Molly O'Keefe - Undercover Protector

“Nothing like a little excitement in the middle of the day.”

As Caleb spoke over the sound of the smoke detector blaring, he looked at Maggie. His eyes were penetrating, piercing as though she were smoke he was trying to see through.

“So tell me, Marg–”

She put her fist to her mouth and coughed in a desperate and hackneyed effort to stop him from asking about her. If he started probing Margaret’s life, she’d probably tell him the truth about herself.

“Are you OK?” His concern was real and she felt the bite of guilt she always experienced when a subject expressed concern over her faked moments of weakness.

This was no different. In fact, seeing the worry in his blue eyes was worse. I gotta get out of this job , she thought. Caleb Gomez is going to be the last person I trick. The last person I lie to and hurt .

MOLLY O’KEEFE

has been enjoying her new quasi-hermit lifestyle as a mum and writer in Toronto, Canada. In an effort to make sure she isn’t as much of a recluse as Caleb Gomez, she does force herself out of the home for lattes and scones. It’s a rough life. She loves hearing from readers, so drop her a line at www.molly-okeefe.com.

MOLLY O’KEEFE

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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For Wanda Ottewell. I can’t thank you enough

for everything you’ve taught me.

You’re amazing.

“JEFE!”

The door to Benny Delgado’s office crashed open and ricocheted off the cheap wood paneling on the wall behind it.

Benny’s semiautomatic was in his hand, safety off and aimed at the intruder’s heart before the walls stopped trembling.

“Jesus,” Benny sighed when he realized whom he nearly killed.

His younger brother, Miguel, stood in the doorway like a dog waiting to come in. “Sorry, jefe , but—”

“The door was shut, Miguel,” Benny said, laying the gun back on the desk.

“I know, but you need—”

“The door was shut.” He folded the Los Angeles Times crossword puzzle he’d been doing and arched an eyebrow at his little brother.

Miguel twitched and cracked the knuckles on his right hand, clearly worked up about something, which was odd for Miguel. He was usually too high to get agitated about anything. But whatever was wrong, there was no reason to break the one damn rule Benny insisted on.

When the door was shut, Miguel was supposed to knock.

The rule was put into effect during a particularly nasty period when one of his soldiers was suspected of cooperating with federal agents.

Benny tried to protect his brother from the bloodier aspects of the business.

Finally, Miguel sighed heavily, stepped back and knocked on the open door. “There’s something on the news you gotta see.”

It was their mother’s fault, Benny thought. She’d babied Miguel, allowed too many weaknesses to grow underneath the profile that was so much like her long-dead husband’s.

Benny, she always said, looked like a mongrel. Bits and pieces of no one in particular—a fact that had never inspired much maternal devotion.

In the end he was better for it. Stronger than his beautiful brother.

“This better not be an excuse to get the Lakers’ score on my TV.” Benny reached over to the remote control at his elbow and turned on the giant flat-screen monitor on the other side of the room.

“It’s not.” Miguel came to stand beside Benny’s desk.

“What are you doing watching the news, anyway?” Benny asked, looking at his brother from the corner of his eye. Miguel wore the white tank top and oversize khaki work pants that were the uniform for Chicano street thugs in Los Angeles.

Benny had stopped dressing the part of a petty criminal years ago; looking like a thug raised too many red flags for the cops. And once he stopped being a petty criminal, he could no longer afford the attention.

“Lita was watching it. Turn up the volume, jefe . Jesus, you got enough stereo equipment to blow the roof off.” Miguel pointed to the flat-screen TV and high-tech stereo equipment that stood out like a shiny technological thumb in the dumpy room. “You could at least listen to it.”

Benny could afford better than this crappy house—with its water-stained ceilings and fraying carpet—in Long Beach where his mother grew up, but he liked it here. He had grown up here, was safe here.

“Channel twenty-four,” Miguel said. He crossed his arms over his chest and tucked his hands into his armpits. “They been talkin’ about it every fifteen minutes.”

Benny changed the channel and turned up the volume so he could hear the special report, wondering what it was that inspired Miguel to watch the news.

“—the American journalist who was held hostage in Baghdad then rescued in a daring prison break that cost the lives of three American soldiers, is being released from the hospital today,” the blond anchorwoman with the great tits said. “Caleb Gomez—”

A photo of a good-looking man with dark skin and blue eyes flashed on the screen and Benny’s body went cold.

“See? Isn’t that—?”

Benny held up his hand and his brother quieted. Transfixed by the image of the Hispanic man on the screen, Benny stood and walked around his desk.

“Gomez was in a coma for three months following his rescue from the Iraqi prison,” the blonde said as pictures of a single-story building the color of sand and surrounded by Iraqi soldiers replaced those of the handsome man. “The tape of his captors holding a knife to his neck demanding the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq circulated the world last spring—”

The picture of the prison was replaced by a far more grainy shot of a soldier holding a long knife to the throat of a bearded, blindfolded man.

Benny had seen the picture a million times, just like the rest of the world. But now, even without seeing the man’s eyes, the prisoner seemed familiar. The way he sat, so proud, his lips twisted in what Benny knew was anger. It was so like the man he had befriended a little more than three years ago. The man who, shortly thereafter, had disappeared off the face of the earth.

“Gomez was kidnapped by Iraqi soldiers while covering the war for the Los Angeles Times —”

“Benny? That’s him…that’s Ruben, isn’t it?” Miguel asked. “He’s been in Iraq? What’s this mean?”

Journalist? Benny’s brain screamed. He’s a freaking journalist? All of those conversations. The things Benny had told Ruben, believing he had finally found a thinking man amongst all of the thugs and butchers of his world. The man Benny had trusted with secrets was a journalist?

When Ruben had disappeared, Benny had thought for a while that Ruben had been an undercover cop. Or a Fed. But when no harassment or raids had followed he figured him for one of those nameless dead spics found in the mountains.

He’d been wrong.