Page 54 of Winters Heat

Men piled out. They took their lazy-ass time, knowing no escape was possible. They sauntered past the exterior camera. Parker clicked to the entrance camera feed. His front door exploded open. Two men stepped through. Others remained outside.

Every man watching the screens had to wonder where the hell they would go first. Winters had no idea. This was like reality television, the nightmare edition.

He didn’t know what to do, so he issued orders. “Fast forward. Go. Go. Go.”

Parker held up his hand. “Wait. Watch.”

Mia flinched in the upstairs hallway, then went to work slamming every door. She waited, then screamed. She dragged their attention straight up the stairs, and they took the easy catch, running toward her ruckus.

They were on her in seconds. She flayed and kicked, her nails clawed for their eyes, and her knees aimed for their nuts. Winters knew those moves all too well. They gagged her mouth and bound her hands, despite the throws of her fists. She bucked the entire time. A visible look of relief crossed her face as they pushed her out the busted front door.

“Good night.” Jared blew out a telling whistle. “That woman just baited those men away from Clara. Parker, what’s our elapsed time?”

“They were in and out in three and a half minutes.”

“Find me that helo.” Thank God Jared was barking orders, because Winters needed to dry heave.

He heard Jared on the phone, issuing orders for another team member to get out of bed and to get to Winters’s place post haste. He ended the call with a command tosecure that baby. God willing, Clara would be sleeping.Please let her sleep. Please.

He hit the speed dial for his mother again.

She picked up on the first ring. “Colby, what’s going on?”

“Mom, we had a problem. Clara’s fine.”

“Oh God. What happened?”

He took the phone away from his ear. He didn’t have time to explain. “Hey, Jared. Who’s headed for Clara?”

“Brock.”

He put the phone back to his ear.

“Hello? Colby Winters, you get back on this phone,” his mom yelled.

“I’m here. Look, you know Brock, right? He’s going to bring Clara to you. I need you to take her for a few days at your place.”

“Can you tell—”

“I can’t. Kiss that baby for me. Call you later.” He ended the call and dropped to a chair, unaware he’d been pacing.

“The baby will be fine,” Jared said. “That girl of yours pulled off quite the stunt. Are you pussying out of this, or can you get your shit together? We’ve got some cartel motherfuckers to find.”

Pussying out? The hell with that.

“More ready than I’ve ever been.” He was resolute. Jared would never question him again where his family was concerned.

“First things first. We need to figure out where they’ve taken her. Parker, have you tracked down that copter yet?”

“Almost.”

Winters spun to Jared, remembering he had intel to offer. “She has a skin tracker on her. Long story short, she has a bio-tag on. We’ve got about eight more hours to get a signal from her.”

“Kinky,” his buddy called from the end of the room.

“Shut your face, Cash.” Winters scowled at Parker. “Can you find that tracker?”

“Trying. Two minutes. Tops,” Parker said.

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