The last door they opened on the second floor was another bedroom—and it had a spiral staircase tucked into the corner, leading down. It was an odd place for stairs.
Even odder that they hadn’t seen spiral stairs anywhere on the first floor, leading up to this room.
Spike looked at Tiny and gave him a nod, his heart rate speeding up. This was it. It had to be. There was no reason for a staircase to be here. It spiraled downward into the darkness, and Spike knew without a doubt that they were about to find something. Hopefully, it would be Woody, Isabella, and Angelo.
He held the gun he’d pilfered from one of the bedrooms tightly as he took point and slowly descended the stairs. As he went down, Spike heard voices. They were low, masculine, and he prayed he wasn’t about to come face-to-face with an entire roomful of cartel members who would be more than happy to shoot trespassers.
When he and Tiny reached the bottom of the stairs, they immediately knew they were in an underground bunker or basement of some sort. There was just enough light to see their immediate surroundings. There was a small open space at the bottom of the stairs, with a hall that led to the right and left.
To the right, in the direction the light was coming from, the hallway led to a room they couldn’t see, and they heard voices speaking in Spanish around a corner created by the entranceway. Spike assumed there was another way to get in and out of the basement around that corner.
In the hallway to the left, there were two doors. Tiny silently went to the first and put his ear against it.
He turned to Spike and gave him a thumb’s up before he went to work on the lock. Spike wasn’t sure what the gesture meant. Did it mean he hadn’t heard anything, or that he had?
More tense than he’d been in a long while, and wishing he had on the bulletproof vest he’d worn while on Delta missions, Spike held his breath as Tiny popped the lock. He carefully opened the door, gesturing for Spike to precede him inside.
Spike heard a small noise the second he stepped over the threshold—and instinctively turned toward it and lifted an arm to protect his face.
Which was a good thing, because less than a second later, someone struck him, hard. The room was dark. There were no windows to aid him as Spike fought whoever had attacked.
Tiny fumbled with his phone and clicked on the flashlight. The bright light pierced the dark, and Spike flinched as his eyes attempted to adjust even as he continued to protect himself.
“Delta,” Tiny said in a low whisper. Then he repeated it. “Delta!”
And just like that, the person attacking Spike stilled.
When he caught sight of his former teammate, Spike breathed out a sigh of relief. “Woody,” he said, his tone barely a whisper as he locked eyes with his friend.
They were both breathing hard from their brief hand-to-hand combat. Glancing around the space, Spike spotted Isabella in a corner of the room, out of harm’s way. Woody had obviously planned to fight whoever came into the room, and he’d done a hell of a good job.
He studied his friend carefully. He had a black eye and a cut on his forehead, but otherwise he seemed to be moving without any trouble, which was a huge relief.
“Holy shit, is that you, Spike?” Woody asked, the disbelief easy to hear in his voice. “How the hell are you here?” Even as he spoke, he turned to Isabella and held out his arm. She stepped toward him without hesitation, settling against his side as his arm went around her shoulders.
“Bubba called,” Spike told him. “Your sister decided to come to Colombia to find you when you didn’t answer her calls. I thought it would be a good idea to make sure she didn’t get herself into any trouble, so here I am. Woody, this is Tiny, he’s a former SEAL who works with me in New Mexico. Not Delta, but I figured he’d be better than nothing.”
Special Ops teams had an ongoing friendly rivalry, and Spike knew Tiny wouldn’t be offended by his words.
But Woody didn’t seem to even hear that part. “Reese is here? Fuck! Shit! Damn it. The girl doesn’t have any sense. Why the hell would she come down here?”
While Spike had some of the same feelings, now definitely wasn’t the time to get into that. They needed to get the hell out of there.
“I’m assuming this is Isabella Hernandez? Where’s Angelo? Is he here?” Tiny threw the questions at Woody in rapid succession.
“Sí, I am Isabella. And we are not sure where Angelo is.”
“He was taken with you?” Tiny asked.
“Yes,” Woody said. “They knocked me around a bit, then dragged us all to a car and hauled us off. No one said much, wouldn’t answer our questions. And when we got here, they separated us.”
Spike shared a look with Tiny. They needed to check the other room. They’d gotten lucky with this one, maybe they’d find the kid behind the second door.
“All right, here’s the plan. There’s an unknown number of men in a room at the other end of the hallway, but the staircase that leads up to the second floor is out of their sight line. You two head up and through the house. Go east through the woods. Reese is waiting with a truck about half a mile away. We’ll check the other room for Angelo and be right on your heels.”
“I’m not leaving without my brother,” Isabella insisted.
Spike couldn’t help but think of Reese. He shook his head. Two women, both stubborn as hell and loyal as the day is long.
“You go. I’ll make sure he gets out,” Woody told Isabella.
“No!” she said, shaking her head. “We’ve been over this. He’s all I have. I can’t lose him!”
“And you won’t. I said I’d get him out,” Woody told her firmly. Then he sighed when Isabella straightened her spine, giving him a look. “Okay, but you stick right by my side. Got it?”
Isabella nodded immediately.
Spike would’ve grinned at the look of frustration on his friend’s face, but they needed to get moving. He reached into the waistband of his pants and handed Woody one of the two guns he’d taken while clearing the bedrooms.
Woody palmed the weapon, nodding at him in thanks.
Tiny clicked off the light and they all paused to let their eyes adjust to the darkness once more. Several minutes went by while Tiny listened at the door. The conversation of the men didn’t wane. They didn’t seem to have any clue at the opposite end of the hall.
“All right, headed out. Don’t make any noise whatsoever,” Tiny said. His warning was more for Isabella’s benefit than anyone else’s.
Tiny slowly opened the door and motioned for the others to follow. They filed out and Spike made note that both Woody and Isabella seemed to be walking without any difficultly.
Tiny went to the second door and tried the knob.
To no one’s surprise, it was locked. He made quick work of picking the lock to get inside and they entered cautiously.
There was no need for a flashlight…because there was a small lamp in the room, along with a pallet on the floor. It was more than Woody and Isabella had been afforded in their prison.
When the man inside stood, Spike tensed. This was no boy. It was obviously Angelo, because Isabella went straight to him and hugged him hard, but he wasn’t what Spike had expected. He was huge. Tall, muscular, sporting almost a full beard.
He and Isabella spoke in Spanish. Spike frowned. Though their conversation was whispered, it was obvious they were arguing about something.