Page 67 of Her Chosen Protector

“Good for him.”

“The day Pete showed up at my door after work, the senator had mentioned that Edwin had to be taken to the E.R. because he’d fallen down some stairs. Needless to say, when I saw my brother, I put two and two together right away.”

“The more and more I hear about your family, the more I like them.”

“Yeah, there’s a lot to like,” Eden agreed. “What about your Mom and brother?”

Eden jolted when an alarm went off. It was a timer on Asher’s watch.

“Time to check back in,” he gave a half-smile.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you planned that.”

“Then it’s a good thing you know better.”

He untangled their fingers and got up from the table. He fished out a can of Altoids and put it down in front of Eden.

“Dessert, Mademoiselle.”

“Merci.” She smiled as she eagerly opened up the tin of mints.

“But beware, the mints aren’t going to stop me from asking more questions,” Eden warned. “But it was a good try.”

C H A P T E R 1 4

“This is Leo. We’ve got a problem.”

“What else is new?” Ash asked. “Give it to me.”

He looked over at Eden, who was frowning, so he put the phone on speaker and set it down on the table in front of her. He couldn’t sit down. His blood was pumping too fast.

“Kane’s got a lock on their communication’s channel. He’s been listening in to their conversations for the last hour. Señora Azua was right, Perez is in charge of this op. He’s convinced there is a ton of money to be had in the bank, and he’s cutting out Maduro, but nobody else knows that.”

“If none of his underlings know it, how does Kane know it?”

“Maduro is still incommunicado, so this is all Perez. Our guess is that Perez is planning on looting the bank, then getting the hell out of Venezuela, never to be seen again. So, he wants this done before Maduro gets back to Caracas.”

“So, what’s Perez planning? It’s Saturday,” Asher looked at his watch, “at seven a.m. He’s running out of time.”

“He no longer cares if civilians know that he’s trying to break into the bank. All sense of subterfuge is gone. The report on the news is that there has been structural damage to the bank, and now Maduro’s people are trying to rescue bank employees. There’s a news helicopter that actually live-streamed the tank blowing holes in the North gate so that secret police could get to the bank building.”

“Everybody in Caracas would either believe them or would be too scared to say anything against them.”

“Okay, so it’s going to be an all-out assault against the vault,” Eden said. “How are they planning on doing it? From what Kane said the last time, they only had dynamite and that other stuff.”

There was a long pause before Leo started talking.

“Perez hasn’t been talking about this on regular channels. He’s been on his phone, so Kane hasn’t been able to do his eavesdropping thing, which you know kills him.”

Asher chuckled. “I wonder what A.J. thinks of that.”

“You know she’d cut him off at the knees if he ever tried shit like that with him.”

“I don’t think that’s what she’d be cutting.” They laughed harder. “Okay, so Kane knows nothing.”

“I didn’t say that,” Leo sounded like he was smirking. “Would you believe there is an earthmover being unloaded outside the gate?”

“Hmmmm.”