Page 8 of Fighting for Ella

Guilty or innocent, it wasn’t up to him to decide.

If she was innocent, then he hoped she was able to prove it for her sake. And if she was guilty, then he hated to say it, but she would deserve whatever was coming her way.

You do the crime you do the time.

That was a favorite saying of his foster parents, and it was one he thought of regularly in his line of work. As a SEAL, he saw a lot of evil and he’d never once felt bad for anyone who had suffered the consequences of their actions.

Life was full of choices, and if you made bad ones, what else could you expect but bad outcomes?

Regardless of her guilt or innocence, Ella had to be found and brought home. He would have no control over what happened to her once she got there, but if she was honest then perhaps she would be able to work out a deal of some sort, save herself some prison time. Although, if Eagle Oswald was out for blood, then the woman didn't stand a chance. He had power, influence, and money, and Ella had stolen from his company. If he wanted her punished to the fullest extent of the law, it would happen.

“Hey, there’s a car up ahead,” one of the guys on his team suddenly announced, and Miguel stopped with the internal debate over Ella and what she had or hadn't done and looked out the front window.

Sure enough, sitting in the middle of the track they were following through the jungle was a vehicle.

“I think it’s hers,” he said. Once they had the license plate of the vehicle Ella was traveling in, the Prey people were able to direct them along the same route that she’d taken. Heading in this direction was the last time she’d been spotted, and since there were no more cameras out there, he and his team had spent the last couple of hours traveling along various roads in the hopes they’d find either Ella or wherever she was heading.

Weapons in hands, they jumped out of their vehicle and approached Ella’s warily. She was an unknown, they had no idea how much she had participated in the events of the previous month, where her loyalties lay, how desperate she was, and what her motivations were. There was every chance she would try something stupid, and while he didn't want it to come down to that, sometimes threats had to be eliminated.

As he approached, it quickly became apparent that the vehicle had been abandoned.

There was no sign of Ella or anyone else.

A quick check showed she had taken her purse with her, so she still had the drug, but had she left because she’d met up with Raul, or had there been another car there waiting for her to change to it so it would make her harder to follow?

“Ran out of gas,” one of his guys announced.

“Did she get into another car or is she walking?” another asked the same questions he’d been pondering.

Scanning the area, he quickly noticed signs that someone had recently disturbed the undergrowth heading in the samedirection the road went. “I think she walked,” he said, indicating what he’d found.

It was time to go hunting. Playing the what-if game wasn’t useful. It wasn’t his job to figure out what crimes Ella had committed, all he had to do was find her and deliver her back home to face the metaphorical firing squad.

Miguel just hoped that she deserved what she got.

CHAPTER THREE

February 6th

12:14 P.M.

Every timeshe wiped a bead of sweat out of her eyes another one took its place.

Another dozen took their place.

It was so hot there, and she was already exhausted.

Ella knew it didn't help that she hadn't slept in almost forty-eight hours, had barely eaten anything, and had drunk nothing but a little water from the plane. Plus, she’d been living hopped up on adrenalin and living with a constant argument going on in her head as to whether she was doing the right thing or not.

It was so easy to make that decision in the moment.

To believe that you were doing the right thing, the only thing you could do, that you had no other choice, that life wasn’t fair, that even though it didn't feel good this was what you had to do.

But in the cold light of day, it was even easier to second-guess everything.

Had she had other options?

Yes.

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