Hector waved his finger in the air and reached for his gun at his hip. “I never forget a face. Stop the others!” he shouted as the SUV started to move.
Hector rushed Beckett, setting his gun at Beckett’s temple while demanding he lower himself to the ground.
Beckett followed orders, his heart in his throat when he stole another look at the window to see the boy there watching again.
“What’s going on?” he overheard someone ask, coming from the direction of the house. When Beckett forced his gaze away from the boy, he found Miguel and Jorge exiting alongside Jesse.
“Stop them at the gate. They’re getting away,” Hector shouted before switching to Spanish and barking orders to one of the guards already speaking into his comm unit, most likely to one of the guard towers near the exit.
An unexpected explosion rocked the ground, and thank God, the SUV hadn’t been hit. From Beckett’s vantage point, it was the first guard station by the main gate in the distance.
Then the second tower burst into flames a moment later.
Carter. He had to be out there. He must have had them followed from the hotel to Jorge’s last night. Sydney will be safe.
“They must have backup. Who the hell are they?” Jorge asked, approaching where Beckett remained on his knees, hands behind his head. He crouched before Beckett, and Beckett knew this was going to be hard for Jesse to watch, but as long as Sydney and the others made it out safely and someone could save Miles . . . he’d take every punch or bullet he had to.
When Beckett remained quiet, Jorge ordered two of his men to secure Beckett’s arms. “Who am I?” Beckett finally asked, faking a laugh after another one of Jorge’s men clocked him across the jaw. Maybe it was the drug. Or he was just pissed. But Beckett rasped, “El Diablo. And I’m here to take you back to Hell.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
“Beckett, wake up.”
Beckett groaned and clutched his ribs, trying to remember what happened and why he was in so much pain. “Sydney?” He reached out in search of her, eyes still locked shut. Why’d his face hurt so damn badly? “You okay? Tell me you’re okay.”
“It’s me. It’s Cora.”
The voice. The name. Beckett fought through the mental fog and opened his eyes.
He squinted against the harsh sunlight streaming through a window opposite where he sat. I’m on the ground. Where? “Cora?”
“Yes, it’s me. Did Ivy find you?”
His stomach turned as he sought to visually locate the woman who kept screwing with his life. “Cora,” he repeated.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. He’d need to turn his head to see her, but every part of his face hurt after Jorge’s men had punched him repeatedly on the driveway to the point of blacking out.
And now I’m here with Cora. Or am I dead? Is this purgatory? My hell is to be stuck with her.
“Please tell me you brought help. I—I heard the explosions outside. Saw the two guard towers blow up. Tell me you have friends out there who will rescue us,” she rushed out.
“Not alone,” he mumbled, grabbing hold of his side again. Squinting through the pain, Beckett opened his eyes and took in Cora for the first time in six years. The black eye and swollen cheek were a clear indication she’d not been living in the lap of luxury, at least not lately. “I’m not dead, right?”
“No, but we will be if we’re not rescued soon. When Jorge dumped you in here, he informed me I’m being traded to the cartel tomorrow,” she explained in a shaky voice, brushing her long, dark hair away from her face, exposing more bruises on her throat.
He may have hated Cora, but no woman, regardless of circumstance, should ever be abused, and it pained him to see her bruises. “How long have you been in here?”
“A few weeks, I think. Ever since they grabbed me from my bedroom the day I called you. Hector told Jorge he knew me from LA, and I was a con artist. That I betrayed their guys, and it was why Hector went to prison.”
“You didn’t betray them,” Beckett bit out. “Just betrayed me.” When she kept quiet, he asked, “Why’d they put us together?” He coughed up blood and spat it to the side.
“Probably to torture us.”
“Yeah, putting me with you is torture,” he drawled, unable to stop himself from speaking the truth. Maybe that was still the side effects of the drug talking, or he really was just done with her bullshit.
“I meant that he’ll probably send someone in here to beat you in front of me. Make me watch.”
“Tell me they didn’t . . . hurt your son?”
“No, but I was forced to watch while they tortured and murdered his father, Daniel.” She pointed to the blood-stained wall across the room. Beckett looked up at the chains hanging from the ceiling. “Wait, Ivy told you about Miles?”
“Yeah, Ivy said something.” To Jesse, not me.
“Jorge blamed Miles’s father for allowing himself to be duped by me. Letting me in their lives for nearly six years. And as part of his security team, he believed Daniel should have vetted me more thoroughly.”
“Men have a habit of doing that around you,” he bit out, letting go of his ribs with a wince.
Beckett dragged in a deep, painful breath and slowly expelled it through his nostrils, then tried to get his brain to work. Figure out his next steps. Carter and Camila’s men had to have been outside Jorge’s estate that morning, clearly prepared for shit to go down if they took out the guard towers at the front gates.
Beckett hoped he wasn’t wrong to assume Sydney and the others escaped.
“You didn’t want me to know about Miles. You didn’t want McKenna to know she had a brother, did you?” he accused.
Cora leaned back and stretched her legs out in front of her, eyes going back to the blood-stained wall. She was wearing a khaki jumpsuit like prisoners wore, and Beckett wondered if that’d been Hector’s suggestion. A little payback since Hector incorrectly assumed she’d helped put him behind bars thirteen years ago. “You’d want Miles in McKenna’s life. I know you. And that wasn’t a possibility given my situation.”
Beckett swallowed, which hurt given someone had almost choked him to death earlier.
“Why’d you really send your sister to my house two years ago?” He wasn’t sure where that’d come from, but he’d blame the drug for his desire to know the truth too.
Cora turned to meet his eyes. “She was telling the truth. I had no new pictures of McKenna. It made me sad every time I looked at my son that he’d never meet his sister. So, I asked Ivy to check on her again. Get photos and try to learn more about her for me.”
He wasn’t sure if he bought that story, but why lie at this point?
Tears filled her eyes, and if she weren’t such a manipulative liar, he’d believe they were real. Now? How could he ever know what was fiction or reality when it came to her? “After the last time you rejected me, I learned about Jorge and his inheritance. I decided it was time to settle down. Try and start a real life somewhere. You’d said to never bother you again, and for some reason, I felt that you were serious that time. More so than the previous warnings you’d given me.”