate to people as adults, the way he had. He had agreed to move into town, but Sadie, who knew he wouldn’t be happy there, came up with a compromise. They found some land in the foothills, far enough from the beaten track that they wouldn’t be in the center of town, but close enough that they would have all the amenities and be within walking distance of the school their children would attend someday…the same school that Cade, Marcus, Billy, and even Nate had attended for a little while.
Their Bostonian friend Grant was still prone to wearing clothes that the other men loved to make fun of, and having his hair professionally done. But he also fit right into their little town and Cade didn’t doubt that Grant and Rosa would be married next. Rosa had blossomed from an abused woman who was frightened of almost everything when she first came to town into a strong, integral part of the community and one of the best mothers that Cade had ever known. Grant was as much in love with her daughter Ariana as he was Rosa and he often talked about legally adopting her someday. Cade couldn’t think of any little girl that deserved a father like Grant more than Ariana and it made his heart happy to realize at the ripe old age of 33 that there were such things as happy endings.