Diego stayed silent for a beat before nodding. “Consider them warned.”
With their first night in the compound at an official end, Rafe twined his fingers through Penny’s and led the way back to their room. By the time the door closed, his teeth ached and his jaw twitched. A wave of the hand silenced her explanation as he inconspicuously scanned the room for replacement bugs.
Furious couldn’t begin to describe the anger coursing through his veins. A man like Diego Fuentes didn’t need a good reason to put a bullet in someone’s head. And now she was on his fucking radar.
He counted to ten—twice. Only when his heart fell back into his chest did he let words slip from his lips, ice cool and level. Penny flinched as if he’d screamed them in her ear. “What the hell did you think you were doing?”
“We’re being eyeballed, remember?” she reminded him needlessly.
He kept his back turned toward the camera. “The only thing Fuentes is going to see is that I’m pissed off, and that’s pretty damn close to the truth. What the hell, Red? I didn’t bring you along so you can fly off, half-cocked.”
“There was no flying—half-cocked or otherwise. Do you not remember that I was practically ordered to go for a walk in the gardens so the manly types could talk business?”
“Were you told to go snooping? Or to cross-examine Fuentes’s resident pet?”
“She’s not a resident, Rafe. She’s American—at least I think she is from what I could tell of her accent. And I wasn’t snooping, or cross-examining. I stumbled across her and she was honest-to-God upset, mumbling and muttering incoherently.” Penny lowered her voice to a near whisper. “Gazing toward the east, she said something about prisoners and a bunker. How was I to know that she was going to go apeshit crazy?”
“That is exactly my point—you don’t know. Which means you do nothing without my knowledge, and that includes approaching anyone on this compound. You may not be helpless, but you’re still my responsibility. Your actions affect my ability to do my job, and more importantly, they directly influence our chances of getting to Rachel. Diego’s now going to be watching us closer than ever, and that’s if he doesn’t decide to get rid of us entirely.”
“I didn’t realize—”
“No, you didn’t realize,” Rafe growled, hauling her onto her toes.
She flinched, more from his words than his firm grip, and he almost apologized. Then the thought of her at Diego’s mercy fired him up all over again.
“I was a few minutes from getting the ‘in’ we needed. Unless the man is sampling his own drug, Fuentes seems to think Freedom is going to make him the ruler of the world and everyone in it. He’s not planning on this being a run-of-the-mill street drug, Red. He’s going to sell stashes of it to the highest bidders, and those people, who could be anyone with a fat wallet and a fucking twisted disposition, will intentionally addict people so they have no choice but to come back to them for more.”
“Instant obedience.” Penny’s face paled.
“Exactly. I know I don’t have to tell you the litany of fucked-up ways that can be used. Mass distribution means that—”
“Rachel’s already gone.”
Rafe witnessed the heartbreak in her eyes. Goddamn, he wanted to chase that look on her face away as if he were the fucking Grim Reaper of Bad Thoughts. Instead, the replayed mental image of her in the hands of Fuentes’s thugs turned him into ten different degrees of asshole.
“Let’s hope your little stunt hasn’t blown our chances of finding her before it’s too late. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go suction my lips to the man’s ass and see if we can get them back.”
*
Rafe’s words echoed in Penny’s ears long after he’d left the room. They gnarled her insides, souring the contents of her stomach to the point she barely made it to the bathroom before bringing it all up. When the dry heaves finally dissipated, her throat was raw and her body ached. A hot shower did little to relieve the tension of her sore muscles, but she didn’t really deserve to feel better.
At some point, she must have closed her eyes and fallen asleep, because the soft rustle of clothes hitting the floor snapped them open. Facing the wall, she waited for the dip of the mattress. Rafe’s scent beckoned her to slide backward into his warmth. Instead, she burrowed her face into the pillow and denied herself the comfort.
He’d been right. Any misstep, slight or huge, could blow their chances of finding Rachel, and there’d be no one to blame but herself. The bucket of tears she’d cried earlier had nothing on the ones that rose fresh to the surface the moment Rafe’s arms wrapped around her.