Whatever it Takes (Shadow Heroes Book 4) Read online

  Whatever it Takes

  Virginia Kelly

  About this Book

  Whatever it Takes

  She’ll do anything… He’ll stop at nothing

  A woman frantic to find her child…

  Laura Iglesias’s young son was kidnapped by a powerful and unscrupulous San Matean ex-general turned politician in order to flush her father, his top rival, out of hiding. With a reward out for her arrest, she’s masquerading as a waitress/caterer’s assistant so she can get inside the estate where she believes her son is being kept—until a stranger intervenes.

  A man with a mission…

  CIA special ops officer Mark Williams has no idea what he’s getting into when he helps a pretty waitress avoid the advances of the ex-general. When Mark realizes that she’s the widow of the man whose death haunts him, he vows to help her and her child get away. But helping her puts him at odds with his mission to take down the villainous ex-general. Torn between duty and the debt to a dead man’s family, Mark’s forced to make decisions that tear at his soul and could end in disaster.

  A country on the brink…

  Pretending to be man and wife on a quest to find her son, Mark and Laura fight an overwhelming attraction and give in to desire. But when they discover where her son is hidden, the villain makes a final power play that could destroy the country. Mark’s choices are stark: stop him or save Laura and the boy. And when Laura learns Mark’s true identity, she must decide if she can trust this man who lied to her about everything, maybe even about the passion they shared.

  Each book in this series is a stand-alone novel with its own conclusion and limited overlapping characters

  The Shadow Heroes series:

  Dancing in the Dark, Shadow Heroes, Book 1

  In the Arms of a Stranger, Shadow Heroes, Book 2

  To the Limit, Shadow Heroes, Book 3

  Whatever it Takes, Shadow Heroes, Book 4

  Table of Contents

  Title

  About This Book

  Dedication - Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  Excerpt: Against the Wind

  Note from the Author

  Book List

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Bruce. Always.

  Acknowledgements

  Many thanks to my first readers, authors and friends, Sherry Chancellor and Cara Lynn James.

  Special thanks to author Susan Vaughan, who read the entire manuscript and provided invaluable feedback, and author Ann Voss Peterson who always comes through with her knowledge of the craft of writing and provided the best possible title.

  Thanks to author and registered nurse Jordyn Redwood for answering my medical questions. All errors in the depiction are mine.

  Thanks to the KOD Chapter of the Romance Writers of America for presenting fantastic classes that helped me with my technical questions about the CIA, the military and firearms. Again, all errors are mine alone.

  Puerto Escondido

  Northern Coast

  San Mateo, South America

  Chapter One

  She didn’t like the way he watched everything.

  Her.

  Laura Iglesias pulled the peasant blouse of her waitress uniform higher onto her shoulders, but she’d done that a million times, and still the man at the back table watched. He’d been here yesterday when she’d worked her midday shift. Then he’d worn a tattered baseball cap and sunglasses that hid his eyes. He’d unnerved her so that she’d stayed in the kitchen as much as possible.

  Tonight he sat in the far corner of the veranda overlooking the rolling waves of the Pacific. Night and the dim lighting of the restaurant conspired against her need to see his face clearly. What she could see were angular features and shadowed eyes. His hair looked nearly black in the dark, which didn’t seem right for some reason. And his clothes. They didn’t match the… ¿Que? The aura of him? The worn jeans, wrinkled gray T-shirt with the national beer logo emblazoned across the front, and battered leather boots were those of a workman, but he couldn’t be. He was too intense, too confident in the way he held himself.

  And tonight she had to wait on him.

  “Laurita,” Carolina, the owner, called. “Pablo has your order for table one.”

  Hurrying to the kitchen before the temperamental chef yelled for her, she swerved to avoid bumping into a customer coming from the bathroom in the back.

  Not any customer. Ernesto Ruiz, retired army general, master of political intrigue. Don Ernesto, as he was now known. A sign of respect when he deserved none.

  The reason she was here.

  She froze, breath snagged, afraid the older man would recognize her from the outdated picture in the newspapers and on television. But they’d never met and Ruiz’s attention was on the low cut of her blouse and her left leg revealed by the thigh-high slit in her uniform sarong skirt, not on her face. Then too, he had no reason to think his enemy’s daughter would be here waiting tables. He barely nodded at her before taking a table close to the stranger.

  Amid the low hum of voices speaking her native Spanish, she served table one their double order of escabeche. Suddenly queasy from the smell of the spicy fish dish, she swallowed to calm her jittery stomach.

  If only she hadn’t brought her son from the States to visit her father, her six-year-old would be safe. But, no, she’d been on a mission to make her father realize he needed to quit being the crusader, the hero.

  As a result, Ruiz had kidnapped her child. All because of her father’s relentless vendetta against Ruiz. Two men out for blood and Tony paid the price simply because her father wasn’t home when authorities arrived to arrest him on trumped up charges.

  Right now she wasn’t sure who scared her more, the stranger with the possibility that he might recognize her and turn her in for the reward offered for her arrest, or Ruiz and what she knew him capable of doing.

  All she needed was to make it through tomorrow. Tomorrow she would be part of the catering crew working in Ruiz’s lavish Pacific beachside home. That had to be where he’d taken Tony. The thought of her child afraid, at the mercy of this evil man, made her throat tighten with unshed tears. She would find her child. She had to.

  In order to get into Ruiz’s house, she couldn’t risk this job. She had to wait on the stranger. She brushed her cold, clammy hands down the half apron she wore, grabbed a tray and walked toward him, maneuvering carefully between the veranda tables, annoyed that her skirt tangled around her legs. Eyes steady on the darkened corner where the lanterns barely glowed, she recited a silent prayer.

  A touch on her upper arm startled her. She took another step only to find herself jerked to a stop when someone grasped her arm.

  “Join me,” Ruiz said in Spanish, his mouth set in a raptor’s smile.

  “I’ll get your waitress.” She stepped back to pull her arm from the bite of his fingers. “I must see to my customers.”

  “Carolina will understand that you will sit with me.” He stood too close, his breath hot on her cheek, his grip vice-like on her arm. “Others will see to your customers.”r />
  It took everything Laura had not to twist away. He wasn’t drunk, though several empty shot glasses of pisco, the local brandy, sat at his table. Older than her father, probably well over sixty, he wasn’t an unattractive man, with his gray hair and refined features. But he’d taken her son and what she knew of him, of everything he’d done, made her clutch her tray to tamp down her fear and anger. Calm. She had to stay calm.

  “Siéntate.” Sit. No formality, no respect. But then, Ruiz had no respect for what he considered the servant class. He punctuated his brusque command by taking her other arm, turning her and pushing her back toward the chair he’d vacated. There were two others at his table, plain clothed bodyguards who went everywhere with Ruiz.

  “Un momento, por favor,” Laura said, desperately looking for Carolina. “I will get your waitress.” She tugged at her arm, still firmly in his clasp.

  He jerked her closer. “You will join me. You will like what I can do for you,” Ruiz said, his mouth curved in a way that pushed chills down Laura’s back. “Siéntate. Ahora.” Sit. Now.

  When her father was still the Minister of the Interior, no one would dare treat her this way. But her father was being hunted down as a traitor and she was here, in this remote place, where she was only what a powerful man saw. A woman. Alone.

  Suddenly, Ruiz reached out and ran blunt fingers down her left cheek.

  She dropped her tray, which clattered to the wooden floor, and pulled back. The movement unbalanced her, and realizing she was about to fall, she sat.

  A hush fell over the restaurant. No more talk, no more rattle of dishes.

  “Bueno,” Ruiz said, and stepped behind her, his hands pressing hard on her shoulders, holding her down. He rubbed with painful intensity.

  She flinched, but every move she made only caused him to increase the pressure.

  “You are a beautiful woman,” he said softly, his breath hot on her neck. “I do not wish to hurt you.”

  She stilled, sure he was bruising her. He slid both hands forward from her shoulders, beneath the blouse. His fingertips reached the top slopes of her breasts.

  Without a single thought beyond the need to make him stop, she jumped up, turned, and swinging upward, slapped him. The sound, sharp and satisfying, echoed in the silence of the veranda.

  She barely had time to curse her reflexive action before Ruiz, surprised in mid-laugh, his face already showing the imprint of her hand, pulled her close. “Muchacha, who do you think you are?” He grasped her face, his fingers biting into her cheeks.

  “Release me,” she said, sounding so formal, so calm, as if she was as brave as she pretended when her fear was a living thing, altering her breathing, making it shallow and short.

  “Not until I appreciate...” he said, his own breaths jerky, “you.” With that he released her face and, anchoring her against himself with his right arm, ran his left hand down the side of her neck as she strained away from his touch.

  “Déjala.” Leave her. The command came from Laura’s right.

  She wrenched herself back, forcing Ruiz to loosen his grasp enough for her to look over her shoulder.

  The stranger had spoken. He still sat, but the tense lines of his body spoke of his readiness to explode into action.

  Ruiz pulled her closer, his aftershave mixing with the smell of pisco. Without warning, he moved his hand to the elasticized top edge of her blouse and jerked it down, exposing one shoulder and the white strap of her bra.

  She didn’t have time to register the humiliation before the stranger was there, standing in front of them. Ruiz let go of her blouse, but his arm still held her fast.

  “Release her, viejo.” Old man. Why was he taunting Ruiz?

  “Do you think you can make me, boy?”

  Laura squirmed against Ruiz’s harsh grip.

  “Es mi mujer,” the stranger said. His woman. “Mi esposa,” he added after a single heartbeat. Wife.

  Laura froze. He had to be insane to step between Ruiz and anything he wanted.

  Ruiz released her and she backed away, adjusting the blouse up over her shoulder. One look at them both and she knew she no longer figured in this confrontation. They were just two men, each more determined than the other to prove who was stronger.

  She didn’t want to watch. The stranger, no matter how brave, would be no match against Ruiz and his two armed thugs. They’d stood, but hesitated, apparently waiting for Ruiz’s command. She wanted to yell at her supposed savior, to make him understand that his interference would cost them both too much. Despite the implacability of his stance, there was no way he’d win this contest.

  Or was there? She saw a flicker of doubt cross Ruiz’s features and felt the shift of power. By challenging him, the stranger was already winning. He was the sort who carried a gun. Maybe a knife. Maybe both. Everything about him screamed dangerous. Ruiz, for whatever reason, waved back his men.

  “Come,” the stranger with the shadowed eyes said, calling her toward him.

  Por Dios, what was she to do?

  “Come, niña,” he said, more quietly, his voice gently urging her to trust him. Ridiculously, she fixated on his Spanish, with its slight Argentinean inflection.

  Ruiz’s eyes blazed with ugly ferocity. The stranger’s revealed nothing.

  Too scared to turn and run, she chose the last thing she thought she’d do—count on anyone who played hero. As she stepped closer to the stranger’s side, she caught a glimpse of a gun handle in the back waistband of his jeans. Her thoughts immediately tripped ahead, planning an escape.

  “Your wife, muchacho?” Ruiz asked.

  “The mother of my children.”

  Loco, she thought. Crazy.

  Ruiz stared from the stranger to her, then back again. “So, you stand up for the mother of your children?” Mocking doubt colored his words.

  The stranger said nothing. He was either dangerously insane or truly saw himself as a savior.

  Or he wanted her for himself.

  “A man who will stand up for his woman against these odds is courageous,” Ruiz continued. “Tell her to go. You and I, we will talk.”

  With his attention fixed on Ruiz, the man held his hand out to her and said, “Come.”

  At first she didn’t think she would, but she finally saw his eyes. Light brown, nearly golden, like the good whiskey she served the tourists, they held steady on Ruiz. There was something about them, something that made her take another step toward him.

  With the slightest flicker of his gaze locked on Ruiz, the stranger took her hand and pulled her against his side. Bending close, he whispered, “Meet me outside by the lifeguard’s stand.”

  Cheek burning from the light brush of his beard-roughened chin, Laura backed away. She hated to admit how disappointed she was. He was no different from Ruiz. He wanted the same thing. But he’d saved her for now. Maybe, just maybe, if she avoided him, she could still salvage her plans.

  Ruiz laughed. “I envy you your woman, hombre.” Looking at his men, still standing, still awaiting orders, he added, “I can use a man like you. Let’s talk business.”

  Laura started to turn and run, but curiosity held her in place. Was this stranger taking a risk just because he wanted her?

  “Send Carolina,” he said quietly. “Go.”

  She did, hugging herself as she backed to the doorway into the main part of the restaurant. There, Carolina grabbed her arm.

  “Why did you not tell me? You let me go on and on about how handsome, how macho that man is and all along he’s your husband? Hija, what’s wrong with you? I would proudly tell the world I share his bed.”

  Laura followed Carolina’s gaze. The stranger was talking to Ernesto Ruiz, both men still standing.

  “After this, there will be trouble between your husband and Don Ernesto.” Carolina kept her gaze on the stranger. “I cannot afford to lose his business. You will not work his party tomorrow.”

  “I—we,” she corrected quickly, “need the money.”
/>   “No,” Carolina replied with a shake of her head. “It’s not a good idea to cross Don Ernesto.”

  “I’ll stay in the kitchen. He won’t see me.”

  “Ay, hija, your husband cannot want you there.”

  Her husband. Dios mío. She turned. Out on the veranda, the man who’d asked her to trust him, the man who’d saved her because he wanted her for himself, pulled out a chair and sat at Ruiz’s table. It all seemed so friendly, but Laura sensed the power in the stranger’s purposefully relaxed posture and saw the cold calculation on Ruiz’s face.

  “Por favor, Carolina, you know I can handle Pablo’s temper.” She hated pleading, but if she could use the chef as a reason to keep tomorrow’s job, she would. “Señora Ponce could not have managed him without me there yesterday.” She glanced at Ruiz’s table again. “Look,” she said, gesturing. “My husband, he won’t protest. See? He’s sitting with Don Ernesto. He doesn’t want me to lose this job.”

  Eyes studying the stranger, Carolina shook her head. “Not with your husband here.”

  “But—”

  “Your husband is getting up,” Carolina said. “Go with him now. Do not come back tonight. Tomorrow… Tomorrow perhaps Ruiz will forget.”

  The stranger looked up and caught Laura’s eyes, then turned and shook hands with Ruiz.

  That handshake told her he didn’t want her the same way Ruiz did.

  No, he’d recognized her and was going to turn her in for the reward.

  ***

  Laura bolted from the restaurant like a scared rabbit. She’d get her money from her tiny room in the barrio, then find some place to hide. Her breath came in short, quick bursts as she picked her way through the dimly lit alleyway littered with trash and weeds. Shabby construction and thin walls allowed music from tinny radios, conversation and shouting to punctuate the night.