“Yes. They’re not letting anyone take off, but I’ll make it happen. Give me five minutes.” Philip walked away.
“Kane—” Dante began.
Kane glared at him, then walked away. He couldn’t listen to any more excuses.
The Beechcraft was a good plane, built for both speed and comfort. The controls were state of the art. He had never flown this particular model, but it wasn’t all that different from most twin-props in the same class.
Kane tried calling Jack. There was no answer. Kane sent a coded message telling Jack he’d be in Guadalajara in ninety minutes or less.
He hoped. The storm raged, but he trusted the weather report Noah had given him. As they moved inland, it should level off. And right now they would have tailwinds.
Dante climbed into the plane. “Is there a way to reach Gabriella?” Kane asked him.
Dante pulled out his phone and handed it to Kane. “Gabriella will pick up this number. Last number called.”
Kane put the phone on speaker and pressed resend. A moment later a female voice came on the phone.
“Finally, you call.”
Kane didn’t say anything. He watched Dante closely.
“Jasmine.” Dante’s face was white as a sheet.
“You are a fucking traitor. You betray my brothers, betray me, and then run like a little girl. You think I couldn’t figure out that Jack Kincaid and Kane Rogan inserted Gabriella into my brother’s operation? That little whore was good at her job, she was probably screwing Dom as well as Jose.”
Dante said through clenched teeth, “No one controls my sister.”
“Your pathetic excuses will determine whether your dear sister dies slowly or quickly. But I’m willing to have the conversation, face to face.”
“I’m in Tampico.”
“If you’re anywhere near that little so-called safe house you can get here in less than two hours.”
In the background, they heard, “Don’t do it, Dante! She’ll kill you!”
Then Gabriella cried out.
“Don’t touch her!” Dante said.
“My men will be waiting for you at my airfield. If you don’t land in the next two hours—alone—I will cut off Gabriella’s fingers one by one and shove them down her throat!”
Jasmine hung up.
Dante hit Kane in his sore arm. He winced but didn’t cry out. “Bastard! I knew this would happen. Gabriella helped you, and you left her to die.”
Kane never left any man—or woman—behind.
“Gabriella was in it for the long game,” Kane said quietly. “You know that. She could have left with us, she chose to stay and ensure that the Flores operation was destroyed.”
“And you let her!”
“Like you said, no one controls your sister. I have a plan, let’s just get this bird in the air and get to Guadalajara as fast as possible. I’m not going to let anyone else die tonight.”
* * *
Gabriella stood in front of Jose. She was handcuffed and her face burned from where Jasmine had slapped her when she tried to warn Dante. But now it was just her and Jose.
“Your sister is insane,” Gabriella said. She didn’t have any hope of saving herself, not anymore. If Dante came, he would be dead. She would be alone again, without her love Greg, without her brother. Death would be a viable alternative.
She didn’t have much of a choice at this point.
“You lied to me.”
“I never lied. There were things I didn’t say.”
“Same thing!” Jose ran a hand through his hair. “I loved you.”
Jose didn’t want excuses. She had none to give.
“Look at me,” she said.
It took him a long minute before he could look her in the eye.
“I have no excuses. Deep down, you know the truth. You know who I am.”
He waved his hand dismissively, but his eyes watered.
“I fear for you. Jasmine is not Dominick. Dom was a precision weapon—a bullet, aiming at his target and only destroying his target. Jasmine is a nuclear bomb. She’ll decimate everything around her. There will be fallout for not only your business, the last of your family, you—but your country. There will be war. Blood will run in the streets. She doesn’t value family or human life. But worse, she’s volatile.”
Jose was staring at Gabriella as if he didn’t know her. And maybe he didn’t.
But Gabriella suspected Jose was much smarter than he acted.
“I’ve accepted that Jasmine will kill me. I don’t want to die, but I’ve accepted my fate. Jose—you need to leave. Disappear. Before Jasmine gets you killed.”
“You don’t care about me,” he said. He tried for forceful, it came out hurt.
“Outside of my family, you are the only one who knows the real location of my villa in Spain. Go there.”
He stepped back. “I can’t believe anything you say.”
“You don’t have to. Actions, Jose, speak louder. When you get there, you’ll know.”
He turned his back on her but didn’t walk away.
Gabriella said, “We have no choice who we are born, but we choose who we are when we die. Don’t die for Jasmine.”
He walked away and left her. Did he really mean to leave her alone? Was there hope that she could simply walk out?
A moment later two guards came in and took her to the basement.
No, there was no hope. Not anymore.
* * *
Eden held Liam’s hand. He was so pale. Where was her vibrant brother?
Siobhan checked the bandages. “The bleeding has slowed,” she said. “That’s a good sign.”
“Go away,” Eden said. “Just leave us!”
“If you need me, I’m right here.” Siobhan sat in the seat behind Noah.
“Of course you are, there’s no place to go in this damn plane! My brother is dying!” Eden bit back a sob and put her forehead on Liam’s chest. No matter how many blankets they had piled on him, he was still cold to the touch. “Please don’t leave me,” she whispered.
Eden felt sick, but she didn’t know if it was from the turbulence or the fact that her brother was dying.
Liam reached for her with shaking hands. The head of Saint Michael fell out from under the blanket. She picked it up and stared.
Don’t let Liam die, God. Please don’t let him die.
“Remember when we decided to go to college in England?” Liam whispered.
“It was our dream.”
“It was my dream,” Liam said. “I wanted to go.”
“So did I.”
“Not at first. You wanted to study art history in New York and paint.”
“Art history in England was even better. And then we went to Rome—that was the best year of college.”
He smiled. “It was.”
Liam started coughing. Blood dribbled out of the side of his mouth and she wiped it up. Her tears fell on his chest; she wiped them away.
“You searched for this treasure for me, Eden. I wanted to find it.”
“I did, too!”
“Because I did. I see everything now, so clearly.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“You always believed in me. My dreams. My ideas. Never once did you tell me I was a fool.”
“You are the furthest thing from a fool. You found the treasure. It was there, right there, and you put the clues together. Only you.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you. Everything is going to be okay now.”
She started crying harder. She couldn’t stop. The only true thing in her life was her twin brother. For thirty-six years they had each other, had depended on each other. They had their own lives, Liam had a few women, she had a few men, but in the end everyone let them down in one way or the other.
It wasn’t normal, she knew that, but what was normal? They hadn’t had a normal upbringing. Their parents had loved them in their own way but were never around. Eden and Liam had practically raised themsel
ves. They raised each other.
“Don’t leave me, Liam.”
“Paint,” Liam said. “For you, not to make forgeries or trick a mark, but paint what you want.”
She put her head on his uninjured shoulder. “Please, fight, Liam. I need you.”
“I love you, Sis. And I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing for you to be sorry about.”
He didn’t say anything. His chest went up, then down. She waited.
Waited.
Waited.
It didn’t rise again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Lucy had lost hope for a rescue. Her eyesight had started to return during the long drive to the Flores compound—she could see, but everything was still blurry. She had the worst headache she’d ever had in her life and felt perpetually nauseous. She didn’t let on that she could see better than before, but she surreptitiously inspected her captors.
She’d thought about escaping and looked for every possible angle, but she didn’t have an opportunity—not even a small one. Not only had they kept her bound the entire trip, but two armed guards also watched her. Worse, she wasn’t 100 percent. She wasn’t even 50 percent. But the first opportunity to escape she would. Sean had no way of knowing what happened at Dante’s house, why she wasn’t there, where she could have gone. He might have thought she’d walked out on her own or Liam lied.
Maybe Liam hadn’t called Sean at all.
The caravan stopped hours after it started. She didn’t move. She heard doors open and close, men talking mostly in Spanish, but she couldn’t make out any distinct words.
“Up,” one of her guards said.
She tried to stand, but her legs had fallen asleep and she stumbled forward. She couldn’t catch herself because her hands were tied behind her back. The men laughed, grabbed her under her arms, dragged her out of the back of the covered truck, and dropped her to the gravel road.
They’re going to execute you here, in the middle of nowhere.
It was dark out, but she saw lights shining from a large structure—a mansion, it appeared, though to her it looked like a big squarish blob with yellow windows. She wasn’t in the middle of nowhere, she was at the Flores compound.
She would be executed, but it probably wouldn’t happen fast.
You have to escape.
A man approached. From her position in the dirt, she saw him only from the waist down—he wore expensive shoes dirty from the day and slacks that were unlike the jeans and camos the other men wore.
Zapelli.
“Your plight is my good fortune,” he said to Lucy in English. He leaned over her so she could almost make out his face. “You will pay for what Rogan did to me,” he whispered. “I will record every cry, every scream, I will have you begging for mercy, you will curse your family, and they will hear it all and know you are dead but never find your body.”
Lucy couldn’t control her shaking body. Every nightmare came back. Her greatest fears realized. Eight years ago she’d been a teenager, fearing her family would watch her die.
Zapelli was cruel enough to do everything he said.
To his men, he said in Spanish, “Haul her to the basement. Lock her up—I don’t trust her.”
Two men roughly pulled Lucy to her feet. She half walked and was half dragged past the large house and around the corner. Two men guarded a staircase that went down to doors leading into a basement. The men pulled Lucy down the stairs and through the opening.
A lone, bare bulb burned in the center of the dank basement. Hard-packed dirt served as the floor; the walls were made of both dirt and stone. The low ceiling prevented anyone over six feet from walking upright, but the men who dragged Lucy in were short.
She smelled blood and death, both new and old.
They pushed Lucy down. She could see little in the dimly lit room, but her hand scraped over a metal ring. The clank of chains make Lucy cry out even more than the pain in her body from the men twisting her around. One of them attached a manacle to her ankle, then pulled the chain hard to ensure it was secure.
They left. A bolt slid into place and Lucy jumped. They talked about sports as they walked up the stairs and disappeared into the night.
She let out a long sob. Then she froze. She wasn’t alone.
“Who’s there?”
She listened carefully. Someone else was in the basement. Her eyes still weren’t focused completely and the dim bulb didn’t help, but she looked around her surroundings. Behind her, against the wall and restrained by the same type of manacle as Lucy, was a woman with long dark hair half covering her face.
The woman stared at her. “You must be Lucy.”
The woman spoke in English with an exotic accent, but Lucy couldn’t quite pinpoint the origin. It could be the woman traveled extensively, adopted different nuances from different countries. Her voice was rough from exhaustion and possible dehydration.
“I don’t know you.”
“Gabriella.”
“Oh—oh, God, Gabriella … what happened?”
She of course knew who Gabriella Romero was—she’d helped Kane and Sean rescue Jesse last month. Dante Romero’s sister. Jack had told her Gabriella stayed to protect her cover and ensure that the Flores cartel was broken.
“I underestimated Jasmine.” She laughed, then coughed. “I never underestimate people, but when you’re dealing with crazy everything you think you know is skewed.”
“We’ll find a way out. We have to.”
Gabriella didn’t say anything for a moment. “I like your faith, dear Lucy, and I’m willing to do anything to survive. But time is not on our side.”
“You know the compound, how it’s laid out—”
“We have to escape from here first, the pit of hell,” she said, and spit on the ground. “This is where they tortured my love. This is where they bled him dry. I die in peace because this is where I took my revenge.”
“I’m not going to die. Neither are you. What do you know? Information is important—”
She laughed again. “Yes, information. It’s my brother’s business. I am sincerely sorry you were dragged into this nasty affair. Had I known, I would never have allowed it. And I like to think that Dante wouldn’t have allowed it, either.”
“What? You mean what Liam and Eden did?”
“Bringing you here. Jasmine learned of Dante’s safe house at the same time she convinced Jose that I was a traitor. My own fault, I suppose, being cocky, that I didn’t continually check for listening devices and cameras in my own bedroom. She caught me sending a message to Jack. Or she thinks she did—she couldn’t break my encryption.”
“Jack? My brother?”
“We’ve been friends—well, not friends. More … oh, reluctant associates, I suppose … for years. Greg was in Jack’s unit, and Jack risked his life to retrieve his body for a proper burial. I craved revenge, but I should have done it Jack’s way at the beginning. Instead, I convinced myself that cold-boiled revenge was more satisfying.”
Lucy wondered if she had her idioms mixed up. “You sent Jack a message? Does he know you’re in trouble?”
“He knows you’re in trouble—I told him Jasmine knew about the safe house. I told him I was going to disappear. I didn’t disappear fast enough.”
“Then he’s coming.”
“Jasmine knows he’ll come for you.”
Lucy’s stomach fell. Jack would come and walk into a trap.
“She’s in trouble. Financially in deep trouble after you took down her operation and Spade turned state’s evidence. She needs an influx of cash, and you’re worth a lot of money.”
“Wh-why?”
But she knew. She knew exactly why she was worth money. As bait.
“It’s a trap.” Lucy answered her own question. “Someone wants to kill my brother.”
“Many people want to kill Jack, some more than others.”
“We have to warn him.”
“He knows.”
“Wh
at? How?”
“Because it’s logical. You have to think like these people, and Jack does.” Gabriella let out a long sob, then stopped.
“Gabriella—what’s wrong?”
“Other than I too am bait? Jasmine spoke to my brother. He’s walking into a trap. I told him no, I told him it was a trap, but Dante—he’s a hard man, he can be vicious, and he can be an opportunist. But like your brother, with Dante family always comes first. Now we all die.”
“We are not going to die.”
“If you have a plan, I’m listening.”
She didn’t have a plan, not yet. But she wasn’t going to be bait for Jack, and she wasn’t going to let the woman who saved Sean and Jesse die.
“Lucy?”
“I’m thinking.”
“Think faster.”
A moment later the door was unbolted and swung open. “It’s your lucky day, Agent Kincaid,” Angelo Zapelli said. “Ms. Flores is ready to see you now.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“You’re an idiot, Rogan,” Dante muttered. They didn’t have much time. Kane had seen the flash of lights as Dante landed the plane. The rain had slacked off as they traveled west, but it was damp outside and the rain would follow.
“Just lock it.”
“You know how to get out, right?”
“Yes.” Kane lay in the small, cramped secret compartment in the belly of the plane. For the plan to work, the compartment needed to be locked and sealed. That meant Dante needed to slide the seats back into place—over the door.
Good thing Dante was a criminal, Kane thought. Though Sean had the same type of secret compartment in his own plane.
Less than two minutes after Dante sealed the container there was a pounding on the plane’s door.
“Romero, out. No tricks. We can and will shoot you.”
“I’m coming,” he said.
Kane closed his eyes and listened. Four to six men. Someone hit Dante—he fell against the plane with a grunt.
Someone climbed into the plane and searched it. “Weapons!” he called out. “Some clothes, nothing more.”
Idiot. Maybe Kane didn’t need to be locked in a bin; though the plane was small, the search had been minimal. So what if he lost a few guns—it didn’t sound like they’d opened the side panel where Kane had stored the explosives.
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