Warrior Mine Read Online Free PDF Page B

of her fist. One week. They had been one week from leaving. She’d gone for her five a.m. run as usual and returned to find her daughter missing. Sophia’s sheets spilled from her bed, her closet was ransacked, and a note lay in the middle of the floor.
    One way or another, I will have your loyalty.
    Your adoring brother,
    Carlos
    She’d been so high on the thought of holding Sophia in her arms again. So wrapped up in the nearly impossible job of breaking into a building so heavily secured she half-expected to be tossed into a cell with her brother for the attempt. So stupid. She’d been so stupid to overlook the possibility that Carlos had planned for his capture on his first border crossing into the US as leader of the cartel. Floundering these days, the Arellano-Félix Organization had maintained its status on federal alert systems thanks to the early work of her treacherous extended family and father.
    And now it seemed she’d never be free of her cursed family.
    She climbed into the driver’s seat, stuffed the Beretta into the center console, turned the car on, and headed for the exit. At the street level, she stared at the empty road, unable to move. West to the interstate. East to the tall dark building with a man bleeding to death inside.
    So help her, she couldn’t leave him to the worms. Not him, of all people. The sadness, heat, and depth in his eyes deserved life. Deserved happiness. She’d pulled the shot as far right as she could and still hit him. But the building had been deserted. That made her entrance and escape easier. It would make his dying all the more probable.
    If he died, he couldn’t plaster her face on the Most Wanted list.
    Rubber burned onto the parking garage floor as she turned right—back to the scene of the crime.

6
    “ H ome at last ,” Oliver yawned from the back row of the Tahoe.
    “You live in the parking garage? Ah, it explains your perma-stench,” Hunter prodded from the middle.
    From the rearview mirror Khani Slaughter watched Oli whackHunter’s yolk. Curses and laughter filled the vehicle and rocked it on its wheels. She smiled in spite of the hour and the number of hours strung together she’d been awake. By now it crept toward the fifty mark.
    “All right, ladies,” Tyler’s voice rumbled from the passenger seat, “let’s thank our LTC for getting our sorry asses back in one piece.”
    “Ever grateful, Lieutenant Commander,” Hunter said, tightening his hold on Oliver’s throat.
    She slid the SUV into the parking space, shifted to park, and turned to regard the overgrown children in the back seat.
    Oli—still restrained, but making headway with a twisting grip on Hunter’s ear—winked and flashed a wide grin. “Thanks, LTC.”
    “Get your gear and get out of my sight. I’m tired of staring at your ugly mugs,” she ordered.
    “Yes, ma’am’s” rained all around and they—some of the most ruggedly beautiful and extremely capable men of her elite Base Branch team—hustled out of the Tahoe.
    Tyler opened his door, but turned and offered his hand across the console. “An honor, Lieutenant Commander.”
    “My duty and pleasure to return you to your misfit lives.” Khani accepted the large hand with her equally firm grip, shook, and released his hand. Only, her subordinate’s fingers remained wrapped around her slight hand, detaining her with gentle pressure. “Release my hand or lose yours, Tyler.”
    Her English accent thickened along with her anger. She’d crossed an ocean to get away from this kind of puppy-love shit, and she wasn’t about to move again. Last time it had been her bad judgment, and the puppy in question. Now she was older, wiser, and a hell of a lot meaner.
    “Sorry, ma’am. I just—”
    “Get your gear and go home.” A little more loudly she added, “It’s been a long few days for us all. Right, guys?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” Oli and Hunter called from the back hatch.
    The men scattered to their respective vehicles, but