Page 20

Oz took Ayla to a coffee shop near enough to the convent for KW to get over there easily, but not so close that it put her at risk.

There were bistro tables with chairs throughout most of the place, but the two small seating areas with sofas, coffee tables, and ottomans that doubled as chairs made it a great place to talk without worrying about eavesdroppers. Both were open.

If Baggs was with him, he’d take Ayla and claim the sofa in the corner, the one farthest from the door, and let his teammate get their order. But he was on his own and he wasn’t about to let her sit alone near the front of the coffee shop. He brought her to the counter with him.

She was uninterested in the coffee, but the pionono thrilled her. “Can I have one of those?”

“Sure.” He didn’t ask if it would upset her stomach. Oz was relieved she wanted to eat something. “Did you want homemade ice cream on the side?”

Ayla shook her head. “Just the pastry. No coffee.”

Oz bought a pionono and coffee for himself.

“Head toward the seating in the front,” he told Ayla.

He stuck close to her, automatically scanning as they went.

No one new had arrived and the two groupings remained empty.

He gestured toward the sofa in the corner.

“We’ll sit there.” She took the first seat on the couch.

“Slide over, Pollita. I want to be between you and the doorway.”

When she complied, Oz set the tray on the low table and handed her a plate and fork before sitting down next to her.

“Why are we at a coffee shop?” Ayla asked as she dug into the pastry.

“We’re meeting someone. He might have information for us.”

Anticipation replaced curiosity in her expression. “I’m glad we’re finally doing something to find Io. I was beginning to wonder if we were ever going to search for her.”

Oz froze for a split second and then reached for his mug. Dangerous territory. “You’ve been chafing about the delays, but it hasn’t been that long, and you needed a new look.”

Ayla nodded, took a bite of her pionono, and sighed. “This is wonderful.” She gestured with her fork toward the plate. “I know this morning was my fault. I needed a little time to recover. But damn it, what if that delay makes a difference?”

It furthered his own plan to keep her on the sidelines, so it didn’t matter. Of course, he couldn’t tell her that. “Don’t beat yourself up,” Oz said. “You were blindsided, and no one can blame you for taking a few minutes to bounce back.”

“More like an hour.”

Closer to an hour and a half, but Oz opted not to point that out.

He’d spent the time cuddling her on his lap while they both worked through the ramifications of the pregnancy test. They hadn’t talked, not until she came out of the daze, and then they’d checked out and headed here.

Ayla was attacking her pastry, but she had to be starving, considering how little she’d eaten the past two days. “Is your stomach doing okay?” he asked.

She looked up at him, fork still in her mouth, and nodded.

The sound of the bell on the door had him shifting, using his shoulder to hide her face. Oz relaxed.

“That’s my friend,” he said voice low. “You can trust him, but remember to keep your voice low.”

Ayla looked around. “No one is nearby.”

“Always err on the side of caution. We’re dealing with the righthand man of a Russian mob boss, a treasure hunter known only by one name, and possibly a drug lord and an arms dealer. Believe me, Pollita, discretion is required.”

“Okay.” She leaned forward to put her empty plate on the coffee table. “Are you going to eat your pionono?”

Oz handed her his untouched pastry. “No, I’m not as hungry as I thought.” It was a lie, but she was eating, even if the nutritional value was iffy.

“Thank you.”

Her smile was sweet, and his heart turned a somersault in his chest. He hadn’t done anything, simply given her his food, and Oz felt as if he’d accomplished something heroic for her. This woman? She got to him. He wasn’t sure he liked it.

His hand went to the front pocket of his fatigue pants, and he traced the outline of her small hoop earring with his thumb.

Keeping this with him for the past seven weeks had been dumb.

He should have left it on the hotel dresser in Los Angeles.

Or in Tampa. Instead, Oz carried it everywhere as if it were some kind of talisman.

Fuck, he’d been acting stupid since the night he met her and there were no signs his brain was going to come back online soon.

He glanced over at Ayla, but he couldn’t see her face. Her head was down and the sides of the wig had fallen forward, concealing her. There was another shimmy in his chest. Stupid might be an understatement. Why else would he tell her about his parents?

Questions were coming. It was a matter of when not if.

KW rounded the corner, a mug of coffee in his hand, and Oz gladly put his thoughts aside.

“Dude,” Winter complained with his usual smirk as he took a seat on an ottoman, “do you realize how many contractors are in the convent right now? We’ve already had one religious relic stolen, and I don’t want to have to deal with another loss.

It distresses Mother Teresita.” He glanced over at Ayla. “Who’s your friend?”

“KW, meet Pollita. Pollita, this is one of my buddies. He goes by KW.”

“You can call me Kyle,” he offered. As Ayla looked up, Winter’s expression became quizzical. “Why did you change your hair?”

For an instant, she gaped at KW. It didn’t last long. “Io! You saw my sister.”

Oz froze, coffee cup halfway to his mouth. KW had been at the café the day Ayla arrived, but he’d been long gone before she exited the bus. “My Pollita is an identical twin. Her sister went missing. When did you see her?”

“She stopped by the convent last Wednesday. She wanted to talk to the Reverend Mother.”

“Do you know why?” Ayla asked, leaning toward KW.

He shook his head. “No idea.” He turned his attention to Oz. “You know she would have been followed when she left the abbey, at least for a while.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Looked like there was another tie to their op. Winter had been sent undercover to the convent because men had been surrounding it for weeks. Men who worked for arms dealer Jorge Torres.

When Oz requested a room with two beds, he hadn’t expected this .

One king-size bed and a bunkbed. The top bunk was so close to the ceiling that any adult would bang their head when they sat up.

They had a sagging loveseat and a coffee table, a small desk built into the off-white wall, and there was a flatscreen television mounted next to a huge pole that wasn’t completely concealed by the sheetrock.

“I’m sorry about this,” Oz apologized. “I’ll take the bunkbed.”

Ayla studied it. “It’s made for kids. Your feet will be hanging off the end. I can sleep on the lower bunk.”

Oz shook his head. “ Your feet will be hanging off, too. That bunk is maybe five feet long. You need to get enough rest.”

She gave him a look he couldn’t decipher. “Or we could both use the adult bed. It’s wide enough that we won’t be on top of each other.”

The offer surprised him. It was obviously not an invitation for anything more than sleeping, but why would she even suggest that much? He could try to get another room, although that might make them more memorable than Oz would like. “We could do that. I didn’t want you to think?—”

“I didn’t. Have you heard from Kyle yet?”

He hadn’t felt his phone vibrate, but if he told her no without checking, she’d ask if he was sure. It was easier to look and skip the question. As expected, Oz found zero messages and shook his head. “Not yet.”

“He said he was going to talk to the Mother Superior as soon as he could.” Ayla twisted her hands at her waist. Oz wanted to go to her and stop the nervous motion, but she was anxious, and forcing her to be still wouldn’t change her emotions.

“Ayla, the convent has a schedule. There are prayer times and silent hours where they don’t speak to anyone, let alone their handyman.

It’s Sunday. There are probably extra things they do.

KW will talk to Mother Teresita as soon as he’s able, and he’ll let me know what your sister and the Reverend Mother discussed. He’s not holding out on us.”

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just that this is a lead! We know Io was fine on Wednesday. That’s more than we had this morning.” She shrugged. “Besides, it’s the only thing we accomplished today. Isn’t there more we can do?”

“It’s nearly dark,” Oz said. “We’ll get an earlier start tomorrow.”

Oz wondered how long he could manipulate her into believing they were searching for her sister while he kept her out of harm’s way.

It was Baggs doing the heavy lifting on this hunt.

Ayla wasn’t suspicious. Yet. But he needed to come up with more safe places for their supposed search, or she might start putting the pieces together, something he couldn’t afford.

Yeah, not only safe but also locations that were logical. His Pollita might be out of her depth, but she thought about the things he said, the things he did, and she weighed them. She wasn’t afraid to ask questions, either.

“Let’s talk about our plans for the morning,” Ayla said. She sat down on the loveseat. The sag had her listing strongly to her right and she shifted farther away from the middle.

“Okay,” he agreed with an easiness he didn’t feel.

Oz tried to come up with a reprieve from this conversation, but they’d eaten dinner before checking into the hotel and there was nothing in the room to use as a diversion.

Crossing to her, he eyed the coffee table.

If he tried sitting on it, he’d probably end up on the floor.

He detoured to grab the desk chair placing it so he faced her.

Ayla looked exhausted. However, even with dark circles under her eyes and a pale face, there was no mistaking her determination.

Oz frowned, but if he tried to get her to go to sleep this early, she’d resist. He’d been all about keeping her safe from the start, but now he wasn’t only protecting her.

He was protecting their unborn baby, too.

The damn thing was he couldn’t load her on a plane back to the States, no matter how much he wanted to.

Fuck the Russian mafia and fuck Yaromir Ivanov and his band of murdering assholes. These motherfuckers were evil—seriously evil—and they wanted Ayla’s twin. There was no reasoning with them. There was no explaining that Ayla wasn’t who they thought she was.

“Are you all right?” she asked, leaning forward and resting a hand on his knee. There was genuine concern in her expression.

“Yeah, sorry, Pollita. I was thinking about something else. Nothing you need to be concerned about,” Oz tacked on.

No, she didn’t need to worry about her safety.

He’d take care of her and their baby, no matter what it required from him.

“I’m the one who should be asking how you’re doing. Is your stomach hanging in there?”

Nodding, Ayla said, “I’m feeling good right now. What’s your plan for tomorrow?”

Oz wasn’t surprised she went right back to the subject she was interested in. An idea popped into his head. “I thought we’d drive to San Isidro.”

“You said the town wasn’t safe because that drug lord you used to work for is nearby and that my going there would be a waste of time.” She sat back and Oz immediately missed the touch of her hand.

“We’d have to be careful, but we should take a trip and see if she made it down there. If Iona never visited, we’ll know to focus on Trujillo. We can’t rule it out without checking.”

While there was some risk in taking her to San Isidro, it should be limited to one player.

Oz would keep his eyes open for anyone and everyone, of course, but he anticipated the other assholes wouldn’t be trekking ninety minutes plus to the back of beyond.

Especially when their presence alone might be enough to piss off Julián Vargas.

The drug lord met threats head-on and with lethal force.

Ayla pursed her lips as she thought it over and Oz had to hide a smile. Given the situation he was in, it was perverse as fuck to enjoy watching her measure his words, but he did like it.

When it came to his teammates, he pushed buttons and got the expected reactions.

Lurch was still pissy about how Oz had maneuvered him, but he didn’t think it would last long.

Without his help, Lurch would have lost the woman he was in love with.

Oz didn’t like this part of himself or how easy it was for him to manipulate others, but he did it when he deemed it necessary.

He was walking a fine line with Ayla. Keeping her safe was his top priority, but he didn’t want to lie to her more than necessary.

Maybe it was stupid because if she discovered what he’d done, she’d fry his ass whether he lied to her two times or a hundred and two times. Nevertheless, it mattered to him.

“It makes sense,” she said slowly. “It’s too bad you took my phone. I could show the people in San Isidro a picture of Io and ask if they’d seen her.”

Oz blew out a breath. “I explained that we can be tracked via your phone.”

Ayla waved her hand, but she was leaning back now, and her eyes were half closed. “Let’s not go into this again. I understand and it’s why I didn’t argue with you about it. How are we going to handle asking about her without a photo? Take a picture of me without the wig and flash that around?”

“We won’t need one. Since the civil war started, San Isidro doesn’t get a lot of visitors, especially not American women.

If she was there, they’ll remember.” Ayla’s eyes were completely closed now.

Getting to his feet, Oz moved the chair out of his way and went to the loveseat.

“Come on, Pollita, let’s get you in bed. ”

He helped her up and wrapped his arm around her. Ayla leaned into him as they walked. “Oz,” she said sleepily, “I’m keeping the baby.”

“I know. The way you talked made that clear. Since we’re in this together, you better get used to having me around for the next eighteen years or so.”

“Really? If you’re working as a mercenary, how often will you even be in the US? It seems like I’ll be on my own most of the time.” Ayla yawned. “Where’s my bag? I need my pajamas.”

When the door to the bathroom closed behind her, Oz sank onto the side of the bed. How often will you even be in the US? He might not be a mercenary, but he spent most of his time in Puerto Jardin. Fuck.