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“Elena,” he said. “Who is that?”
Her eyes filled with fresh tears. “My niece. Marguerite.”
“Who has her?”
“The cartel.” Her voice broke. “They’re not dead, Brock. They found me. And now they have her.”
Everything clicked into place. The panic. The duffle bag. The desperate need to run.
“They want me to give them access to the Dynamis network,” she continued, words tumbling out now. “All our data. Our operatives, our missions, everything. If I don’t, they’ll…” She couldn’t finish.
Brock’s fists clenched. “You were going to Mexico alone.”
“I have to. She’s there because of me. If I trade myself—”
“No.” His voice was steel. “That’s not happening.”
“You don’t understand—”
“I understand perfectly.” He cupped her face, forcing her to look at him. “You’re not doing this alone. We’re getting her back. But we’re doing it smart, with a team. With a plan.”
“Atticus is in Somalia—”
“Then we call him. We bring him in on this.” Brock pulled out his phone. “But first, we’re getting you patched up. Then we’re going to show that cartel what happens when they threaten our family.”
Chapter Four
More than twenty hours passed before Elena opened her eyes to glaring sunlight peeking between slatted blinds.
She was groggy, almost hungover, and it took a minute for her eyes to adjust. She recognized the secured medical facility on sublevel three of Dynamis headquarters—the private space reserved for operatives who needed treatment without questions, without records, without the outside world knowing they’d been hurt. The room was sterile white, smelling of antiseptic and the chemical scent of medical-grade plastics. Soft lighting prevented the harsh glare of overhead fluorescents, and the equipment surrounding her bed was state of the art, monitoring every vital sign with quiet efficiency. Through the window in the door, she could see the hallway beyond—empty now, but she knew armed guards stood at both ends of the corridor. Even here, even broken, Dynamis protected its own.
She hated hospitals, despite the fact that there was no better facility in the world than the one she was in. The machine she was hooked up to started beeping faster as panic took hold of her. The memories she had of hospitals weren’t good.
Her memories of the night before were fuzzy. She remembered the messages. The photo of Marguerite tied to a chair. She remembered Brock finding her, and telling him everything. She vaguely remembered Dr. Sabrina Cameron arriving, saying Elena was in shock and that her vitals were out of control. Then she remembered nothing.
She felt for the bandages beneath her chin, her IV pulling in the crook of her arm. Her right wrist and arm were covered in bandages, and she seemed to be connected to every machine possible with a tangle of wires.
“Let me out of here,” she said, trying to lift up to a sitting position.
She collapsed back against her pillow, shaky and weak. Whatever drugs she’d been given were making her lethargic. And she had a terrible headache. Her hand reached for the remote at the side of her bed, and she hit the nurse call button.
“You rang?” Dr. Sabrina Cameron said, coming in with a chart in hand. “I was wondering when you were going to wake up. You obviously needed the sleep.”
Sabrina was in her mid-thirties, with dark hair pulled back in a neat ponytail and intelligent amber eyes that missed nothing. As both a trauma surgeon at Dallas Memorial and Dynamis’s medical director, she’d seen her share of broken people. She wore navy scrubs and a white coat, her movements efficient and graceful—the result of years in the Navy followed by a demanding surgical career.
Elena had always respected Sabrina. The woman was Atticus’s wife, brilliant and compassionate without being soft. She’d patched up countless Dynamis operatives and never asked questions they weren’t ready to answer.
“I was drugged,” Elena said. “Not exactly a refreshing night’s rest.”
“It was nothing but a local anesthetic,” Sabrina said. “Combined with your overall exhaustion, though, you probably feel like you’ve been run over by a truck.”
“I’ve got a terrible headache.”
“You’ve got to take better care of yourself. Why haven’t you told anyone you’re having nightmares and flashbacks? If you think PTSD is something only cops and soldiers suffer from, you’d be wrong. What happened to you isn’t something that’s just going to go away if you don’t deal with it.”
“I’ve dealt with it,” Elena said stiffly. “My body healed. I went to counseling. Now I really need to get out of here.”
“Elena…” Sabrina said softly.
