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A s he drove Torres and the others, who were drunk off their asses, back to the Diaz compound, Darius ran the minutes of the meeting with the teams through his head again.

They’d tried to cover every detail and alternate ending to the planned raid, but with their experience, they knew shit could go sideways in the blink of an eye.

As much as they wanted Diaz and his sleazy connections, the women came first. There would be no innocent casualties on Darius’s watch—not if he could prevent it.

He’d given Ian the names of some of the women being held hostage.

He’d gotten them while hanging out in the compound security office, shooting the bull with the guards on occasion.

The cell area had been wired for sound, and the women talked.

He had first names on more than half of them, but only a few last names from when they’d introduced themselves to the newer captives.

Darius had been surprised when Ian had recognized the name Melinda.

Apparently, an acquaintance named “Lady Cara” believed a teenaged woman she knew had been kidnapped from St. Lucia by the human-trafficking ring.

When his boss had shown him a photo on his phone of the missing woman, Darius had been able to confirm Melinda was one of the hostages being held at Diaz’s estate.

She’d been in the makeshift prison for longer than Darius had been undercover as Glenn Hamilton.

After driving past the security shack at the gate, Darius parked the vehicle next to the bunkhouse the guards lived in.

He helped the drunken idiots inside, then turned and headed for the main house under the guise of wanting something to eat from the kitchen.

When he entered the large room, with its state-of-the-art appliances that any chef would be jealous of, he found it occupied.

Two of Diaz’s flunkies were sitting there, stuffing their faces with food left over from dinner.

They both nodded in his direction, and the one named Carlos gestured to one of the empty chairs. “Hola, amigo. Beer’s in the fridge. Pull up a seat.”

When Darius had first arrived at the compound, he’d intentionally mangled the Spanish language to the point most of Diaz’s men spoke to him in English. They’d switch to Spanish when they thought he couldn’t understand their rapid speech. Little did they know he understood every word.

“Hey, guys, gracias.” Despite the warmth of the room, he left his bulky winter coat on. Grabbing a beer from the fridge, he popped the top and took a swig. “How’s your shift going? Quiet?”

“Pretty much,” Carlos responded before smirking. “Although it wasn’t as good as Secada’s night.”

Darius leaned against the counter and raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“While we were walking around the compound in the fucking cold, he was getting some tail.”

Something in the other man’s tone set Darius’s bat senses tingling. “He hooked up with one of the women on staff? Or did he bring someone to the compound?” The latter was against the rules Diaz had laid out for his men.

The other man, Javier, snorted. “Didn’t need to. He helped himself to one of the putas downstairs.”

Oh, fuck. He tried to not let his anger or revulsion show. “Yeah, which one? They’re all hot.”

“Oh, yeah. I’d fuck any one of them in a heartbeat. Especially that princess.”

Carlos laughed. “Right, amigo, like she’d ever give you the time of day.”

“Don’t need her to. I’d just do what Secada did—drug her up and tie her down.”

Darius’s gut sank, and he fought the urge to shoot both Carlos and Javier, then go find Secada and tear him limb from limb.

He paused a few moments, making sure he had himself under control.

The last thing he needed to do was raise any red flags.

“Are you saying Secada did the princess? I thought Diaz was going to ask double the money for her because she was a virgin.”

“Nah, he didn’t do her. It was one of the other two with her—the taller one.

From the looks of her when he brought her back downstairs, he had a good time.

Beat her up good—she must have fought him like a wildcat.

Secada’s fucked a few of them, but Senor Diaz doesn’t know that.

” He lowered his voice as if afraid he’d be overheard.

“The cabrón won’t let anyone else have a taste either. ”

His jaw clenching, Darius poured the rest of his beer down the sink.

While it killed him that Lahana or any of the other women being held had been raped by that asshole, he couldn’t help but be relieved it hadn’t been Tahira.

Maybe it was because he’d never met the other women or spoken to them before.

But it really didn’t matter because when the raid went down, Darius was going to make sure Secada suffered before being arrested or, better yet, killed.

Pushing his chair back so it made a scraping noise as he stood, Carlos frowned. “ Mierda —I gotta do my rounds.”

It was obvious the man would prefer to finish eating the enchiladas and beans on his plate, so Darius took advantage of that.

He thought he would’ve had to wait until his morning shift to hide the little surprises Ian had provided him with, but with everyone in the forty-room main house sleeping at this time of night, it was the perfect opportunity for him to do what he needed to do.

“I’ll do it.” He shrugged. “Got nothing better to do—stay and eat.”

“You sure? Gracias, amigo.”

“No problemo . Won’t take long.”

Striding out into the hallway, Darius began to make his way around the first floor, under the guise of making certain the windows and doors were secure.

He pressed a button on his watch and waited a few seconds before entering the formal living room.

The black timepiece was something out of a James Bond movie and Darius freaking loved the thing.

It looked like a common multifunction smart watch, but there was nothing like it available to the public.

The tech gurus at Deimos had made some changes to a $60 version you could buy anywhere.

The button Darius had hit was for a jammer that would interfere with the compound’s surveillance cameras.

Some of the camera feeds would blink in and out, but the ones Darius was closest to would show nothing but static back in the security office.

He’d been randomly fucking with the system for about three weeks now.

At first everyone had freaked, but after finding no breaches, they’d finally written it off as a glitch in the system.

In fact, the guards no longer alerted Diaz and Secada when it happened.

They’d gotten complacent and that’s exactly what Darius had hoped would happen.

Entering the living room, he made sure he was alone, then unzipped the lining of his jacket.

He pulled out a small block of C-4 and a detonator.

The great thing about the putty-like explosive was that it was easy to carry without worrying about blowing yourself up.

Only the shock wave from a detonator or blasting cap would set it off.

After inserting the wires of the detonator into the two-inch-square block, Darius lifted the top of a bench next to a baby grand piano, and gently set the explosive on a pile of sheet music.

Ian had the device that would transmit the signal for it to blow when the time was right.

They didn’t have to worry about Diaz’s wife or kids playing the piano before the raid.

Last week, the man had shipped his family out to one of his other homes in South America.

He hadn’t wanted them around for the auction, although Darius got the impression Diaz’s wife knew all about her husband’s illegal businesses but was too afraid to go against him and turn him in to the authorities.

If she ever tried, she probably would’ve been dead within hours.

From what Darius had been told by the others, most of Diaz’s house staff would not be at the compound during the auction either.

For that he was grateful, knowing that many of the women and a few of the men were innocent—unlike the guards.

The only reason most of the house staff worked there was because they either really needed the money to support their poor families or they owed Diaz some sort of debt.

Once he’d strategically placed explosives in all the downstairs rooms he had access to, Darius climbed the elaborate, grand staircase in the foyer to the second floor.

Diaz’s room was down the hallway to Darius’s left, with Secada’s and two cartel lieutenants’ rooms in the opposite direction.

Diaz’s kids’ rooms and several guest rooms were all empty.

There was a seating area at the top of the staircase, with glass doors that led out to a balcony.

All the windows in the mansion had been replaced with reinforced, bulletproof glass, while the wooden doors had steel inserts, which made it difficult for anyone to blast their way in. Difficult, but not impossible.

Avoiding the occupied rooms, Darius slipped into the other ones and hid the last of the C-4 under beds or behind dressers—anywhere they, hopefully, wouldn’t be found before it was showtime.

The main objective of the explosions was to create enough confusion for the special-ops teams to attack.

If anyone there for the auction was injured or killed in the blasts, Darius saw that as a bonus.

The sick bastards deserved everything that was coming to them.