“Hola, querida Maria,” Carlos said as he sat up, using his teenage greeting of “dear Maria” to give Carlos’s aunt his identity immediately without Durand knowing.
Maria lifted trembling fingers to her forehead. She had to be trying to reconcile the voice and familiar greeting with the face.
Durand asked her, “You know this man?”
Before she could answer, Carlos took everyone back to the point of this meeting. “Now that your sister is here, let’s discuss my offer.”
Durand ignored him, waiting on his sister to answer.
The struggle to decide what to say warred in Maria’s gaze. Carlos held his breath, praying she wouldn’t say a word to undermine the deal he was cutting.
She nodded. “Sí. He is familiar, but I want to hear this offer he makes you.”
Durand gave Maria a hard look. Carlos banked on the bond between these two to prevent Durand from forcing her to say more.
“Tell me!” Durand demanded.
“I’ll give you Mirage-” Carlos flinched when Gabrielle sucked in a deep breath. But when he added, “And Alejandro Anguis,” her muttered, “Bastard,” cut deep.
Durand just stared at him mute.
Not a sound was made until Carlos heard sobbing and looked at Maria. She knew for sure now. Her watery gaze pleaded silently with Carlos to let her speak, but they’d made a deal and she had given her word.
“You can do this? Deliver both Alejandro and Mirage?” Durand demanded, amazement and excitement ripe in his question.
“Yes, but I want something in trade.” Carlos hoped the next words would buy him some small redemption. “Let this woman”-he nodded at Gabrielle-“go free. Her only mistake was dating me. She knows nothing about any of this and will never risk saying a word once she leaves.”
“Let her leave?” Durand stared in disbelief. “No.”
“Durand,” Maria said softly. “He has offered you what no one else has and asks far less than any other would in his place.”
“You know this man, Maria?” Durand asked.
“I think so.”
“Who is he?”
“I will no say unless you agree to his offer.”
“Dios! You are family. How can you side with him?” Durand struggled to maintain his icy calm. He crushed his cigar in a glass tray.
“I will explain later, but first tell him you will make this deal. It is no so much to ask.” His sister crossed her arms and jutted out that stubborn Anguis chin.
“His woman can cause me trouble,” Durand pointed out.
Carlos chuckled sadly. “Take a look at her. Do you think she wants any part of this or that anyone will believe her? She has no proof of anything that has happened down here, and right about now she’s ready to cut my throat for you.”
Durand eyed Carlos curiously. “So why do you care about her safety and no yours?”
“Because I used her as cover to come search for an informant and owe her a safe return home.”
No one spoke or moved for the next minute as Durand studied his dilemma.
“Who is your informant?” Durand crossed his arms, clearly not ready to make a deal.
“Like you haven’t already gotten that information in your granero?” Carlos didn’t want to share Ferdinand’s name, but he’d bet the father and son were somewhere in this compound. Most likely in the heavily guarded shed. Or already buried.
“How do you know so much about my operation?” Durand’s gaze bounced to Julio, whose eyebrows lifted in curiosity, but he said nothing.
“Make the deal and I’ll tell you.” Carlos leaned back in the chair, arms crossed.
Durand finally pointed his cigar at Carlos. “I will agree to your deal, but if you no produce Alejandro and Mirage, I will find your woman and she will pay for your lies.”
“I know that.” Carlos turned to Gabrielle, whose horror was right up front for everyone to see. She knew, as everyone in this room knew, that Durand would hunt her down the minute Carlos was dead and his sister was home. Carlos prayed Joe and Tee would have Gabrielle safe by then. “Go stand with Maria.”
When Gabrielle just sat there, Carlos added a firm “Now.”
She stood and moved tentatively toward Maria, eyeing everyone in the room as she did.
Carlos said to his aunt, “Go with her to the airport and assure she is on a plane to the U.S. Once you call and tell me she is safe, I’ll tell Durand everything.”
“I will,” his aunt assured him. “I am to leave very soon with Eduardo, who is seeing a doctor in the U.S.”
Carlos smiled. “Damn. Rather be lucky than good any day.”
“No one is going anywhere until you give me proof of at least one right now,” Durand ordered.
Carlos sighed. “Can I lift my hands without getting shot?”
Durand nodded.
Carlos ripped his shirt open, exposing the Anguis tattoo with the scar. “I am Alejandro Anguis.”
TWENTY-FIVE
GABRIELLE STARED AT the inked design of a snake wrapped around a stiletto over Carlos’s heart, with a scar.
“Alejandro?” Durand’s shock stole his breath, then he wailed, “Alejandro!” His face contorted as he moved toward Carlos, his body shaking. He reached out with trembling hands, the muscles in his fingers tight as he cupped Carlos’s face. Durand’s head shook back and forth, disbelief in his harsh voice. “Why would you turn on family?”
Gabrielle’s knees weakened. Carlos was Alejandro Anguis, the man who had killed her mother?
What happened to all the air in the room?
Maria covered her mouth, sobbing. Durand’s men gripped their weapons, every visible muscle taut with anticipation.
Durand clutched Carlos’s face, his fingers digging into the soft skin. His whole body shook with fury. His voice was raw. “You were blood. My blood.”
Given any other situation, Gabrielle would have been moved by Durand’s heart-wrenching keen at seeing his long-lost son.
But she couldn’t find a smidgen of sympathy for this man.
Carlos said nothing, still as a statue. Durand let go of Carlos all at once as if touching him burned his hands and backed away. He’d left red welts where he’d gouged Carlos’s cheeks.
The black eyes Durand turned on his son were crazy wild, and his raw voice was more threatening than anything he’d whispered before now. “You killed your own blood. My brother was in that château.”
“Then you killed your blood, because I didn’t send him into a death trap,” Carlos replied in a voice as deadly soft as Durand’s.
But then Durand and Carlos were father and son. Gabrielle felt sick.
Durand had been the monster in her nightmares for years. The blunt silence in the room felt as though the world had stopped spinning right here, this moment frozen.
After a long, tense stillness, Durand seemed to regain his composure and demanded, “Who is Mirage?”
“I’ll tell you once Maria calls to say they have boarded the airplane,” Carlos repeated without looking at anyone.
Gabrielle’s chest hurt as though her heart had been ripped from her. How could Carlos be the man she loved? He had murdered innocent people in a bombing. Women. Her mother.
Her brain screamed with arguments in his favor. He couldn’t possibly be that person. He would never harm a woman or kill without reason. But he’d just admitted as much. His aunt recognized him. Could he really trust his aunt?
Was Carlos now getting her to safety or just giving Gabrielle a head start before he told Durand she was Mirage?
Her head throbbed from trying to process the inconceivable, that she had been intimate with the man who had stolen her mother’s life. That she’d fallen in love with a true mirage. Her heart bled from a thousand cuts. This was the man who had sworn he wouldn’t let anyone hurt her.
Guess Carlos hadn’t included himself in the list of possible threats.
“You are not in a position to negotiate, Alejandro,” Durand warned in a deadly t
one.
“That’s why I asked for Maria.” Carlos sat, stoic in the face of sure death. He wouldn’t look at Gabrielle, his gaze landing on his father and staying there.
Durand wasn’t happy about the position he was in, but couldn’t back down now from his agreement. Gabrielle had learned from Ferdinand that Durand’s power lay in the strength of his word.
“Maria, prepare your son for the trip,” Durand ordered as calmly as sending her to make a glass of tea. His eyes reflected a disappointment in his sister Gabrielle didn’t understand. “Julio, have the men take the woman with Maria and Eduardo to fly on my jet once my sister is ready.”
“What will you do with him, Durand?” Maria asked, indicating Carlos.
“Do not interfere in business” was her brother’s reply.
Gabrielle looked at Maria next to her. The woman turned imploring eyes to Carlos. What did his aunt want?
When Carlos averted his gaze, Maria sighed and walked out of the room. Durand ordered Julio to guard their prisoners, then he signaled his other men to follow him out the door.
Julio took a spot across the room, next to the desk. A strategic position so he could watch them both.
Gabrielle stood perfectly still, trying to breathe past the tightness in her chest. Carlos-or Alejandro-sat just as motionless across the room, avoiding eye contact with her.
Durand would kill him. She fought for a breath. An elephant was sitting on her chest. The thought of Carlos dying stripped her emotions raw. She should be glad to see Alejandro Anguis face his mortality, but her traitorous heart cried out to save Carlos.
At least until she could talk to him, find out why he’d lied to her. Then what? Turn him over to the authorities to be tried by a jury of his peers?
In his case, peers would be killers.
Carlos wanted her to get a message to Joe.
Now she had to question just whom Joe and his group of deadly operatives represented.
Carlos finally lifted his head to face her for the first time since entering Durand’s office. The misery burrowed deep in his eyes twisted her heart in knots.
He’d made her promise not to hate him.
He was waiting for a sign of that promise.
She couldn’t give it to a man who freely admitted being a murderer she’d spent a decade trying to bring to justice.
He looked away, but not before agony wrenched his grim face.
Gabrielle couldn’t do it. She could not just leave him here to die. As if he’d heard her thoughts, his eyes cut back to hers. He gave a brief shake of his head she knew meant not to risk the deal he’d made. She checked Julio, who was staring at her. He hadn’t noticed Carlos and couldn’t see Carlos’s face the way she could. When she looked back at Carlos, his lips moved as he mouthed the words Please save them.
He wanted to know she’d take the message to Joe that Carlos suspected something was going to happen while the teens were at Congress today…in a few hours.
No plea for himself, only for others.
Who was this man?
Durand strode back into the room. “Take her to the car, Julio.”
“No, I-” Gabrielle stepped toward Carlos.
“Get out of here,” Carlos snarled at Gabrielle. “I’m not apologizing for getting you into this because I needed you as a cover, but I’m also not going to put up with any more of your whining. Go home. Keep your mouth shut and he’ll let you live. What part of that are you confused about?”
Gabrielle stood there, dazed by the angry outburst, until Julio crossed the room and touched her arm. She jumped. Her insides twisted in indecision. She couldn’t accept any of this.
Carlos met her gaze, his dying request clear in his eyes. She fought back tears. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He waited for her acknowledgment.
She nodded, unable to deny him or speak.
The relief that spread across his face told her he was staking all on her not letting him down. That she’d get the message to Joe and save the teens.
But who would save Carlos? Oh, God, she couldn’t do this.
Julio grasped her arm. Fury burst across Carlos’s face. She couldn’t let him put himself in more danger.
What exactly would be more danger?
“I’m going.” Gabrielle swung around and walked from the room, fighting for control with each step. She tried to take a breath, told herself not to bolt back into that office and beg Durand to let Carlos go. Durand would use her against his son.
If she left, Carlos had no Mirage to give Durand unless he betrayed her. Would he?
He said Joe and Retter could get him out of there, but would his aunt allow her to contact anyone when they got to the jet? How long before she could try to reach Joe?
Outside, Gabrielle glanced around at the sprawling pale yellow house with a ten-foot-high stucco wall topped with spiked wrought iron surrounding the compound.
How could Retter get in here quickly enough to help Carlos?
When they reached a van outfitted with a hydraulic lift at the rear doors, Julio swung his weapon from his shoulder and pointed it at her. She climbed inside, taking a seat that faced a wheelchair locked into place. A man with shoulder-length black hair close to Carlos’s age sat silently staring at her.
Gabrielle turned to the driver, already behind the wheel. “Where is Maria?”
He ignored her.
So did the man in the wheelchair.
She lunged for the door, but the locks clicked shut.
CARLOS COULDN’T MOVE his eyes from the closed door of Durand’s office. He’d never see Gabrielle again. Steel bands cinched around his chest with each second that passed.
Had he really thought Gabrielle wouldn’t hate him?
No, he’d prayed she wouldn’t.
But it was unfair to expect her to understand without telling her everything that had happened the day her mother died. That Gabrielle had hesitated to leave told him she still cared somewhere in her heart. Somewhere deep beneath all the hurt and disappointment she had to be going through, she did care.
He had to believe that so he could face what Durand would do to him once Maria called to say they were on the airplane.
Durand never just killed anyone. He believed examples should be made of any breach in loyalty. He’d do his best to bleed any information from Carlos first. Let them try.
Carlos scoped out the sole guard left, whose eyes were unfocused as a mannequin’s, treating him as invisible as he’d been as a child in this household. But it only took one guard since the other one had secured Carlos to the heavy chair using cable ties again before leaving the room.
The door to Durand’s office opened silently and closed. Carlos wasn’t surprised to see Maria. He’d banked on it.
Maria told the guard, “Leave me with Alejandro.”
When the guard hesitated, she added, “Durand sent orders. He’s in the foyer should you wish to question him.”
That ended any argument from the guard, who exited immediately.
Once the door closed, Maria crossed to Carlos and bent down to hug him. Her body shook with silent sobs.
She smelled of his past.
Tears stung his eyes. This was his true mother, the woman who had rocked him to sleep at night along with her own children and given him a safe haven from Durand’s house. His aunt had loved him as one of her own when his birth mother couldn’t tolerate being in the same room with him.
If only he could wrap his arms around his aunt one more time before he died.
“Alejandro, please let me tell Durand,” she begged.
Carlos turned his face to her cheek and kissed the soft skin, then whispered, “No. This will be okay, just keep your word and don’t tell Durand. Ever.”
“He is not the boy I grew up with.” Years of anguish and disappointment poured through her voice. She hugged Carlos once more, then sat down in the chair beside him, reaching over to entwine their fingers. “I can no longer look him in the eye or he will see my hatred
.”
His heart squeezed at the endearing touch of her fingers.
“My brother would not hurt Eduardo,” she reasoned. She heaved a deep breath that held years of misery. “I can make Durand understand my son was a foolish boy who tried to kill Salvatore to impress him and you took the blame to protect us. He sees that Eduardo pays daily for his mistake with his broken spine. You have carried this burden alone for too long. Salvatore will no come for revenge. He would no harm a boy in a wheelchair and his mother. Eduardo begs you to know he is so sorry for what he did and wants to tell my brother the truth.”
Carlos couldn’t let her do it. Salvatore would pursue revenge for his goddaughter’s death to the end of time. “You can’t trust Durand or Salvatore not to retaliate in some way.”
“What about you? Do you trust him to no kill you?”
Durand would do far worse to him. “I will be fine until you three are safe and my people show up,” Carlos said quietly.
Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “What do you mean?” She kept her voice just as soft.
“I would have gotten you out of here a long time ago if I could without Durand turning on you, but you have a chance to escape him now.” Because Carlos trusted Joe and Tee to pull whatever strings it took to put Maria and Eduardo in the WITSEC program. BAD took care of its own, and they would do that if Gabrielle kept her word and warned them. Carlos expected Gabrielle to use the information she had to share about the teens to negotiate her own terms, but he didn’t blame her.
“How can we escape and who is this woman?” Maria asked.
“Her name is Gabrielle. She’s contacting powerful people who can protect you and Eduardo. An agency that took me in years ago and gave me a chance to do something good with my life.” Carlos fought against fear that something would go wrong. He’d trusted BAD with his life hundreds of times. He had to trust them now.
He continued, “As soon as you get to the airport, Gabrielle has to make a call to the States. Children might be killed if she does not get a message to my boss in time. The minute you can talk to her with no one listening, tell Gabrielle I want Joe to bring you and Eduardo into protective custody. He’ll make sure you’re safe and that Eduardo has whatever he needs medically. Give Joe any information you can on Durand’s operation. When you call Durand to say you’re on the plane, make him let you talk to me and just say the words ‘We’re all set’ to let me know Gabrielle got through to Joe.”
Whispered Lies Page 34
