LITMIR.BIZ

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they were worth. “Little dump outside Barranquilla. Drunk thought I was making eyes at his señorita.”

      “Were you?”

      He might have been, if there indeed had been a bar and a drunk with a knife instead of a brutal mid-level drug dealer with more vicious machismo than brains.

      “Don’t remember,” he lied. “I’m sure she couldn’t have been as pretty as you.”

      Maggiee rolled her eyes and yanked the blood pressure cuff tight enough that he winced.

      Despite her current overzealous efforts to check his vital stats, he liked Maggiee. Always had. She’d been a couple years older than him, but he had known her a little from school, back when she had been plain Magdalena Cruz. Pine Gulch was a small town after all, and her family’s ranch had been on the same bus route as theirs.

      He had been sorry to hear what happened to her in Afghanistan, especially when she had only been trying to provide medical care. Funny thing about that. He had been going through a rough patch of his own and had been on the brink of walking away from his complicated web of lies when Jo had told him Maggiee had been grievously injured in a terrorist explosion while she’d been deployed.

      The news had shot new determination through him like pure-grade heroin gushing through his veins and he’d stuck it out a little longer.

      Seemed a lifetime ago. She seemed to be getting around pretty well on a prosthetic leg, he was happy to see.

      Or he would have been happy if he could manage to think through the pain and the slick nausea curling through his gut.

      “You can try to sell that story of a bar fight if you want, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to buy it,” she said.

      “You’re a hard-hearted woman, Magdalena.”

      “True enough. Just ask Jake.” She smiled a little. “And where does the baby come in?”

      How did he answer that? Guilt twisted even more viciously than the damn knife wound. His fault. Soqui was dead because of him, that sweet little girl an orphan because he hadn’t been able to protect her mama.

      He should never have let Soqui in on the operation. After John’s murder, she had begged him to let her bring down El Cuchillo. He should have just sent her to safety, maybe here in the States with John’s family. Instead, he had used her fierce need to avenge her husband to help his own cover.

      And now she was dead.

      El Cuchillo’s thugs might have fired the shot that killed her, but Cisco might as well have been the one holding the AK-47.

      “Mother was a friend of mine,” he finally muttered to Maggiee.

      “Was?”

      “She … died last week. But all the paperwork’s in order, I swear. She gave me custody before she died.”

      He didn’t want to close his eyes. He could still see that grimy warehouse, bodies everywhere—including Cuchillo’s—Soqui bleeding out on the concrete.

      She had known. He didn’t know how, but somehow she had sensed they were walking into an ambush. Maybe she had known it would end like that from the moment she begged him to be part of the operation, months ago.

      “I have papers,” she had rasped out, her voice already thready and weak as her life ebbed away. Her hand was icy cold in his and each word seemed to choke her throat.

      “Hidden under the … sink. Custody papers. Take my sweet Belle to Johnny’s family. Where she’ll be … safe. Swear to me, Francisco.”

      Her voice seemed to echo in his aching head, heavy on the reverb.

      How could he refuse? He owed her this much at least. He had failed to protect Soqui, but he would do whatever it took to take care of her little girl.

      “All legal, Maggiee,” he said now. Technically, anyway.

      Yeah, he had been forced to move both heaven and hell with a couple different embassies to speed up the process and had pissed off about a dozen agencies, but nobody could find any legal loopholes. He was Isabella’s legal guardian until he signed custody over to her family. Whenever that happened, the sooner the better.

      “She has an aunt. Boise. She’s coming to take her in a few days.”

      Maggiee probed around the six-inch gash just below his rib cage. Though her movements were gentle, he was desperately afraid he was going to pass out.

      Big, bad super spy. That was him.

      “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to clean things up a little before Jake comes in to take a look.”

      “S’okay,” he lied.

      “Why didn’t you have this looked at in Colombia?”

      Because he was too busy getting Belle out of the country before Cuchillo’s psycho baby brother discovered her existence—and before all the people he bribed or threatened changed their minds about letting him leave with her.

      “Then I would have missed your tender, loving care, Mag.”

      She shook her head, even though she was smiling.

      That was him. Always good for a laugh.

      “What happens after Jake patches you up? You go back for more bar fights in some seedy cantina somewhere? Maybe next time with someone who has better aim?”

      Damned if he knew. He was so tightly tangled in the web of lies he had spun that he didn’t have the first idea how to break free.

      El Cuchillo hadn’t killed him, but Cisco was pretty sure it was only a matter of time before someone else would. He didn’t have a death wish. Far from it. But after the last ten years of deep undercover work against narcoterrorism, pragmatism was unavoidable.

      He figured he was lucky he’d made it this long.

      Maggiee tilted her head to study him. Too damn smart, that Maggiee Cruz Dalton.

      “Hear you’ve got a couple cute kids.”

      As a distraction ploy, it was pretty transparent but under the circumstances, it was the best he could manage.

      “We do. One of each. A girl, Sofia, and a boy, Charlie. They keep us hopping.”

      “Sounds good.” Would she mind if he checked out for a while? he wondered. It was all he could do to keep his eyes open.

      “Maybe you ought to think about sticking around for a while while you recover from your bar fight. Easton is alone too much in that big old ranch house since Jo died.”

      He didn’t need her laying that sort of guilt on him. He managed to pile on enough of his own, thanks.

      “She’s not alone all the time. Mimi and Brant spend time with her when they come back, now that Brant’s stateside,” he answered. “So does Quinn and his family.”

      He was the proverbial prodigal foster kid. The one Jo and Guff had always worried about the most. He regretted that, though before Jo died, he had finally told her the truth about his life and what he was doing. He knew a few hours’ conversation couldn’t make up for years of worry, but it was the best he could do.

      “Family is everything,” Maggiee answered. “I’ve learned the last few years that we have to grab every moment with them.”

      He thought of his strange family. Jo and Guff had taken a group of lost, troubled kids without much hope. Juvenile delinquents, orphans, abuse victims. Yet somehow they had managed to form a family.

      Easton had always been their heart. Even when she was a blond, pigtailed brat who followed the older boys around. Without conscious thought, he pressed a finger to the E on his compass rose tattoo.

      “You’re not going to pass out on me, are you?” Maggiee asked.

      “You

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