If Beatle had been alone, he would have insisted on being part of whatever Gil and his people were planning. If they’drefused, he’d have stayed anyway. That’s how he was built. He knew that about himself. But …
Casey is here. She’s here, and he knows who she is.That changed … well, that changedeverything.
Beatle slid his phone out with his other hand, angling it below the table's edge—a casual movement, the kind a man made when he was checking the time—and caught Gil's face in a clean frame. One tap. The image disappeared into an automated encrypted message to Tex. A precaution they had set up on their phones in case they were unable to make calls or send out texts.
He hoped it was enough to get more information from Tex on how this man was connected.
Gil clapped his hands together once, the sound sharp and satisfied, and rose from the bench with the fluid ease of a dancer. He stood at his full height against the Panamanian sky, blue eyes bright in the afternoon glare, and grinned down at them with a cheerful energy.
“My friend, the best solution for homesickness is togo home.” He spread his hands wide, a gesture that encompassed the market, the food, the afternoon, the entire absurdity of the situation. “But I do hope you have enjoyed your vacation!”
Beatle watched him go—tracked him through the crowd until the dried-blood polo disappeared around the corner of a stall selling hammered copper jewellery—and then sat with the stillness of a man who was running numbers he didn't yet have all the variables for.
Who are you, Gil? And how did you find us before we foundanything?
Beside him, Casey's hand was still in his under the table, her thumb moving over his knuckles—the same gesture as before, the same private display of affection. Except now her grip was a fraction tighter. He turned his hand over beneath hers and held on.
CHAPTER 20
MATEO
Mateo lay on his back beneath Gabriella, one of his arms wrapped securely across her shoulders, the other resting along her hip as if anchoring her in place. Her breath was soft against his chest, slow and even—finally at peace after everything she'd endured. His cock eventually had gone soft, slipping outside of her and even in her sleep, she made a noise of protest. He had chuckled, kissing her temple before rearranging them for their comfort.
The room was close and dark, the single window a grey rectangle against the wall where the first suggestion of dawn pressed through the warped wooden shutter. He smelled the jungle through the gaps in the walls, beyond the thin barrier of wood and plaster. The camp had quieted hours ago, the celebration dissolving into the heavy, snoring silence of men who drank until they collapsed. Somewhere outside, a fire had burned down to coals. He could smell the ghost of it, woodsmoke threading through the humid air to serve as a reminder of what the night had almost become.
I would have burnt this place and these people to the ground had they harmed her.He forced a deep and steadying breathinto his lungs as he reminded himself, for the hundredth time, that she was safe. She was here. With him.
Safe.The word sat wrong in his chest, a stone in a place that had no business holding stones. He was not safe. He was the furthest thing from it. He was a man built of lies stacked on top of lies, and she was sleeping on top of all of them, her cheek pressed flat against his chest with a trust so complete it made his throat close.
You lied to her from the first day. You knew what this was. You knew what she was walking into, and you let her walk into it anyway.
“Fucking Sally,” he cursed aloud. He had been accustomed to her tantrums throughout the years but this crossed a line. It had endangered Gabriella. It was as vile as something her father would have done.
Should I kill her?He asked himself.No, she has her uses still. But if she endangers Gabriella again …
The woman he cared for slumbered on him with a peace he wasn’t sure he would ever see in this lifetime. He didn't deserve this. He didn't deserve her trust or her warmth. The way she instinctively curled closer even in sleep, seeking him out as if he were her port in a storm.
A howler monkey's guttural roar ripped through the early morning air, deep and primal, shaking his thoughts apart. The sound rolled through the canopy in long, terrible waves, echoing off the trees until it dissolved into the lower registers of pre-dawn—frogs answering each other, insects adjusting their pitch, the whole breathing machine of the rainforest recalibrating around the interruption.
The patrol men's voices carried faintly from the camp—low, casual, the particular unhurried murmur of men on watch who believed the night had been unremarkable—unaware of how close they had come to death.
His gaze dropped to her face, softened in sleep, lashes resting against her cheeks in dark, feathered crescents. The lantern had burned out hours ago, but the grey dawn light was enough. There was still dried salt from tears near her temple, a thin pale track against her skin that he had not touched, had not wiped away.
You did that.Not with his hands, not directly, but with every choice he'd made that led her here.She cried herself to sleep in your arms, and you still haven't told her the full truth of it all.
That sharp thought twisted within his chest—a hook set deep, the kind that tore worse when you tried to pull it out. He wanted to tell her but knew he couldn’t. Certainly notnow, not when he was so close to the entire reason he had dedicated himself to this operation. His purpose for sacrificing so much of himself.
Obscura.
Mateo had been undercover for years, building this identity from the ground up, earning trust through acts he would carry on his body and in his conscience long after this was over. Especially early on, when he’d been little more than hired muscle, he’d been forced to watch horrific things happen that he couldn’t stop without blowing his cover. It had taken years of moving through this organization like a slow poison, working his way upward through the ranks, making himself indispensable, making himselfdangerous, until he had finally gotten close enough to meet the real power at the center of it all.
Obscura held it all—the trafficking routes, the poaching operations, the money that moved through a dozen legitimate businesses like blood through veins. The organization was a ghost. A shadow Mateo had been chasing through years of darkness, and now—now—he was closer than anyone in his organization had ever been.
And then she walks into my life with her thirst for research, her sincere compassion, her love of nature, and her completeinability to look away from anyone or anything that needs protecting.
He looked down at her sleeping face.
Can I walk away from this op?The question assaulted him with a quiet brutality.After everything—after years of your life, after what it’s cost you, after the people you couldn't save along the way—can you really walk away from the Snake's Head to save one woman?