Page 49 of Her Noble Protector

When his phone vibrated and he saw it was Kane he sent a prayer of thanks up to Heaven and walked away from the doctor and Harry.

“What the fuck?” Kane said.

“I told you in the voicemail.”

“And I repeat, what the fucking fuck?”

“Cami has a concussion; she’s spending the night here in the hospital for observation. The cops have a partial on the van’s plate from somebody’s doorbell camera. They’re still running that down. What we have from Cami is at least three Hispanic men, she couldn’t ID the driver.”

“And?” Kane growled.

“It’s got to be tied to our Mexico op. I figure that Maria bitch got away. She’s holding a grudge against Lisa for killing the boss.”

“Goddamn federales. Never should have trusted their intel.”

“Got that right,” Raiden agreed.

“Okay, what do you need from me?” Kane asked.

“Just so we’re not walking over everybody, I’ve already pulled in Harry Chapman from Military Intelligence out of Fort Huachuca and Clint Archer.”

“Okay, at least Clint’s a SEAL and he’s from Midnight Delta, but I don’t know Harry,” Kane said.

“He’s an old friend who is stationed here in Arizona. I needed some more boots on the ground to cover Cami while I stayed with Lisa at her house, so I pulled him in.”

“Is he good?” Kane asked.

“Absolutely. Problem is, he’s not used to field ops, just intelligence gathering. That’s why I pulled in Clint Archer. But fuck-all if I know why he’s driving in with his wife.”

Kane chuckled. “Lydia is the shit. Seriously, it’s like you’ll have Clint squared. Trust me, you’ll be happy to have her. So they’re driving over? What’s their E.T.A.?”

Raiden looked down at his watch. Goddammit, four hours had gone by since Lisa had been snatched!

“They should be here in two more hours.”

“I’ll get on the phone with them and give them everything I have on the Mexico op, including where I think the fuck-up happened with the federales. I agree with you—this is probably the Maria woman, but because we thought she was dead, we didn’t do an in-depth ID on her.”

Raiden clamped down his rage. Just one simple mistake like that, and they were here. Kane must have known what he was thinking.

“It’s okay, man, we’ll get it taken care of. Does Cami have her phone with her?”

“No, but I’ll text you with the hospital info and room number.”

“No, text it straight to Nic,” Kane instructed.

“Gotcha.”

* * *

“You awake?” The words were in accented English.

Lisa didn’t make a move. Didn’t make a sound. She tried not to even breathe.

“You’re awake.” She was hauled up by her armpits and shoved up against a wall into a seated position. “I’m not going to take off your blindfold, but if you promise not to scream, I’ll take off your gag. Okay?” All of these questions were asked in English. It was the man who had the old lady named Nellie.

Lisa nodded. A coil of fear rose in her belly but she clamped it down. Hard. She could get through this. Nobody was touching her. She just had to keep telling herself that nobody was touching her, and everything would be all right.

When the man took off her gag, she wiggled her jaw to loosen it. “Thirsty.”