Page 21 of Fighting for Ella

“I had a plan. The fake vial was just to buy time. I thought I could use it as a bargaining tool to get him to have the mole remove the bomb. Then, once I knew my family was safe, I was going activate a tracker I brought with me so Prey would know where I was. I didn't use a disguise, so I thought you’d already be in Mexico and close by. All I had to do was give him a formula close enough to the real thing to keep the scientists from getting suspicious and buy enough time for Prey to show up.”

Maybe it wasn’t the best plan ever, but Ella felt it was a solid one, especially given this wasn’t what she usually did, and she’d had limited time to come up with it.

“It worked, too. The real drug is safe. I sent a time-delayed email to my team to let them know where it was in case I didn't make it out of this alive. Raul said he’s going to get the mole to remove the bomb. And you're here, which means there’s a whole team of SEALs nearby, and this time, Raul isn’t going to slip through our fingers.”

“One little problem with your plan, Ella. You're a wanted fugitive and your parents’ house is being watched in case you try to make contact with them. There’s no way the mole will risk going in and removing the bomb because there’s no chance they can do it without getting caught.”

With those words, the bottom fell out of her world.

Everything she’d done had been for nothing.

Her family was going to die anyway.

February 6th

6:31 P.M.

He caughther as her knees buckled.

Miguel knew he’d been cruel to deliver the blow the way he had, but he needed to make sure Ella was telling him the truth.

Her reaction pretty much proved that she had.

No way could she possibly fake that kind of terror.

Feeling like a jerk for pushing her when she was clearly teetering on the edge of exhaustion after a two-day-long ordeal, Miguel gathered her into his arms and carried her back to the bed.

Despite her earlier show of spirit, it seemed like all the fight had now drained right out of her.

He didn't like that.

While maybe she could have found a way to alert someone to the fact that she’d been threatened, he could see how she would have felt like she had no other option but to do what she did. And given that she had stashed the drug somewhere in the country, she was one of the people who created it, so it was at least a quarter hers, she hadn't even really committed any crime.

Her plan was insane given her lack of field experience, but he didn't think it could in any way be considered treason.

Setting her on the bed, Miguel kept an arm around her shoulders while he pulled the pillows out from under the covers and propped them against the headboard, leaning Ella back to rest against them. Her eyes were wide and vacant and so very full of fear that he wanted to do whatever it took to soothe it away.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t.

Just because he had deliberately delivered the news that her parents’ house was being watched in a way he could get her true reaction didn't mean that it wasn’t true. Because it was. With people watching the house, there was no way the mole would risk going in and removing it even if Raul did have enough sway over them to get them to do it, and Miguel wasn’t sure that he did.

The mole was rogue.

Whatever the initial plan had been, the mole was off on their own tangent now, doing their own thing.

Wanting to snap Ella out of her shock-induced haze, he slid his hands down her calves to her feet and removed her sneakers and socks.

When the shoes hit the floor with a thud, Ella startled. For a moment, her gaze was blank when she looked at him but then anger and hurt shone through.

“Checking to see if I was lying about them burning me?” she asked, not quite enough heat to her tone, but enough to know she was doing her best to push through her fear and function.

He could lie, tell her he was, but the truth was, he’d always felt like there was more going on than they’d realized. While the others might have believed that she was the mole and had betrayed them all, he’d just known in his gut that it wasn’t true. Just because her family didn't know they had been threatened didn't mean they hadn't, and as it turned out, they had in fact been threatened.

Miguel didn't want any more lies between them though. He believed she’d told him the truth, and while there were no guarantees in life, he was going to move forward under the assumption that Ella was no traitor and work with her as a team.

“No, honey, I don’t need proof that you weren't lying. Idoneed to see if your feet are healing,” he told her gently as he lifted one of her feet. If she’d been in a panic ever since being attacked in her home, trying to come up with a way to protect both her family and the drug, then he very much doubted she’d given herself any first aid.

Add in the fact that she’d been running through the jungle for hours and he shouldn’t have been surprised to see the red blistered welts on the soles of her feet.

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