Page 144 of At Her Pleasure
Even with all the evidence that things had resolved in their favor, Mick didn’t relax his guard. Not until he saw the movement around those cartel vehicles contained by the police, and was certain the few rabbiting were too busy being chased to circle back.
The police were advancing past the convoy toward the truck, ordering anyone listening to step out and show their hands.
Cyn had holstered her weapon. She had his hand, was holding it tight. It was an unusually sentimental gesture for her, but their fortunes had shifted from certain death to a just-at-the-right-moment arrival of the good guys. While fucking fabulous, it was also jarring, like riding a roller coaster with no shocks.
Mick put the AK on the ground, and holstered his Glock. Then he gripped the back door latch and called out, so the men would know it was him, and opened the panel.
They were ready, guns lifted and grenade pins hooked over knuckles. Mick leaned an elbow against the door, and nodded to the man who’d saved his life with a tire iron. “Esta bien,” he said. “Todos están a salvo.”
You’re all safe.
* * *
Years ago, when Tyler and Mick had discussed him using that 911 text, Mick had been sure it would be too late to do him any good. The point would be to have Tyler swoop in and do damage control.
No one was Superman.
Mick was revising that opinion. Apparently, his handler’s capabilities were as endless as Cyn’s marketable job skills. He’d be visiting a Hallmark store soon to find a thank you card. Maybe he’d go for one of the expensive ones that played music when opened. The Superman theme song.
Since Cyn liked Hallmark movies, maybe she had a reward points card. She’d probably knee him in the balls for asking. Then hand over the card.
The helicopters never landed. Since the police didn’t ask Mick about them, he assumed the birds had whatever official capacity needed to be accepted by the border agents.
Since they usually needed all the help they could get, they weren’t likely to look a gift horse in the mouth. Especially when they were going to get credit for busting up a human trafficking deal involving a truckload of people.
They hadn’t known that right off, though. Before the cops reached them, Mick had called out and stepped from behind the truck with his hands raised. He’d repeated, over and over, that he had victims in the back, and an unarmed woman standing to his right.
He refused to let her step out, even when they insisted. Not when that many guns were pointing their way.
When they circled wide and had both him and Cyn in their sights, the cop in the lead gave them a close look. “They’re ours,” he told the others, and gun muzzles lowered.
His gaze shifted behind them, to the frightened truck occupants. Mick had had them relinquish the guns and grenades and put them in a neat and very visible stack on the ground. In accord, he and Cyn had also put themselves between the people and the oncoming firepower.
“Shit,” one of the agents murmured.
Mick explained the situation, which kicked off a lot of next steps. Fire trucks were arriving to handle the convoy and warehouse blazes, but the border agent-in-charge radioed in a request for more medical support. As the victims were encouraged to come out of the truck, they were carefully watched by the armed agents. “Trust but verify” was a way to prevent nasty surprises—and to stay alive. Once it was clear no one in the truck was a threat, the people began to be treated like survivors.
By that time, an army of emergency vehicles had arrived.
As Mick answered the agent-in-charge’s initial questions, he picked up some information of his own. Tyler’s tapdancing had him and Cyn as undercover agents working with an unnamed but valid organization. “I’ll still want to question each of you further,” the AIC said. “But first you need medical care. Ma’am, you need to sit down.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Cyn dropped to the ground.
Shit. Mick spun and caught her before she landed too hard on her ass. Blood from the gunshot wound had soaked the slacks around the entry point. It wasn’t life-threatening, else Mick would have already had her in the first ambulance, but adrenaline was sliding away, and Cyn was feeling it.
“Being shot hurts,” she informed him. “Not the good kind of pain.”
“No, it isn’t.” The hand he passed over her hair shook a little. All that stiff goop he’d put in it had held astonishingly well. He missed her curls. The large sunglasses were up on her head, but he put them back down as the AIC waved over EMTs. “Keep those on while they get you to the bus. Don’t remove them until you’re inside.”
Though they were currently in front of the truck, the cartel members were still here. Stretched out on the ground, their wrists zip-tied, but eyes free to roam. With the disguising measures Mick had taken, Cyn shouldn’t be recognized from a passing glance, but he wasn’t taking chances. Her face was memorable.
She touched his shoulder around the entry wound. “You’ve been shot, too, you know.”
“Yeah. It’s not bad.”
“You’ve been shot enough to know the difference between good and bad?”
“Pretty much. If you fall down and stop breathing, it’s bad.”