“I actually do.” It would be so easy.
But for a second, his words had their desired effect, and I questioned whether I really wanted to shoot a man in cold blood. My resolve wavered.
He was in America now. Our prisons were a hell of a lot harder to escape from. And in reality, life in a Supermax prison would be a better punishment for the man than death.
The right thing to do was to call the police. I’d spent a lifetime doing the right thing. In this case, the right thing to do would be to turn El Loro over to the authorities.
I glanced out the window. We were running out of time.
“You never should’ve threatened my family,” I said. I knew I was stalling. The gun shook in my grip. My knuckles were white. My hand and arms and fingers ached from the strain. “Where is my brother?”
“It’s too late for that.”
I tried not to think about the implications of his words. “Get on your knees.”
He complied but looked bored.
“What you fail to realize is that you have destroyed my life,” he said. “You. Alone. You must pay for this. You made it personal.”
Fury surged through me. “I made it personal? You’re the one who kidnapped me and my husband. My husband was just doing his job. Going after scumbag drug lords like you. You are the one that made this personal.”
He cleared his throat. I was so sick of his voice. I was so sick of his ugly, evil presence in my life. Ever since I’d returned from Guatemala, he’d haunted my nightmares and filled my days with a low-simmering anxiety.
“This is how personal it is,” he said. “If you kill me, your children will die. My men have found your children. If I do not call them to tell them I am safe, they will kill them all.”
“You will never get to my children. Ever.” I said the words, but doubt flooded me. “Put your hands up.”
“What?” But he put down his drink and stuck his hands in the air. “You must think I am not very persuasive, but you underestimate how money and power can get you anything you desire. Your friend, Jesse? The DEA agent? He was so easy to turn. He led me right to your children. The island in Italy? It is amazing how money can motivate even the most loyal of men.”
Horror filled me. He knew where my children were.
“Fuck you.” The gun wobbled as my arms shook.
“I personally gave orders for them to gang rape your beautiful daughter. If you kill me, you are condemning your daughter, Grace,” he drew out her name. “to a short life of hell. She will wish she were dead within twenty minutes of my men capturing her. But her torture will go on and on. They will keep her as a sex slave until she turns sixteen and then they will—”
I fired the gun. The bullet slammed into his chest. He toppled over to his side, his hands reaching out to me. His mouth opened and closed. Blood blossomed across the front of his white shirt. His eyelashes fluttered for a second and then closed.
Letting my gun arm drop to my side, I took an inventory of how I felt. The only thought I had was: That was too peaceful a death for a man so awful.
It wasn’t the first time I’d killed someone. But it was the first time I did it willingly, without having myself or someone else’s life at stake right then and there. But I knew whose life had been at stake—my daughter, Grace’s life.
I was now a cold-blooded murderer. I’d watched him try to speak. I’d watched his eyes glaze over and then close. I’d carefully observed his death and didn’t feel a shred of remorse.
I knew the moment would haunt me forever. I also knew I did not have a choice. And that, given another chance, I would do it again.
A sob caught in my throat, and my legs grew weak. Yes, I’d saved my daughter, but I’d probably condemned my brother. If he wasn’t in the house and if I didn’t find him in the next few seconds, I’d sacrificed my brother’s life—and possibly my own—for my daughter’s life.
Again, it was worth it.
Frantically, I glanced around. I needed to call The Saint and warn him, tell him to protect my children. I raced to El Loro’s body and dug around in his jacket pocket. No phone.
Then, I spotted it. An old-fashioned land line. How quaint. With shaking hands, I picked up the receiver. There was no dial tone.
My own phone was in the Hummer.
Then, I heard a volley of gunfire from somewhere else in the house. Shit. His bodyguards.
I kept my gun in front of me, shaking. I couldn’t take them both on. But I couldn’t run away, either. I had to make sure Dante wasn’t here somewhere.
The sound of gunfire had filled me with dread because they hadn’t been firing at me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
As I ran past the wall of windows, I couldn’t see anything on the horizon. The ocean had completely disappeared now, sucked out to sea.
I raced to the staircase leading upstairs. However, before I put my foot on the first stair, Eva stepped into the room.
“Maybe, you are not quite a princess after all,” she said with a wry smile, jutting her chin at El Loro’s body.
“Fuck you.” I didn’t have time. I needed to find Dante. I headed toward the stairs.
“Bring him out.” Eva’s voice was raised.
I half-turned. That’s when I saw two men leading Dante into the room.
“He was in the basement. You would’ve found him eventually.” She looked out the wall of windows and shrugged. “Maybe not in time, though.”
I raced over to my brother.
“Thank God. Oh, thank God.” I hugged him tight but then drew back to examine his face. He had a black eye, but wasn’t as beat up as Donovan. He winced as I clutched at his arm.
Just then there was a tremendous roar like an airplane about to land on our heads or a train about to come through the front door.
“We need to get out of here. Right now,” I shouted over the noise and grabbing Dante’s arm, dragged him to the door.
I glanced around. Eva and her men were gone. Dante and I ran outside and to the Hummer. Before Dante had slammed his door shut, I stomped on the accelerator, squealing away.
At the guardhouse leading to the private community, the gates were still open, but a police barricade made of wooden sawhorses blocked the way. I aimed the right bumper of the Hummer at them and we plowed through them like they were matchsticks.
I grabbed my cell phone and with shaking hands tried to dial The Saint’s number. Instead of it going through, the phone face remained blank. That’s when I noticed there were no bars for service. “Fuck!” I said and hit the dashboard with one palm.
“You okay?” I asked Dante. He held his hand to his abdomen. His face was ashen.
“My side hurts. And I think my arm might be broken.”
I glanced over and saw blood seeping through his shirt. I stepped on the accelerator. I kept checking the rearview mirror, waiting for a massive wall of water to appear, but with every mile we traveled away from the beach, we were safer.
I shouted at the vehicle’s Siri/GPS system.
“Where is a hospital? Where is the freeway?”
Looking in my rearview mirror, I saw a horrifying sight.
Trees in the far distance behind us were snapping like twigs.
A wall of gray was catching up to us.
At this point, the gas pedal was touching metal, but then I had to let off to navigate a turn onto another road, listening to Siri’s calm, methodical voice telling me which way to turn.
We skidded around a corner. That’s when I noticed we had shore to my right.
“Oh, fuck!”
Dante, who had nodded off in the passenger seat beside me, flickered his eyes, but didn’t lift his head. He was clutching his side, which I now noticed was dark with blood.
I leaned over and cupped his shoulder. “Stay with me, buddy. We’re almost there.”
His eyes opened. “Okay, Ella. I’m here. It’s okay.”
“Do you hurt sweetie?” I tried to keep my voice calm but kept an eye on th
e water creeping up behind us on the freeway.
“A little.” He grimaced.
Taking my hands off the steering wheel for a second, I pressed my knee against it and whipped off my sweatshirt.
“Here, press this against your side. You are bleeding.”
“Huh?” He looked down, acting surprised.
“Press it hard. With all your strength, honey. We’ll be at the hospital soon.”
Meanwhile, Siri calmly directed me to continue for another three miles before we exited. Three miles?
He was going to bleed out if I didn’t hurry.
Either that or the tsunami was going to sweep us away.
Then the water was on us. The roiling waves crashed over bridges nearby and eventually over the guardrails on our elevated freeway.
The tsunami hit us at the exit for the hospital. I gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles, holding as tight as I could to keep us from being swept out to sea. The weight of the Hummer and its massive tires kept us on the road somehow, but as we took the exit, which landed us onto a patch of higher ground, I lost control. We skidded and smashed into a guardrail and I cracked my head on the window.
The first thing I did was look at Dante, but he was out. He was breathing raggedly, but not doing well at all.
I could feel blood dripping down my temple and my head hurt like hell, but I needed to get him to the hospital. Throwing the Hummer in reverse, I backed away and headed toward the hospital, running on pure adrenaline alone.
Finally, I saw the hospital. A wave of dizziness engulfed me. But, I had to keep going. We were almost there.
We skidded into the circular driveway at the emergency room. I laid on the horn until I saw emergency workers race out the double doors. That’s when I leaned my head down on the steering wheel and everything went black.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The next thing I knew I was slumped in the back of a Town Car. We were not moving. A man in a chauffeur’s hat and sunglasses was in the driver’s seat. A needle leading to a bag connected to a small pole appeared to be transferring fluids into my body. I yanked the IV out angrily.
“Where’s my brother? I said, leaning into the front seat.
“I don’t know.”
“Where am I?”
He turned to me. “There is a call for you.”
Disoriented, I looked around. We were on the tarmac at an airport. A small plane was taxing toward us. The driver gestured toward a small waiting area where a woman in a prim flight attendant uniform was standing at a podium, holding an old fashioned black phone receiver attached to a cord. When she saw me, she held the phone my way.
I scrambled out of the car and raced to the phone.
“Dante is in good hands. In the hospital.”
The Saint.
“Thank God. I don’t know what happened. Why am in a car? Was I drugged? Jesse, he’s after Donovan. El Loro...” the words tumbled out as I tried to make sense of it all.
“Donovan is safe. Jesse is taken care of. And we only gave you a little sedation. The rest was because you were severely dehydrated. That is why you passed out.”
He cleared his throat. “I have bad news, Gabriella.”
My heart stopped dead. I couldn’t breathe. He said Donovan was fine. My kids? My mother?
“They are after you for murder.”
I exhaled with relief. “Are the kids okay? My mom?”
“Everyone is safe. Fine. But you are in danger. They have proof you killed El Loro. They say Donovan was your accomplice.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“This goes much deeper than you know. The new kingpin, the one who has been waiting in the wings to take over upon El Loro’s death, controls everybody. All the way to the top.”
“He knew El Loro would die?”
The Saint sighed loudly. “You were set up. El Loro needed to die for the transfer of power. You are the fall guy. Ahem. Girl. Um, woman.”
I clapped a hand to my mouth and sat back in my seat closing my eyes. “Dear God. Is there anything I can do? You say they have proof?”
“The house where El Loro was staying had security cameras everywhere. The footage has already been sent to authorities.”
“What do I do?”
“There is only one way. Look.”
The plane had taxied to a stop in front of us.
Donovan stood in the doorway of the plane, at the top of the stairs.
I wanted to drop the phone and run to him, but The Saint kept speaking.
“You must disappear. Off U.S. soil.”
I didn’t understand. “When will we be able to come back here, to America?”
The Saint was quiet for a second, and then he cleared his throat before speaking. “Never.”
I closed my eyes. When I opened them, Donovan gave me a wry smile and shrugged. He must’ve already known what I was being told.
“But your family will be together. That is what matters, isn’t it?”
“Will they be able to find us? Can they extradite us if they do?”
“I cannot guarantee they won’t, but I’m reasonably confident that if you disappear, they will stop looking for you. At least that’s what I’ve been told.”
“What have you been told?”
“We will say your plane went down. And that—”
“We’re dead.”
“If that happens, they will let you live in peace quietly. But you must never surface again. Not in America. Not anywhere.”
“I don’t understand.” I was suddenly weary. My legs felt wobbly.
“I know it’s a lot. You have to trust me when I say I know of no other way.”
I exhaled. “They want people to think we are dead? I don’t understand. We are nobody.”
“Yes, she said it would be the most merciful way to make sure you didn’t cause any problems.”
My face felt frozen. “She?”
There were a few seconds of silence before he answered.
“Yes. She.”
Eva.
“I can tell you that she didn’t want you to be the fall guy. It was beyond her control. Even she is controlled by others to a certain extent.”
“That bitch.”
“I was told she fought against making you the patsy.”
“Whatever.”
“They wanted you dead.”
My blood ran cold. Maybe Eva wasn’t that bad after all.
Even though she was a stone-cold killer, she’d plotted a way to get rid of me so that I would still live and still have my family around me. I suppose in her world, one of violence and death, some might consider that merciful.
The Saint’s voice was urgent in my ear. “Go. Now.”
I was about to hang up, when I remembered.
“I emailed you something last week before we left Guatemala. Do you still have it?”
“The one that said, ‘Open upon my death only?’”
“Pretty dramatic, I know. Could you open it, print it out, and have it waiting for me—secretly—wherever we are going?”
“Better than that,” The Saint said. “I’ll have it printed onboard the plane and slipped to you privately.”
“You can do that?” I asked.
He laughed.
Of course he could.
Hanging up the phone, I headed toward the plane. Like a ghost walking across my grave, I could hear imaginary shots ring out and feel the imaginary bullets pummel me in the back as I exposed myself to the open tarmac. When I reached the stairs, I could see Donovan’s face. He looked haggard, but happy.
When I got to the top of the steps, he drew me inside, folded me into his arms and helped me to a seat.
I sank against his shoulder, suddenly exhausted. The last thing I remember was him buckling my seat belt and then I fell into a deep sleep.
When I awoke—with a raging headache and dry mouth—we were halfway to Italy, according to Donovan. He shook out some ibuprofen and handed me a large bottle of
water.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
As soon as we reached the secluded island, I raced off the boat and toward my children who were lined up on the dock with my mother.
I swept them all into my arms at once, crouching and laughing and crying as I hugged them.
Donovan joked about losing a boxing match when Grace saw his face. She grabbed his hand and wouldn’t let go as she and Alejandro excitedly led us to the house to give us a tour.
Bigger than it appeared, the small, flat house was surrounded on all sides by beautiful plants and trees. It had six bedrooms and a massive open area that contained a kitchen, dining room, and family room. As the kids took us around talking animatedly, my mother discretely pointed out the state-of-the-art security features. The windows, made of bullet-proof glass, could be made into steel-plated walls with the push of a button. A security room with screens showing twenty different cameras on the island. Motion sensors everywhere.
Then the kids led us down the path to the beach. When we got to the sand, I handed Stefano to Donovan so I could slip off my sandals.
Turning back, I watched my husband and son.
As he held, Stefano, Donovan dipped his head and kissed the baby’s brow over and over again and hugged him tight. When he lifted his head, I saw tears in his eyes.
It was time. With the setting sun reflecting golden on his tear-stained face, I reached into my pocket for a piece of paper I’d folded into a small square.
It was the printout from the plane. I handed it to Donovan without a word. He raised an eyebrow, but opened it.
I swallowed the massive lump in my throat as I watched him read. He hadn’t known I’d arranged the DNA test. They’d emailed me the results two weeks earlier. His eyes grew wide and his face crumpled as he fought back tears.
“He’s mine?”
“All yours.” I said with a smile. “I didn’t need the test to know. Every day he looks more and more like you.”
“Give me a minute.”
He handed Stefano back to me and took off walking down the beach. I watched his back. He swiped at his face a few times. Then, when he got to the far end of the strip of beach, where the rocks jutted out and the forest met the water, he put his hands up in the air and I heard him whoop loudly.
Blessed are the Merciful Page 8
