Page 18 of Fighting for Ella

After changing into the clothes of the guard whose neck he’d snapped, he’d joined the back of the line of guards escorting Ella to the house. No one had given him a second glance, and the fact that he could converse in Spanish made things much easier. When they’d all arrived at the hidden jungle retreat, he’d merely accepted the orders tossed his way and kept his head down so nobody noticed that he wasn’t the dead guard.

From a distance, he’d watched as Ella wasn’t taken down to a cell or holding room of some sort, but instead was afforded the luxury of being treated as a guest.

As much as Miguel hated to admit it, it seemed only further evidence that she was there of her own free will. If she was a prisoner like the other members of her team had been, she would be tortured for information, not invited to share a meal with the notorious weapons trafficker.

Torn between anger that the woman would turn on her friends, and a niggling in his gut that he didn't know the whole story, Miguel knew he needed to get some time alone with her where they wouldn't be interrupted so they could talk.

That option had been handed to him practically gift-wrapped when he’d been ordered to take a dress to Ella’s room that Raul wanted her to wear when they had dinner. As he headed up the stairs to the room he’d been directed to, he wondered if Ella had done this because she was somehow romantically involved with the weapons dealer. If she wasn’t willing to betray her friends for money maybe she was for love.

Or at least what she thought was love, because there was no way that a man like Raul Castillo was capable of an emotion such as love. The man was a psychopath, he just didn't have that in him. Maybe Ella didn't realize that yet, but sooner or later, she would. Whatever she thought was going to happen there, was going to develop between her and Raul, was never going to be a reality.

Things wouldn't go well for her when Raul grew tired of her.

When he reached the third floor and turned down the hall to the right, he was a little surprised to find a guard standing outside Ella’s room. When she’d been escorted up there it had looked from where he was that she was just being shown to a room where she could freshen up and get a little rest before dinner. Was the guard there now to keep her safe from any of Raul’s men who might try to assault her? Or was the guard there to stop her from getting out?

Miguel wished he knew because it would clue him in as to what side Ella was currently on.

“Bringing her the dress the boss wants her to wear to dinner,” he told the guard in Spanish as he approached, holding up the slinky white silk dress.

“Can you watch her room for a while?” the guard asked, pressing a hand to his stomach, and he didn't need to say what he wanted to step away from his post to do.

Fate was practically handing him this opportunity on a silver platter. Without the guard out there, he could take his time to interrogate his pretty little blonde prisoner.

“Sure thing,” he agreed, then waited until the guard handed him a key and hurried off down the hall.

So, at least he knew Ella was locked in, he just didn't know whose idea it was.

He was about to find out though.

Opening the door to find the room dark, he noticed the bulge in the middle of the bed and assumed that was Ella. If she was relaxed enough in this house to take a nap, then she couldn’t be all that concerned about Raul.

Too late he realized his mistake.

He had underestimated his opponent.

Allowed himself to write her off as not a risk.

A split second before something came swinging toward his head, he noticed the presence that had been behind the door and managed to dodge out of the way.

Apparently, she wasn’t going down without a fight.

Ella came at him, swinging what looked like the base of a lamp, aiming for his head. Miguel had to give it to her, she was giving this everything she had, and she was aiming to eliminate him from the equation, to seriously hurt him, not just give him a little bump.

Did she know it was him?

Would she have attacked any guard who had come in there or did she somehow know he’d followed her there?

No.

There was no way she could know that. She thought he’d fallen for her climbing the tree trick, she would have no reason to suspect that he’d met up with some of Raul’s soldiers and come to his house.

Dodging another hit aimed directly at his head, Miguel managed to snag a hold of her wrist and used it to spin her around. Dragging her up against his body, he used his superior size and strength to pin her in place. One arm wrapped across her chest, and his other kept its hold on her wrist so she couldn’t try to hit him again with the vase. He had to hand it to her, she’d picked a good weapon. If she’d managed to get in a hit, she could have incapacitated him with a well-placed strike to the head. If she had the stomach for it, she even could have killed him with it, it was a heavy wood, comparable to a baseball bat in weight.

“Stop fighting me, Ella,” he whispered in her ear, there was no need to shout it and alert everyone that something was going on.

He could tell the exact second his words penetrated because she stopped fighting.

Still, her breathing was heavy, and she didn't release her grip on her weapon until he exerted just enough pressure on her wrist to make her gasp in pain and drop the lamp.

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