No words were needed. Lana nodded at Rocky, Hawk, Country, Viper, and Athena, her strongest in hand-to-hand combat.
The six women moved forward and went to the home of their contact. Once the contact had been made and words exchanged, Lana and her team were on the way.
They purposely took their time to give the rest of the team the time they needed to reach their location a mile away. Once they received the signal, they continued their drive to the gates of Soriano’s cartel leader, Diego Ortega.
“Turn your car around. No visitors!” the man at the gate ordered in a heavy Spanish accent.
“Tell Diego Ortega it’s in his best interest to see us. He doesn’t, so he is responsible for the useless deaths that will happen if I walk away from here. He has one chance, one chance only to save not only his life, but his family and the guards who protect them all,” Lana firmly told the man in Spanish.
Lana looked in the rearview mirror when the man pulled out his phone and relayed her message. Less than five minutes later, they were waved through with instructions of where to park their vehicle.
“How are we playing this?” Erica “Hawk” Jensen asked from the back seat.
“Close to the belt, yet straightforward. We have five lives on the line. Our boys were betrayed, so we offer the betrayer to the devil himself,” Lana answered matter-of-factly. “Houston is flying a heat sensor drone around the property to see if they can locate the MIA in case shit hits the fan.”
“Do you think that Ortega will actually listen to us?” Rocky asked as she checked their surroundings.
“We’re about to find out,” that was all Lana could say.
She’d given the five women standing with her an out several times before they got to their location. And every time she did, they told her to fuck off, they were going in with her.
She knew it was a suicide mission, but there were five lives on the line. Men who gave everything for their country.
“Fingers crossed shit doesn’t hit the fan too horribly bad,” Lana murmured, more to herself than anyone else.
The six women made their way up the steps toward where four burley men with hard-cold glares awaited them. Lana glared back with a quirk of her eyebrows, appearing amused and bored at the same time.
“No weapons or electronic devices,” one man ordered in a heavy Spanish accent.
“No shit on the weapons, Sherlock. But you can forget me leaving my electronic device behind. It goes in with me, unless your boss doesn’t want to know what I have evidence wise. If that’s the case, we’ll hop back into our vehicle and mosey right back out of that gate. Once we do that, anything we could have done to save your lives goes out the damn window and you’re on your own.”
Lana watched as the man put a finger to his ear and spoke rapid Spanish back to whoever he was listening to. She knew what they were saying, mostly.
She knew by the guard’s response what Ortega was ordering him to do. His guard didn’t like it.
“Fine. You go in, but the others stay here,” the guard demanded angrily.
“Not happening, Captain. They go in with me as well. Look, you don’t trust me and the feeling is mutual. I have all fucking night to argue. You and Ortega don’t. My phone and my team go in with me. You’ve already verified that we aren’t carrying any weapons, so stop your peacocking and let me in to talk to Ortega before you cost everyone here their lives.” Lana stood toe to toe with the burly giant.
“Puta!” The guard spat at her feet.
“Back at ya, asshat,” Lana quipped with a roll of her eyes.
Lana waited for two heartbeats before she shoved past the guards into the house. Standing in the foyer stood Diego Ortega himself.
Lana had to give it to the man, he was good-looking as hell and took pride in his appearance. He was ruthless as hell when he was crossed but cared deeply about those he called family.
She knew Ortega grew up on the streets of Chiniquia homeless with a single mother. His mother worked cleaning houses until the original cartel leader took her when Ortega was younger.
He went to work for the cartel, the same one who took his mother and bought her from the leader when he’d earned enough money to buy her back. He quickly rose to the top of the ranks, taking out those who’d taken his mother and those who’d raped her.
When he became the right-hand man to the leader himself, he meticulously waited until the man trusted him with everything before he killed him and took over the cartel as the new leader. Anyone who opposed him or threatened his mother met the same fate.
The one thing she had to give the man credit for was he didn’t agree with human trafficking. That was a huge no for him.
He did own brothels and strip clubs, but the women were there of their own free will. He made his money and power in drugs and arms deals.
“Ms. Pennington, what do you have to say to me so urgently that you are rudely crashing my home at this hour?”
