CHAPTER ONE
Lucia Santos dropped the dishrag into the soapy water and ran toward the sound of a child’s bloodcurdling scream. By the time she closed the distance between the kitchen and the front door, Blanca Calabretta was already grabbing the old baseball bat she kept in the nearby coat closet.
“Mamita’s coming, Violetta!” she shouted.
As a mother, Blanca instinctively recognized the sound of her daughter’s voice.
She was fifty-seven years old and barely five feet tall, but she bolted out that door like a trained warrior, ready to protect her child, no matter the cost to her personal safety.
Without thinking, Lucia followed her, and the second she stepped out the door, she came upon a terrifying scene.
A man had his arms wrapped around Violetta and was dragging her across the grass toward a car waiting nearby. The passenger door was open, and the engine was running.
She was only twelve, but she fought him with everything she had. She kicked, clawed at his arms, and tried to squirm from his grasp. Realizing his hold was too strong, she opened her mouth really wide and bit deep into his forearm.
He howled and lost his hold on her.
Violetta scrambled away from him and ran toward Lucia.
His face was red with fury and he stalked toward them, cursing with each step.
Lucia wrapped herself around Violetta, turned, and shielded her from the horrible man who’d tried to steal her away from everyone who loved her.
She glanced over her shoulder.
Blanca held the bat high overhead, moved up behind him, and closed the distance between them. Then, with all of the strength and ferocity of a mother bear protecting her cub, she brought the bat down right in the middle of his back.
“GAAAHHHH!” He arched his back in pain and dropped to one knee. “You old bitch!”
Blanca was preparing to swing the bat again, and he shoved up off the ground.
He noticed people coming out of their houses, curious about what was going on, then ran to the car and dove through the open door.
“Go! Go! Go!” he yelled.
The front tires spun and finally gripped the asphalt, and the door swung shut as the car tore off down the street.
Lucia held Violetta close. “Are you okay, honey?”
“Yeah, I’m just mad he got away.” Violetta’s tears and the way her body trembled were a powerful contradiction to her tough words.
As the youngest of the eight Calabretta children, she’d learned how to hold her own. But this wasn’t speaking up for herself to her older siblings. She’d been innocently playing with her new remote-control jeep—something she’d bought with her own money—and a stranger tried to take her right from her own front yard. An act made more brazen by the fact that there was a large group of friends and family at the house for a barbecue.
Blanca dropped her makeshift weapon on the driveway and dashed over to her daughter.
Lucia released the girl, stepped out of the way, and they embraced.
“Are you okay, my niña preciosa?” Precious child.
Violetta nodded, then buried her face against her mother’s shoulder and cried.
Mark Collins, a detective with the sheriff’s department and Blanca’s son-in-law, ran out the front door. “What the hell happened?”
“Someone tried to grab Violetta.” Lucia pointed. “He jumped in a car and went that way.”
He pulled his phone from his pocket and ran down to stand in the middle of the street. But the car was no longer in sight.
Blanca’s guests began pouring out onto the front yard. Curious neighbors filtered out of their houses to stand on their front porches or driveways, interested in finding out what all the excitement was about.
Lucia desperately needed to see her own child and began scanning the crowd of people gathered on the front lawn. She was only eight and so small. Then, she heard her voice before she saw her.
“What happened to Violetta?” Isabella carefully weaved her way through the people.
Lucia ran to her, dropped to one knee, and hugged her.
“We’ll talk about that later.” For right now, she just needed to hold her own niña preciosa.
What if it had been Isabella?
CHAPTER TWO
The bastards tried to kidnap my baby sister. Just thinking about it filled Eddie Calabretta with a combustible combination of concern and rage. Since his sister was now safe, that left him with mostly rage.
He checked his watch again. Seven hours and thirteen minutes—that’s how long it had been since he’d gotten the call.
Someone tried to snatch twelve-year-old Violetta, his youngest sister, from right in front of his mamita’s house. The home he’d help build for her after his papi died. The place where his family gathered to celebrate and reminisce.
His day had started like most others. He was in the locker room talking smack to his teammate, Boone Langston. They were about to set off on a morning training run with the rest of their team when Eddie’s phone rang in his locker. Before he’d even ended the call, he was already running to his boss’s office. He’d explained the situation to Cole Lambert, who was not only his boss at the Dark Ops division of O’Halleran Security International but an old friend from their days working deep undercover at the National Security Agency, the NSA.
Cole and Luna Pannikos, their incredible ops center specialist, immediately went to work to get Eddie to South Texas as soon as possible. Normally, they would fly him in the corporate jet. Unfortunately, it was currently at OSI’s location in San Francisco, and it would take too long to get to the Dark Ops airstrip in Virginia.
Instead, Luna got him on a commercial flight into Valley International Airport. From there, it would be an easy fifteen-minute drive to his mom’s house.
Eddie stared out the plane window at the flat landscape, made up of a patchwork of fields in varying shades of brown, tan, and green. They came closer and closer until he jostled in his seat when the plane touched down on the tarmac.
They taxied to the gate and rolled to a stop.
The pilot’s deep voice came over the PA. “Ladies and gentlemen, please remain seated.”
The pilot, first officer, and flight attendants had all been given a heads-up regarding the urgency of Eddie’s trip and agreed to let him get off the plane first.
He unclipped his seat belt, grabbed his duffle from the overhead compartment, and hiked the strap onto his shoulder. He made his way to the front and waited until the lead attendant stood and unlocked the door.
“Thank you, and please pass my thanks on to the rest of the crew.”
“You’re welcome.” She swung the door open. “Good luck.”
He nodded, took off down the jetway, and flew past the gate agents. He maneuvered his way through the mass of humanity lined up and waiting to board the next flight, ran past the multi-tiered fountain in the middle of the main terminal, and didn’t stop until he arrived at the rental car lot.
Luna had arranged to have his car waiting up front so he wouldn’t have to waste time zigzagging the lot trying to find the right one. The employee went through his spiel, handed Eddie the key fob, and told him to have a good day.
He thanked him, tossed his duffle bag onto the back seat, and climbed in behind the wheel of the SUV. He fixed the mirrors, fired up the engine, and left the lot as quickly as possible.
There was no need for a GPS—he knew this area like the back of his hand. For a year, almost every weekend, he’d made a two-plus-hour trip that took him right past the airport.
Memories of shuttling back and forth, making that long drive just to see Lucia at college, were bittersweet. They’d been so fuckin’ in love until—
Eddie tightened his grip on the steering wheel, reminded himself why he was there, and shoved away the painful memory. A few minutes later, he turned onto the highway ramp that would take him to his mom’s house.
Fifteen minutes later, he pulled up to the curb in front of her place and cut the engine. He checked up and down the street before getting out of the car. In his rearview mirror, parked by the curb three houses down, he noticed a dark green, four-door pickup with lights on the roof and a gold badge emblem on the door. He reached to the back, yanked his duffle over the seat, and climbed out of the SUV.
Eddie made eye contact with the deputy, who gave him a slight head nod, letting him know he’d been anticipating his arrival.
He made his way up the paved walkway to ring the doorbell. He had a key, but since he’d never actually lived in this house, it felt weird just walking in like he did at their old house when he was a kid coming home from school or from playing outside.
She would say he was being silly, but whatever.
The door swung open, and Mamita stood there, arms wide, a big smile on her face.
“Eduardo!” Blanca Calabretta stepped out and wrapped her arms around his body. “It is so good to have you home.”
“Hi, Mamita.” He held her close and, since she was smaller than he, her face only came to the middle of his chest. “I got here as fast as I could.”
“So many times I have told you to just let yourself in, you silly boy.” She squeezed him good and tight.
“How is Violetta?” He held her at arm’s length and bent his legs to bring him to her eye level. “And be honest with me, Mamita.”
“She is a little shaken up, but you know our little Violetta. She is so strong-willed.” She patted his chest, and there was a proud twinkle in her eyes when she spoke of her youngest child.
Who was he kidding? She had the same twinkle no matter which child or grandchild she happened to be speaking about.
His mom and dad always referred to Violetta as their happy surprise, since she came much later than their other children. Eddie was twenty and already in the Marine Corps when she was born. And there were thirteen years between Violetta and their next-oldest sister, Fernanda.
When she was a baby, all of his sisters treated her like their own personal baby doll. Eddie doted on her, too. To say she was spoiled would be an understatement, and still, she was such a sweet kid with a huge heart. But she was no pushover, either.
“Come in. Come in.” She gave the deputy a little wave, closed the door behind Eddie, and locked it.
“Where is she?” He looked around the front room and toward the hall leading to the bedrooms.
“She is at Fernanda’s house, helping her with the baby.” Fernanda was one of his sisters, and she’d just had a baby about six months ago. “We thought the distraction would be good for her.”
Eddie was the oldest of eight children and the only boy. In age order, his sisters were Reina, thirty-one; Olive, thirty; the twins, Teresa and Elena, twenty-eight; Paloma, twenty-six; and Fernanda, who was twenty-five. Then finally came Violetta, who just turned twelve a few months ago.
His folks had been very busy for a very long time.
Growing up, their house was always crowded and full of noise and loads of female drama. For the most part, Eddie had done his own thing and didn’t give it much thought. Except when their menstrual cycles all seemed to sync up at the same time. That hadn’t been so easy to ignore. He likened it to being caught up in a violent sea of crashing emotions.
His father had definitely been the head of the family in all of the right ways. And man, did he love his wife. Ergo, their eight children. He used to stress to Eddie that when he was gone, his only son would become the head of the family. After his dad died suddenly from a massive heart attack a few years ago, Eddie stepped up to do his best to fill the very large shoes his papi left behind.
Since Violetta was the only child still living at home, his mom decided to sell the house they all grew up in to her oldest daughter, Reina, and her husband. Eddie had helped build the house his mom lived in now. It was slightly smaller, had only one story, and all of his sisters lived within five miles of her front door.
After he left to join the Marine Corps when he was nineteen, he never moved back. Then he’d gone to work for the NSA and basically disappeared from their life for three years. Now, his job required him to live in Virginia and to be gone a lot to parts of the world no one could ever know about.
He missed seeing his family regularly and enjoying their big gatherings, but he loved his job with the Dark Ops too much to make a change.
“You must be hungry," she said. "Let’s get you something to eat.”
“Mom, you don’t always have to feed me, ya know,” Eddie said.
“Did you hear that, Daniel?” Her hand dramatically went to her chest, and she looked up at the sky. “Your son, your only son, no longer enjoys my cooking.”
“Seriously?” Eddie rolled his eyes. “You’re tattling to Papi?”
“Hey, whatever it takes.” His mom winked and headed toward the kitchen. “I just made a batch of tamales and was about to take some enchiladas out of the oven.”
“You started cooking as soon as I said I was coming, didn’t you?” He stepped into the giant kitchen, built exactly to her specifications. And there had been many, because she was happiest in the kitchen when surrounded by her family and friends.
“Oh, you … hush up and wash your hands.” She pointed toward the sink, grabbed a couple of hot pads from a drawer, and opened the oven. “Ah, perfect, if I do say so myself.” She lifted out the same roasting dish she’d used for years and set it on a trivet on the large island.
Cheese and sauce bubbled, and the aroma of home cooking filled the room.
She lifted the lid off the slow cooker, and steam rose from the tamales.
“Oh, man, that smells amazing.” Eddie closed his eyes and filled his nose with the incredible aromas that reminded him of his childhood. His mouth began to water in anticipation of that first bite, and he hurried over to the sink and washed and dried his hands.
He grabbed a plate from the stack already set out on the large granite island and picked up a napkin and fork from the pile next to it.
“I take it by the number of plates stacked here that you’re expecting more people.” He dished up some enchiladas and used the tongs to grab a tamale.
“Your sisters and their families are coming over.” His mom went to the fridge and pulled out a gallon of milk. She filled a tall glass and set it in front of him. “Drink that. It’s good for your bones.” As far back as he could remember, she would say that every single time she handed one of them a glass of milk.
He pulled back one of the six chairs lined up along one side of the island, set his plate down, and sat.
“So where is everyone?” Eddie filled his fork with enchilada, blew on it, then shoved it in his mouth. His eyes rolled back on a sigh.
Damn, that’s good.
“You know where Violetta is. The rest of them are either at work or home.” His mom served up a smaller portion for herself and circled the island to join him. “They’ll all be here soon.”
He hopped up, slid out the chair next to him, and waited for her to sit before returning to his own seat.
“Thank you, cariño.” Sweetheart.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, enjoying her cooking.
“Are you going to see Lucia while you are here?” She tossed that question out like it hadn’t been years since they were together.
“Hadn’t really considered it.” He took a long swallow of milk to keep from having to say more.
“She’s divorced now, you know.”
His fork stopped halfway to his mouth, and he gave his mother a side-eye.
“I am aware.” Reina had felt the need to fill him in on that little detail.
As if her being single would change anything. It would never undo the way she’d betrayed him and made him look like a fool.
“I sure wish I knew what happened between you two. Your sisters won’t tell me. They said it has to come from you.” He made a mental note to thank them, especially since he knew all too well how relentless their mother could be. “One day you were in love and talking about a future together. The next day, poof, you were broken up and you left for the Marine Corps.”
His sisters only found out why they’d ended things because Lucia’s … indiscretion ended up on social media.
“Mom.” His voice held a hint of warning.
“All right, all right.” She lifted her hands in surrender and went back to eating.
Eddie finished his food, drank the last of his milk, and carried his dishes over to the sink to rinse them off.
“I’m going to put my stuff in the guest room before everyone gets here.” And he needed to make some phone calls without being overheard.
He loaded the plate, fork, and glass into the dishwasher and started to leave the kitchen but stopped when his mother spoke.
“Eduardo, I am glad you are here,” she said. “We all are.”
He stalked back over to kiss her on the cheek, then went to the door to grab his bag before heading back to the guest bedroom. Once the door was shut, he pulled his phone from his pocket and called his brother-in-law, Mark Collins, who worked for the Cameron County Sheriff’s Department.
Mark was the lead detective and a longtime friend of Eddie’s. They met when they were ten and played on the same Little League baseball team, and now Mark was married to Eddie’s sister, Reina.
“Detective Collins.”
“Mark, it’s Eddie.”
“Hey, man. You in town yet?”
“I’ve been in town just long enough for my mom to feed me.” Eddie had called his friend as soon as he found out about what happened to Violetta.
“Yeah, she likes to keep everyone fed. Hell, I’ve had to add two miles to my morning run just to keep the extra weight off.” Mark chuckled. “But it’s totally worth it.”
“Why do you think I played so many sports when we were kids?” They shared a laugh, then Eddie got to the reason for his call. “I wanted to check in to see if you have any new information since we spoke earlier?”
“Actually, I do. Your mom and Lucia were able to give us a pretty damn good description of the guy—”
“Wait, Lucia saw the guy, too?” His mom had a houseful of folks over last night, but he was surprised to hear Lucia was one of them.
“Yeah, she and Reina are really tight, so she was there with her daughter, Isabella.” Computer keys clicked in the background.
Since when was Reina, the queen of holding grudges, back on good terms with Lucia?
Shit. That meant she would probably be around more. Part of him hated the idea. Another part of him looked forward to it, which made him a fuckin’ masochist.
“Hell, I was there, too,” Mark said. “A bunch of us were hangin’ out in the backyard, and we heard Vi screaming. By the time we got to the front of the house, Lucia had already pulled your sister aside and had her arms wrapped around her. And your mom, she’d already chased the guy off with that old baseball bat she keeps in the coat closet by the front door.”
“I can’t believe Mom did that.” He shook his head. “What was she thinking?”
“She was thinking someone was hurting her child, and she wasn’t going to let that happen.” Mark had spent a big chunk of his life around Eddie’s mom. “You know how she is.”
Yeah, he knew, and just thinking about what could have happened to Violetta or his mom made Eddie want to jam his fist through a wall.
He was a naturally protective guy, but things were different—more intense—now that it was his own family in the bull’s-eye. And despite their complicated history, he wasn’t keen on the idea of Lucia being in harm’s way either.
“Anyway, I had your mom and Lucia come into the station, put them in separate rooms, and had them go through some photo arrays. They both picked out the same photo of a Hispanic guy with a very distinctive mohawk. His name is—”
“Tamarin Rios.” Eddie couldn’t believe that piece of shit was involved.
“You’re familiar with him?”
“He used to run with Alejandro Muñoz Jr., but AJ is dead.” AJ was a spoiled cokehead who loved terrorizing women. “Rios was one of the guys who grabbed my boss’s wife a while back. He’s kind of a dipshit and doesn’t have what it takes to freelance. My guess is, since AJ and his dad, Alejandro Sr., are both out of the picture, he must be working for the brother, Rodrigo.”
During his time with the National Security Agency, Eddie had gone deep, deep undercover within the Muñoz cartel for just over three years. Long enough to work his way into AJ’s inner circle.
The things he’d witnessed still lingered in the form of occasional nightmares. They had been the darkest three years of Eddie’s life, and the only reason he’d survived was that he knew his family needed him.
And now it was starting to look like his past might’ve opened the door for that same evil to slip in and violate the sanctity of his family’s safe haven.
“Are you telling me the Muñoz cartel is operating in San Salsillo?” Mark leaned forward and did not sound happy about that idea, and rightfully so.
“I’m not sure, but I know someone who can find out.” He would get Luna working on it, and she’d have an answer in no time.
She really was brilliant, and at the age of only twenty-five, she’d invented some of the cool electronics the team used in the field. She was also hopelessly in love and living with Boone Langston, a real-life cowboy and another one of his teammates.
The Muñoz cartel dealt in every kind of drugs imaginable and had begun to dabble in human trafficking, until AJ decided it would be a good idea to have Rios kidnap Cole’s girlfriend. A big mistake on his part, made worse by the fact that he shot Cole while doing it.
His boss and the Dark Ops team went in after her, and Eddie blew his cover to help get her out safely. AJ and a couple of his thugs were killed during that op.
Good riddance.
After that all went down, Rodrigo decided it would be best to ditch their trafficking operation—too unseemly to have that connected to his pure and innocent drug manufacturing and trafficking enterprise.
He must’ve somehow figured out Eddie’s connection to the whole thing and was now coming for his pound of flesh in the form of targeting his family. If that was true, this situation just went from bad to horrific, and things could get very bloody very quickly.
“You sure seem to know a lot about that family. Why is that?” Mark never knew any details about Eddie’s undercover work, but it sounded like he might be starting to put the pieces together.
“Let’s just say our paths crossed during my previous career and leave it at that.” He’d told his brother-in-law about certain aspects of his job with the NSA but nothing that would break protocol or put his friend or anyone else in danger.
“Well, if what you’re speculating is true, it might explain another situation we’ve been dealing with down here,” Mark said.
“Situation?” Eddie didn’t like the sound of that.
“Yeah, I didn’t want to say anything until you got here, but beginning in August, we’ve had three girls who have gone missing. One nine-year-old, one eleven, and the third is thirteen.” Mark tapped some keys. “And all of them lived within a five-mile radius of your mom’s place. I don’t know about you, but I don’t believe that is a coincidence.”
“Nor do I.” He would have to reach out to Cole about possibly getting some backup from his team. “Would you have a problem with me bringing in my team to help out with your investigation of the missing girls?”
“Are you kidding?” There was a hint of excitement in his words. “I’ll take any help I can get, especially from an outfit with a reputation like OSI.”
“We’re prepping for an op out of the country, so I’m not making any promises, but I’ll see what I can do,” Eddie said.
Someone spoke in the background.
“Eddie, I’ve got to head out.” Mark sounded upset.
“What’s up?”
“We’ve got another missing girl.” He ended the call.
Eddie immediately dialed Cole’s number.
“Lambert.”
“Cole, four girls have gone missing from here in the past few months.” Eddie skipped the pleasantries and cut straight to business.
“Think they’re connected to your sister?” He asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“Do you need to skip the mission?” Cole understood the importance of family.
“No, the locals are handling it for now, so there’s not much I can do at this point.” Eddie pushed up off the bed and paced the small room.
“If you’re concerned about your family’s safety, I can arrange for private protection.” Cole knew people across the security spectrum.
“You sure that won’t be a problem?” Eddie made damn good money working for OSI and had invested pretty much all of the money he was paid while undercover with the NSA. He could easily afford a private protection detail.
“No problem at all,” Cole said. “His name is Caine Bennett. He owns Iron Shield Collective. I’ll make a call and give him your number.”
“Thanks, Cole.” Eddie trusted Cole’s judgment in this and many other things.
“The team will be leaving from Joint Base Charleston in two days,” Cole said. “If something changes and you can’t be there, let me know. Otherwise, we’ll see you in two days.”
“I’ll be there.” Eddie would be of more use on their op in Pakistan than sitting around here getting fat from his mom’s amazing cooking.
“Luna will be briefing the rest of the team and will send you the details.”
Eddie needed an outlet for all the frustration he was feeling over this whole fucking mess, and taking down a piece-of-shit trafficker in Pakistan would satisfy that need.
“Cole, there’s something else you need to know about what’s happening down here,” he said. “They have a positive ID of the guy who tried to grab my sister. It was Tamarin Rios.”
There was a long silence. No raging string of expletives, no questions, just … deadly, still quiet. But Eddie could practically feel his old friend’s seething rage vibrating through the phone.
“We’ll deal with Rios.” Cole was a champion of keeping his emotions firmly in check, but those four words were a vengeful promise. “See you in two days.”
“Roger that.” He ended the call.
Eddie would take care of business with his team, then they could focus on figuring out what the hell was happening in his peaceful little hometown.
