Page 48 of Dangerous Games (Tempting SEALs 2)

South America. The Fuentes Cartel. He knew it.

Fuentes had used a very exclusive drug to dose the senators' daughters. Clint remembered the sight of those girls the night his team rescued them. Nearly naked, sweat-dampened, their pupils dilated. The oldest girl had been coherent enough to tell Kell that the soldiers were preparing to videotape their rape as incentive for their fathers to do as Fuentes wanted.

"Contact your head office. Get your best computer geek moving on the Fuentes Cartel, or what's left of it. The drug you're chasing was developed by them, so the lab, suppliers, and most likely dealers will be part of this. Someone left from that organization is trying to rebuild it, and they're using the videos to fund it."

"We've been working that angle, but nothing has popped yet." The frustration in the other man's voice was clear. "With Diego Fuentes killed, I'm leaning more toward a rival group than the Fuentes Cartel itself."

"Doesn't mean Fuentes didn't have an enterprising lieutenant smart enough to pull this off. See what you can pull up on the remnants of his cartel. Someone has managed to snag the drug, as well as a corner of his cartel here. Start tracing and see what you come up with. Some intel out of Colombia after we hit Fuentes was that before Diego Fuentes' old man died, his closest advisor, a man who went by his first name only, Saul, went into retirement. After Diego's supposed death, Saul disappeared from his seaside mansion and took a private flight to California. Intelligence lost him there."

"Damn. Intelligence in the DEA has no idea Saul left retirement." Excitement colored his voice now. "This could be the break we're waiting on. How the hell did you know this?"

Interagency collaboration could be a bitch. The CIA had the information on Saul six months ago. Clint had acquired it from a team member currently investigating the rumor that Nathan Malone, the team member lost in Colombia, was still alive.

"Where doesn't matter," Clint murmured. "Fuentes and his men thought women were one step below their dogs. Except for that aberration he called his wife. They worshipped her. Saul shared this view and he knew Fuentes' business inside and out. He could be the key we're looking for."

"Was the Fuentes bitch even female?" Joe grunted. "The reports I read on her suggested otherwise."

"She had a kid," he grunted. "So she was at least equipped physically. Mentally, I'd put her against Genghis Khan. Let me know what you can find out. I'm going to make a few more calls, then catch some sleep. I'll conta

ct you later to see what you've learned."

Dawn was peeking through the sides of the curtains, reminding him exactly how long it had been since he had actually slept.

He disconnected the call, made a few more contacts with friends he knew would spread the word that he was currently trying to tame the shrew, then pocketed the cell phone and muttered a curse.

Damn, this was starting to get sticky. They thought they had taken out enough of Fuentes' network to completely disable the cartel. Who had they missed?

He rose from the couch, pushing the phone back in its holder as he paced back to the bedroom. He just wanted to look at her. Hold her.

He shucked his jeans and underwear before easing slowly onto the bed beside her, careful to stay on top of the blankets that covered her as he curled himself around her.

He buried his face in her hair, inhaling the sweet scent of it, smelling the combined scents of their bodies. Hers warm and tinted with spring, his darker, more forceful. He was sunk and he knew it. Years of secrets, of hiding the truth even from those who knew him best, weighed on his shoulders with backbreaking force. On his back, old scars, long ago healed, stung with a fiery heat.

He flinched at the memory of the belt coming down on his back, the rage in his father's eyes, the violence that tightened his features.

You're the man of the house while I'm gone and you couldn't stop her?

Whoop.

She's a woman, boy; where's your pride? You're going to let them make a whore of your momma?

Whoop.

I'll teach you to do your job right. By God, you'11 do it right or I'll kill you.

Whoop.

He had been thirteen years old. It was his responsibility to keep his mother home, to keep her from screwing everyone on the fucking base while his Navy SEAL father was gone. His responsibility.

His father had never beaten Clint's mother. He had never so much as spanked Raven. It was Clint's job to watch them, to protect them, to keep them safe. Even from themselves. If he failed, then the punishment was his. It was the lesson his father had learned from his father, and so on down the line. It was a bitter legacy that would end with Clint.

Clint remembered the day the black car had driven up, his mother's hysteria at the news of his father's death. Clint had known only relief. Soul-destroying, guilty relief that his father wouldn't return. Ever.

Allen McIntyre had been a good husband, despite his wife's infidelities. To Raven he had been a loving, strong figure for a father. But the face he had shown his son had been demonic, and one Clint knew would haunt him forever.

He tucked himself closer to Morganna, pulling her into the cradle of his body as weariness washed over him. He couldn't keep her forever, and he knew it. He couldn't be certain that the insanity that gripped his father wouldn't take hold of him one day as well. He had been given proof of that the first time he met one of Morganna's lovers, years before. He had wanted to kill the bastard. Every instinct inside him had pushed him to kill. And it terrified him.

But while he had her, he would love her. Silently. Stoically. He would love her.

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