Page 22 of Alien Mine

“Pablo was simply going to look for your daughters,” Miguel said, his voice smooth. “Beautiful girls. A shame they inherited their father’s coloring.”

Rachel’s blood chilled in her veins and her heart boomed in her chest. She curled her fingers around the edge of the door, steadying herself. “You leave my girls alone, you lowdown son of a gun.”

Miguel shrugged. “Is it so wrong to be concerned about the children of one of my employees, when they have only their mother to protect them?”

“Stick around a minute longer and I’m gonna demonstrate exactly how well I can protect them. Now, I’ve already told you asmany times as I want to. Get off my property.”

“When—”

A red beam of energy zinged through the air and popped into the ground at Miguel’s feet, burning the summer-dry grass. He yelped and jerked backwards a step, and all eyes swung around to the beam’s origin.

Dyuvad stood at the side of the house holding a strange looking gun pointed directly at Miguel’s chest. His midnight eyes were deadly and his hands rock steady. “Lady Rachel told you to leave. You will do so now.”

Relief rushed through Rachel. She stiffened her spine, holding herself erect against the urge to sag. “What are you doing, Dyuvad?”

“What I came here to do.” He ran the pad of his thumb down the side of the grip and adjusted his hold. The point of his gun never wavered. “That was a warning shot. The next one won’t be.”

Miguel held Dyuvad’s hard gaze for a long, tense moment, and Rachel waited, for one of the men to draw the guns she knew they had hidden away, for Miguel to race up the porch stairs and force his way inside, for Dyuvad to do Heaven only knew what with that contraption he held.

At last, Miguel held his hands up, palms out, and grinned his sharky smirk. “We’ll go. For now.”

“You will not return,” Dyuvad said flatly.

“We’ll see.”

Miguel and his men backed slowly away. They got into the car one by one, slamming the car’s doors behind themselves. The engine purred to life, the driver executed a k-turn in her driveway, and finally, the car pulled out onto Warwoman Road and was gone, taking Juan’s past with them.

Dyuvad lowered his gun and jogged across the yard and up the steps. “The girls are in Kelly’s room in the closet. I promised not to leave them there long.”

Rachel opened the screen door and stood back while Dyuvad slipped inside. “You weren’t supposed to leave them atall. Honestly, Dyuvad, what were you thinking? Those men were carrying guns. They could’ve killed you.”

He grunted and set his gun down on the scarred coffee table. “Not before I killed them. Secure the entrance, woman.”

He was gone in a heartbeat, down the hallway as silently as he’d crept around the side of the house. Jittery humor flashed through Rachel and she nearly laughed around the nerves shaking her bones so hard, her hands trembled on the locks. Dyuvad had saved her and the girls a world of heartache. The certainty landed in her gut like a rock thrown into a pond, splashing gratitude into the last of her relief. He’d saved them this time, but what about the next, when he was long gone and Miguel decidednowasn’t good enough?

She slid her phone out of her pocket, bobbling it in her haste to open it and dial the police. They couldn’t do anything, but at least she could file a report. Maybe, just maybe, it would add a nail to the coffin she hoped Miguel filled one day.

Fate arrived an hour later, sweaty and full of choice words about Miguel Ramirez. “That sorry piece of gutter trash. I thought we was shed of him months ago. You set him straight, now, Dyuvad, didn’t ye?”

Dyuvad tapped into his wrist com and checked the progress his ship’s AI was making on setting up long-distance surveillance around Rachel’s property. He’d initiated the process as an early warning system moments after Miguel’s vehicle pulled out of her driveway. It should’ve been done by now. Earth’s atmosphere might be interfering or maybe his ship was simply too far away to efficiently set up such a system.

Resigned to waiting, Dyuvad set his scraper a foot higher against the side of the house and shoved it along a wooden board. “He’ll be back.”

“Yeah, likely. Ain’t a durn thing we can do to keep him away, neither.” Fate frowned and tapped the edge of his scraper against his thigh. “Reckon I could move over here again, maybe keep acloser eye on the place.”

“I’m working on that.”

“Are ye, now? Hunh. You mind if I ask the particulars?”

“High tech security system. Around the clock surveillance.”

Fate whistled. “Rach won’t like that none a’tall.”

“She’ll learn to live with it.”

“Yeah, you keep thinking that, ol’ son.”

“If it keeps her safe, she’ll agree to it,” Dyuvad said mildly. And if she didn’t, he’d kiss her into acquiescence. “I want to open up the sealed doorway between her closet and mine.”

---