He shut down the feelings. Just a mission. He owed Marco, and Marco loved Sarah like a sister. Get the job done and get her home safely. That was all.
Young began to cough violently at that moment, and Sarah hastened over. “Jett, help me roll him.”
She could have performed the action fine by herself, but in order to make it look convincing, he eased Young onto his side, and the coughing turned to heavy gasps. Sarah looked helplessly at Alex. “His health is failing. Can’t you see that?”
Alex considered. “It’s a three-hour ride by truck from here to our destination.”
Which is...? Jett wondered. Where did this Beretta station himself? Not in a poor village like Playa del Oro, certainly. Somewhere isolated enough to give the criminal his privacy and accommodations worthy of his drug lord status. “Has Beretta got a little compound in the mountains?” Jett guessed. No reaction from the goons. “Going to be rough terrain, huh? Did you guys get hold of an ambulance so we can get Young there without worsening his head injury? Or were you planning to throw a gravely injured man in the back of a truck and hope he survives?”
Again, no reaction except for a slight shifting from the third guy.
“Uh-huh, that’s what I thought.”
Alex came to a decision. “We will keep the nurse alive until we reach Senor Beretta.”
“And the man?” Miguel said. “Surely we can help the nurse if she needs it. It is too dangerous to let him live.”
Jett stared them down full-on. If they were expecting fear as they pronounced his sentence, they wouldn’t get it.
There was a long pause. Sarah blanched, hazel eyes like gemstones, startling against her pale skin. Jett continued to assess. If they decided to kill him, he would take down as many as he could until he fell. It might give Sarah a chance to run, hide somewhere.
Alex considered, eyes shifting from Sarah to Jett. “Act in haste, repent in leisure. Isn’t that the saying? Bind his hands and feet after they load Young into the truck. We’ll take all three with us.”
“But...” Miguel said.
Alex smiled. “I did not say you had to treat him gently, Miguel. Take some comfort in that, just don’t disable him completely. Now!” Alex snapped. “You two carry Young to the truck, quickly. We do not wish to attract any more attention than we already have.”
Jett let out a cautious breath. They’d scored a victory, even though it was only delaying the inevitable end. In his job as a navy explosive ordnance disposal technician, he’d learned how precious moments could be—seconds could mean the difference between a safe detonation and a catastrophe, going home to the woman who loved you or your life ending in a fine pink mist, according to the dark humor of the EODs.
They’d bought some moments. It would do for now.
He endured the blow Miguel gave him between the shoulder blades and helped Sarah gather up her supplies. Young moaned once more.
“It’s okay, Mr. Young. We’re going to take you somewhere now,” Sarah said, her voice as cheerful as he figured she could make it. There was no response.
Jett wondered if they were taking Young out of the frying pan and dropping him straight into the flames. It was a mercy that the guy was too out of it to realize what was happening.
As Jett readied himself to lift the stricken man onto the stretcher, he was thunderstruck as Young gave Sarah a slow wink before he closed his eyes again.
* * *
Sarah struggled hard to keep her fear in check as they carried Young to the back of a delivery truck and climbed up after him. She knew she was going to be delivered into the hands of a murderous man who ruled by intimidation. It was dark inside, hot as a furnace, but a small amount of light shone through a slatted ventilation panel in the roof. She did not take her gaze off Young for a moment, but he made no further signs of consciousness. Had she imagined the wink? But the quickly concealed surprise on Jett’s face indicated he’d witnessed the same thing. What if Young was not the helpless victim he appeared to be? Yet he was certainly not faking his injuries. The man was in dire medical straits, no question, but his last “fit” had been well timed and kept them both alive, at least for the next uncertain stretch of time.
Miguel sat on a wooden box lashed to the floor, a silent warden as the truck lurched away from the house where Juanita had made a deadly bargain for her father’s life. Though Sarah knew Jett wouldn’t see it the same way, the girl had not had a choice. What bargain would she have struck to save the lives of her family members? It was the kind of question that remained best unanswered.
Sarah tried to steady the stretcher against the heaving of the truck. On his knees, Jett attempted to help, though they’d tied his hands together in front of him with a plastic cord and done the same to his ankles. Helpless—all three of their fates were controlled by violent men with evil intentions.
She felt the tide of anger and darkness rise up inside her, fresh as it had been the moment when their car had been rammed by another six months prior, ending the life of her hero, her father. It was as if she could still feel the shards of glass flying around her, see her father’s arm braced on the dash, his other holding protectively to her shoulder as they’d skidded out of control. The terrible shriek of metal still rang in her ears when she let it. Pain, darkness, medicines and surgeries, and then she’d woken to find the horror was not a dream. Her father was dead.
It was unjust, unfair, unacceptable. Her hands balled into tight fists. Wasn’t her father’s death enough for her to endure? And her sister Angela’s recent encounter with a killer? How much was Sarah Gallagher expected to take? How much, God?
When it became too much, she forced a breath in and out, recalling the painful lesson she’d been learning since her father’s death. How many hours had she lain in the hospital with a broken pelvis and a punctured lung wrestling with God? It’s not about what you do or don’t deserve, Sarah Gallagher, it’s about seeking Him. Hard-won wisdom, excruciating to learn, difficult to hang onto. If it weren’t for the rock-solid love and faith of her three sisters and her mother, she might never have made it.
She wondered if her sisters even knew she and Jett had been snatched. They might not, if Juanita had been coerced into silence. And the police would not report her gone if it meant crossing Beretta. There might be no one looking for them at all.
She kept her eyes closed speaking silently to God, who she knew was there, even in the present terrifying circumstances. When she opened her eyes again, Jett was watching her, one eyebrow quirked.
“Still thinking God’s listening, huh?”
“He is.”
A quick flash of anger distorted his features. “Yeah? Then maybe you should ask Him why we’re in a truck with a half-dead guy on our way to visit a drug lord.”
“Silencio,” Miguel shouted, banging his bat on the metal floor.
Sarah jumped, and Jett leaned against the wall of the truck, bound feet and bound hands.
Bound heart, she found herself thinking, looking at his handsome face, so quick to flash the arrogant smile against the hurt she knew was inside him, a hurt rooted deep in his past. Those brown eyes, the tint of coffee, had sparkled with tears when she’d broken up with him. It was the only time she’d ever seen him close to crying. He’d proudly told her he never cried, even when his father, fueled by alcohol, would get out his wooden stick. No tears from Jett, but she’d cried oceans for him.
His lips were dry, she noticed, and she wanted to ask Miguel for some water, but she knew he wouldn’t provide any and Jett wouldn’t drink it anyway.
Again she closed her eyes, let the anger and fear settle as best she could, and resumed her prayers. The truck interior was stifling, but the jostling eased off half an hour into the journey. She gathered from the angle of the floor and the grinding