She doesn’t say a word but continues to stare over me like I am an errant child who’s had to be told off. Without doing or saying anything else, she leaves and heads back to her seat.
For the rest of the flight, I don’t mutter a word. My head drops, and I keep focused on my hands—hands that once held everything I could ever wish for. Only now it’s too late to grab hold and never let go.
The drop of my stomach and sudden nauseous feeling wakes me. At some point, I must have dozed off. We must be ready to land. A quick scan around the cabin tells me nothing has changed.
The slight bump and rumble as the wheels touch down provide relief yet fill me with dread. Whatever their plan, they wanted me here, in this location. Wherever we are, we taxi around the airstrip, and then all the men are up and out of their seats. I keep my eyes down but try to watch for the woman. She’s the dangerous one. She’s the one I need to watch for.
She stands and accepts one of the pilot's hands to step down the private steps. And then she’s gone. The men gesture for me to stand and leave, and I’m hurried down the steps. Ahead of me are two huge black four-by-four vehicles waiting. The sun is high in the sky, clear of any clouds. I could be anywhere from the limited view I have.
My eye is still half closed, but the pain has subsided.
As I’m put into the car, two men climb in after me. I turn my head and watch out of the tinted windows for clues as to where I am.
It’s only a few minutes before I recognise where we are. We’re back in Miami.
The cars continue in convoy along the streets that I’ve driven a hundred times myself. As we near the port, my heart drops at the thought that we’re going to my brother’s Marina. The sinking feeling in my stomach turns to acid as I skip through all the conversations we’ve had. Did he set this up? Is he involved?
Maybe that’s the explanation I’ve been searching for? Andreas knew how to reach me. How to contact me. He pulled me out of the relative safety I’d found and back into harm's way.
As the cars continue to their destination, the sudden betrayal by my brother comes into stark clarity. He’s always wanted to be bigger. Better. The king amongst his friends and workers. He’s never cared for family or a connection with me beyond how I could benefit him. My heart breaks, and finally, I lose a tear that I’ve been so desperately holding onto.
When the car stops, the men shoot from their seats and pull me from the seat. I go willingly, unable to muster a fight at the realisation that my brother is involved in this. We passed one of his warehouses as we drove deeper into the dock’s industrial estate, but this isn’t where he does business.
The warehouse we enter is old. Rusted aluminium sheeting litters the floor, and the once clean and painted building looks more like someone’s gone to a lot of effort to make a patina pattern over the walls.
Inside, it’s much cleaner. We cross an empty room big enough to house the private jet we just flew in on. I’m marched across the dusty floor through a small doorway where a maze of corridors and rooms are spaced out. A guard—the one with the bump on his head—shoves me inside and closes the door. There’s a snitch and click that tell me he’s padlocked the door. A single pane window, some ten feet above me is the only source of light, shining a beam of brightness into the space. I sit in the pool of sunlight at the end of the room and wait.
They brought me here for something. Otherwise, I’d be dead by now. I cling to that fact. And I have no doubts the woman would have taken a gun and pulled the trigger herself had she wanted to.
The circle of light I’m sitting in slowly grows smaller and smaller as the sun disappears from view. The darkness invades and with it, the thought that I may not make it out of this alive. My only hope is that Andreas will make sure I’m still breathing at the end. I’ll give them what they need, and I can leave.
Simple. More fool me.
The grating sound of metal against metal has me jumping to my feet, my back to the wall. The door opens, and two shadowy figures enter the room. Barely any light filters through now and between that, my eye, and lack of sleep, I’m amazed I’m still standing.
A sick, gut-twisting feeling returns to my stomach ten-fold, poisoning my body and rendering me petrified. I don’t want to go with these men. They’re bigger than those who were on the plane. They grab for my arm, but I bat them away and try to run around them. I get a few feet towards the door before I’m brought to my knees, slamming into the concrete ground.
Burning pain flares across my scalp as I’m hauled to my feet by my hair. I grab the guy’s wrists with my hands, but there’s no way he’s loosening his grip. Two quick punches from the other man not holding me in place. The pain blasts over my face and down to my stomach, replacing the sickness from a moment ago.
No words, no hesitancy. Just violence. Any thought of running vanishes, and I relax my arms. I’m shaken loose and fall to my knees again, small debris on the floor digging into my bruised skin like miniature daggers.
I’m led out of my cell and down the corridor into a bigger room. There are no windows, but a small light in the corner casts the room in a dull, yellow hue. It’s enough for me to make out a body slumped over a chair in the other corner.
Andreas.
“Andreas!” I cry out, wrenching myself free to go to him. “Andreas, can you hear me?”
His head hangs lifelessly from his neck, a trail of blood and drool running from his mouth and nose. His arms are pulled tightly around the chair and fastened at the wrist. His body is covered in dirt…or blood.
“Andreas, can you hear me? Please….it’s Gabriella. Wake up. You have to wake up.”
“Enough.” An American voice speaks, but I take no notice, running my hands over Andreas to check for more injuries. Wet patches and blood coat his skin. His shirt is cut open and soaked with blood. All my heartbreak from earlier is forgotten seeing my brother like this, and sudden realisation dawns that Nate was so right. I’m out of my league and terrified.
Arms wrap around me and lift me away from my brother. “No. He’s hurt. He needs me.” I thrash with my arms and scissor my legs until I hit something.
I’m dropped and try to scurry across the floor to escape, but a blow to my stomach stops me. I look up to see a shadow standing over me and watch as his fist comes down to meet my face.
Black.
My head buzzes as I come round. The last thing I remember is being punched and, it appears, knocked unconscious. My hands are free of their bonds and I try to stand but knock into something metal. As my eyes open and adjust, I move my body around to feel my surroundings.
Small bars.
A cage.
I’m in a cage with little room to even stretch my legs out. I shake the front side but it’s solid.
“Gabriella,” a low, hoarse voice calls in the dark.
“Yes! Yes, Andreas? Gracias a diosse, I didn’t know if you were still alive.”
“Just about alive. Are you okay? I can’t see you?” his voice wheezes as he speaks like he has something trapped in his throat.
“Sore, but not like you. What’s happening? Why are they after us both? They found me in Antwerp, Andreas. They came for me.”
“Shh. Shh. I know. I know. And I’m still working it out.”
“Working what out? These are Yakuza. What have you done?” I hiss the words as my anger returns.
“Nothing. The deal was with Mortoni, not them. I’m not fucking stupid, hermana.”
“Well, excuse me. You’re tied to a chair, bleeding half to death and I've been dragged halfway around the world and beaten up. There must be something.”
“Keep your voice down, Gabriella.”
“Andreas, I swear, if we get out of this, you’re done. No more of this. Look what it’s led to.”
“And who’s to say this isn’t about your little hobby. Don’t think I don’t know that you go off all over the world, happy to steal from whomever you choose if the diamond’s big enough.”
His
comment slices through me like a knife.
No. This isn’t about me. Nate was worried. He was worried about it being Yakuza. It was the Yakuza who stole and messed up the deal with my brother. I’m here because of him. Not the other way around.
“And to think I felt sorry for you when I found you unconscious. For once in your life, take responsibility for your actions.”
We both remain silent for a while. We’ve always squabbled, but I hadn’t ever thought we’d fight in a situation like this.
“I’m sorry, Gabriella. You’re right.”
“Well, I’m sorry, too.”
“Are you done now?” It’s the guard from before, the one with the American accent. “It appears your brother doesn’t like to talk to us. Maybe he just needs the right…motivation?”
“No,” Andreas shouts. His chair scrapes along the ground as I hear him struggle. The light is only enough to make out shadows, adding to the terror of the situation.
The door to my cage opens, and I’m dragged out.
“No, no, no…please. Stop.” My head whips back from the first hit across my face.
“Stop it!” Andreas booms into the room.
As my head rolls on my shoulders, another slap to my face catches my lip this time. I stumble, falling free of the arms that held me up. My arm takes the brunt of the fall and I roll onto my back. My mind fades to black before Andreas’ screams pull me around, keeping me conscious.
Only to be met by another punch.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The hotel room is bland and innocuous, not our normal kinda place.
I pull in a long draw of my smoke and stare out at the view from the eighth-floor balcony, checking out the cars passing below and fidgeting. I’ve been like this the whole damn time, no matter how I try to remain calm. I’m pissed. Pissed with what’s going down, pissed that she’s missing and in trouble, and pissed that she’s not by my side where she damn well should be.
I don’t know when that rationale took hold, but it has. I miss her being close to me, miss the sense of someone being with me by choice and acting on those feelings, pulling them from me, too. It’s a bond I’ve never had before, a truth I’ve repressed all these years. Gabriella Alves. I snort a little and imagine her hair down, the texture of it flowing through my fingers. The full name suits the wildcat she leans towards on occasion, brings out her fire, but much as that version might make my dick hard, it’s Gabby I want to rescue, the real soft one who laughs and loves. Not the thief.
Just her.
The Yakuza flew into Miami, my least favourite destination. Andrew realised as he was tracking the plane about an hour out from them landing, intercepting the comms to find out that they were heading there. Quinn immediately put calls out to contacts on the west coast, readying them to track the landing from the ground and follow where they went after that. Rusty, Jon, Den and Frankie were in place by the time we arrived, ready to do whatever Cane needed of them. Apparently, they owe us for something he did a long time ago. Fine by me. Normal MO for him. Sensible, harsh and deviant—always looking to pull a favour back when necessary, no matter the potential cost to their lives. It’s not something I ordered of him—that’s just Quinn being Quinn—but I did tell him we wouldn’t be landing along with the Yakuza plane. That got me a scowl of annoyance, but nothing more after I rolled out the reasons why.
We flew in to Key West instead and then travelled back by car, so they wouldn’t know we were close behind them. I transferred the flight details, so we couldn’t be found. Changed the flight schedules as we landed by coercing ground crew with a heavy dose of cash and some threats—procuring a beat-up SUV in the process—and then had Andrew take off immediately again to go back to Chicago while Quinn got the team in place ready for when we needed them. It was the only way of keeping in front of what the kidnappers were up to, giving us a chance, and I can only hope that my assumptions are right about it being Cane they’re after. Maybe not entirely. Who fucking knows? But they came for her while I was there, which proves they knew I was with her in Antwerp, and they probably had someone follow me to the airport to meet Quinn. That meant I had to make them believe we weren’t clued up on where they were going, giving them the illusion of power again. They’d want me out the way until they were ready to talk or plan their own strategy, want Quinn and I ten steps behind them, and that meant we had to be seen landing back home in case someone was keeping tabs on Cane there.
Guess the two ground crew from Key West who will land in Chicago and have a night of luxury, ten thousand a piece in their pockets from the jet’s safe, and our spare suits from the jet on their backs, will have a damn good night on me.
Variable analysis. My most annoying task.
I can only hope this shit works.
It’s even more infuriating when playing a game like this, lives hanging in the balance. Perhaps that’s why Quinn’s always done it before, not entirely caring for the death that might come. Either way, being ahead of the game rather than following orders that will come one way or another from the kidnappers, isn’t something I’m willing to bet Gabby’s, or our, lives on. I’ve taken a calculated risk, determining that none of this has anything to do with Gabby herself, and is more likely to do with something the Yakuza want.
Land? Power? Ownership of something that isn’t theirs? Access?
My fingers drum the rail, eyes still scanning the streets below.
“They’ll call soon enough,” Quinn says from inside the hotel room. “You should try getting some sleep.”
I scoff and look back at him, wondering why he’s become so amenable over the last few hours and not his normal volatile character of old. And sleep? Unlikely. He’s there with a Beretta on his knee, another to the side of him, a cloth polishing over the metal as if he couldn’t care a shit for what might get in our way. Sleep doesn’t seem to be on his mind in the slightest either.
“She’ll be scared,” I mutter, annoyed at the emotions that keep encroaching on my usually rational reasoning. I throw the smoke over the balcony and walk back inside, glancing at my own gun laid out on the side unit and frowning.
“Yeah, well. Pretty things shouldn’t fuck around in deep water, should they?”
I scowl at him but can’t deny the truth of what he’s said. She got in too deep, whether it’s her fault or not. This is what happens in our world when you don’t deliver on promises and stay in line. Not that she knew what she was getting into until it was too late. I sigh. I thought we’d moved the hell on from all this, worked our way out to safety. “Can she look after herself?”
My legs cross back to the balcony to light another smoke, pissed at the fact that I don’t know. She’s clever, that’s not to be disputed, but in a room full of Yakuza, some of them wanting a taste of what she’s got to offer? I don’t have a damn clue. The thought makes my fists tighten, disgust channelling through me from the years I was in those same rooms watching my brothers take their tastes from whatever we had. She hasn’t got a damn hope of avoiding what they might do, and there’s not a fucking thing I can organise to help her with that particular problem.
“This isn’t your fault, Nate.”
Yes, it is. I should never have taken her away from safe ground. I should have made her stay in Chicago and do as she was damn well told, just like Quinn would have done.
Smoke billows out into the air as I sit in the chair and look out over Miami again, waiting for a phone call. That’s all I’ve got. Waiting. They’ll call Quinn at some point, ask him to meet and discuss terms if it is us they’re after. I have to believe at least part of whatever the fuck they’re after is us. There’s no other reason for them to take her other than to get to us, or her brother. Either way, we’re involved because they knew I was with her. No one fucks around with Cane property unless you’re after something from us, and because of that hunch, we’re not going in blind.
Not on my watch.
It’s a risk, one that has me restless, but we know where sh
e is. Quinn’s guy followed them, and they ended up in an old warehouse on the docks. The same docks her brother runs. What they’re doing there, we don’t know. And how deep in her brother is, we also don’t know, but they’ll be getting everything covered ready for intruders—ready for us—and they’ll kill her the moment it doesn’t go their way. I know it and so does Quinn.
I glance at him. He’s more than ready to go relieve some of that boredom he’s been made to dwell in. I can tell by the patience that’s setting in, his movements becoming slower by the second as he prepares himself for a war I never wanted.
But still we wait until we’re invited. We follow my plan. We sit and wait. A small team of guys ready for orders scattered around the city, me continuing to go over everything ensuring I still have back-end access and nothing’s changed with my work, and Quinn smiling to himself at the thought of blood.
For once, I’m with him on that.
Blood is goddamn appealing.
He comes out after a while and sits beside me, my gun now in his hand as he pulls the magazine and then begins cleaning that, too.
“You worried about me?” I ask, bringing some coffee to my mouth. He smiles a little, his eyes narrowing as he looks over the barrel.
“That’s my job, Nate,” he says, still looking at the gun. “Always has been.”
The rift that continues to haunt the pair of us dissipates slightly as I listen to those words and look at his hand slowly polishing the metal. He’s right, and he’s always proved it. I don’t even know some of the shit he’s probably done to keep us safe through the years, but I know the top layer of what he’s allowed me in on. That’s bad enough.
My eyes glance at his light frown, taking in the weathered lines of a killer as he waits with me for the call to come. He’s not fazed like me, not fidgety or fretful. He’s calm, like stone and ice.
Guess that’s what comes of living his life.
“Would you be like this if it were Emily?” One brow twitches upwards, hand stilling for a second before carrying on.
Devious Eyes (A Cane Novel Book 2) Page 21
