“What the hell are you doing?” Jonas hissed.
“There are monkeys in the trees. Look. They’re adorable.”
“Put the phone away and close the window.”
“Why? They won’t hurt us.”
“I’m not worried about the monkeys.” He leaned over and reached across her to raise the window. As he held the button down, his heavy arm pressed against her chest.
April stiffened, suddenly hyperaware of him and his firm, but impersonal touch.
The smell of his soap wafted past nose. He had a clean, masculine scent that made her toes curl better than any high-end cologne ever could. His clenched jaw was inches from her lips. It would be so easy to lean forward and place a kiss on his cheek. No one would see. Esteban, their driver, was too busy navigating the questionable road, while Roman snoozed in the passenger seat. Jonas would freak though. She smiled to herself. Would serve him right for getting all up in her personal space.
Before she could pucker up, he withdrew and turned away from her to stare out his own window. His shoulders tensed as he studied the passing scenery as if he was searching for something.
“What has you so on edge?” she asked even though she was doubtful she’d get a response.
“Those monkeys aren’t the only thing following us.”
Goosebumps prickled her bare arms as she bent to peer outside. When she saw nothing but rainforest, she frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“They’re on foot. I noticed them about ten minutes ago. Men. About a dozen of them.”
She relaxed a fraction. “They’re probably curious. I doubt they get very many of outside visitors out here.”
“Exactly, that’s why you need to keep your pretty head and that diamond encrusted phone out of sight.”
April glanced at the diamond bejeweled phone in her hand and tucked it under her thigh. She’d left the iPhone and its ostentatious case behind when she’d moved out of Casa Linus five years ago. She was surprised to find it in a box of her belongings Courtney had stored in the garage. When April moved home again, her father had offered to upgrade her phone, but even though it was ancient, it worked fine and she still loved the case.
April shook her head. “How can you see anything but trees?”
“Trust me. They’re out there.”
She stared out the window watching for a glimpse of movement that was out of place. The closer to they got to the village, the more uneasy she became. Jonas and now Roman were both alert and watchful. Roman’s semi-automatic gun was in his hand pointed at the floor between his knees.
The jungle seemed to grow darker and denser, closing in on them like the scary part of a children’s story.
The driver popped on the headlights.
April slunk down in her seat and turned toward Jonas, resting her cheek against the cool leather. “Do we need to worry?”
“Not yet.”
“That’s not very reassuring.”
The canopy disappeared suddenly plunging them into bright daylight. The jungle dropped away and their tires met dry, hard packed earth as they found themselves in the midst of a shanty village. At least two dozen young boys ranging from ten to maybe twenty emerged from the trees on either side of the vehicles.
A chill rolled down April’s spine.
Twenty or so flat-topped shacks filled the clearing along with a large garden. The mob of young men closed in on the SUVs as they reached the center of the village. More villagers dressed in modern but unkept clothing, emerged from the buildings to block the road, forcing them to stop. One little boy, about a year or two older than Archie, picked up a rock. He tossed it at the car, and it clucked against April’s passenger side door.
“What’s happening, Jonas?”
“Keep quiet and stay down.”
She scooched lower in her seat, heeding his advice, but she wasn’t a hundred percent certain they needed to be so freaked out. She’d spent the summers of her childhood traveling the world with her mother and had been in dicey situations like this before. They turned out to be no cause for worry. The natives were usually more curious than anything else.
As she stole a peek out the window, the glint of black metal in the sunlight drew her gaze to an older teenager who stood close to their SUV. The young man, along with several others, held military-style submachine guns.
A hot flash warmed her body as she finally understood their concern.
The hum of the air conditioner on full blast muted their unintelligible shouts. Did Jonas understand what they were saying? He seemed to know some Portuguese. Spindles of cold air reached the backseat, but it wasn’t enough to cool her overheated skin.
One of the elder male villagers approached her father’s vehicle and spoke to the driver.
A moment later, her father stuck his hand out the window and waved to the crowd. The elder shouted something in Portuguese, and the mob echoed his words and punched the sky with their weapons and fists. The little boy who reminded April of Archie pointed his own small submachine gun in the air.
April’s heart dropped. Where did he get a gun?
The boy squeezed the trigger, and it went off like a jack hammer, spraying bullets in the air wildly. Struggling for control, he brought the weapon down, inadvertently pointing it at their SUV. Bullets pinged off metal and glass and the driver’s side mirror shattered.
Jonas grabbed April, shoved her face first onto the floor, and covered her body with his.
At first, it didn’t register in her brain that the glass hadn’t shattered.
The shooter? She meant the machine-gun-toting first grader.
Oh god, she was going to be sick.
The barrage stopped but the ruckus outside continued as the villagers chanted something unintelligible and more pops of gunfire cracked the air.
Jonas moved off of April and slid on his belly onto the backseat.
She rolled over and stared up at the roof, smelling leather and rubber floor mats. Her right armed throbbed and her hip hurt from the way she’d landed when Jonas tackled and pinned her to the floor.
She sat up, rubbing her sore hip.
“Stay down,” Roman growled. He knelt, bracing his gun as he leaned over the seat. “The kid’s loading another magazine.”
“What?”
“Lower the window on three, Esteban,” he ordered the driver. “I’ll take care of this.”
“Get down, April.” Jonas tugged her arm, urging her back to the floor.
She shrugged him off.
“You want to get your head blown off?” Roman shouted and shoved her so hard, she fell against Jonas.
“Easy, Leto.” There was an edge to Jonas’ voice. He shifted and helped April to right herself. “We’re starting to move. Let it go.”
“Not a chance. The brat deserves it.”
“What’s he going to do?” April grabbed Jonas’ knee when the SUV jerked forward and started to move at a snail’s pace.
“I said let it go, Leto. You want to start a riot?”
“Would serve ’em right.” Roman adjusted his grip on the semi-automatic handgun. “On three, Esteban,” he said to the driver.
The little boy had moved away from the crowd and was sitting on a log trying to reload the submachine gun.
As it dawned on April what Roman intended to do, her stomach curdled.
He took aim. “One, two…”
The window lowered.
“No, don’t do it!” She grabbed Roman’s arm and shoved it upward. The shot went wild up into the trees.”
The little boy’s eyes widened with shock. He dropped the weapon and ran.
The crowd grew silent.
An odd clicking noise came from the trees as something broke the smaller branches on its way down. It landed in the mud not twenty feet from the SUV.
A feeling of dread enveloped April as she stared at the object. “Is that?”
Jonas peered out the window and nodded once. “Yep.”
April’s hear
t sank.
She murdered a monkey.
Chapter Twenty
April knew her father was the infamous arms dealer Albatross, but it was difficult to wrap her head around exactly what that meant without ever seeing him in action or witnessing the result of his crimes. Since the day she’d stumbled on the truth five years ago, it had been easier to distance herself and pretend she didn’t know anything about it than to face reality. There was no turning a blind eye to what she’d witnessed in the village though.
Her stomach churned as she thought about the little boy with the submachine gun. The people who lived in those shacks and wore old, tattered clothing were obviously poor. Yet, all of the young men had expensive guns and ammunition. She wasn’t naïve. The only reason the leader of the village let them pass was because he knew her father.
Albatross.
April silently stewed over the incident as they drove the rest of the way to the compound. When the SUVs rolled to a stop in front of a pair of heavy iron gates and waited to be admitted, she gazed up at the sprawling structure nestled in the trees like a mansion on living stilts. It was similar but more imposing than the treetop hotel she’d stayed at during her first visit to Manaus. The family compound had been under construction at the time and her father had come to check on its progress.
With the Rio Negro river on one side of the wall and dense rainforest around the rest, it was a truly impenetrable fortress. Philip must have designed it knowing what kind of business he was getting into. Or had he already been involved? Regardless, he’d built a place for himself deep in the Amazon Rainforest where his enemies and law enforcement would have an impossible time getting to him.
No, not impossible, she amended. Jonas was on the inside now and she had brought him there. She should have felt guilty, but she didn’t.
As they parked under the building near an elevator, she glanced at Jonas and her heart thumped against her breastbone. She’d read all of the articles she could find on Albatross, knew the sorts of atrocities he was capable of, and Jonas was only one man.
He was tough, smart, and capable of handling himself, but he was in enemy territory now without Jimmy Panama or even the local PD to back him up, and it was her fault. She selfishly hadn’t wanted to travel to the compound alone. That, and she’d wanted an excuse to spend more time with Jonas despite the fact it was a very bad idea. Then they’d had sex and complicated things even more. She had feeling for him. Strong feelings that went way beyond mere physical attraction.
She wanted to tell Jonas everything she knew about her father and shut down his entire criminal organization, but could she trust Jonas to keep her out of it? How would he feel about her if he knew she’d spent the last five years obstructing justice? She should have gone straight to the police when she’d stumbled across the evidence that proved Phillip Linus was Albatross, but she was a sheltered eighteen-year-old girl terrified of losing the only parent she had left.
She wasn’t naïve enough to think a man like Jonas would go soft on her just because they’d had great sex. He was too pragmatic to let that distract him. She knew that much about him, if not much else. His relationship to Jimmy Panama and Anders Ostergaard had been a shocker. For all she knew, Jonas had a girlfriend somewhere in the world. A peculiar hollowness expanded inside April’s chest. Great, now she was jealous of a nameless, faceless woman who might or might not exist. Would he go back to her when this was over?
A door slammed and she realized she was alone in the car. She watched her father through the dashboard window stroll toward the elevator, an arrogant tilt to his chin as Courtney and the girls trailed behind him.
Esteban opened April’s door and stood back.
Her father was acting like nothing unusual had happened on their way to the compound. When he said something to the security guard positioned at the bottom of the elevator, and they both chuckled, April’s temper flared. A little boy was almost shot and an innocent monkey died all because of her father’s bodyguard tried to fix the situation with a bullet.
“April.” There was a soft edge of warning in Jonas’ voice.
She ignored him and made a beeline for her father.
“Daddy, can I speak to you for a moment?”
“Later,” he said, not glancing in her direction. “I’m starving, and lunch is waiting for us.”
“We all are,” Courtney agreed.
“But—”
The elevator doors parted, and Courtney and the children followed him inside the small shaft.
He leaned out slightly. “Catch the next one. This one’s full.”
Roman met her gaze with a smirk as he took the last open space on the elevator.
The doors closed.
April growled with frustration.
Jonas stepped even with her and his arm brushed hers. He nudged her gently with his elbow. “Come on. Let’s take a walk.”
Gesturing for April to go first through an open archway, Jonas followed her out into a small courtyard beside the garage. No grass grew in the shade of the trees and mansion that loomed over their heads, but a thick layer of natural mulch covered the ground. A tangle of tropical shrubs had been planted to line the perimeter fence in a failed attempt to soften the appearance of the imposing structure.
As they stepped onto a stone path, the heel of April’s shoe caught in a rut. When she teetered, Jonas reached out to steady her, but she saved herself and kept going.
They’d been dancing around the truth for days, like a couple of twitchy ballerinas. After that fiasco in the village, Jonas would bet his non-existent tutu that April was on the verge of turning on her father. Jonas had to tread carefully, but he couldn’t let this opportunity slip away. Vera was right about one thing. April Linus had secrets, and he could see on her face, they were wearing her down.
The path moved through a small patch of jungle that ended at the door of a screened pool enclosure. April led the way inside without checking to see if he followed. The large, resort style pool had a sunken Tiki bar with swim up bar stools at one end and a stone grotto with a waterfall covering the cave’s entrance at the other. The setup looked like something out of one of those fantasy backyard-makeover shows on HGTV or the Playboy mansion.
April paced to the four-foot marker and turned around.
She was wearing a sleeveless, canary yellow jumpsuit unbuttoned low enough to display a generous amount of cleavage. The shorts showed off her lean, toned legs. Jonas hadn’t really paid attention to what she was wearing until that moment. He didn’t want to notice her now, but it was hard to not to. April Linus made his palms itch and his body ache with a visceral craving he’d never felt before for anyone else.
“He has to be stopped.”
A thrill spiraled through Jonas’ system and his head snapped up in surprise. Was she talking about her father? It was almost too good to be true, so he cautiously asked for clarification. “He who?”
“Roman Leto,” she said with exasperation. “He almost shot that little boy. And I was forced to intervene and I killed an innocent monkey.”
“Maybe the chimp had it coming.”
April’s eyes narrowed on him suspiciously. “Did you just make a joke?”
He did and he immediately regretted it. He shrugged. “Maybe. So what?”
“So? So now you have a sense of humor.”
He always had a sense of humor. Maybe he wasn’t ready for open mic night, but he could deliver a sarcastic remark now and again.
“It’s not just Roman.”
“Yeah? What is it then?”
April growled with frustration and cut the distance between them in half. She met his gaze. “I want to trust you, but I don’t if I can.”
His stomach tightened. He had to think about how to respond to that statement because he didn’t know exactly what was driving it. Their misbegotten romance? Her problem with Leto? Or was she struggling with something larger, like betraying Big Daddy? Jonas was done playing it safe. “You know your fathe
r’s a criminal, and I’m not talking about the white-collar kind. I think you’ve been protecting him for a very long time, and you’re torn between family loyalty and doing the right thing.”
She raised her chin a notch and moisture filled her eyes.
“You know me, April, probably better than anyone. I’ve always been honest with you. I think it’s time you decide whose side you’re on and what you’re going to do about it.”
The screen door opened and slammed shut as two giggling little girls came bounding into the pool area wearing their bathing suits. The nanny Mrs. Feinstein was close behind them.
April retreated a step and pulled herself together.
“Come swimming with us, April,” the older of the two girls said as she ran and jumped into the water.
April waited for the little brunette’s head to break the surface before she replied. “Maybe later. I need to unpack.” She shot Jonas an unreadable expression. When she started for the house, she came even with him and paused. “I overheard my father talking on the phone.” Her voice was no louder than a hush. “He’s hosting a black-market auction here at the compound tomorrow night. He said something about moving the date up. I thought you’d want to know.”
Dropping that giant bombshell squarely in his lap, she left him by the pool.
Chapter Twenty-One
Jonas’ first order of business was to comb his quarters and then April’s to confirm there were no security cameras or bugs planted in their rooms. That evening, after dinner, April asked her stepmother for a tour of the house and invited Jonas along, giving him the chance to scope out 80 percent of the house. He thought she may have made the request for his benefit, but he couldn’t be certain. Courtney had bypassed the servant’s kitchen and Linus’ study, but Jonas had seen more than he needed in order to formulate a plan.
He’d been called into Linus’ study this morning, where Linus told him about the auction and informed him he would be required to patrol the west side of the house when the event began. He noted three security cameras in the study. One aimed at the door, one on the safe, and another on the podium that had been placed in front of three rows of chairs. Obviously, this was where the auction would take place.
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