Page 49 of Ravaged Hearts

I thought back to my final conversation with Hope. How she’d felt the need to tell me what our time together had meant to her. How sadness had shone in her eyes when we’d shared our parting kiss, like we might never see each other again.

“No.” I clutched my hair as my stomach plummeted through the floor of the plane. “No, no, no!”

Hope felt responsible for the deaths of Simon, Natalie, and Mari. The whole reason she’d volunteered for this op was that she couldn’t stand the thought of more people getting hurt. And now, I wondered if that sentiment extended to me and the team, a bunch of battle-hardened, highly trained operators. Was she out of her goddamned mind?

“What is it?” Brandon asked. The concern in his tone only heightened my anxiety. “What are we missing?”

“She took the trackers off herself.” I braced my hand on the fuselage when a bout of dizziness hit me. “She doesn’t want us to follow her.”

Stunned silence met my theory. Kane and the rest of the team watched me as though I were a strung out terrorist withmy thumb on the detonator of an S-vest. If one more thing went wrong on this op, I’d explode.

Brandon’s frown deepened. “Why wouldn’t she want us to follow her?”

“So she can do something stupid like try to carry out this mission all on her own.”

He blinked a bunch of times. “You think Hope intends to kill her father?”

“If it means the team won’t have to storm the compound and do it, yeah. Think about it. She handed herself over to Alvarez when he had her friend. This kind of self-sacrificing behavior isn’t out of character.” Shaking my head, I added, “She’s going to sabotage the whole goddamn mission to protect us.”

I should’ve thought of it sooner, but I’d been so busy analyzing all the ways to keep Hope safe from her father that I’d neglected to consider how she might be a danger to herself.

Brandon adjusted his comms mike. “One, do you still have eyes on the convoy?”

“Affirmative,” Sage replied. “Not letting them out of our sight. I’ll lock the drone onto the convoy as soon as it clears restricted airspace.”

Brandon’s eyes cut to mine. “We won’t lose her.”

“These slippery narco fuckers have gotten away from us before.” When it came to transport, cartels frequently used evasive tactics, especially when they had a VIP on board.

Fuck my life. If Hope survived this, I was going to kill her.

“TOC, this is Four,” came Shep’s gravelly voice. “Are any of you going to consider that the narco spawn might’ve switched teams?”

I froze, eye twitching, jaw locked tight. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” I growled over the radio.

Shep thought Hope would so easily flip allegiances? That she’dleave me?

I didn’t care if the hit man was a vicious son of a bitch. When I caught up to the rest of the team, I was going to make him hurt.

“That’s”—Brandon pinched the bridge of his nose—“an unhelpful opinion right now, Four.”

“I’m just sayin’ what we’re all thinking.”

This motherfucker.

Brandon exhaled a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter why the trackers are out of play. Our objective stays the same. Follow Hope to the compound and complete the mission. Copy?”

The radio was silent for too long before Shep responded with “Yeah. Copy that.”

My ears popped as our plane descended. All the while, Sage relayed updates on the convoy and Brandon tracked the location of our team’s vehicles from his laptop. Our cars had left the airport and tailed the vans toward central Manzanillo, then followed them along the highway that bypassed the city.

As we were about to land, Sage’s voice came over the radio. “TOC, this is One. We’re getting off the highway. Sign says this exit leads towardCentro Histórico.”

“What’s there?” I asked, all but snatching the computer from Brandon so I could get a better look.

He shrugged, zooming in on the map area. “Looks like a waterfront, restaurants, shopping.”

“Wait,” Sage said. “The convoy is slowing up. Shit. They’re not going to Centro Histórico.”

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