by Mia Zachary
His partner frowned, concentrating. “Metal on metal, something being opened manually, whirring…”
“Freight elevator?”
Before he could be certain, Braga spoke again. “There is a videotape. How is such a thing possible? You had assured me—”
Jack stammered. “I didn’t know, I swear. There was no way to know they had hidden surveillance.”
“Where is the tape, Ms. Madison?” Braga asked.
“It’s safely hidden. You’ll get it once I’ve been paid.” Stevie was still trying to maintain the blackmail pretense.
“Mr. Weston, perhaps you can convince her to be more specific?”
“My pleasure.”
“Keep your hands off me, Jack…”
There was a scuffle and he heard Stevie cry out. Emelio closed his eyes, sickened by the sound of grunts and blows, flesh smacking flesh. He felt so damn helpless! If only he knew where she was.
“Enough!” Whatever Braga did got immediate results because the fighting stopped. “Get up, Mr. Weston.”
Emelio opened his eyes and smirked. “That’s my girl,” he whispered.
“Very impressive, Ms. Madison. Maybe I should offer you a job in my organization.”
Jack protested. “Damn it, it’s not my fault—”
The reply was a blend of sympathy and steel. “Nothing is ever your fault, Mr. Weston. I trust that you were more cautious this time?”
“What do you mean? Even if someone saw us leave the party, I made sure they’d think it was for sex.”
Braga raised his voice. “Have you frisked her, you imbecile? Did you make certain she isn’t wearing a wire?”
Jack answered defensively. “Where would she hide one in that dress? I felt her. There’s nothing in her cleavage or around her back.”
Impotent rage, hot and murderous, had Emelio clenching his fists. Weston had dared to touch her. He’d put his hands on her and… Then he thought only of Stevie, how much she hated being vulnerable. He couldn’t imagine how she’d suffered from that kind of degrading assault. When he growled in frustration, Alex spoke softly behind him. “We’ll get him, hombre. Stay focused.”
“What about her evening bag, Mr. Weston?”
“Oh. I, uh… Give me that!” Jack demanded. Emelio heard keys jangling, several thuds, the metallic clink of loose change—everything in Stevie’s purse hitting the floor. “See, there’s nothing here.”
“Luckily for you.”
Jack’s voice rose in volume. “Wait. What are you—”
“Your incompetence has rendered you an unacceptable liability, Mr. Weston.”
“Wait a minute!”
Two distinct coughlike noises, the sound of a gun with a silencer being fired, were followed by Stevie’s keening wail. For a second Emilio was too stunned to react. Then cold fear stabbed him through the gut. “Oh, shit, Alex. We’ve got to find her. We’ve got to find her.”
“Where is that videotape?” Braga’s voice lashed out. “Tell me! Or the next one is for you.”
“It’s in my apartment! It’s on the shelf in my apartment.”
Emelio’s heart fractured as her ragged whispers carried across the radio waves. “Oh my God. You killed him. Oh my God.”
BRAGA DIDN’T BOTHER to keep her from escaping. Instead, he used the brittle silence like a weapon.
He let the smoky metallic scent of gunpowder and the thickly sweet stench of blood beat her into submission. With no more than the sight of that gun still in his hand, the knowledge of the hole a bullet would carve through the back of her skull, Braga kept her in place.
Weston’s body lay sprawled on one of the canvas painter’s tarps covering the floor. In a moment of shock-induced insanity, Stevie wondered if a coat of white latex would be able to hide the mess on the wall. She turned away, wrapping her arms around her waist.
She’d earned decent scores in her Tactical Firearms course. But nothing could have prepared her for this. It was one thing to test-fire a gun, to put nine bullets into a paper target. It was something else to see a man’s head blown into a hundred fragments.
None of her training had taught her how to erase the image of a dead man from her mind. Stevie gave a soft, bitter laugh. Emelio was right. She could take all of the secret-agent classes she wanted, but reality was the harshest of teachers.
Braga walked toward her, tapping the gun against his left thigh. A pleasant half smile added to the attractiveness of his face, the salt-and-pepper hair giving him a distinguished appearance. He seemed perfectly content where he stood, posture militarily correct, studying her through eyes so dark as to appear black.
“You find the situation amusing, Ms. Madison?”
She shifted from one foot to the other on high heels and shaky legs, a chill prancing along her skin. She shouldn’t have called attention to herself. “Sometimes you have to look for the humor in life, Mr. Braga.”
“Then you will die laughing. How nice for you.”
Stevie stared at him, her heart cold and still despite the amiable tone of his voice. He could just as easily have been discussing the weather. No matter what expression his face took on, no matter how smoothly he delivered his words, his eyes still had a reptilian quality.
Braga was handsome, charming, vicious. Just like Tom.
Past terrors and the present danger combined to gnaw away at what little hope she had left. The Smith-Carlyle had four hundred guest rooms, three ballrooms and nine meeting rooms in addition to the offices. With her damn transmitter malfunctioning, she had no way to let the Double O Team know where she was.
“Nothing else to say, my dear? I thought not.” Braga angled his head, narrowing his eyes as though measuring her worth. “Sanchez should have to watch your life spill onto cold, hard concrete. But perhaps I will save myself the effort of dragging you to another location. Which would you prefer?”
Neither option was particularly appealing. She stayed quiet, and utterly still, the primitive part of her brain wanting to believe she’d be safe as long as she didn’t so much as blink.
“Answer me.”
Moving faster than she could react, Braga’s fingers tangled in her hair as he raised the gun to eye level. Her heart seized and she held her breath. Stevie stared down the long, black muzzle, afraid of seeing the bullet in its chamber where it waited to end her life.
He yanked her hair, pulling several strands out by the root. “I am waiting for your answer, Ms. Madison. Shall I kill you now, or should I wait?”
“Wait.” The words were a hoarse plea forced past the dryness of her throat.
“Say please.”
“Wh-What?” She dared to look away from the gun to the stark expression on his face.
His words were soft, yet rich with menace, a reprimand to a disobedient child. “You forgot your manners. You have to say please.”
Braga had the voice of an evangelist, or a psychopath, slick and seductive and oh so full of insinuation and threat. She didn’t hear him anymore, but instead whispers of the past echoed in her memory. Old voices—her ex-husband, her ex-family—voices she’d locked away in the back of her mind seeped under the door she’d tried so hard to slam on them.
If you’d just be a good girl, a good wife, a good victim…
Her whisper was the smallest of sounds, like a ghost floating over a grave. “Please.”
“Please wait, Señor Braga,” he prompted, caressing her right temple with the brushed steel of the barrel.
She gasped and squeezed her eyes shut. “Please. Wait.”
“As you wish, my dear.” Braga abruptly released her hair and stepped back, his voice once again pleasant.
Her eyes popped open in disbelief. She watched him lower the gun and stroll casually across the room, away from her, as if her presence was already forgotten.
“Felipe. Venga aqui.”
The door to the meeting room opened and a young Hispanic man responded to Braga’s call. “Sí, jefe?”
“Go and bring the
car around.”
Her legs gave way and she slumped to her knees on the industrial-grade carpet. Stevie dropped her chin to her chest and tears spilled onto the hands clenched together in her lap. She should move. She should jump up and run for the door, yanking it open to scream for help.
But, alone and consumed by desolate anguish, she didn’t. It wasn’t just the fear that paralyzed her. It was the humiliation. It was the shame. She experienced the kind of dread only an abused woman can know. Braga had made her beg for her life and she didn’t doubt for a second that he’d make her beg again.
14
EMELIO’S THOUGHTS SWIRLED around his mind as he tried to piece things together. Stevie’s life could be measured in a matter of minutes, maybe even seconds, which would pass all too quickly. He drew a deep breath, dispelling the ghosts of mistakes past. He would find her. He had to.
Time was the key. He twisted his wrist and stared at his watch. How long had it been from the time Stevie found Weston to when he heard Braga’s voice? No more than fifteen minutes, twenty tops. It wasn’t enough time. There was no way Weston could have gotten her out of the hotel, into a car and off Key Biscayne.
“Elliott. Find out if hotel security got anything on the entrance cameras. Move.”
Something Stevie had said about paint and furniture triggered his memory. Suddenly words he’d written off as nervous sarcasm became a clear message. He turned to Alex, who was replaying the audio recording, listening for clues.
“Hey, man. When you did a recon of the hotel, didn’t you say they were redecorating?”
“Yeah, the small conference rooms on the basement level… Em, that’s it! She’s got to be in one of those.”
Emelio picked up the headset and activated the microphone. “Double O Team, this is Team Leader. Head for the lowest level of the hotel, but don’t be seen.”
“Leader, this is 005. What’s happening?” Jason asked.
“We think we’ve located 007. Maintain radio silence and wait for further instructions. Team Leader, out.”
Alex rifled through the hotel blueprints. He found the one he wanted and spread it over the desk. “Okay. We’ve got a central hallway with meeting rooms on either side. The elevators are in the middle of the south wall—guests to the west, freight on the east. Emergency exits are here and here, doors to the parking garage here.”
Emelio indicated the south wall. “There are four possible rooms she could be in. But, if you’re right about the sound of the freight elevator, that narrows it to these two right here. I want to make sure we’re headed in the right direction. Give me your cell phone.”
“What?”
“It has Stevie’s number stored in the address book.”
His heart knocked in his chest as he listened to Braga terrorize her. Time was running out. The ringing in his ear echoed over the audio speaker. Emelio muted the volume on the equipment as Braga ordered her to answer the call.
“Stevie Madison speaking.”
Her quiet Southern drawl washed over him. He closed his eyes, searching with his soul, seeking her out in the darkness with messages of reassurance and love.
“I’m coming for you.”
“Emelio.” There were tears in her voice. It quavered with a combination of misery and hope. “Are you still in Naples?”
He couldn’t help a tiny smile. Even with her life on the line, she thought fast and tried to buy him some extra time. Stephanie was an incredible woman. His woman.
“Are you still in the hotel, Jayne?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
Just as he started to speak again, the phone was wrenched from her grasp. The next voice was as warm as winter, confident as only power can be.
“Sanchez. Do you know who this is?”
Stevie’s life depended on his ability to paint a picture of surprise. “Braga? What are you doing with her? What the hell is going on?”
“Ms. Madison and I are getting acquainted.” Braga paused while he waited for a response. “Don’t you want to ask why, Sanchez?”
He said nothing. He would learn more by staying quiet and letting Braga tell him what he already knew.
“Hijo de puta! Have you forgotten her so quickly?”
Emelio knew the “her” referred to wasn’t Stevie, but he ignored the question, adding fuel to Braga’s rage. An angry man was more likely to make errors. That’s why his own fury had to wait for release.
“What is it you want?”
Braga inhaled sharply then his voice calmed again. “There is a videotape. I’m sure you know which one I am talking about. Ms. Madison says she has it in her apartment. I have Ms. Madison.”
Not for long, you sadistic bastard. “Put her back on the phone. I don’t know where it is—”
“Find it! I want the original and every copy.”
“I need time, damn it! She ditched me in Naples and I’m on the road headed back to Miami. Let her tell me where it is.”
“No me vengas con tus pendejadas. You remember how to get to the warehouse in Overtown.” That last was a statement, not a question. “This is a simple business transaction. However if something were to go wrong, something unfortunate…”
Memories assaulted him, flooding Emelio’s heart with guilt and self-doubt. It was his responsibility to protect Stevie, as it had been to protect Lina. He answered the only way he could, a single affirmative forced past the tightness in his throat.
“We understand each other, then. You have ninety minutes, Sanchez. Believe me, you do not want to be late.” The cell phone disconnected.
Emelio closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, dragging air into suddenly constricted lungs. Fear, stark and vivid, punctured his chest when he couldn’t stop the images of what Braga might do to the woman he loved. He opened his eyes and turned to his partner.
Alex pulled off the headphones he’d been using to follow the conversation. His best friend looked at him with a steady green gaze. “Braga won’t settle for the video. Have you thought about that?”
“Only every fifteen seconds or so.” He scrubbed a hand over his face.
“With a single exception, you’ve always played by the rules, hombre. Do you want me to take this one?” His expression said there was no conceit or disrespect in his offer, that it wouldn’t change anything between them.
But Emelio shook his head. “I’m playing winner takes all.”
Alex nodded and grabbed a roll of electrical tape out of Elliott’s equipment bag. “I’ve got an idea. Strip off your jacket and open your shirt.”
“What the hell is that for?” Emelio nodded at the roll of tape as he tugged off his suit coat.
“You’re going to need an ace in the hole. I saw that Die Hard movie on cable last night so—”
“So you’re going to turn me into an action hero. That means I need a couple minutes lead on the rest of the team. I can’t take a chance on anyone getting overzealous.”
Emelio pulled his Ruger from its shoulder holster. Braga might decide to kill her now, instead of waiting for him. He thought about Stevie and her James Bond movies, wondering if he had it in him to be the kind of hero she needed right now.
Moments later, the cuffs of his shirt were rolled to his elbows, the front unbuttoned to the middle of his chest. On his upper back, just below the collar, Alex had used the electrical tape to secure the Beretta at the base of his neck. His partner flicked the microphone for the speaker.
“Double O Team, take the fire stairs, not the elevators. Set up at either end of the main corridor, then sit tight.”
Jason acknowledged the order. “Double O Five, roger that. We’ll be in position in less than ten.”
That meant he had less than five. Alex glanced at him and elevated his thumb before extending his index finger, their signal for “good to go, move your ass.” Emelio grabbed the cell phone and ran through the hotel lobby, ignoring the startled looks of the guests he brushed aside. He leaped down the curved staircase to the lower level then paused.
Watching, listening and praying.
It all came down to trust. Lina had trusted him and he’d lied to her. He had trusted her and she’d betrayed him. He’d trusted Stevie and she had walked into a trap. The only person left to trust was himself.
Wild, restless anger burned away his uncertainty, leaving behind the heat he needed to go after Braga. At the end of the night, one of them would walk away. The other would be carried.
But no matter what, Stevie would live.
EMELIO WAS COMING.
Stevie assumed her transmitter must be working after all, though she still heard nothing but static through the earpiece. He’d figured out how to find her, but his life would be over as soon as he came through the door. Braga might want the videotape but, judging by his comments, he wanted revenge even more.
She righted herself from where he’d pushed her to the floor when he took her cell phone. Listening to his end of the conversation, it was obvious he had planned to kill Emelio at the warehouse all along. If there was anything in her power to prevent it, she had to act. Now.
Emelio was the only person in her life who’d ever truly accepted her for who she was. He had proven earlier tonight that he trusted her, that he believed in her. In loving Emelio, she found the strength she needed for her training to finally override her fear. She had to fight for him, for their love and for her own self-respect.
“Carlos. I want to talk to you.” Braga tossed the phone on top of the evening bag beside her. Without a backward glance, he stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him.
Stevie seized the moment. Scrambling on her hands and knees, she swallowed her revulsion at having to get close to Weston’s body. Quickly reaching into his tuxedo jacket, she pulled the gun from his pocket.
Hoo yah. A Walther PPK/S .380 caliber blued steel double action combat pistol. Jayne Bond’s weapon of choice.
After a swift glance at the door, she tried to decide where to put it. She looked at the contents of her purse scattered on the carpet, then dismissed the idea of hiding the gun in there. It would be too obvious and too difficult to access later.
Stevie rushed back to her place on the floor, plunged her hand through the split in her dress and shoved the pistol into her left stocking garter. It felt cold and hard against her thigh and it was positioned awkwardly. However, she’d just have to deal with the discomfort and pray it didn’t slide down her leg when she stood up.
