Sam started over, his brothers on his heels. Sam waited for the engine noise to die before addressing his team leader.
“What the hell happened? Where’s Garrett?”
“He needs medical,” Rio said. “There’s a clinic about thirty miles out. It’s safe.”
“That’s stupid,” Ethan cut in. “We can get him on the jet and take him home to a hospital there.”
Rio shook his head. “Not going to happen.”
“You want to explain why?” Donovan asked.
A dilapidated old van creaked onto the tarmac and drove noisily over to where the chopper had landed. Rio motioned to Terrence, who ducked into the helicopter and came out a moment later, a woman curled into his arms. He carried her toward the van while Sam and his brothers watched in confusion.
“Is that Sarah?” Donovan asked. “Was she hurt too?”
Rio shook his head. “Look it’s a long story and one I’d love to tell you, but right now we need to get Garrett out of here.”
Sam glanced at his brothers and then nodded. They hurried over to the helicopter to see Garrett lying on a makeshift stretcher.
“I can damn well walk,” Garrett growled at Browning who had the misfortune of sitting next to Garrett’s head.
“Yeah, well, it doesn’t look like it to me,” Sam drawled. Even though he purposely needled his brother, the relief at seeing him lying there bitching as usual nearly staggered him. He had to grip the doorway to steady himself.
“Goddamn it, Garrett, you scared the shit out of us,” Donovan cursed.
Garrett picked his head up and saw his three brothers crowded into the doorway of the chopper. “Well, son of a bitch.”
Ethan grinned back at him. “You look like a pussy.”
Garrett rose up to flip Ethan the bird but groaned as the motion rippled pain across his midsection. Yet something else his brothers would give him hell over. He grinned as he stared at the roof of the chopper. Some things never changed, and he hoped to hell they never did.
“One of you assholes help me sit up. I can walk out of here, damn it. I don’t need a goddamn stretcher.”
Ethan chuckled but reached his hand out for Garrett to grasp. Donovan shouldered in and reached for Garrett’s other. His muscles protested, but he was gratified to be able to get out of the helicopter without collapsing.
As soon as his feet hit the ground, he looked around, taking in the surroundings “Where is Sarah?”
“Relax. Terrence took her to the van. I gave her an injection to make her sleep. She was wound tighter than a spring,” Rio said.
Garrett relaxed and then took a good look at the van in question. “Well, hell, Rio. Is this what you call a first-class ride?”
Rio chuckled. “It’s all about blending in. Can’t have a limo showing up at some out-of-the-way clinic.”
“We have the jet here,” Sam said with a frown. “You should damn well let us take you home. You can’t continue this job in your condition.”
Garrett ignored him and started toward the van. Ethan followed and grasped Garrett’s arm to steady him. He was grateful for his brother’s help, not that he’d admit it. The last thing he wanted was to face plant on the runway. He wouldn’t live down that humiliation ever.
“Goddamn it, Garrett,” Sam said in resignation. “I swear if you didn’t already look like you’ve been rode hard and hung up wet, I’d kick your ass.”
Garrett turned and shot a cocky grin over his shoulder. “You can try, big brother. You can try.”
Donovan shook his head and followed the procession over to the van.
Garrett stuck his head inside to see Sarah curled onto the floor of the van. There were only two seats in front and the entire back was empty. She was out cold and her features were drawn into a tight grimace, but at least she was resting. The past few days had been hard on her, and she’d already been through enough.
He hesitated before entering the van and turned to face his brothers. “I’ll make this quick. We need to get out of sight. I’m not going home with you.” He held up his hand to stop the protest that Sam was already preparing to launch. “You three get your asses home. Make sure the women aren’t worried. Tell them whatever you need in order to make them feel better. I don’t want the family involved with this. Think about the danger we’d be bringing to our front door. Lattimer is a wild card. The whole point of this job was to flush him out. I’m not going to do that in any way that puts our family at risk, and you damn well know I’m right.”
“My suggestion was to leave Rio with Sarah. Let his team take over the job. You need to get your ass home and be in a real hospital,” Sam said.
“And I’m telling you right now, I’m not leaving Sarah.”
He stared his brothers down. He saw Donovan shake his head and blow out his breath in resignation. Donovan knew. He already had a damn good idea that Garrett was in way over his head with the woman.
“There is still a threat to Sarah, one I haven’t identified. And do you think for one minute that if we all go home, Resnick won’t be all over us in a minute? Hell, he’s probably on his way here right now. He’s a complication I don’t need.”
“Are you forgetting that you’re lying to her?” Sam asked in a low voice. “Whatever your feelings for her, she’s not going to forgive being used as bait to lure her brother out of hiding. Get out now, Garrett. Let Rio do the job.”
“Tell me something, Sam. Would you have left Sophie to Steele or Rio? Would you have backed off and let them protect her while you went home with your tail tucked between your legs?”
Understanding flashed in Sam’s eyes.
Garrett turned to Ethan. “Would you have let us go in after Rachel while you stayed at home sitting on your hands because you were too emotionally involved?”
“Fuck no,” Ethan bit out.
“Goddamn it,” Sam bit out. “I hate when you have to make a goddamn point that I can’t respond to.”
Garrett grinned. “Go home, Sam. You have a wife and a new baby. Ethan has a wife to take care of. Sarah is mine to take care of. Rio and his team will stick with me. I trust them to do their job, but the only one I’m trusting with Sarah is me.”
Sam rubbed a hand over his hair and made a sound of disgust. “Okay, Garrett. Have it your way. Not that you ever do anything else. I hope to hell you know what you’re doing.”
“She’s been hurt before, Sam,” Garrett said quietly. “She trusts me. She’s not going to trust another man.”
“Yeah, and what are you going to do when the shit hits the fan?” Donovan asked. “She trusts you and you’re going to betray that trust.”
Pain that had nothing to do with his injuries washed through his chest. “I’m going to have to figure out a way to do my job—do what’s right—and hope that she’ll understand—and can forgive me—for doing what needed to be done.”
CHAPTER 30
SARAH stirred and tried to blink away the groggy, hungover feeling that cloaked her like a thick fog. It took her a moment to even remember what had happened and that Rio had drugged her. She was also no longer in the SUV they’d traveled in, nor was she on a helicopter that she knew they’d intended to take into Belize.
She pushed herself upward, taking in her surroundings. Immediately her gaze locked with Garrett, who was sitting up, his back to the side of what looked to be an old utility van. Briefly she gazed around to see Rio also sitting in the back, as well as Terrence and another team member she hadn’t caught the name of. Browning and Alton were in the front, Browning driving.
Then she glanced back at Garrett, who studied her with frank appraisal.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“That’s a ridiculous question,” she grumbled. “The real question is, how are you?”
He cracked a grin and then patted the small space beside him. She crawled over and nestled into his side.
“I prefer you close to me,” he murmured. “And I’m okay. Just stove up. I’ll be sore for a couple of days, but that’s all.”
She was skeptical of his self-diagnosis but she didn’t argue. What she did do was glare over at Rio, whose lips twitched suspiciously.
“He’s going to a clinic at least, right?”
Rio nodded. “Yes ma’am. Whether he wants to or not.”
She nodded. “Good.”
“Glad I have such a say here,” Garrett said dryly.
She laid her head on Garrett’s shoulder. “What do we do then? I mean, where do we go? I assume you’ll need to check in with Marcus. I don’t know what your arrangement is with him, but he’s very used to being on top of things.”
He tensed a moment before moving so he could put an arm around her. “You let me worry about Lattimer, okay? Rio and his team are going to stay with us so we don’t get into any more situations like before.”
She sighed and knew she needed to come clean with everything. Before ... before there were several reasons she held back. She wasn’t entirely certain she could trust Garrett—at first. That had faded away, and now he was the only person she did trust. And she was ashamed. Deeply humiliated by what had happened to her and her sense of betrayal had been so numbing that she hadn’t been able to fathom telling anyone. Not Marcus—especially not Marcus.
Garrett needed to know exactly what he was dealing with, because from the moment he’d told her that Allen’s brother had hired someone to find her, she knew. She was a threat to Stanley Cross. If she was ever hauled into court to testify against Marcus for killing Stanley’s brother, the whole sordid tale would come out. Allen was dead, but Stanley wasn’t, and he could still be held accountable for his role in her rape.
“Sarah?”
The question in Garrett’s voice told her he knew something was bothering her. But she couldn’t tell him now. Not in front of his men even though they’d have to know later.
So she shook her head to let Garrett know it was nothing. And later, after he’d been taken care of, she would divulge the last of her secrets.
CHAPTER 31
ʺOKAY, now that the doctor has assured you all that I’m not dying, can everyone stop with the babysitting?” Garrett grumbled as they exited the small, rural clinic where Rio had taken him to be examined.
Sarah rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t say all that bruising is nothing.”
“No broken bones,” Garrett reminded her. “Probably fractured a few ribs, but that’s nothing I haven’t done before.”
They stood in the sunshine a step away from the van that had taken them thirty miles from Corozal. Rio and his men stood to the side, and Garrett leaned against the van as he looked to his team leader.
“Okay, what now? I assume you have a place off in the wilds somewhere where you can stash us. Donovan was going to send us to Alaska, but that’s out now. Too risky. I don’t want Sarah out in the open for that long.”
It also needed to be a place where they could draw Lattimer. The sooner they ended this madness, the sooner Sarah would be safe again, and then he could address this thing between them.
“As a matter of fact I do,” Rio said. “Always pays to have a few safe places that even the bosses don’t know about.”
Garrett shot him a look. Rio shrugged. “I’d be a dumbass if I didn’t plan for every contingency.”
Garrett couldn’t argue with that logic.
“I have a place on the Belize River several miles from the nearest village. It’s well stocked, isolated and it gives us several escape routes. I have a chopper there and a boat. We can bail at a moment’s notice by air, water or roadway.”
“And how big is this place?” Garrett asked. The last thing he wanted was to be tripping over five other men in close quarters.
Rio grinned. “Big enough. Besides, we’ll be taking position in a perimeter around the house. No one will get within a mile unless we want them to.”
Armed with painkillers, the trip over less-than-ideal roads wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Still, by the time they turned onto the winding road that led to Rio’s safe house, Garrett felt like he’d been beat all over again.
There was a large security gate that couldn’t be seen from the road. Security cameras were mounted at each post on the left and right and Garrett raised his brow as Rio opened the gate by remote.
“Exactly how much are we paying you, man?” Garrett joked.
Rio snorted. “Not nearly enough.”
The drive was a half mile long and looped around the incline to where the house rested atop a hill, completely surrounded and sheltered by dense trees.
Garrett whistled when he caught sight of the place. He’d been expecting a shack or maybe a stone building that more resembled a cave. Rio and his men had reputations for being staunch, cave-dwelling loners who kept to themselves when they weren’t on assignment.