Tempted Into Danger

by Melissa Cutler

  “This isn’t what I signed up for,” Mr. Tavares said, sounding fearful. “I thought you worked for ICE.”

  “He does,” called the voice of a man she didn’t recognize over the incessant din of the fire alarm. “But he also works for me.”

  Another shot fired, this one breaking the outside window. Diego.

  She chanced a look out the back of her desk.

  Mr. Tavares lay on his side, his shirt stained crimson. “Vanessa,” he said in a sandpaper voice.

  She covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a gasp of horror...and a twinge of relief, though she hated that she felt that way when her boss lay dying.

  Behind her, Alicia stirred with a groan. Vanessa whipped around. Staring at the ceiling through half-lidded eyes, Alicia rasped, “John, Ryan, help.”

  “John won’t be coming to your rescue,” Rory said. Vanessa peered from the desk in time to see his gun aimed in Alicia’s direction, but he was stopped by the other man.

  “Don’t shoot again,” he said, his accent European though she couldn’t place it specifically. “My brothers might want to have some fun with her before she dies. Enzo loves blondes.”

  Shuddering, Vanessa drew herself into a ball in the center of the desk and clutched the gun between her stomach and knees.

  “This must be our eager beaver.” The new man’s boots appeared next to the desk. He bent to look at her, wearing a malicious smirk on his lips. And then it hit her who it was. She’d seen him in the helicopter over the jungle. Nico Chiara.

  “Don’t get shy, eager beaver. Come up and say hello. Or I might shoot your friend.” He motioned with his gun to Diego who lay prone on the ground, Rory’s gun trained on him.

  He’d found her weakness right away. Maybe that was a cold-blooded criminal’s gift—to hit where it hurt the most. Before rising from under the desk, she slipped her gun back into the front waistband of her skirt and fluffed her shirt over it as she stood.

  “Take a seat. It’s time for you to destroy the algorithm.”

  There was that malicious smile again. When she sat, Nico brought forth a pair of handcuffs and locked her left wrist to the desk leg. He removed the wire from her ear and crushed it in his fist, then stood behind her and watched her work.

  She touched her keyboard, fighting to still the shaking in her hands so she could type.

  It took less than a minute to destroy her masterpiece.

  “Good work, eager beaver. We have an important meeting to get to in Colón, so we must leave you now.”

  He set a metal box on the far side of the room and flipped a switch. A digital display lit on the front of the box. “Enjoy your last five minutes of life.”

  A bomb. Vanessa felt bile rising in her throat. At least it would be quick. Please, God, let it be quick.

  Rory sent another charge through Diego’s system, then lugged his limp body up. “Do you see that, Devil? Your girl’s going to die and there’s nothing you can do.”

  Diego flailed his arms. She saw him dig deep for strength that would not come.

  “Lucky for you, I’ll make more money handing you over to the Chiaras alive than if you were dead.”

  Diego roared.

  Laughing, Rory pressed a pressure point in his neck until his eyes rolled back and he went unconscious.

  Nico slung an unconscious Alicia over his shoulders. “Let’s load them into the elevator and get out of here.” He flashed his ugly smile at Vanessa. “Time’s a-ticking.”

  * * *

  Diego came to on the sidewalk as he was being dragged toward a car in front of the bank. Careful to stay limp, he blinked and flexed his fingers. Good enough. All that mattered was getting to Vanessa before that bomb went off.

  He curled his hand into his pocket for his knife, but it wasn’t there. Good thing he knew Rory kept a knife strapped to the small of his back.

  No time to get fancy, he dug his boots into the ground and came up swinging, catching Rory in the gut with an uppercut. Rory doubled over, giving Diego the perfect angle to rip the knife from its sheath on his back and jam it into his kidney.

  Growling in pain, Rory latched his arms around Diego’s legs, but Diego was feeling his full power now and nothing or no one was going to stop him from saving Vanessa. He broke Rory’s stronghold and smashed his face with the heel of his boot. Rory hit the ground hard and stayed there.

  Nico was already behind the wheel and there was no sign of Alicia anywhere. Diego could try to catch him, but that would take time he didn’t have. Not if he was going to reach Vanessa.

  He pivoted and took off in a sprint toward the bank, dodging curious pedestrians and bank employees flowing out of the doors. He was up two steps on the stairs in front of the bank when an explosion ripped through the building. He was too late.

  Every molecule in his body screamed in protest. He must have misheard. She couldn’t be dead. He never failed.

  Dropping to his knees, he forced his gaze up the building to prove to himself that he’d been mistaken and the bomb hadn’t detonated.

  Smoke and flames streamed into the sky from the smashed-out windows of an upper floor. Numbly, he stared until the sight of the burning high-rise got scrambled up in his head with the tower Ossie died in. Ossie and now Vanessa.

  He’d worked so hard to be a better man in Ossie’s memory. He’d dedicated his life to taking care of the people he loved the only way he knew how. But Vanessa died the same way his brother did, in a building, alone. Diego should’ve saved her. He should’ve done more. What good were his skills if they couldn’t save the people he loved most in the world?

  He folded forward, hands on the hot concrete sidewalk.

  Eventually numbness gave way to fury. After he lost Ossie, Diego’s hands had been tied in a system of protocol and laws. No longer. Avenging Vanessa’s death would be as easy as one, two, boom.

  The beast inside him reared up, propelling him from the ground.

  Ryan ran his way and seized both Diego’s shoulders in his hands. “I heard it all and I couldn’t get here. You sent me for the van, but it wouldn’t start. Someone had messed with the engine. And then the fire department and the police were here and I couldn’t get through.”

  His eyes rolled up to the burning building and he clasped Diego close to his chest. “I heard it all, bro.”

  But the fury working through Diego didn’t need a hug. It needed vengeance. He shoved away from Ryan and strode toward Rory, who lay half in the gutter, obscured from passersby by two parked cars.

  John intercepted Diego before he reached his target. “I heard everything, too, but I was caught up brawling with some of Chiara’s men in the alley. Where’s Alicia? Did Chiara take her? Is she alive?”

  It was hard work to tear his eyes from Rory, but he managed. He grabbed John by the shirt and yanked his face close. “Why should I trust you?”

  John had the wherewithal to look outraged. “You actually think I’d let something like that happen to Alicia—to all of us? Are you crazy? I don’t know why Rory flipped on us, and I’m as pissed as you are about it.”

  It was an insult to Vanessa’s memory that John would deign to compare his feelings to the lifelong grief Diego would have for the woman he lost. He shouldered past John, no longer interested in what he had to say.

  But John wasn’t done. “Rory and I went to war together—war, goddamn it—more than once. We were brothers. He betrayed me, too.”

  Not good enough. He sent John to the ground with a knife-hand strike to his neck. “We can’t take any chances. Subdue him, Ryan.”

  He heard Ryan and John engaging in a fight behind him but didn’t take the time to look. He needed something from Rory before he bled out in the gutter.

  He dragged Rory up by the shirt. He came without resistance, licking at the blood in
the corner of his mouth. He grabbed the hilt of the knife in Rory’s back and gave it a slight twist. Rory gurgled and gasped.

  “Where are the Chiara brothers? Tell me or you don’t want to know how slowly I’m going to kill you. I have nothing left to live for anyway.”

  “I needed the money,” Rory spluttered. “I... This job...it didn’t come with decent pay, didn’t come with respect. I figured if they were going to treat us like hired guns, I might as well make four times the money being my own boss, doing the same thing.”

  Diego blanched at his words. Greed. As long as he lived, Diego would never understand the price tag some people put on other people’s lives. He twisted the knife again. “I don’t care why. Tell me where I can find the Chiaras.”

  Rory let out a strangled moan. “Bahia Azul in Colón. The abandoned ship-building warehouse on the south side.”

  He patted Rory down until he’d recovered all the weapons Rory had taken off him. Rory’s Kimber .45, he stuffed in his waistband.

  Straightening, he looked first at John, who was lying on the sidewalk, his arms and legs bound. Then, bracing himself for how badly it would hurt, he took one last look at the broken building, the busted windows and fire where once Vanessa’s office had stood.

  She was gone. Because he hadn’t protected her like he promised. Whatever man he thought he’d been, whatever goodness that had been in him, had died with her. Now that she’d been ripped from his future, all he felt was icy darkness.

  He shucked his suit jacket and got rid of the tie. No need for a facade of civility any longer. As he rolled up his sleeves, he met Ryan’s gaze. “Ready to find Alicia and kill the Chiaras?”

  Ryan’s jaw rippled. No shrug this time, but a decisive nod. “Been ready for a long time.”

  Diego nodded back. “Time to spill some blood.”

  * * *

  Handcuffs dangled from Vanessa’s hands like macabre jewelry, the connecting chain broken, shredded with one shot of her handgun.

  Her heart ached, thinking of Diego and Alicia on the floor, unconscious and injured. She might not have been able to stop the submarine sale, but she would save their lives. She had to. The alternative was too horrendous to consider.

  The peal of the smoke alarm stayed with her through the deserted hallway. To escape the building, she had to get five levels down to the fourth floor to initiate the first phase of her Leroy plan—the only part of the plan that still made sense. Sloshing over the water-soaked carpet, she kept her face on her feet as a buffer against the rain from the fire sprinklers, a technique she’d mastered while hiking through the jungle with Diego.

  The only way to get to where she needed to go was via the stairs. She dreaded the exposure. What if Nico Chiara or Rory returned to make sure she was dead?

  The safest move by far would be to hide out in a janitorial closet or office, her gun at the ready, and wait out the post-explosion chaos. But she had to save Diego, and Alicia, too, if she’d survived the gunshot wound.

  She may not have the skill set to go after an international crime ring, but she had courage. And right now, with the life of the man she loved on the line, courage would have to be enough.

  The smoke alarm was louder in the stairwell. It pierced her skull and crawled into her bones, rattling her teeth. The noise meant there was no need to be quiet, but it also meant she wouldn’t hear trouble if it came. She peered over the railing for any flash of movement on the stairs below, but it seemed she was alone.

  With a steadying breath, she decided to make a break for it in one long sprint. She scurried down the stairs on the balls of her feet, making U-turn after U-turn in the descent until she stood at the doorway to the fourth level.

  She pushed through, praying danger wasn’t waiting on the other side. It wasn’t. Just another waterlogged, empty hallway. Her ex-fiancé, Dave’s, former office was the fifth door on the right.

  She went through his office. She had history here, evenings working late to be near him though he ignored her, and one night of mediocre sex on his desk. The computer in the center of the desk had been doused with water from the fire sprinklers along with everything else in the building, rendering it unusable. But she needed an address to go with the scraps of information Mr. Tavares had given her before he died, moments before she escaped the blast.

  She tugged the top desk drawer open. Bingo. A cell phone that looked like the type equipped with internet access. She stuffed it in her bra and kept moving.

  Time for the reason she’d chosen this particular office as an escape point. The window, which looked onto a decorative planter, was one of the few in the building that opened.

  On her first attempt, the window stuck, like it hadn’t been opened in years, but finally it relented and pushed out. She put her foot through the screen and climbed into the vines and shrubs. Dave used to sneak out here to smoke, and she often joined him, so she knew about the ladder on the far side that dropped to the planter on the third floor.

  The problem came when she got to the second floor planter and there was no ladder, or even a planter on the first floor she could drop onto. This part of the plan had been a bit fuzzy in her mind. She’d hoped that once she got here, inspiration would strike.

  She walked to the far end, tripping over a garden hose, and looked over the edge into the plaza among the buildings where people usually ate lunch and took their smoke breaks. The fountain was running, and an abandoned coffee cart sat inert to her left. Sirens echoed through the plaza. The flashing red lights of emergency crews reflected off the neighboring buildings. But the plaza itself was empty.

  The garden hose would have to do.

  She knotted it the best she could around the pipe it was attached to. Then she shimmied on her belly over the edge of the planter, her hands on the hose, and slid down it like a rope. It got her a good two meters from the ground. She dropped the rest of the way and welcomed the feel of concrete beneath her shoes.

  She scooted along the perimeter of the plaza in the shadows of the other high-rises and came out on the far side. The sidewalk was crowded with pedestrians walking fast in both directions—those who were curious about the explosion and moving in for a closer look as well as those hustling to leave the area. Joining the latter group, she tucked into the flow of foot traffic and withdrew the phone, navigating to the internet.

  After a couple minutes of searching, she found what she was looking for and picked up her pace. Five blocks to the people who were her only hope for saving Diego.

  Please let him be alive.

  To keep her rising fear at bay as she jogged, she pushed the sleeve back on her left arm and dialed Diego’s voice mail.

  “I know you’re not going to get this message right now, but I want you to know I’m getting help and then I’m going to find you and tell you face-to-face that I’m in love with you.” She swallowed over the lump in her throat. “You better be alive, damn it. Hang in there a little bit longer. I’m coming to get you.”

  She ended the call and swiped at the tears clouding her eyes.

  The sign on the building’s door confirmed she was in the right place. She opened the glass front door and marched to the receptionist desk. Behind the counter, three men stood in a whispered conversation that looked intense. One lifted a radio to his mouth and said, “Stand by outside the bank. Backup’s on its way.” Guess they were aware of the explosion.

  She pressed her palms on the counter and cleared her throat to get their attention. All heads turned her way. “I need to speak to an agent immediately about a matter that’s life-or-death.”

  A handsome, well-dressed man who looked to be in his mid-thirties stepped forward, astonishment playing on his features. “Miss Crosby? I’m Agent Aaron Montgomery. How did you get here and why are you alone?”

  Chapter 21

  Colón stretched tow
ard the Atlantic Ocean like Panama City’s peasant cousin. A nothing town that marked the eastern opening of the canal, plagued by the same lawlessness and poverty as it was founded on a century earlier during its days as a mercenary trading port.

  The grungy, dark-alley ambiance fit Diego’s mood precisely. Nothing separated him from the muck of the earth, not anymore. He was done with following rules. Done with humanity. Rory and John’s betrayal had strung his body tight, like a wire rod threaded through his torso. He’d trusted them with Vanessa’s life, and they’d killed her. He’d killed her, when it came down to it.

  Ryan stayed silent. No surprise there. Whatever grudge Ryan held against the Chiara brothers, he’d never confessed to Diego. But his willingness to accompany Diego on this mission spoke volumes.

  The abandoned shipyard came into view in the distance, surrounded by a chain-link fence with strips of fiberglass threaded through the holes. Along a busy street, they’d abandoned the car they’d stolen, then stalked the rest of the way on foot to a small hill overlooking the yard—as close as they could without giving away their presence.

  Armed guards paced over the blacktop inside the fence. The car Nico had driven sat in a cluster of other vehicles, its trunk cracked open. They’d taken Alicia’s body out. If she was still alive, Diego would save her. And if she’d died, he vowed not to leave before finding her so he could return her body to her family in Arizona.

  The building that most likely housed the submarine sat to the left and extended over the waterline like an enclosed dock.

  “What’s the plan?” Ryan asked.

  Diego scrubbed a hand over his neck. “Lots of bodies around. The sale’s going down soon. I’d blow the whole place up if human cargo wasn’t a factor and Alicia wasn’t somewhere in there.”

  “Can’t risk it.” The words died in Ryan’s throat as Leo Chiara strode across the parking lot to the enclosed dock.

  Diego brought his Sig up to aim. “Oh, it’s on now.”