The Assassin’s Billionaire Bodyguard
Chapter 24

Isabella kicked her foot out as she tried to remain focused on what was coming up. Memories of Cam Torres in her shower this morning had her distracted. This was no time for distractions.

Lacey's find this morning had given Bellona the breakthrough they needed in intercepting a trafficking ring running internationally with girls being taken from Canada, USA and Mexico and then being smuggled through South America to be distributed internationally. She had found the information on a buyer in the U.K. and had backtracked it to a camp the buyer had allegedly bought a girl from before. He had liked very much how the camp provided women already broken and submissive. Bellona had a team on their way to deal with him and any woman he had in his possession, but Isabella had begged for this assignment in Bolivia and Clara was as anxious as she was. Clara had even argued successfully for a joint mission with Naomi's team. Now they were in the air, twenty minutes from a privately owned airport near Rio de Janeiro. Clara's team had used this airfield before as it catered to rich people who wanted to avoid the international airport. Traveling with one of the wealthiest women in the world had its rewards.

Their cover was simple and one they had used before. They'd arrive to a resort, owned by Bellona. There would be plenty of photographs and videos of the team having a good time Saturday night and Sunday night but during the day, their doubles would make occasional appearances so the paparazzi which usually hounded Clara would have no idea they weren't at the resort.

"A reminder," Naomi spoke, "especially for you Cat, we have extraction to the liftoff site at one in the morning. This means when we tell you to put on a good show about being drunk, it's a show. Save the real partying for tomorrow night after debrief and when the girls are on their way home."

Cat grinned at Isabella. "Only one other person on this flight who can drink me under the table, and I look forward to celebrating a victory!"

Isabella couldn't help the tugging on her lips at Cat's comment. "I have good metabolism."

"You make up with your man yet, Ruiz?" Clara asked from where she sat over a desk on her private jet reviewing a map of the area to which they were heading.

"Ruiz has a man?" Jesse leaned forward from where she sat next to Cat. "Why is this the first we're hearing."

"Cam Torres," Clara offered up before Isabella could stop her.

Naomi let out a low whistle, "go big or go home. He's huge, literally and metaphorically."

"Yeah, he is," Isabella's s****l innuendo wasn't lost on the teams, and they all roared with laughter.

"Just a big d**k makes him an improvement over Andropov. He still sending you nudes?" Cat questioned.

"Yup. Told me I should stay away from Torres because he kills people for money."

"Does he?" Jesse was all in now on the conversation.

"Wait," Arwen, the latest member on Naomi's team queried, "Cam Torres as in the billionaire? Way to stick to a type."

Isabella groaned and slid down her seat. The girls had been teasing her for years about her weakness for muscle-bound meatheads.

Corry clapped her hands, "Yes, and she's been playing sweet little arm candy for weeks. He thinks she's a helpless damsel in distress."

"He's f*****g beautiful." Arwen was in awe.

"He's old." Sabine tossed up with a smirk, "or at least it's the reason she's giving for hesitating on proposing to him."

"He's not old." Clara tossed up.

"I'm not proposing to anyone." Isabella spoke at the same time as Clara, and they exchanged irritated glances.

"He's a Rangers fan," Sabine waved, "there's only what, five or six of them left in the world. It's meant to be."

Isabella knew she sounded like a depressurizing tire, "Can we focus on the matter at hand?"

"Yes, my question was if you made up with him?" Clara grinned deliberately misinterpreting Isabella's attempt to redirect the conversation back to their mission.

She considered freebasing out the airplane and answered with her jaw clenched. "Yes, he came over last night."

"Did he sleep with you and Casper?"

"Yes, in fact," she tried not to let her smile pull her cheeks at the memory, "he came over just to sleep. Seems I relax him."

"An actuary's conversation will do that to some people," Sabine teased and then rubbed her arm where Isabella punched her.

"What did he say when you left?"

She rubbed her nose, "he doesn't know."

"You just disappeared on him?"

"No, he got a call when I was in the shower and then suddenly, he told me there was an issue with one of his contracts and he had to go. He said he'd be gone until Monday, and he'd call me when he was back." Clara's low laugh mocked her. "You didn't even have to run anything by him."

"Why would you run anything by him?" Jesse asked with incredulity.

"Because Torres is worried for her safety thanks to Andropov stalking her like an obsessed psychopath."

"We'll take Andropov out, say the word," Cat offered without reservation, her eyes begging Isabella to accept. Josephine high fived Cat's suggestion.

Isabella played with the ends of her braid and avoided everyone's eyes. "Can't kill him because he's the son of Clara's friend. However, when I took Casper to his grooming this morning I had to leave before even going in because he knew it was Casper's grooming day, so he was waiting outside the doggy spa. Needless to say, Casper is not groomed today." "I'll talk to Mikhail again," Clara sighed.

Just then the flight attendant came from the front of the plane to tell them the captain was ready to land, and they needed to prepare for the landing. Once wheels touched the ground, the nine women were all business, regardless of how much fun it appeared they were having.

At five in the morning, Isabella was furious and wanting to spill as much blood as she could. On the trek in the Bolivian jungle to the encampment, they had come across the bodies of two women, assassinated point blank. A beacon had been left for Bellona to locate the bodies to retrieve them and get them home to their families. Closure was closure. Isabella and her team knew the two dead women were to show the rest of the victims their abusers were serious.

Isabella spoke quietly as she tilted her head curiously. "The little outpost is in my view. Um, it's lit up like a Christmas tree."

"Come again Epsilon?" Her Alpha's voice was curious in her ear.

She made short work of getting near the building and whispered, "it has full electricity." She peered through a window and saw two men chatting in office chairs watching monitors. "How the hell do they have video surveillance in the middle of the Bolivian rainforest?" She stealthily slinked in behind the man closest to her and slit his throat. The other man turned to her in surprise, and she stabbed him in the heart with the same blade. "Two targets eliminated," she confirmed as she dumped the body of one of the men from the chair and sat down.

"The entire camp is on camera." She noted something off to the far edge of the encampment. "Jesus Christ, they have an entire array of a hundred or more solar panels. They're running their own electricity. Also, there's a huge field of drugs growing next to the panels."

"Business must be booming," Naomi's bitter comment soured their moods further. "Can you get us a full layout Epsilon?"

"Yes, Alpha Two, I can." She quickly reviewed the layout, provided details, and then stood up. "I'm coming out, but I have a thought."

"Do share Epsilon," Jesse quipped.

"Let's make life a bit easier and bring everyone to the town square." At everyone's silence, "Beta One, can you see the tank on the third building in from your vantage?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Well, there's another tank right here at this outpost. Looks like they store their own petrol. Be a shame if the two tanks blew up and woke up the entire encampment sending everyone to check it out."

"Hold your fire Beta One," Clara commanded. "Epsilon, could you at least get your a*s away from the explosion before we decide to play shooting fish in a barrel?"

She chuckled and raced along the footpath from the outpost to the edge of the town. She hunkered down and breathed deeply. The smell of soil and dampness penetrated her nostrils as she took her position under the cover of the brush. She noted a spider near her arm, and she stabbed it with a knife, "no bites from you please, I'm Deadpool not Spiderman," she quipped. She looked over and saw Sabine on the opposite side of the trail watching her actions. "Hey, I didn't give myself the name." "f*****g Deadpool" Sabine groaned.

She held up two fingers as she started the macabre game she and Sabine played on these missions. "I'm two in. What you got?"

"f**k you Epsilon. I'll pass your numbers before the hour is up."

"Ladies, can you get your panties out their twists and pay attention? You have patrol coming your way." Arwen spoke brusquely.

"We see him Beta Two," Isabella reassured Cat. "Gamma, do you want him? I'll give you chance to catch up."

As the man started to walk the trail, Sabine lurched forward, pinned him effortlessly and took his life. She took his walkie from him and shook it. "Got a souvenir."

"Sweet," Isabella looked up at her from where she lay on her side in the bushes with a nod of approval. "I'm looking for the gift which keeps on giving though. You know fifty girls in a cabin in the woods. Just want to return them to their families and all." She grunted as Sabine kicked her through the brush.

"Fire in the hole," Arwen called with delight as she and Corry each took one of the tanks and blew them up, a huge fireball erupted into the sky in both locations. Immediately the sound of men rushing around the makeshift village filled their ears. With each one emerging, Arwen and Corry took turns firing shots.

"This is why they're not allowed to play our game," Sabine grunted as they headed into the village to catch others.

Isabella noted Clara and Naomi had both raced towards the furthest building in the camp knowing it was likely where the leader of the traffickers was holed up. The best part of being Alpha was you get to kill the worst of the worst while your team managed all the lower-level thugs. Isabella grinned through when they both stopped to engage in a small handful of guys emerging from a cabin close to them. The way Clara threw her stars was poetry in motion as far as Isabella was concerned. "I could watch you all day Alpha." She teased her sister-in-law.

Clara lifted a finger in her general direction and Isabella laughed as she adjusted her goggles and made her way to her target. Her job was to locate the building housing the victims, assess and get them out to the far end of the field where a series of choppers would arrive to get them out.

She tore through the village, using both her handgun and her knives to eliminate targets. "Twelve, Gamma. I'm at twelve."

"That's all?" Sabine's grunt as she plunged her knife into someone's midsection echoed in their ear. "Fourteen."

"Novices, the bunch of you," Cat declared as she emerged from a building wiping a blade on her pants. "Eighteen. Fish in a barrel is fun."

Jesse pushed a guy from a rooftop and watched as he fell awkwardly, "sixteen."

Isabella ducked through a small narrow pathway between two buildings and squatted down to look around the corner. "I found the dungeon," she spoke quietly, "three guards. One is missing as there were four on the camera." She felt a gun press against her back. "Oops found him. He has a gun in my back."

Sabine spoke, "not anymore." The man fell beside Isabella, his eyes bulging as he gripped his throat.

Sabine kicked the gun away. "Let's get those girls Epsilon."

Isabella knew she was grinning behind her balaclava as she looked at Sabine who declared "Fifteen."

They made short work of the three guards, aware the two snipers positioned in the camp had them covered with the number of soldiers in the encampment dwindling to a few scattered men. When one fired his gun haphazardly, Corry apologized hotly for the close call as she eliminated the man.

In the two rooms of the cabin they infiltrated, thirty or more women were packed in, in various states of health. Isabella's mind was razor focused as their team descended to get the women out and to the extraction point.

Naomi's voice cut in, requesting her Delta to hightail it back to the leader's command center. Eight women were in the main house, and they needed help getting them out.

By the time they had all the women rescued, they had found two more deceased in another shack and forty-one alive. Most were savagely beaten, some unconscious and all in dire need of medical attention.

They also located a cocaine processing operation on a small scale. It was unclear if it was starting up or dwindling down but either way, shutting it down was a bonus to Bellona.

As the chopper lifted off dropping off a sole passenger and then disappearing above the tree canopy with the last of the women the two teams headed back to the vantage point where Corry had been positioned earlier. They watched as the woman who had hopped out of the helicopter walked through the field trailing her fingers through the long grass at the edge of the coca plants.

"Can we please stay and watch?" Jesse begged as she rested on her stomach, her chin on her hands as she watched through her binoculars. "She's beautiful. Stunningly hot."

They all snickered as she realized her words.

"What are the chances a gorgeous redhead is a pyromaniac?" Clara pondered aloud.

"She's the best part of the clean up crew I've seen in awhile, and I'm a happily married woman." Naomi eyeballed the woman.

"Pretty sure this is s****l harassment." Isabella intoned dryly.

"Pretty sure Firestarter is very aware we're ogling her." As if she heard Clara's comment, she looked in their direction and blew a kiss.

Naomi pretended she grabbed it out of the air and put in her pocket.

"I'm telling your wife."

"I got it for her."

They rose from their position and made their way to their extraction point an hour's hike away groaning at Naomi's comment.

"Drinks on me tonight, ladies."

"If we survive debrief." Sabine lamented what was to come.

"Hey Epsilon, tell us again about the billionaire you're banging." Arwen called from the back of the pack.

As she took in the good-natured ribbing, Isabella pondered what her billionaire bodyguard was up to himself and where he'd taken off to so abruptly yesterday morning.