Page 3 of Forty Days and One Knight
“Well, hello, sleeping beauties. I see you’re awake,” he stated in English with a thick Latino accent. He glanced down at Lahana, still lying on the floor, and frowned. “Well, at least two of you are.”
Pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders, for both warmth and to conceal her bare skin from the men’s leering gazes, Tahira stood tall and lifted her chin. “Who are you and why do you have us caged like animals?”
The man didn’t answer her right away, which grated on her nerves, but she refused to let him see how afraid she was. Putting an unlit cigar he’d been holding in his mouth, he removed a lighter from his pocket and lit it. As he exhaled, rings of smoke filled the air. “My name doesn’t matter—you won’t be here long enough for it to make a difference.”
Tahira had no idea what that meant, but it sounded like their next destination would be worse than their current situation. God help them.
3
Argentina, near Buenos Aires ...
Darius “Batman” Knight’s day and mission had just gone to hell on a Harley. Yeah, the cliché was “hell in a hand basket,” but, in his opinion, that had gone out of date a long time ago and his version was better—not that it really mattered. Whatdidmatter was his undercover identity was a few seconds from being blown unless he could do something about it.
He stayed in the shadows in the underground prison on Emmanuel Diaz’s vast property in the hills just north of Buenos Aires, Argentina, hoping the woman he recognized in a nearby cell wouldn’t see him. If she did, it was highly unlikely she could disguise the fact she knew him.
Shit! How the hell did Princess Tahira end up here?She should be safe in her homeland of Timasur, at one of her family’s many vacation homes around the world, including their estate in Clearwater Beach, Florida. No matter where she’d been, she would’ve been guarded. He remembered his real employer, Ian “Boss-man” Sawyer, saying, in the briefing in which Darius had received this assignment six weeks ago, that Tahira and her cousins had changed their vacation plans and had decided to take a luxury-liner cruise. Had that been scheduled for this week or last week? He couldn’t remember, not that it made any difference now.
Tahira looked ready to spit nails, her eyes flaring with anger and her arms crossed over her chest. “I demand you let me and my cousins go! Do you have any idea who I am?”
A drug czar, who also participated in arms dealing and white slavery, Diaz and three of his minions leered at the beautiful twenty-five-year-old who was wearing a pale pink bikini with a pink and black sarong wrapped around her waist. Her feet were bare. From what Darius had learned on the way down to the mansion’s dungeon, Tahira and her two cousins—he didn’t know their names, having never met them before—had been snatched and flown to Argentina in a private jet and had arrived at midnight—just about an hour ago. Five members of the royal guard were supposed to accompany the princess during her travels, with at least two staying with her at all times, but clearly, they hadn’t been able to thwart the kidnapping. Whichever ones had been with her, they’d either been killed or, at least, disabled. Mousaf Amar, the head of the royal guard, had trained with several special-ops teams around the world and passed those practices onto the men he supervised.
Standing outside the cell that contained Tahira and her cousins—there were five other cells filled with other women who huddled together in terror-filled silence—Diaz responded, “Of course I do,Your Highness.”
Double shit!Darius managed to hide his surprise. At first, he’d thought the three cousins had been randomly selected by the bastards who kidnapped young women throughout Central and South America and the Caribbean in order to sell them to Diaz who would then sell them into slavery. The kind of slavery that meant being repeatedly drugged, raped, and tortured for the remainder of their lives. But Diaz had known immediately who the princess was. Had she been targeted? The head of the cartel had to know there would be a massive manhunt for Her Royal Highness. Why snatch a high-profile woman? It would be all over the internet within minutes of the media discovering Tahira had been kidnapped. Why take that risk?
When Diaz had emphasized her royal address in a condescending manner, Tahira’s obvious rage spiked. Her face reddened, eyes flared, and jaw clenched. Darius had to hand it to her—despite the situation she was in, she wasn’t cowering in the corner of the cell like her two cousins were. Unfortunately, that attitude might get her hurt—more so than what fate she’d face if Darius didn’t get ahold of his teammates who were backing him up on this mission. He wondered if Trident Security, the black-ops company he worked for under six of his retired teammates from SEAL Team Four, had any idea that Tahira had been kidnapped. They probably did by now; Ian and Devon Sawyer had a contract with the royal family and joined forces with their team of bodyguards to protect them any time they visited Florida. Amar would have contacted the black-ops team as soon as he’d heard the princess was missing.
The acknowledgement of Tahira’s title seemed to catch her off guard, but she recovered quickly. “So, you want my father to pay a ransom to release us? I assure you he will not. Instead he will send a team of the best men he has to rescue us and leave this place in ruins.”
Chuckling, Diaz sneered. “Well, I can assure you, I never planned on asking your father for money. You’re worth far more than that to me. Men will bid millions in moneyandinformation for a princess. Tell me,Your Highness, are you still a virgin? That will double the starting price.”
Tahira’s bronze complexion paled, and Darius’s gut clenched, knowing she’d just figured out what was in store for her if things went according to the cartel’s plans. He wished he could let her know he’d do everything in his power to make sure she and her cousins got out of this mess unscathed, but he couldn’t let her see him—not yet. She would recognize him immediately, despite his longer hair, beard, and mustache he’d grown out at the start of the mission, and give away his cover. He’d been on her security detail a few times, during her visits to Tampa, since joining his former teammates at Trident over a year ago. For now, he had to remain in the shadows. The white-slavery auction was next week. Sometime between now and then he had to figure out a way to get Tahira out of there. He’d save as many of the women as he could, but the princess was now his top priority, instinctively knowing that would be Boss-man’s order, if and when Darius was able to pass an update to his backup who would forward the intel.
The radio on his hip, and those in possession of most of the other men around him, squelched before the voice of a guard stationed at the estate’s entrance came over the air, speaking in Spanish. It was one of the languages Darius could speak fluently and was one of the reasons he’d been chosen to go undercover on this mission. The other reason was he’d been on the op when Emmanuel’s brother, Ernesto, had been killed by members of SEAL Team Four.
A truck carrying weapons and ammo that they’d been expecting had arrived. Diaz’s right-hand man, Felix Secada acknowledged the alert and then snapped his fingers. “Hamilton, Torres, go meet the truck and make sure the full load is there before they leave. If it’s not, kill them. Take Lopez and Acosta with you.”
Darius, aka Glenn Hamilton from Miami, was relieved Secada had issued the order so he could get the hell out of the cell area before Tahira recognized him. Seeing her turn her head, following Secada’s gaze in his direction, he stepped further back into the shadows and spun toward the stairs. He hated leaving her down there, but aside from being locked up, she should be safe until the night of the auction. With Torres on his heels, Darius took the stairs two at a time until he reached the first floor, wishing to God he could’ve erased the look of fear on Tahira’s pretty face. Somehow, someway, he’d get her, her cousins, and the other women out of there. Now he just had to figure out how to do it without blowing his cover.Triple shit.
4
Just after 12:00 p.m., Valentino “Romeo” Mancini sat with his teammate, Lindsey “Costello” Abbott, in the shade outside a little cantina they’d been coming to three or four times a week for the past couple of months. The two Trident Security employees were working undercover as environmentalists/missionaries helping to create a new well system for a small village and a nearby orphanage run by several nuns. They’d been staying at the orphanage, which was about a half hour from the Buenos Aires city line, with the permission of Sister Patrice. One of her former charges was now an operative for a US black-ops agency, and she fully trusted no harm would come to her children for aiding the private security team. With over twenty real missionaries working on the well and other necessities for the locals, two more people in the mix wouldn’t raise any eyebrows. Val and Lindsey had even helped the do-gooders whenever their undercover work allowed. Today, they were taking a break from picking up supplies for the orphanage, which would cover up the fact they’d be retrieving intel from Darius.
The first week in Argentina, they’d figured out some of the low and middle-level men of the Diaz cartel came to town a few times a week to eat and drink at the cantina and blow off some steam with some of the local working girls. Once Darius had worked his way into the cartel using an alias that Deimos had spent years cultivating for just this kind of mission, it hadn’t taken him long to “bond” with some of the men. Now, when either Darius or Romeo needed to pass on information to each other, they hid it in a loose wall board in one of the bathroom stalls. It was a primitive system, but it worked for them. They couldn’t risk Darius going into the Diaz compound with a hidden phone or any other communication device that could be found and blow his cover. He did have one way to contact them in case of an emergency, but it was only to be used when shit went upside-down and back-ass sideways—in other words, totally FUBAR.
Three seemingly unrelated items—a watch, an electric razor, and a belt buckle—contained hidden components Darius could put together very quickly, and send out a code yellow, red, or black signal to a satellite, which would then alert his backup team. The first two meant things had gotten fucked up, but he wasn’t in immediate danger. A code black, however, meant they had to extract him fast. Less than an hour ago, they’d received a code yellow, sending them scurrying to their communication exchange point.
They’d arrived at the cantina and taken seats at their usual table, covertly eyeing the surrounding area for any signs of trouble. After ordering a bottle of spring water and threecarne picante empanadas—his favorite meal they served there—Val stood and headed inside the cantina. Costello would be fine on her own for a few minutes. Since joining the ranks at Trident Security, the retired Marine sniper had more than proven her worth, and he trusted her to cover his six as much as his male teammates. Slap a fifty-pound ruck on her back and she could stay ahead of the boys while slogging through mud and muck, but clean her up and put her in a dress and the brunette would turn heads no matter where they went.
Striding past the long, scarred, wooden bar and the six drunks that always seemed to be sitting on the same stools every time he walked into the place, he made sure nothing and nobody seemed out of the ordinary. The voluptuous bartender gave him a flirty grin, like she did every time she saw him. It was something he’d gotten used to as a teenager—he’d been blessed with good genes and what his friends called Hollywood looks, and women tended to throw themselves at him. Back when he was younger and cockier, he had no trouble getting his kicks with any woman who turned him on, but as the years went by, and he rolled into his thirties, one- and two-night-stands had gotten boring. He’d dated a couple of women for a few weeks or months over the past few years, but none of those relationships had worked out. There was one woman, though, that he couldn’t seem to get out of his head. The problem was she’d turned him down when he’d asked her out. Maybe that was why he couldn’t stop thinking about her—she was the only woman he’d really wanted who’d said no. If she’d gone out with him, and to bed with him, would he still be obsessing about her all these months later?
Summer Hayes was an internationally known country singer, with Grammy, CMA, and other awards lined up on the mantle of one of the three mansions she owned. Despite being famous, though, the petite blonde was a down-home kind of girl. She was friends with the wives and girlfriends of some of the Trident guys, and that’s how Val had met her—at one of the barbecues Boss-man’s wife had thrown at the compound.
Val and Summer had gotten along great that day, and he’d been ready to ask her out to dinner the next night, but something had changed after she’d spoken to Devon’s wife, Kristen, and their friend Shelby Christiansen. She’d become more reserved and stopped flirting with him. Val just wished he knew what it was, but the other women told him it wasn’t their place to fill him in. If Summer wanted to tell him, that was her choice.
Even though he barely knew her, he’d freaked when he’d heard she’d been in a bad car accident yesterday. While it was all over the internet that she’d been airlifted to a trauma center, there had been no official statement released about her condition. When Costello had called the Trident headquarters and gotten an update from Colleen this morning, they’d learned Summer had needed emergency surgery for a compound fracture of her lower leg. Aside from that, everything else had been simple bruises and lacerations that would heal completely over time. She’d been damn lucky considering her SUV had flipped several times.
That wasn’t the only news they’d gotten this morning—the other piece of intel was still under wraps as far as the media and public was concerned. Princess Tahira and her cousins had been kidnapped after two of her royal bodyguards had been killed. Boss-man had scrambled a team and flown to Jamaica ahead of Mousaf Amar’s arrival, but the last Val and Costello had heard, the three women were still missing and there were very few clues leading to where they’d been taken and by whom.
