Page 22 of Fighting for Ella

Sucking in a breath, he looked up to find her watching him with a confused expression. “Honey, how did you walk so far on these?”

Ella shrugged. “Honestly, I wasn’t even thinking about them. They stopped hurting almost immediately after they burned me because I was too worried about my family.”

That right there told him everything he needed to know.

“Miguel … is my parents’ house really being watched?” she asked, chewing on her bottom lip, from the looks of it trying to hold in her emotions. “You … you weren't just tricking me? To see if I slipped up?”

Bursting her bubble of denial wasn’t fun, but he wasn’t going to lie, that wasn’t who he was. “I wasn’t trying to trick you, Ella.Prey has people watching their house, and yours, and your other siblings, in case you turned up at any one of them.”

Her throat moved as she swallowed. “They really believed I was the mole?” she asked in a small voice.

Answering that made his gut churn because he could see the stark pain in her big green eyes. “Things looked bad when you were right there on the security footage taking the drug and then you went right to the airport and got on a plane to Mexico.”

Lifting a shaking hand, she brushed at her eyes, catching the couple of stray tears that escaped. “I thought they would give me the benefit of the doubt,” she whispered, more to herself it seemed than to him.

“Hey.” Setting her feet down, he moved up the bed and nudged her chin with his knuckle so he had her attention. “Everyone is stressed, and your sudden disappearance threw everyone. But deep down, I’m sure they knew you would never betray them like that. Now we’ll have proof. The drug where you said it was, the email you scheduled, the bomb under your parents’ house. Everything will work out.”

“Not if the bomb goes off, I’ll have risked everything for nothing.”

“I have a plan, Ella. We’ll keep your family safe.” It was on the tip of his tongue to issue a promise, but he held back. Right now, he couldn’t make promises.

“A plan?” she asked, looking at him with such hope, such trust, that it made something shift inside him. When was the last time a woman had looked at him like that? Usually, women saw his body and not much else. They wanted him for sex because he worked hard for his physique, and they loved the whole mysterious SEAL vibe.

Ella seemed to look past that.

Yes, she needed his protection and his help right now, but it was that she looked at him like he held the key to solving all herproblems. She had every reason not to trust him since he’d come to Mexico to bring her into custody, and yet it was clear that she did.

“My team is with me. When you did the whole hide in the tree thing I decided to follow you.” He winked at her when her cheeks heated to let her know he was teasing. “They were going to wait until I let them know I was ready for them, then we were going to take down you and Raul. But I have a different idea now. I’m going to contact them and tell them to pretend they have you in custody and are bringing you home. That way, the mole should get wind of it, and with you set up to take the fall for them, setting the bomb off would no longer be advantageous for them. In fact, it would be counterproductive.”

The plan wasn’t foolproof, but it was better than nothing.

It should buy them enough time to keep Ella’s family safe while another team came in and they finally caught Raul.

“That could work,” Ella said hopefully, some of the fear receding and he felt he could take a full breath again. For some reason, this woman’s emotions seemed to be able to leech out of her, into the atmosphere, and then inside him. It was weird and … not completely unpleasant, just nothing like he had ever experienced before.

“It means you staying here and playing this out with Raul until another team comes to help get us out,” he cautioned. This plan came with plenty of risks and Ella would be taking the brunt of them.

“You're going to be here, too, right?” she asked anxiously. “You're not leaving me?”

“No, honey, I won't leave you. I’ll be here, but I won't be able to make contact with you again. You’re going to have to do what you came here to do, pretend you're going to hand over the formula. Pretend you believe him when he gives youwhat is going to be false information regarding the bomb being disarmed. Go to dinner with him tonight.”

Ella gulped when he mentioned that but nodded.

“It also means going ahead knowing the mole will make contact with him at some point to report that you’ve been caught and taken into custody. Right now, I'm banking on the fact that Raul never bothered contacting the mole about the bomb, but I could be wrong. As soon as they talk it will come out that there are reports you’ve been captured. Since you can't be in two places at the same time, and Raul knows you’re here, he’s going to suspect that you're somehow playing him. This plan puts you in more danger than you were already in,” he warned.

“But my family will be in a safer position.”

“They should be.”

“Then I can take whatever the risks to me,” Ella said with a determination that would make any SEAL proud.

The problem was, he was starting to wonder ifhecould handle knowing Ella was in such a precarious position.

CHAPTER SEVEN

February 7th

12:02 A.M.

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