Page 122 of Javier

It was time for us to go.

I marched into the suite and grabbed my laptop. On my way outside, I slid it out of its case, then plunked it down on the outdoor table and powered it on. After setting the case aside, I eased down on the rattan chair. It creaked under my weight. My fingers punched the keys as I reviewed my exfil options. This wouldn’t be the first time I got crafty to get out of a bind, but I had Missy with me. I had to keep her safe.

I glanced at the empty hammock swaying lazily on the breeze. A grin lifted the corners of my lips. This happened automatically whenever I thought of Missy. I returned my attention to the map on my screen, but even as I continued working, the realization struck me. Things had only gotten more heated, deeper between us since we’d talked about Nix. Something that I was sure would divide us, had actually united us. Our connection felt stronger, lasting.

Is this what happened between Dagger and Thena? Isthis what people call love? And if it is, can it really happen this unexpectedly, this absolutely, in one week, seven days, to someone like me, to me?

My heart blurted out an answer, and yet my feelings didn’t matter. It wasn’t as if the exquisite Missy Astor would ever allow me to call her mine in front of others. She was never gonna introduce me as her man to anyone. For her, I was a temporary distraction, a bodyguard, and a willing sex coach. Hell, she didn’t even need the latter anymore.

Dagger would kick my ass out if he found out the naughty things I’d been doing with Missy. Even if she now knew about my role in her brother’s death and didn’t blame me, I had other problems. Assuming I somehow managed to overcome Thena and Omega’s objections—a long shot by any account—what did I have to offer Missy? How could I convince her to stick with me when she was so far out of my league?

I scrubbed a hand over my eyes.I’m screwed.

Okay, all right, enough of this. The future was a suck hole. The present was now. Speaking of Missy, where the hell was she?

She’d been gone for a while now. I cocked my head and listened. She wasn’t singing at the moment, a cute habit of hers, but the shower was running. The monkeys were screeching like a horde of banshees. What the hell was wrong with those apes? They were acting as if they needed to be doused with Xanax. And why were my instincts screaming along with them?

I dropped everything and marched into the suite. The shower was still running. It was odd. Missy was such a stickler for not wasting water. Plus, the lunch buffet would wrap up soon.

“Angel?” I knocked on the bathroom door. “Are you all right?” When she didn’t reply, I banged on the door again. “Can you hear me? The rivers and the lake are gonna dry up if you keep at it,” I teased, but I got no answer.

Her silence got me worried. Guarding her was my job. The knob wasn’t locked, so I opened the door and stalked across the spa bathroom to the large enclosed outdoor shower that anchored the far side of the room.

“Missy?” I called out as I parked before the shower’s rustic privacy screen, a flexible contraption made out of bamboo slats strapped to flexible rods at the top and the bottom and hinged to the wall.

No response, but the water kept flowing.

“I’m coming in.” I lifted the latch, swung open the screen, and stopped in my tracks.

My neurons fired a ton of information. My brain processed at high velocity. In the middle of the round limestone enclosure, Missy hunched up under the rain shower, wet and shivering, hugging her middle. Her nipples stood at maximum attention, goosebumps pebbled her skin, and drenched strands of her hair were plastered over her face and shoulders. And yet it was the enormous size of her eyes and the terror I spotted there that turned my guts to ice.

Keeping herself very still, she mouthed, “No,” and, “Stay back.”

My gun was already out, casing multiple threats. My senses swiveled like radars. The protective mesh installed over the outdoor shower, the one that kept the space free of birds and other critters, was gone, disappeared. A burlap cloth sprawled on the flat stone floor at my ten o’clock. It was drenched by the water splashing from the shower. A long form laid on it, wet, alert, and coiled only four feet away from Missy.

My vision tunneled on the massive snake. Flat, angular head. Pale yellow on the underside. Sharp ridge between the top and the eyes that went to the tip of the snout. Body shaded in earth colors with geometrical triangles in a zigzag pattern. The Raider’s snake catalogue hammered into my brain duringtraining flipped in my head at high speed. Then it offered a solid ID.

The Fer-de-lance, named after its lance-shaped head, was the most dangerous pit viper in the Americas. It was also the deadliest reptile in Costa Rica. Scientific name, B. Asper. The locals called itTerciopeloorBarba Amarillaand went out of their way to give it a wide berth.

Fuck.

The old brain fired the creature’s specs. Excitable, unpredictable, and aggressive when in danger. Fast, agile, with extensive jump and strike ranges. Incredibly potent venom, highly concentrated per gram, and injected in extremely high doses per bite, which made it lethal.

Double fuck.

The snake coiled beyond Missy’s bare legs was huge. It turned toward me, flipping its forked tongue in the air. This wasn’t the worst news yet. Four other snakes of the same species slithered at the edges of the enclosure. One of them kept trying to climb up the polished limestone walls, but couldn’t manage enough grip. All the creatures looked stressed and agitated.

Missy was trapped in a pit of deadly vipers.

Triple fuck.

Chapter Thirty

Missy

As Javier opened the bamboo screen, I stood there, petrified, watching death slithering at my feet. Wearing only his sweats and a T-shirt, he pulled out his gun and braced at the threshold. There was nothing between his naked feet and the snakes’ fangs, and only a thin jersey between his legs and those same deadly fangs. If he came within range of the vipers, he could die.

Barely moving my lips, I mouthed a warning to Javier. He shifted his weapon from one creature to the next, but I knew what he was thinking. There were too many. Shooting one would result in the others striking out blindly.

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