He drew a blank for a few seconds before it hit him. “Pia Cordova.”
Reese didn’t answer. “She says to hurry. We don’t have much time.”
And then the line went dead.
Ben tightened his fist around his cell for a moment before dialing a different number. His father wasn’t the only one with sleepers.
“I need you to find out where they’re holding Pia Cordova and I need you to put a bullet in her skull,” he said, waiting only long enough to get confirmation before hanging up again. He turned, intent on leaving. He had to find a plane to take him to—
Mandy stood in the doorway. The look on her face said she’d heard the order he’d given and for a split second, he was sorry for it.
So naturally, he snapped at her. “No one likes a snoop, Doc.”
She didn’t even try to deny it. “You weren’t raised by wolves. You were raised by sociopaths,” she said, shrinking away from him as he approached. For some reason, he was sorry for that too. And it made him angry.
“Truer words, Doc—truer words,” he said as he pushed his way past her and out the door.
70
Barcelona, Spain
The limo pulled up in front of an industrial rust-colored building, too modern to belong in a city that was well over a thousand years old. It looked too small to perform the functions of a police station and municipal jail but Michael knew that its looks were deceiving. The structure extended three-stories underground and housed nearly two hundred and fifty inmates awaiting trial and transfer.
The rear door popped open, the driver standing aside so he could climb out. Taking a few moments to straighten his tie, Michael studied the building’s exterior. Looking for points of entry and escape. While getting in would prove little challenge, he doubted they would allow him to waltz out the front door after killing their most high-profile inmate.
He smoothed the lapels of his suit jacket and took the briefcase the driver held out to him with a wink. “Don’t wait up,” he said before he turned and made his way up the concrete steps leading to the building.
Despite his outward behavior, Michael had serious reservations about what he was about to do. Even after everything he’d found out about Pia Cordova over that last few hours, the idea of killing a woman, any woman, was distasteful.
He pushed his way through the heavy glass doors into the lobby, informing the desk sergeant that he was Ms. Cordova’s attorney and that he was here for an appointment. Uniformed officers ushered him into an antechamber so that they could search him and he submitted without protest while they rifled through his pockets and his briefcase.
Their search bared little fruit—nothing more than case files and a Monteblanc pen. He extracted the pen from the officer’s grasp, tucking it into his breast pocket with a smile. “I’d like to see my client now, if you don’t mind.”
Despite the fact that it was 3 a.m., he was led into a private visitation room as if he’d been expected and left to wait.
As soon as he’d placed his briefcase on the room’s only table, the door opened and Pia swept in like she was wearing Versace instead of jeans and a plain white T-shirt. Another sign that he’d been expected.
She’d only been arrested a few days ago but she looked worn, older without her usual armor of makeup and hair extensions. Trailing a manicured finger across his shoulder and down the length of his arm, she rounded the table to take a seat across from him. “Hello, Cartero,” she all but purred, holding her manacled wrist at chest level so that the guard who escorted her could cuff her to the table. The length of chain was generous enough to allow movement and she folded her hands on the flat surface between them. As soon as she was secure, the guard circled back around to stand behind him, next to the door. Michael tracked his progress from the corner of his eye.
Pia rattled her chains, drawing his attention. “I’m glad you decided to come. I was worried we wouldn’t have the chance to see each other again.”
He wasn’t surprised that she knew who he really was. If he’d learned anything over the last few hours, it was that Pia had spent her life being underestimated by everyone around her and that was exactly how she wanted it. While the world saw a rich, flighty party-girl, she’d been busy building an empire in her father’s shadow.
He smiled at her. “The man you sent to the hospital—the one Sabrina killed. He wasn’t there for the Kotko boy, was he? He was there for her.”
“Who is Sabrina?” she said, her eyes wide and innocent.
“You want her dead and I want to know why,” he said, his tone more desperate than he’d intended.
“You seem quite fixated on this woman, Cartero.” Her mouth curved in a smile he’d seen before. One that was meant to seduce and tease. “Should I be jealous?”
The desperation flattened out, hardening into a resolve as thick as stone between them. “No. You should be afraid.”
She drew an invisible doodle on the flat of the table with the tip of her finger, laughing like he’d made a joke. “Do you love her?” She looked up at him. “I hope so.”
“No more games, Pia.” He opened his briefcase and pulled out the files inside. They weren’t the one Lark had sent him—to tell the truth, he had no idea what was even on them. But she didn’t know that. “I see you. The real you.” He flipped open one of the files before drawing the Montblanc from his breast pocket, setting it on the table. “Graduated with honors from Harvard’s Law and Business School simultaneously and yet turned down multiple lucrative job offers to return to your life of opulent squander here in Spain, happy to play the part of daddy’s little princess… but in the three years since you graduated, your father’s holdings have increased by nearly six-hundred percent. Gun running doesn’t generate that kind of jump… when did he find out you’d started trafficking children behind his back?”
She spread her fingers out on the table, clicking her nails a few times before she sat back, glancing at the guard who’d accompanied her into the room. The smile fell from her lips like discarded trash. “My father… he had no vision. No drive.” She shrugged. “He was a traditionalist. No drugs. No children… When I returned from the United States I had the tools to build the kind of operation I wanted. And that’s what I did.” Now the smile returned but it no longer flirted. This one was hard, turning her entire face into a mask of hatred and ice. “Ask me again about your precious Sabrina.”
“Why did you try to kill her?”
Pia lifted her hand to examine her nails before looking at him. “It’s simple. I tried to kill her because you love her… and I won’t stop. Not until she’s dead.”
71
After dinner, Sabrina was escorted back to her room by one of Reyes’ men. She walked as slow as she possibly could without arousing suspicion, desperate to gain an advantage in this game he was playing with her.
She and Christina had been ordered to eat the rest of their meals in silence and even though it’d killed her, she’d complied without protest. As soon as his plate was cleared, Leo was led away by a guard. His little arm outstretched, legs working double time to keep up with the long-legged stride of the man who’d been charged with returning him to wherever he was being kept. Even as he was being taken, Leo watched her, his neck craned so he could keep her in his sights, waiting for her to object. To do something to help him.
To rescue him.
She looked at the guard walking next to her. The gun, housed in the sole of her boot seemed to burn a hole in her foot. So close and yet, unreachable. She was going to have to do something to change that.
“I need to use the bathroom,” she said, stopping in her tracks.
The guard turned and reached for her arm. “You have a bathroom in your suite. You can wait.”
“I wouldn’t touch me if I were you,” she said, pulling her arm from his grip.
“Oh, yeah—why’s that?” he said, snatching at her bicep again, this time clamping down on it with more than a little strength, giving her a shake
that slammed her head into the wall.
Reaching through the stars that danced in front of her, Sabrina grabbed his sleeve, dropping her hip and pivoting to pull the guard off balance while bringing her hand up, cupping it so that she could drive the L formed between her pointer and thumb into the soft flesh of his throat, directly into his windpipe. His shoulders snapped forward, free hand grabbing at his throat while he visibly sucked wind. “Because I don’t like it,” she said, letting go of the arm she held while taking a step away from him, waiting for the hornets’ nest she’d just kicked to descend on her.
Laughter sounded from further down the hall—for a moment she thought it was Reyes but no… it belonged to a man about twenty years his junior. Same small features. Same cruel mouth. Same vacant eyes.
“To be fair, Edwardo, she did try to warn you,” he said, his laughter tapering off into a disgusted chuckle. He glanced at his watch. “Go.” He looked up at her and smirked. “I think I can handle our guest from here.”
They watched Edwardo stagger down the hall for a moment before she turned to the man standing beside her. “I’m Estefan Reyes,” he said, holding his hand out to her.
She looked at it. Didn’t take it. “I know who you are. I still need to use the bathroom.”
Estefan dropped his hand and looked at his watch. “Of course,” He gave her a small bow, sweeping his arm toward a set of double doors. “This way.”
Opening the doors onto a darkened room, he clicked on a table lamp that revealed a well-appointed study. Lifting a crystal carafe from a table near the door, he poured a small glass of something clear, drinking its contents in a single shot. “Would you like one?” he said, refilling the glass before holding it out her, half invitation, half dare.
Sabrina glanced quickly at the desk clock to her left. It was 8:30. She had thirty minutes to get back to her room before the door locked her out. Was he purposely stalling her so she’d be punished or was he just playing a game of chicken, trying to see how far she’d go before she flinched.
“Thanks,” she said, taking the glass from him. Tipping it back, she poured the liquid down her throat, barely feeling the burn before her belly caught fire. She handed the glass back, careful to keep their fingers from touching.
He flicked a glance at her to gauge her reaction while pouring himself another shot. This one he sipped. “Absinthe. My father has it imported from Prague. Nearly 180-proof. He has a collection of them—high proof spirits. The more dangerous the better.” He took a sip. “Care for another?”
Another shot of that would knock her on her ass. She shook her head. “No, thank you.”
He grinned at her “Cartero never drank. Never quite fit in here, despite the things he did for my father.”
“That’s because he’s a good man,” she said, her veiled insult pulling another smile from her host.
“Good man… should I tell you of the last time I saw Cartero kill for my father? It was right here.” He gestured toward the carpet they were both standing on. “His name was Garrett—an American college student. Your lover…” he cocked his head at her, running his eyes up the length of her before settling them on her mouth. “Cartero has fucked you, hasn’t he?”
The urge to flinch, to simply leave and find her own way back was almost too strong to resist but she had a feeling that’s exactly what he wanted. Before she had the chance to tell him to go to hell he continued.
“Your lover gave him a Columbian necktie.” He stepped into her, lifting his hand to her throat. “That’s where we take a knife and slice you from ear to ear,” he said, trailing a finger along the underside of her jaw, the slide of his skin against hers making her feel as if she were crawling with insects. “Then…” he reached up and gripped her chin, pulling her mouth open, “we tear your tongue out and pull it through the gash in your neck.” She jerked her chin away from his hand and he smirked, eyes locked on hers. “Cartero cut his throat right here, where we’re standing, while poor Garrett begged for his life. We put down a plastic sheet so the blood wouldn’t ruin my father’s favorite rug. Would a good man do that?”
Sabrina resisted the urge to look away, refusing to let him see how much his story had affected her. “I think a good man would do anything he had to do to protect the people he cared for,” she said, fighting to keep her tone even. “And I still need to use the bathroom.”
He laughed and just like that, whatever dark spell he’d been able to spin around them was broken. “My apologies,” he said. “It’s just through there.” He took a seat on the plush leather couch across from her.
As soon as she was in the bathroom she locked the door, leaning her forehead against the door for just a moment, trying to breathe her way through the doubt and fear that heaped around her.
Get your shit together, darlin’.
Wade’s voice came through, loud and clear and for once, it wasn’t the most frightening thing going inside her head.
She lowered the toilet lid and sat down to work her boots off. They’d been a Christmas gift from Ben, of course, and he’d been beyond proud to show her the molded compartments built into their soles. Pulling up the inserts, she retrieved the LCP and magazines, setting them down quietly so she could re-lace her boots.
Standing, she flushed the toilet just as someone knocked on the door. Quickly, she tucked the compact gun and extra magazines into the top of her boot, her pant leg covering them completely. “I’m almost finished,” she said, washing her hands and drying them before she opened the door.
Alberto Reyes stood on the other side.
72
Michael looked at the woman in front of him and thought about what he’d come here to do. Whether she knew it or not, she’d just made his job a hell of a lot easier.
Pia’s gaze flicked upward, connecting with the guard again, before she resettled her attention on him. “I’d like to tell you a story,” she said, leaning forward, elbows on the table between them, an almost wistful smile on her face. “It’s a sort of fairytale, about a princess who goes to a faraway land and meets a boy and falls in love. This boy, knowing how much the princess loved her father, decides to travel to her kingdom to ask the king for her hand in marriage.” The smile soured and she sat back, letting her arms fall into her lap. “The king had no intentions of allowing this boy to marry his daughter but instead of telling him no, decides to send him on a dangerous journey to prove his worth. The boy agrees, willing to do anything if it meant a chance at winning the hand of the princess.”
She paused for a moment. “The journey the king sent the boy on was to another kingdom, this one ruled by an evil tyrant. This tyrant saw what the princess’s father had built and wanted it for himself and he was willing to start a war to get it. It was the boy’s job to persuade him otherwise.” She shook her head. “But the evil tyrant would not be persuaded. He took the boy and did terrible things to him until the princess was certain she’d never see him again. The princess begged her father to rescue the boy and so he in turn begged for the boy’s return. The evil king agreed and so the father sent two of his knights into the wicked kingdom to bring the boy home… but while the evil king had agreed to return the boy, he never said he would return him alive.”
Michael could still hear the thick plastic beneath his boots, the way it crinkled when he shifted. Feel the wet weight of the knife in his hand, blood dripping off his wrist while he worked it through the thick meat of the boy’s neck—hating himself for what he was doing but unable to stop. Unable to change the path he’d set himself upon.
“The evil tyrant kept a pet—a fierce dragon whose taste for blood was only rivaled by its love for his master’s wife and child…” Pia tilted her head, a beatific smile tinged black, playing across her lips. “Can you guess what happens next, Cartero?”
“I killed your boyfriend.” Michael leaned forward, closing his hands around the pen he’d placed on the table. “Me. Not Sabrina and sure as hell not the hundreds of kids you’ve kidnapped and sold to
pedophiles over the past three years. Where’s your fucked up fairytale excuse for that one?”
“If the princess doesn’t get her happily-ever-after, then neither does the dragon.” She flicked her gaze upward, casting it past him. “I’m finished here.”
Without warning, something thick and unyielding was dropped in front of him and tightened quickly around his neck. Michael’s counter-moves, born from instinct and muscle memory, were fas. His right hand shot up, grabbing the belt before it tightened around his throat, even as his left hand swept across his chest, twisting in his seat to drive the Montblanc into the meat of the guard’s outer thigh. Michael rocketed out of the chair before the guard had a chance to scream, straight up, crashing the top of his skull into the underside of his jaw. Breaking teeth and cutting off his only chance to cry for help.
The blow loosened the guard’s grip on the belt, allowing him to pull it free. Stepping behind him, Michael slipped the belt around the guard’s throat, drawing it taut as he fell to the ground. Planting his polished dress shoe in the center of the guard’s chest, he gave the belt a vicious yank, snapping his neck in two.
The entire episode took less than ten seconds.
Pia sat staring at him, her smug look cooling into one of defiance and disbelief. She watched as he rolled the guard over to retrieve what he knew had to be there. A .22 with an attached suppressor was tucked into the small of his back, hidden by his gun belt. “Should have just had him shoot me.” He pulled the gun and held it up.
She glared at him. “But then I wouldn’t have been able to look you in the eyes while you died.”
“Best laid plans, right?” He shook his head, pulling the guard’s keys off his belt. “What was the plan—kill me, plant the gun. Make it look like I was hired to kill you?”
The Sabrina Vaughn series Set 2 Page 27
