Read Online UNDERCOVER TWIN by Lena Diaz - Free Book Online Page B

knees beside him, searching for the words that would ease his temper. She remembered he’d found humor in her thanking him repeatedly back in the car. She cleared her throat. “Thank you, again, Nick. Really. Thank you, a hundred times.”
    He closed his eyes briefly, still shaking his head.
    She tried again. “I’m...ah...really grateful you aren’t sitting at home in your comfortable recliner.”
    He shot her an irritated look.
    She sighed and straightened her legs, sitting on the edge of the mattress beside him. “Are you going to tell me how you ended up coming to our rescue? It sounded like you and Mark know each other, and that he was expecting you tonight.”
    He let out a long, deep breath. “When you refused my help, Rafe and I dug around and pulled some strings to get some information. When I found out that Mark was the agent you’d be working with down here, I contacted him. He and I used to work together out of the Fort Lauderdale office. He kept me posted on where you two were going to be. I rented this house because it was near enough to your motel and the bar to be useful, but far enough away and remote enough that it made a good hiding place if it came to that.”
    He twisted around to meet her gaze. “I borrowed a fast car in case I needed to make a quick getaway. Then I followed you two as closely as I could manage without being too obvious. I figured something was wrong when I never once ran into any other agents. If Rickloff was backing you up the way he was supposed to, someone should have challenged me earlier in the evening for keeping tabs on you two. No one ever did.”
    Heather scrambled off the bed and stood facing him. “I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t there be any backup? Rickloff’s goal was to catch Gonzalez or some of his men when they swapped Lily for the cocaine.”
    He cocked a brow. “Rickloff’s goal is to catch Gonzalez. Period. You’re a pawn, and so is your sister. Don’t forget that.”
    She wasn’t sure she bought Nick’s cynical version of what had happened. Surely a high-ranking DEA agent like Rickloff wouldn’t be so cavalier with the safety of two civilians just so he could catch a drug dealer. There had to be another explanation for what had happened tonight.
    “Why do you think Gonzalez didn’t show?” she asked.
    “Oh, I think he probably did. He just didn’t let anyone see him. He would have come there to point you out to his men.”
    “What? Wait. What do you mean? We were there waiting to meet with him. We had the cocaine... Oh, my gosh. The cocaine! We lost it. If we don’t have that cocaine we don’t have anything to trade for Lily. What will we—”
    He grabbed her arms. “Don’t you get it yet? If Gonzalez was planning on a trade, he’d have shown himself. Tonight wasn’t about a trade. Gonzalez set this meeting up for an entirely different reason.”
    “What reason is that?”
    “He wanted you to come to Key West.”
    “But...I don’t...” She twisted her fingers together in confusion. “Why would he want that?”
    “For exactly the reason Rickloff said in the meeting yesterday. Gonzalez cares about Lily. He doesn’t want to lose her. But he’s a powerful man who maintains that power because people are afraid of him. If word gets around, and it will—it always does—that his mistress and her sister lost his drugs, or that either of them is helping the DEA, he’ll lose face. He can’t afford that. So he has to come up with an alternate plan. He wants to figure out how to save face in front of his men, but still keep Lily.”
    Heather nodded, trying to follow his reasoning. “Okay. And he cares about my sister, so hurting her is the last thing he’ll do, right?”
    “Based on the information I gathered last night and earlier today from my informants here in the Keys, yes. I think he really cares about her and he’ll do whatever he can to protect her, as long as it doesn’t mean giving up his reputation of power in front