Page 16 of Fighting for Ella

This wasthe craziest thing she’d ever done.

Hands down.

There wasn’t even a runner-up.

Ella had always been a good girl. She was the kind of kid who went with the flow and never made waves. She loved her music and worked hard at it because she wanted to be good like her parents, grandparents, and siblings. With schoolwork she had the same attitude, she liked to do well at everything she put her mind to. While she hadn't had a huge circle of friends, she’d had a couple of close ones in school, and they were all good girls too. It was rare for her to get into trouble about anything.

Until now anyway.

It was still surreal.

Just a month ago her life was perfect. Well close enough. There were still things she wanted and didn't have, mainly finding someone, falling in love, and having a family of her own.The desire for that had grown over the last few weeks as she saw each member of her team find their other half.

She wanted that.

Had always wanted that.

But now that dream had shimmered so far out of her reach that she knew it would never happen for her.

When she’d gotten on that plane, Ella knew there was a good chance that she would never leave Mexico alive. Not only did she not trust Raul Castillo as far as she could throw him, but she didn't trust the mole either. If her plan worked and she’d been able to alert Prey to Raul’s location, and he was arrested, she’d hoped that her Prey family would know that she would never have betrayed them and that life would just go back to the way it had been before, only without a threat hovering over the heads of Athena Team.

Now she realized how naïve she’d been.

Of course, she couldn’t walk out of this unscathed.

Miguel had been there to take her into custody. Even though he’d been nice about it, it had been obvious that he believed she was a lowlife criminal who had betrayed her country and that she deserved to spend the rest of her life locked up.

When she told the truth, would people believe her?

Her Prey family had to. Didn't they?

They knew her better than her own family since she spent more time with them, they had to know she would never do anything to betray them.

That was what she was clinging to at least.

But it did little to ease her anxiety as she sat in a nice, open, airy lounge room, waiting for Raul Castillo to make an appearance.

After the second group of men had found her and she’d been walked another quarter mile or so through the jungle to a mansion hidden deep amongst the trees, she’d been offered aquick visit to the bathroom before being brought to this room and left here. Not alone. There were guards at both doors, and one at the doors that led outside to a pretty little patio.

There was no way she was getting out of this room.

Not that she would even if she could.

Her family’s lives were worth more to her than anything else.

Because of that, she would see this through. Sit there and wait for a man who terrified her to show up. Pretend that she had the vial of the drug Raul so desperately wanted. Get the threat against her family eliminated.

Pray it all worked.

Pray she hadn't made a mistake in not going to Prey.

Ella had wanted to. She had a much better chance of making this ploy work with them looped in on her plans, but how could she risk it when it was the mole who had set the bomb under her parents’ house and the mole worked at Prey? If she tried to alert someone, there was a chance she would have tipped off the mole who she knew wouldn't have hesitated to set off the bomb.

No.

This was the only way.

And it was too late to second-guess herself now anyway. She was in Mexico sitting there in Raul’s house waiting for him. Already she was too far down the path she had chosen to turn back.

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