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Trujillo, Puerto Jardin

South America

Special Forces Sergeant Oziah “Wizard” West was bored.

Not just a little bored. He was drowning in tedium. Usually, he was undercover working for a drug lord named Vargas, but he’d gotten fired last week. Since then, his captain had assigned him to exciting tasks like taking check-ins from teammates who were currently playing roles.

Today’s assignment was worse.

Oz sighed as he turned into one of the worst areas of Trujillo.

That was saying something, considering the city’s condition.

Dirt roads and remnants of cobblestones hinted at a bygone era.

Soot and grime covered the buildings, dulling the paint underneath.

The café had once-bright yellow walls with murals painted on the side and tables with torn faded-red umbrellas over them.

Odors of rotting garbage and urine overwhelmed whatever the restaurant was selling.

He went inside, bought a soda, and headed to the outdoor seating. The tables were short and narrow. If he stretched his legs out, he’d see his boots on the other side. The chairs were red plastic, and he examined them until he found one without cracks.

After adjusting the table’s umbrella for maximum shade, he sat, turned so his back was against the yellow facade, and waited.

That’s what his captain wanted him to do today.

Bus station surveillance. Oz wasn’t sure there was enough caffeine in Puerto Jardin to keep him alert.

Maybe he’d get lucky, and the dude he was supposed to watch for would show up.

If that happened, he was supposed to follow the man. Things would definitely become more interesting then, but the intel had been iffy. Oz had his doubts he’d get to do more than hold down a table for a few hours.

One of the afternoon buses from Rio Blanco. Could it be vaguer than that?

Three arrived every day from different parts of the nation’s capital. The final one rolled in around five, so he had about four hours to kill.

Oz popped the tab on his cola. The man he waited on was low level.

Anyone high in international arms dealer Jorge Torres’s hierarchy would fly in, not take a bus.

But his team was looking for any inroad they could find.

Torres insulated himself. He rarely left his estate, and it was next to impossible to talk to him.

He decided who he met with, and that list was short.

A bus pulled into the station across the street, but the sole person who got off was the driver. The vehicle would have made multiple stops throughout the city and most passengers exited at one of them. Only those with ties to some illegal enterprise rode into this neighborhood.

This part of town belonged to the smugglers.

Illicit goods from narcotics to gold to stolen artifacts to counterfeit merchandise passed through here daily.

Even the local police gave it a wide berth.

This made it the second worst section of Trujillo.

The most dangerous was around the mercenary bar—where his team routinely hung out.

Oz sipped his cola and kept his eyes on a group of young men loitering near the bus station.

He didn’t think they’d bother him. Even the gangs were leery of mercenaries and that was the role he was playing.

Merc. He was also heavily armed and highly trained.

That didn’t mean he was going to ignore the potential threat they posed.

At the far end, an elderly man read a newspaper and sipped coffee, leaving Oz alone on the patio.

He spent a few minutes wondering if the man had connections to smuggling or if he was simply old enough for the assholes to leave him alone. It could go either way. It didn’t matter, not unless he had ties to Torres.

Forty-five minutes later, Oz was bored half-comatose. The old man had folded up his newspaper and left about fifteen minutes ago. It was tempting to slump in his chair and kick his feet up, but the gang remained across the street, and he didn’t want to appear like a target.

Outwardly, he seemed alert, but his thoughts drifted to Los Angeles and the prissy little blonde he’d spent the night with seven weeks ago.

His hand patted his pocket before he realized what he was doing.

Touching the outline of the small hoop earring she’d left behind had become a habit. One he needed to break. Soon.

If she hadn’t run out on him, they could have enjoyed a few more nights together, but she’d disappeared while he was in the shower, and they’d never exchanged names. Oz frowned. He did hookups, not relationships. She should be easy to forget.

But she kept slipping into his head.

A flash of camo in his peripheral vision caught his attention. As Oz turned, he forcefully pushed away thoughts of little Miss Priss. A merc down here could mean trouble.

It wasn’t some random mercenary.

His teammate, Kyle Winter, spotted him an instant later, and he headed toward the patio, grabbing the seat across the table. KW was undercover at one of the local convents and Oz had taken a check-in from him days ago.

“What are you doing here, dude?” he asked. “Did BD ask you to keep me awake?”

KW grinned. “I didn’t know you’d be around.” The smile faded. “One of the religious relics in the convent’s chapel disappeared. I came over to talk to a man.”

“Did he have any intel for you?”

Shaking his head, KW said, “Not yet, but he was angry. I guarantee you he’s going to locate it and make sure it’s returned. I’d hate to be the guy who stole it.”

“Payback’s a bitch.”

“Especially when the biggest badass in this world is religious and considers relics to be completely out of bounds.” KW ran both hands over his face.

“I’ll be glad when the renovations finally get rolling.

At least then they’ll temporarily move the stuff worth stealing to another location.

There are so many people in and out of the abbey right now that I can’t monitor all of them. ”

“And do your job,” Oz tacked on. Jorge Torres had a squad surrounding the convent, so they sent KW to work as a handyman. His teammate’s assignment was to find out why Torres was interested in a religious building.

“Right. That, too.” KW glanced around. His gaze settled on the dozen or so men loitering across the street. “They’re looking for trouble. You better watch your ass when you leave.”

“Odds are they don’t want to tangle with a merc.”

“Odds don’t mean much if they decide there are enough of them to take you. You don’t look half as terrifying as you did a couple weeks ago.”

Scowling, Oz reached for his can of cola.

About ten days ago, he’d gotten almost eight inches lopped off his hair, which brought it up to his shoulders.

Trujillo was always hot and humid and the shorter hair was cooler and didn’t take as much effort.

It was the other service he’d requested that shot his intimidation factor.

Trimming his beard.

The barber had been scared and shook badly enough that he’d fucked up big time. The only answer was to shave the entire thing off. Oz was growing the beard back, but right now all he had was stubble.

“Why’d you decide to shave, anyway?”

“Long story,” Oz said, putting all the irritation he felt in his voice. He’d been taking shit from his teammates, and he was done with it.

KW smirked, and Oz increased the intensity of his glower. Winter shrugged. “Looks like I’m too late to have fun. You’re already pissy about it. Never let it be said that I can’t take a hint.”

He changed the subject because KW would absolutely still give him shit whether or not he was over it. “You have anything you want me to pass along to BD?”

There was a shrug, a long silence, and then, “They’re tailing me whenever I leave the convent. That’s new. Before this week, the boss’s men have been ignoring me. They might just be impatient since they’ve been parked there for so long.” Another shrug.

“But it could be more.”

“Maybe. Mother Teresita is making plans to move the important items to other churches and abbeys. These dudes are after something, and maybe they’re getting nervous about where it ends up. Wherever the relics go, that location will be a lot more secure than La Convento de Madres Fieles. ”

“No shit. When do renovations start?”

“That’s still up in the air. The architect and structural engineer have a lot of ground to cover with a building as old and as large as the convent. The items will start being moved well before the work actually begins, though. There’s a hell of a lot of stuff crammed inside.”

“How long do you have before things shift?”

“At least a month, maybe more than that. The Reverend Mother is trying to find an art expert right now to examine the paintings in the convent. No one has any idea if they’re worth moving or if they can be packed up and put in storage.

” KW frowned. “It’s already getting old having to shake a tail any time I want to go somewhere without company. ”

“Cry to Lurch. I’m sure he’ll give you a lot of sympathy.”

KW stood. “Well, yeah, but Lurch is the star of our little show. Me? I’m just a mercenary-turned-handyman. I gotta get going.” He glanced across the street again. “Remember to watch your back when you leave.”

“I will,” Oz said. With a nod, KW headed off.

A while later, the second bus from Rio Blanco rolled in. This one was larger, with a hump on top. Some parts of it had rust, while other parts showed obvious metal patches, and the green paint had faded in the places where it hadn’t entirely flaked away.

He expected a repeat of the first bus, and then another ninety-minute-plus wait for the last one to arrive.

That wasn’t what he got.

Oz tensed as a man disembarked. His hair was cut military short, and he was clean-shaven—nothing like the pictures he’d studied—but there was no mistaking him for someone else. This was the dude he’d been assigned to watch for.

As he reached the sidewalk, he paused and glanced around. He gave the gang members a look that appeared threatening even from across the street and then headed off to the east.

In a minute, Oz would follow him. As soon as a tail wouldn’t stand out. He stood and monitored the man’s progress.

The next passenger who exited the bus froze him in place.

She wore black trousers and a white shirt and dragged a small, wheeled suitcase out of the bus and onto the sidewalk. It tipped over, but she used the handle to put it upright. The catcalls from the gang began immediately. She ignored them, looking up and down the street.

Oz muttered a curse. He’d bet a month’s pay she was searching for a taxi.

The man he was assigned to tail was nearly out of sight. Oz needed to move, needed to go after him, and he couldn’t. He wouldn’t leave any woman in this predicament, but especially not this one.

Because underneath that floppy straw hat she had on, Oz knew her hair was blonde. He knew the way her blue eyes looked when she was aroused and the way she sighed when he entered her. Knew the little noises she made when she came.

Patting his pocket, he felt the familiar outline of the gold-hoop earring she’d left behind.

She walked to the west, away from the gang members. They followed her.

His assignment disappeared around the corner, but it didn’t matter. Oz couldn’t let anything happen to her. She was the woman he hadn’t been able to forget for seven long weeks.

Striding across the street, he went to protect his prissy little blonde.