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Brock didn’t turn, just shifted his position slightly to see the reflection she’d noticed. His body language stayed relaxed, but she felt the tension coil through him.

“I see them.” His hand moved to his phone, typing a quick message to Nate while appearing to check the time. “They’ve been tracking us. Probably since we left the resort this morning.”

Elena’s stomach dropped. Of course. The cartel had eyes everywhere in this region. They wouldn’t have needed to know which specific shop—just follow them through the shopping district and wait for an opportunity when they were separated from the crowd.

“We need to⁠—”

It happened fast.

The shop door chimed. Three men entered—not the two from outside, but different ones. Younger, harder, moving with purpose. The shop owner started to greet them, but one look at their faces made the words die in his throat. He retreated behind his counter, very interested in his inventory all of a sudden.

Elena’s hand went to her purse where she kept the small pistol Brock had given her, but she never reached it.

The nearest man moved like a striking snake. His hand clamped over her mouth while another grabbed her arms, yanking them behind her back with efficiency. She tried to scream, tried to fight, but a third man was already there, something sharp pricking her neck.

“Silencio,” he hissed in her ear. “Or we inject you right here.”

Brock spun, but two more men had appeared, blocking his path. He started forward anyway, but one pulled back his jacket just enough to show the gun underneath—not drawing it, nothing that would cause a scene, but the threat was clear.

“She comes with us,” the man with the syringe said calmly in English. “You follow, we kill her and disappear into the crowd. You stay here, count to sixty, maybe she comes back. Maybe.”

“Elena—” Brock’s voice was strained, his hands up, every muscle screaming to fight but his training telling him this wasn’t the moment. Not with a needle at her throat and guns trained on both of them in a shop full of civilians.

They were already moving her backward toward a service entrance she hadn’t noticed. The whole thing had taken maybe fifteen seconds. The shop owner was staring at his feet, pretending he saw nothing.

Elena met Brock’s eyes as they pulled her through the doorway, saw the fury and fear there, tried to tell him with her expression that she’d be okay, that he’d find her.

Then the door closed and she was in a dim corridor that smelled of old grease and rotting produce.

“Move,” one of them said, shoving her forward.

They went through a kitchen—a restaurant she hadn’t known was connected to the boutique—and out another door into a narrow alley. A white van waited, engine running, back doors open.

Elena’s training screamed at her not to get in that van. Once they had her in a vehicle, her chances dropped exponentially.

“No,” she said, planting her feet.

The man with the syringe smiled. “Yes.”

He moved the needle toward her neck, and rough hands shoved her forward into the van’s dark interior.

Brock counted to five—not sixty, but five seconds to let them think he’d comply—then burst through the service door, his hand already keying his comms.

“Nate, they took her.” His voice was controlled despite the panic clawing at his chest. “Five men, white van, heading out of the alley behind Calle Tercera. I’m in pursuit on foot.”

Nate’s voice came back immediately, all business. “Copy. Got your text—we’re already in position. Eden’s on the parallel street, I’m one block east. What direction is the van heading?”

Brock crashed through the restaurant kitchen—startling a cook who dropped a pan with a clatter—and burst through the back door into the alley just in time to see the van’s taillights disappearing around the corner.

“Van turning right onto Avenida Juárez, heading east toward the main shopping district.” Brock was already running, his combat boots pounding the pavement. “Heavy foot traffic, they’ll have to slow down.”

“There’s construction on Quinta Avenida,” Eden’s voice cut in. “They’re tearing up the street—down to one lane with barriers. If they go that way, they’ll get stuck in traffic.”

“I’m cutting through the market,” Nate said. “I can intercept at the construction zone.”

“I’m coming from the north,” Eden added. “Brock, you push from behind. We box them in.”

Brock poured on speed, weaving through pedestrians, vaulting over a café barrier, ignoring the shouts of surprised tourists. Through the gaps in traffic ahead, he could see the white van crawling forward, trapped behind a line of cars.