“Rudely crashing your home? That’s what you call me trying to save yours and your mother’s lives from annihilation?”
Lana felt her team stiffen when Ortega rushed toward them and got into her face. She knew that would get his attention.
“You dare threaten my mother?”
Lana rolled her eyes at Ortega. “What part of me being here to save your lives is a threat? I don’t have the time or the patience to hold your hand and explain in childlike words what the fuck is going on. You and your men killed three Special Forces soldiers…” Lana put up her hand to silence Ortega when he started to rant. “And you have five more that you are torturing for information. Information they can’t give you.”
“And you think they haven’t given me anything?” Ortega countered cockily.
“Not the information you think you’re getting. They don’t know why they were ordered to take you out other than the falseinformation given to them. I know an unknown source contacted you and told you they were coming.”
CHAPTER
FIFTY-FOUR
Lana watched as Ortega looked around the room at his men in amusement. She braced herself for the explosion of anger that was going to come in a few minutes.
“And what false information were they supposedly given to warrant their invasion of my home?” Ortega rolled his eyes at Lana.
Lana closed her eyes and prayed like she’d never prayed before. She knew the next words out of her mouth were going to send Diego into overdrive.
“That you and your men kidnapped a senator’s daughter. These soldiers were told that you and your men had brutally raped her and then sold her to a man who specializes in breaking women’s spirits into nothing.”
Lana stopped her team’s movement to protect her when Ortega exploded. She stayed silent while he yelled and threw things around the foyer that they were in.
Once the man had calmed down from his tirade, he whirled on the six women with anger in his eyes. His mother, who had rushed into the room during the explosion, put her hand on his chest to halt her son’s descent on them.
“My son did not do such horrible things…”
“We know that, ma’am. My team knows that. Your son is being set up. That’s why we are here. I’m here to plead for those five men to be returned to me. If he does, then, when I get word on who orchestrated your son’s rap, I will give him the name of that person. Then he can do what he deems necessary to make them pay. The soldiers didn’t know they were being lied to.”
While Lana was talking to Ortega and his mother, her satellite phone went off. When she pulled it out and read the message, her heart stopped at the news.
“Ortega, have you ever done business, drugs, or arms deals with a man named Lydell Hubbard?”
“No! That man is not trustworthy. He sells women against their will. I tried to work with him in the arms trade once a while back, but he is untrustworthy.” Ortega waved his hands in annoyance at Hubbard’s name.
“That man tried to get my Diego to take one of his nieces, but he wouldn’t do it. They are women of loose morals. Trying to get my son and then throwing themselves at his guards. Rude to me.”
“Nieces?”
As Lana asked that question, her phone rang. When she saw Trevor’s number pop up, she answered.
“Did you figure it out?” Lana asked instead of a greeting.
“Lana, this shit is deep. Ask Ortega if the name Dennis Hubbard rings a bell.”
“Who the hell is Dennis Hubbard?”
When she said the name out loud, Ortega lost his shit. Not even his mother could calm him this time.
What had Lana focused on the mother was the fact she went sheet white at the mention of the man’s name. Why did the name scare the hell out of her?
“Hold on, Trevor. Diego.Diego!” Lana shouted, finally getting his attention. “Why does that name anger you so much?”
“H-he was the one who had Matia, the old cartel leader, kidnap me and watch as Matia’s men raped me. He paid Matia to have his way with me. The man delighted in my screams of pain and terrorizing me in so many ways during his time with me.”
“Did you get all that?” Lana asked Trevor on speaker phone.
