Stranger Mine: a Base Branch novel Read online

  But not even static crackled the comm-link.

  Ryan’s gaze scanned the area. Not a person in sight. The main house flashed like a pre-cut diamond among dirt. A fancy pad that didn’t belong in the middle of the desert. Truth be told, it didn’t belong anywhere. Too much everything. From the multi-level cascading arch, terracotta roof, and the six-bay garage to the perfectly manicured flowerbeds surrounding the mansion, it screamed Beverly Hills—not Sonoran Desert hills.

  Ten seconds past midnight and still not a word. Apprehension niggled. He studied the circular drive of brick pavers at the back of the house, meeting the garage at the side, and snugging up to the makeshift jailhouse. From earlier visits he knew the front of the house also boasted a paved circular drive. It all made a fancy highway system with gravel walkways and bits of bright green grass between.

  “Team Alpha go.” Khani’s voice sounded over the airwaves. Ryan released the breath he’d held on lock-down.

  Khani Slaughter, his sometimes partner, sometimes head honcho, transferred from the UK division six months ago. She’d said the move was to stay close to her brother, Zeke, who’d taken a spec-ops job stateside, and to get back in the field. The move had given Commander Tucker some dependable back-up while he was away on business and gave him the option of vacation. Not that he’d have shit to do without the job. However, rumor had it she moved to avoid someone very specific.

  Right now, the tall beauty was set to attack the biggest drug trafficking organization in Mexico’s history, the Sinaloa Federation, with a handful of elite warriors and an army behind them.

  After the other four teams gave the go-ahead, Ryan gave his. “Zeta go.” And he went. Hard and fast.

  3

  Piper had always hated running. Amazing how circumstances changed a person’s point of view. She’d give Émile Gabrone’s left nut to run ten miles without slowing. Shoot, she’d give that for nothing at all. But Lord, she wanted to run full out. To inhale fresh air. To feel the dry heat slap her in the face. A smile spread across her sweat-slicked mug. One more interrogation and she’d have everything she needed. Then she could do away with the bastard. The only decision left was how she wanted to end his atrocious life.

  The chain clanged in time with her hops. Maybe she’d choke him to death with her jump rope. Jump chain, really. The makeshift exercise tool worked to a point. Double-unders were out of the question. She’d already beamed herself on the forehead too many times to count. A whack on the shin hurt ten times worse. As a result, her timing and jumping skills had grown ten-fold in the last two months.

  Damn good thing she didn’t have big boobs. She’d have been hard pressed to craft a makeshift bra. The scrap of fabric holding the end of her ponytail and the pile of shirts she’d stuffed into another for a pillow stretched the limits of her crafting abilities.

  When her count reached five hundred, Piper leaped out of the arch like she played Double Dutch with her sisters, Sparrow and Ivy. Only in this game, she turned one-hundred-eighty degrees, grabbed the links with both hands, and tugged, shifting all her weight to her left leg. The metal cuff bit into her right wrist. Blood seeped from the scabs ringing her upper hand, but the crimson didn’t pour like it had when they were fresh. Ten feet of quarter-inch torus links swirled and danced in the air. The dull metal finally shuddered to a uniform line from her hands to the U-bolt protruding from the cinderblock wall.

  She walked toward the wall, allowing the chain to bow low then pool. Pitching forward, she let gravity take her face first to the gritty slab and caught herself, palms flat, in the plank position. If she ever made it back home, she could always open a gym. She could cater to a specific niche—people with ten feet or less of workout space. She needed a job. And she mastered the ten-foot workouts six weeks ago. Welcome to Master Vega’s ten-foot gym. The mortgage on the place would be bearable, even for California real estate.

  Her arms burned at one hundred. By two hundred they seared. But what the hell else did she have to do until Gabrone returned? Not a damn thing. At three hundred and fifty-four, she froze and kicked an ear toward the thick metal door across the room.

  Pop. Pop. Pop.

  She shouldn’t be able to hear in the soundproofed room. Yet, her senses had honed over time. When she was the lone occupant and when she wasn’t singing at the top of her lungs or rattling chains like an old haunt, she could hear the gravel outside the door crunch under approaching boots, and more times than she liked to remember, she’d heard gun shots.

  The number of shots usually coincided with the number of men who tried to feel her up or fuck her. If they were stupid enough to get close, she made sure they left the guesthouse—as she liked to call it—with a broken bone. A nose. An arm. Finger. She’d have loved to bite the cock off of the big son of a bitch that threatened to shove it between her lips earlier, but his compadres had convinced him to stick to the job. Damn it.

  Maybe Gabrone came back early and caught wind of it? If she went by the shots, three of them got tapped between the eyes. For some extremely incomprehensible reason, Émile Gabrone had claimed her as his own without actually claiming her body. Which wasn’t something she’d looked forward to by any means, but it was something she’d mentally prepared for…as much as a person could. Aside from the chain and seclusion, the man treated her like a queen. He wanted her to love him. He wanted them to grow old together. So, he wooed her. Captive style. Every night he arranged for a bath and fresh clothes to be brought in for her and privacy for the task. Every day brought three meals. Nothing fancy, but she wouldn’t complain. She didn’t have to cook the food or clean up after. Except for the whole no-coming-and-going thing, she had it made.

  4

  Ryan didn’t even like surprise birthday parties. He sure as shit didn’t like surprise goons. Five extra men stood between him and mission success. Double the number he and the planning team had expected. Sweat rolled down his face, trickled the length of his torso, and tickled his inner thigh. Killing was hard work, especially when the targets were trained killers themselves.

  Holstering his sidearm, Ryan grimaced at the three bodies littering the hallway, then stepped back into the office. He slipped the knife from the body slumped across the paper-strewn desk and truly hoped the clerk was the last of them. His forearm quivered with exhaustion and his stomach gave a sympathetic shudder.

  I kill so the good may live. That the light may equal the dark. That the world maintains her balance.

  Breath blew through his lips in a calming pull and push of his lungs as he recited part of the creed, the foundation, of the Base Branch.

  While he reminded himself he wasn’t a bloodthirsty monster, he kept an ear on the doorway. His eyes scanned the computer screen. “Mother fucker.” His entire body clenched in pure rage, obliterating his bid for serenity. The force of his blow gouged the tip of his blade into the cherry wood. “Why the hell else would they need five extra guys, Noble?” He raged at himself, since the rest of them were dead.

  When most people thought about gangs and cartels, they imagined haphazard chaos. In reality, they kept better records than the IRS. They knew where every cent came from and where it went. Sure they lost shipments and payments in transit and at the border, but they knew exactly how much, who stopped their money from getting back to them, and where they lived.

  Ryan read the flat screen monitor once more to make certain he hadn’t lost his mind. Too bad he hadn’t. The open spreadsheet had several columns, but two interested him most. Type and date. The type jumped back and forth between goods, which meant drugs, or cargo, which meant people. They had a shipment of cargo due to arrive in two days, not two weeks like their source had said. This meant the cargo had already been gathered, whether by coercion or force, and were en route.

  The hands on his watch flipped him the bird, telling him he had fifteen minutes to set the charges and leave. Not even enough time for all the C-4 in his ruck, but still enough time to exert maximum damage to the facility. His conscie
nce wagged its finger. For the truckload of women it wouldn’t matter that the Sinaloa lost their leader and several key buildings in their network. Time and disorganization would eventually eat at the cartel, but for a while things would run as though nothing had changed. The cogs El Chapo placed long ago would continue turning until they caught up with the news, realized their leaders dropped like the stock market, and that their guaranteed payments were no longer a sure thing.

  Doomed from the outset. Ryan tried to convince himself that the women on the truck were doomed regardless of his actions, but he didn’t believe himself. Ever the loyal soldier, he shoved the unease aside, stowed his knife, and slung the ruck onto the table. He had a mission to complete and a HELO to catch.

  He set six charges in the main house, which boasted a kitchen fit for Easton Wells. During the short time he’d visited his old partner, Sloan, in London, the butler she’d married into had whipped up the meanest meals of his entire life in a kitchen this size. Too bad none of these thugs put this kitchen to proper use. They had no problem utilizing the eight bedrooms and nearly as many bathrooms. The fuckers had all the amenities you could ask for, and in the middle of the desert no less. Even a pool table and a flat screen big enough to make him weep.

  In the detached garage, he skimped, only setting one on a blacked-out Suburban and one high on the back wall.

  Time check. Six minutes.

  Ryan bolted, churning the gravel and kicking up dust as he cleared the forty yards between the garage and prison. A spotlight from the main house centered the only entrance and exit on the twenty-by-thirty shed. Had it housed tools or lawn equipment, the building itself wouldn’t have held menace, but knowing thirty or more people per delivery had been crammed into the meager confines at near constant intervals over the last five years made the tan metal structure a house of horrors.

  He could place four charges on the exterior walls and call it good. Even with no one inside, the thought of seeing the inside of the clandestine jail chilled the heated skin of his nape. Guilt would eat at him whether he went inside or not. Why haunt himself further with images that would be so similar to the alternate lockup where they’d send the next shipment?

  Two balls of explosive clay warmed in his hands. When he stopped, the structure loomed overhead like a monster. Ryan extended his hand toward the corner and placed one ball on the exterior where one point of structural load met the corner post. He slipped a charge from the ruck draped over his chest and pressed the metal end into the pliable material.

  “You fucking coward.” His own voice sounded harsh to his ears.

  Why could he kill people? Stare a bullet, blade, or bully in the eyes and never blink, but not speak his fucking mind? If he wasn’t going to radio the commander and tell him to hell with his plan, if he wasn’t going to tell his mother he’d had enough of her running his life, then by God, the least he could do was face down the interior of a building and rig it to blow into a million tiny pieces correctly.

  Ryan’s hand slid over the L-shaped handle and yanked the lever toward the ground. The blasted thing only budged an eighth of an inch. Locked. He didn’t have shit for time to find a key, and he didn’t feel like getting shot by ricochet. His size fourteens glistened as he raised his knee to his chest. Ignoring the blood, Ryan slammed his heel into the metal. Once. Twice. The third blow sent the handle skittering over the rocks. With a flip of the locking mechanism, he opened the door and hung in suspended animation for several heartbeats.

  Of all the times for his cock to rear its head, staring into the wary brown eyes of a woman chained to a wall was the worst possible time—even if the sight of her made his heart race as though he’d just completed a HALO leap out of the cargo hole without his chute. Thank the extraction gods he’d been trained in high stress, and even higher danger, situations for the last seven years. Finally the experience kicked his ass into gear.

  “My name is Ryan Noble. I won’t hurt you.” He spoke in Spanish, using as gentle a voice as he could muster while the lower half of his body attempted mutiny. “I’m going to place some explosives. Then I’ll release you.”

  Her back remained rigid against the gray cinderblock wall. Leanly muscled arms peeked out from a white tank. As though they had also bound her legs to her narrow chest, her knees nearly grazing the bottom of her chin. Fear may have hidden someplace deep inside her sweaty exterior, but curiosity and suspicion ran the schooled set of her square jaw and alert eyes. Her gaze followed his boot treads through the door and to the far wall opposite the cleat securing the length of chain to the wall.

  “Where is your home? How long have you been here? How were you captured? What’s your name? Are you injured?” In an attempt to alleviate the guarded furrow of her brow and gain some information, he talked while he worked his way toward her, placing charges as he went. Yet, each inquiry collided with stony silence.

  On the wall nearest his surprise guest, Ryan averted his gaze to the creamy clay in his hand. He observed her through his periphery and posed the same questions again in English, and then Portuguese. Irritation worked his jaw as he tossed the remaining explosives into his pack, zipped it, and slung it onto his back. Ten feet away from the captive, he crouched to give her space and protect himself.

  One last time he asked his questions, using sign language. It was worth a try. The set of her almond eyes and the slope of her pert, rounded-tip nose spoke to no other possible heritage. Dark brown hair, nearly black from the wetness, snugged to her head in a plaited braid obscured by her position. The natural tan of her complexion said Latin American. Luscious lips that didn’t fit the sharp box of her regal jaw pursed in the first hint of reaction since he’d laid eyes on her.

  But again she didn’t speak. Ryan glanced at the gray face of his watch. No more time to waste. He stood. “I’m going to release you. Can you run?” Again, no response. Warily, he stepped over a defined ring of dirt piled in a semi-circle around her, like she’d claimed her territory and used the tiny mound as a Do Not Enter sign.

  On his spin around the sparse room he hadn’t seen any place to hide a key, and like the lock on the door, he didn’t have time to search for one. He’d have preferred to use his boot on the U-bolt, but the thing hitched at chest level to the gray brick. He wasn’t that flexible. Ryan pulled his assault rifle from his neck and used the butt as a hammer, ramming the curved metal in a series of vicious down strokes. The bolt proved more difficult than the door handle, bending yet refusing to break. He slung the gun over his shoulder and grabbed the chain with both hands.

  Rounded links grew teeth and gnawed his palms as he heaved heavenward. For once, pumping stacked bars of weights instead of beautiful woman seemed worth the ungratifying effort. The U bent like slow-moving taffy, defying gravity. When he released his grip, red stained the creases of his left hand. He wiped his palm over the only clean spot he found on his fatigues, switched his grip, and tugged the crooked U toward the floor. Finally one side broke away. The jagged, patterned edges scraped the link as he shimmied and jerked it off the end.

  “If it’s too heavy, I can help carry the chain. We have to move. Now.” Ryan shoved his right arm through the strap of the M4 dangling around his neck then crouched within kissing distance of the woman’s gorgeous face to gather the heap.

  The brunt of her bare forehead slammed into the bridge of his nose with blinding speed and instantaneous, brain-numbing pain. He teetered on the balls of his feet and fought the urge to grab his nose. His left hand shot for the wall while his right covered his sidearm. A few hits he could take. A bullet, not so much. His experiences with them hadn’t been all that great, and he’d rather not deal with one ripping his skin apart in the middle of the desert.

  Ryan braced for the next blow, but it didn’t come. She apparently had no damn trouble toting the weight. The tinny chain rattled its way across the room and out the door in a matter of seconds. Urging his eyelids open, his vision met with watery blurs of light. He coaxed the tears from his e
yes with swipes of his fists, but new moisture gathered like Stephen Strasburg fans at the end of a Nationals game.

  Screw it. He was on his feet and running before the world presented itself to his hesitant vision. Luckily he’d oriented his brain to the room enough before impact that he knew where the door stood and remembered the drop to ground level. Following the incessant rattle of chains, he reached mid-yard before his sight returned. Sharp copper tang seeped into his mouth and he spat the blood onto the stitch of grass before leaping onto the deck.

  When he reached the open back door, several things struck him at once. Thankfully none of them was a bullet or a forehead. Number one, why was he chasing after a woman who attacked him when he should be high-tailing it in the opposite direction? Two, did he look dangerous? It may sound vain, but based on the reviews he’d collected over his sexual prime, he was a charismatic eye-catcher. Not someone who elicited fight-or-flight instincts. Not from women anyway. Third, if it turned out her loyalty sat with the Sinaloa, would he kill her? Fourth, if he ran like a world-class marathoner, didn’t trip on a land mine and end up critter chow, would he make his damn extraction on time?

  5

  “Should have prayed for wisdom, amor.”

  Sierra Vega’s voice sing-songed in Piper’s head. She dismissed the harpy drone of her mother’s go-to phrase. She’d heard it enough already. Every time things didn’t go her way. Or her sisters’ way. But hell, why had she prayed to run? Of all things?

  Here you go, genius.

  She thanked her father for her long legs and churned them out of the guest cottage. Until this blew over, she needed a hiding spot. Desperate to quiet the rattle, to conceal her location, Piper spread her fingers as wide as they could stretch and hugged the mound of chain to her chest. No way in hell would she chance a bullet hole running away with that lunatic. No way would she run into the arms of the Sinaloa grunts. Only Gabrone could make this right.