Quicksilver

by Elise Noble

  No pressure, then.

  “I have to go.”

  As I walked out the door, I heard Grandma speaking in that eerily calm voice of hers.

  “Sit down, Dores. We need to have a talk.”

  CHAPTER 10 - CORA

  THE LIGHTS OF Soledad twinkled up at us as we descended towards Ernesto Cortissoz International Airport. Barranquilla was a short drive away, and Roscoe promised we’d get dinner right after we found our hotel. In the rental car, he chatted about his previous trips to the city and how the energetic vibe made up for the fact that the buildings were a bit ugly. Oddly enough, he neglected to mention any former travel companions.

  He’d chosen to stay in the Sonesta, which made sense when I pondered it. The place was huge—a hundred rooms at least—so who would notice when he checked out alone? Any other girl would have been impressed by the opulent decor, but I only grew more twitchy as we rode up to our floor in the elevator. Two rooms, side by side. At least he’d kept his promise on that, because I’d be damned if I was gonna sleep with the asshole.

  “I thought we’d have sushi for dinner,” he said as he fumbled with his key card. “There’s a great restaurant downstairs.”

  “Sushi’s good.”

  “Meet you in the lobby in twenty minutes?”

  “Sure.”

  “Are you okay? You seem quiet.”

  Finally, he’d noticed. “Flying always makes me tired. The pressure changes, I think.”

  In reality, today’s trip had been my first time on an aeroplane, and I’d have enjoyed it if not for the company. The exhilaration of the takeoff, the way everything below looked so tiny. At twenty-two, I’d seen a whole different side to my country, and it made me want to get out and explore the world. Just not from the inside of a shipping container or wherever Roscoe planned to stash me before the weekend was over.

  He reached out and twirled my hair between his fingers. “Me too. Perhaps we can have an early night?”

  Surely he wasn’t suggesting… He was. That lazy little smile confirmed it. The sly cabrón actually planned on trying to get me into bed before he sold me like a side of meat. Well, he’d be spending some quality time with his hand this evening, because I was playing the game by my own rules.

  And now I yawned for effect. “An early night sounds like a great idea. I’ll be asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.”

  His smile faded, but mine grew as I turned away and walked into my own room. Did he have an expense account for this sort of thing? Did he treat my room rental as tax deductible? I slipped my shoes off and flopped back on the bed, drained. This afternoon’s events had rocked me to my core. Grandma’s revelations, my brother getting shot… Four inches to the left, and the bullet would have gone through his heart. And now I had to pretend to be someone else when I barely knew myself anymore.

  Twenty minutes passed all too quickly. I hadn’t bothered to unpack, because what was the point when I’d never see any of my stuff again? I’d deliberately left anything I cared about at home. Roscoe was already waiting when I got to the lobby, and in the restaurant, I found myself looking around for Rafe. There was no sign of him, but I breathed a little easier when I spotted Vicente in a corner, sipping on a glass of wine. Who’d have thought I’d ever be happy to see a sicario?

  “What would you prefer to do tomorrow?” Roscoe asked. “Go to a museum? The beach? Shopping? An art gallery?”

  “Why don’t you tell me about your favourite places?” Because then I wouldn’t have to talk.

  He rambled on for a full fifteen minutes while I nodded in the appropriate places and forced some food down. I wasn’t hungry in the slightest, but common sense told me I needed to keep up my strength for the ordeal ahead. After this, I’d never eat sushi again.

  We narrowed it down to two places—the Caribbean museum or the beach, which was a short drive out of the city but apparently worth the trip—and Roscoe popped California rolls in his mouth without a care in the world.

  “What’s it to be, Lina-Catalina? Where do you want to go?”

  I asked the obvious question. “Can’t we do both? One tomorrow, and one on Sunday? After all, we’re here for two days.”

  Roscoe’s smile faded for a second before it ratcheted back into place, and then I knew. I wouldn’t be here on Sunday. Whatever he had planned for me, it would happen tomorrow.

  But the asshole just nodded. “Of course, of course. So, which place do you want to visit first?”

  “The beach. Can we watch the sunrise?”

  “We’d have to get up at some crazy hour.”

  “That’s okay. We can have an early night tomorrow instead.” I smiled as I reached across the table for his hand and squeezed it. “Good things are worth waiting for, right?”

  Roscoe didn’t look quite so happy with that plan, but he could hardly say no. “Right.”

  The next morning, we drove through the city in near darkness. Roscoe was right—Barranquilla wasn’t the prettiest. It suddenly struck me that if everything went wrong, this could be the last time I saw my country. Colombia. For two decades, the place had torn at my soul then mended the holes. The lows had left dark smudges on my heart that I’d never erase, but with each year had come new highs and hope for the future.

  I didn’t want to die young.

  The sun rose over the land rather than the sea, so not quite a picture-postcard view, but I still relished being outside in the fresh air without the pollution that hung over Medellín. If it weren’t for Roscoe at my side, I would have felt free. If only he could just stop breathing.

  Then I caught a shadow in my peripheral vision, and the spell was broken. My brother had come along for the ride too.

  Thank goodness.

  I’d messaged him last night to tell him today was the day, but all I’d got back was a one-word reply. Ready.

  Well, I was glad somebody was.

  I thought when Roscoe encouraged me to swim in the sea with him, that would be the moment, because wasn’t that how Izzy had disappeared? In the sea? But all that happened was that my skin went wrinkly, and after an hour in the water, Roscoe led me back to the beach and rented a couple of sun loungers. A waiter from a nearby restaurant brought cocktails and seafood for lunch. The sun rose higher in the sky, and the wait was grating on my last nerve.

  Couldn’t he just hurry up and kidnap me already?

  No, it seemed.

  “Hey, your back’s burning,” he said. “Let me put more sunblock on for you.”

  Always the gentleman, he’d brought everything we needed for a day out—sunblock, a blanket, a cooler with drinks, towels, sunglasses for both of us. And now he dribbled cool liquid over my back and rubbed it in with his slimy little hands.

  Get a move on. Adrenaline had been simmering inside me since daybreak, and lying still wasn’t easy when I wanted to punch something, preferably Roscoe’s perfectly straight nose. But he rolled back onto his own sun lounger, totally relaxed, and there he stayed until the sun dropped low over the horizon.

  “Guess we should head back,” he said when I’d almost reached the end of my tether.

  “Great idea.”

  I had my sundress on before he got to his feet, and it only took a few minutes for us to pack everything up and carry it back to the car. Where was my brother? He’d been on the beach half an hour earlier, but after the fourth group of women approached him, he’d rolled up his towel and disappeared again.

  “Do you need to use the bathroom before we go?” Roscoe asked.

  “No, but I’m thirsty. Could you pass a bottle of water?”

  “Sure.”

  I nearly missed it. The tiny black dot on the corner of the label, and the slightly bitter taste of the water itself. But there was no mistaking the wave of tiredness that crashed over me as Roscoe started the engine and pulled away from the beach.

  “What’s happening?” I mumbled.

  He reached over and squeezed my hand, almost regretfully it seemed.


  “I’m sorry, Lina-Catalina. Really I am.”

  “What do you…?”

  The road ahead faded, and my eyelids began to close.

  “You’re special, Lina-Catalina. You’re the only one I’ve ever wanted to keep.”

  He kept talking, but the words made no sense. Half a minute later, Roscoe disappeared completely, and I didn’t know whether to be relieved or upset about that.

  Then…darkness.

  CHAPTER 11 - BLACK

  BLACK GROANED AS he took in the scene on the third floor at the headquarters of Blackwood Security.

  A large, open-plan office.

  Fifteen bemused employees.

  And his wife standing on a desk at the far end, hands on hips.

  “I’ll ask one more time,” she said. “Where the hell are Bob and Stewart?”

  He skirted around the people gawping at Emmy and ducked into their shared office. Sure enough, her fish tank contained one goldfish—Kevin, presumably, although he had no idea how she told them apart—and two carrot sticks. Bradley, their shared personal assistant, had bought her the trio a month ago after watching a documentary on the Discovery Channel that said keeping fish helped people to de-stress, but looking at Emmy outside, it wasn’t fucking working, was it?

  One of the clowns working in her Special Projects department had undoubtedly taken them, but none of the people outside looked particularly guilty. Well, apart from Nate, one of their business partners, but he always looked guilty. Black dropped his briefcase beside his desk and went to retrieve his darling wife.

  “Diamond, get off the table.”

  “Someone’s taken my fish.” She stared daggers around the room again. “You’d better be feeding them, you asshole.”

  “They’ll bring them back.”

  “But Kevin’s getting lonely.”

  Black secretly doubted Kevin had even noticed his two companions were missing, but he kept that opinion to himself.

  “I’ll find the fish, but we’ve got a meeting in fifteen minutes and I need to speak with you first.”

  When Emmy didn’t move, he plucked her off the desk and set her on the floor. Now he got the benefit of her annoyance before she turned on her heel and stomped back to her own seat.

  After three days in Albuquerque, a week in Belize, and another two days in Chicago, Black had hoped for more than a dirty glare when he arrived home. If only his wife looked at him the same way she looked at her remaining goldfish.

  “The carrot sticks were a nice touch,” he said.

  “Fuck you.”

  Now, that was the answer he’d been hoping for. Before she could come up with any more piscatory complaints, he bundled her into the private bathroom that opened off their office and locked the door.

  “On your knees, Diamond.”

  “Asshole,” she muttered, but she stood on tiptoe and crushed her lips against his anyway.

  “That can be arranged.”

  “Prick.”

  “That too.”

  Black grabbed a towel from the heated rail and dropped it onto the floor. Really, they should get a cushion in here. Bradley left enough of them all over the fucking house. Emmy already had Black’s belt undone, and a low groan escaped his lips as her hand closed over his cock.

  “Why are you still standing?” he asked.

  That earned him another glare, which he ignored as he fisted one hand in her long blonde hair and forced her to her knees. Emmy pretended to hate being ordered around, but secretly, she liked it as much as Black did, in the bedroom at least. Outside? All bets were off.

  Now she tugged his pants down, then his boxer briefs, and the instant his cock sprang free, she sucked it into her mouth. Well, not quite all of it. For a moment, he wished it were smaller so it would fit, because Emmy with a bigger mouth would be unbearable.

  Then she scraped her teeth along the sensitive underside and swirled her tongue around the head, and rational thought became impossible.

  Emmy was bent over the sink with her pants around her ankles when Nate shouted from outside in the office.

  “Get out of the bathroom, you asshole.”

  “Two minutes.”

  Emmy raised her head an inch. “Five minutes.”

  “We’re all waiting,” Nate told them, and Black knew his old friend would be shaking his head. But fuck him, because if he’d just got back from a job, he’d be doing exactly the same thing with his wife, Carmen.

  So Black ignored Nate’s grumbling and thrust into Emmy once more, reaching around to play with her clit because yeah, they were kind of late.

  “You won’t last five minutes,” he murmured.

  “Yes, I— Fuck.”

  She clenched around him, and he came too, holding himself deep as he peppered kisses down the side of her neck.

  “Love you, Emerson Black.”

  “Love you too, Chuck. Why the hell did you schedule a meeting for fifteen minutes after you got back?”

  “Because I wanted to get it over with so I can take you out for dinner this evening.”

  “Okay, you’re forgiven. But I still want my fucking fish back.”

  “Would you like your swear jar back as well?”

  “It’s full.”

  The pair got a round of applause as they walked into the conference room, five minutes late for their ten a.m. meeting, and one joker threw a condom at them. But Black didn’t care. As the boss, he had to prioritise getting the job done, but as long as Blackwood kept running smoothly, he did whatever else he pleased. His wife, mainly.

  She took a seat next to him and gave her friend Daniela some serious side-eye. No prizes for guessing where the condom came from. Their office assistant, Sloane, brought in coffee and a fruit platter, Nate dimmed the lights, and the first item on the agenda flashed onto the screen.

  They needed a new executive-protection lead in the Texas office. Black had a preferred appointee, but as always, they’d discuss the options and take a vote on it. Eight people sat in on these management meetings, and Blackwood was bigger than any one man. Or woman.

  Nick Goldman, the firm’s head of executive protection, leaned forward to speak.

  “We have three men in the running for the job. First up, Joe Arlint. He’s been with us for seven years, and before that, he worked for the secret service under…”

  Emmy’s phone vibrated on the table. Not her normal, everyday phone—she’d left that on her desk—but the one designated as her “red” emergency phone that she always had to answer.

  Sebastien calling.

  But why? Sebastien Garcia was the son of a man Emmy considered a surrogate father. She had two of those—Jimmy James, an ex-boxer from England, and Eduardo Garcia, a borderline-insane drug lord who lived in Colombia. Sebastien rarely called Emmy, not on this phone. He Skyped her in the evenings or sent emails. If he was phoning now, that meant there was a problem, and that problem was most probably to do with Eduardo since Sebastien was calling rather than the old man.

  Emmy slid out of her seat, and Black watched her legs through the glass window of the conference room. A frosted panel obscured her face, but she was pacing, and that wasn’t a good thing. He took out his own phone, still half listening as Nick outlined the pros and cons of each shortlisted candidate.

  Black: Bradley, pack bags for Emmy and me. Colombia. Enough for 2 weeks. Thx.

  And another message to his pilot.

  Black: Brett, be on standby with the Global 8000. File a flight plan for Cali, Colombia. Thx.

  Very little fazed Emmy, so one look at her ashen face when she walked back into the conference room, and Black knew he’d guessed right. Something had happened to Eduardo, and they needed to fly to Cali.

  Nick trailed off as Emmy gripped the back of her seat, and all heads turned in her direction.

  “What happened?” Black asked.

  “Someone shot Eduardo.”

  “Is he still alive?”

  “At the moment. The bullet lodged in his lung and i
t collapsed. Seb sealed the entrance hole, which let him breathe, but he hit his head when he fell down the stairs, and now he’s in a coma. Shit. I need to go to Colombia.”

  “We need to go to Colombia.”

  “Are you sure? Your last trip there wasn’t so great.”

  Wasn’t that the understatement of the century? Black had spent eight and a half months imprisoned underground by a drug lord following a case of mistaken identity, and no, he didn’t really want to go back. But Eduardo had been instrumental in the operation that ultimately freed him, so he owed the crazy old coot, and there was no chance he was letting Emmy go alone. Because Black knew his wife too well. While she undoubtedly wanted to spend time with Eduardo, she’d also want retribution.

  “I’m coming. What happened to the shooter?”

  “He got away. Floriana emptied a magazine at him, and there was blood, but he escaped.”

  Floriana was Eduardo’s wife, a tiny woman in her late thirties who came across as more deferential than deadly. But some people stepped up in unexpected ways when the people they loved were threatened. Black nodded once. They’d need weapons. Eduardo had an arrangement at the local airport, so flying into the country with anything from a Beretta Nano to a full-on missile wouldn’t be a problem.

  “Do you want company?” Nate asked.

  While Black would have liked nothing better than a helping hand from his old Navy SEAL swim buddy, Blackwood wouldn’t run itself, and it made sense to get to Cali and find out what was going on before throwing endless manpower at the task.

  “Not right now. Maybe in a few days. If you’ve got any capacity, talk to Sloane and get her to move some shit from my schedule to yours.”

  “Will do.”

  “We’ll all share the load,” Nick chipped in. “Won’t we?”

  Everyone around the table murmured their agreement, and Black wrapped an arm around Emmy’s waist. Nobody asked further questions; they didn’t need to. They’d all been involved in the last Colombian operation, so they understood what Eduardo meant to Emmy.