Page 75 of Rebel Protector
Becca shook her head. “Argentina? I’m surprised he even has anywhere left to run.”
“It’s a good thing we caught him,” Pat added. “The cartel paid for the shipment of weapons, and now they want their money back. They don’t take kindly to being robbed. If we hadn’t found him when we did, they would’ve hunted him down—and I can promise you, they wouldn’t have been nearly as lenient as the Colombians.”
Becca shivered. The way he said that made her blood run cold.
“Isn’t he still at risk?” she asked, knowing the cartels could get to people even in prison. No one was truly safe. She’d lived here long enough to understand how they operated.
“Yes, but he’ll give the money back,” Blade replied. “He knows it’s only a matter of time before they find him.”
“And we don’t want them coming after you either,” Dom added.
“That won’t bother Alek,” Becca said weakly. “He doesn’t care about me. That word’s not even in his vocabulary.”
Dom rubbed her leg gently. Pat noticed, his all-seeing gaze flickering between them.
The woman, Thorn, spoke for the first time. “Becca—Do you mind if I call you that?”
Becca shook her head. “I prefer it, anyway. I haven’t been that person in a long time.”
Thorn nodded. “I’m sorry to bring up bad memories, but the person your father had a hit out on, the person I was assigned to protect, was your ex-husband, Damian Clayton.”
Becca gasped. “Damian?”
She stared at the woman for a long moment. “Alek tried to kill Damian for deserting him?”
“No, it wasn’t because of that.” The woman took a step closer to the bed. “They resolved those differences years ago. The reason Markov wanted to terminate Damian was because he’d developed an important upgrade to his cryptocurrency software that would decrypt his clients’ illegal transactions on the dark web.”
It took a minute for that to sink in. Alek’s words came back to her.
He’s the reason I had to leave America.
“So, Alek’s illegal online transactions wouldn’t remain anonymous? He’d be exposed.”
“That’s right.” Thorn smiled. She really was very beautiful with that gorgeous hair and pale skin, the hint of a rosy blush in her cheeks. “The FBI managed to decipher the encrypted transactions and issued a warrant for his arrest.”
“That’s why he fled here.”
Rose nodded. “He came to Central America because he had a stockpile of black-market arms and needed a buyer. He thought the cartels might be interested, and of course, they were.”
Becca exhaled. It was a lot to take in. “I knew he was up to no good when I lived with him all those years ago,” she confided. “But time makes you forget, and I never knew the extent of it. I’m glad Damian is okay.”
There was an awkward silence.
“Heisokay, isn’t he?” She glanced between them, a sick feeling building in her stomach. What weren’t they telling her?
“Yes, he’s okay,” said Thorn, her cheeks flushing. “In fact, he’s here now, and he’d like to talk to you, if you’re feeling up to it. I believe you guys have some unresolved issues.”
Becca swayed, even though she was sitting down.
Some unresolved issues.
Yeah, you could say that. Like why the hell she’d walked out on him two days after they got married. Those kinda issues.
“Maybe now isn’t such a good time.” Dom frowned, concerned.
“No, it’s fine,” she croaked. She may as well get this over with. It had already been a crappy week. “It’s just a shock, that’s all. I haven’t seen Damian in nearly a decade. Why does he want to talk to me now?”
“I’ll let him explain,” Thorn said.