Jacked Up (Bowen Boys #4) Read Online Free PDF Page B

exists. When the time comes to testify, I’ll fly back.”
    “And who ensures that, sweetheart?”
    She stared at him, offended. “I give you my word.”
    The man let out a bark, not a speck of humor in it. “I told you, your word ain’t good around here, and protective custody is the least of your problems, lady. Dead people do not testify.”
    “Can I have a break?” Elle asked, overwhelmed. “I need some air. And coffee.” Her adrenaline was crashing. In other circumstances, she would have tried to charm her way out of this, and she still might, but at the moment she was too exhausted to even think, let alone pull any kind of stunt that required the use of brain cells.
    “We are not done yet.”
    “I want out of here,” Elle demanded, standing up and heading for the door. The walls were closing on her, her lungs too. “You can’t keep me here. And you can’t force me to go into protective custody.”
    The detective got in her face. “You’re in deep shit. You broke the law and you’ll do as we say or so help me God— “
    Suddenly the door burst open.
    Elle turned to the menacing man dashing in. Dark hair, beard. Piercing, ice-cold blue eyes. Her jaw dropped. Oh my God . “Jack?”
    He didn’t address her. He stepped in between her and the detective and growled, “Back the fuck off.” He didn’t scream, but the threat in his voice was so evident Hensen staggered back before regaining his ability to speak.
    “She’s in big trouble and—”
    “I said back the fuck off. I won’t repeat it a third time. You put a finger on her again, you lose it.”
    * * * *
    Jack watched through the two-way mirror as Elle lay curled up in the chair of the interrogation room, finally asleep, after running herself ragged, pacing up and down for a long while.
    “Who is she to you?” Mullen, the FBI agent in charge asked, after approaching.
    Jack pondered his response. The bane of his existence? A pain in the ass? The woman responsible for his permanent hard-on and his permanent bad mood?
    “My godson’s aunt,” he answered finally. The last person he’d thought he’d find in that interrogation room. As soon as Mullen had informed him that they had a witness tying Maldonado to a murder, Jack had rushed from Puerto Rico to Miami, ready to squeeze that witness mercilessly and use him to get the drug lord. Until he’d seen who the witness was. Then all his protective instincts had kicked in. That Elle had thrown herself at him and hugged him tight, hiding her face in the crook of his neck, trembling, hadn’t helped a bit.
    “Can you vouch for her? That what she’s telling is true?”
    “Yes,” he said resolutely, not having to think about it. Whatever Elle was, she wasn’t a liar. And that little trick of switching IDs had Elle written all over it.
    Leave it to her to come to Florida for a couple of days, do some dumb shit, cross paths with the likes of Maldonado, who’d just recently moved to the US, and end up with all the three-letter security agencies in the country and then some, fighting to claim jurisdiction over her.
    It seemed that the case was going to be turned over the Feds, which was a stroke of luck, because Mullen and his men owed him.
    “What the fuck was Maldonado doing in a plane to Cuba with a tight-ass politician like Aalto?”
    “My guess? Maldonado was taking Aalto on a friendly trip to share a cigar and talk business. Something happened and the friendly trip was cut short. Aalto’s latest proposal was to tighten travel restrictions and drastically limit tourist visas, which Maldonado’s men depend upon to come and go from the US. Maldonado’s infrastructure would have suffered. He was probably trying to influence Aalto, get him to lighten up.”
    “Why throw Aalto off a plane?” Jack asked. “It doesn’t make sense. There are easier ways to get someone to disappear.” Not that making the politician disappear made much sense either way. Killing a high-profile public figure