Alex heard the low mutter of male voices in the background and then Carmen took a deep breath. “They want to trade me for the suitcase, Alex.”
No surprise there. “Where and when?”
“A warehouse outside of Miami. In four hours. Just you.”
She reeled off the instructions as if they’d written them down for her, and Alex scribbled them on a notepad. As he wrote, Grace was reading quietly off to Gallagher, who was already calling up information on the computers.
“Got that?” Carmen asked when she was done.
“Yeah. I’ll have you home in time for supper, babe.” The bastard was listening in because Alex heard him chuckle. “You take care of yourself.”
“Alex? Remind Gallagher about the yellow roses.”
The call was cut off and Alex would have thrown the phone in frustration if not for the chance Carmen would contact him again.
“We’ll get her back, boss,” Gallagher said, his fingers flying over the keyboard.
“Yellow roses mean anything to you?”
The man’s fingers froze, his whole body going perfectly still. “Where the hell did that come from?”
“Carmen asked me to remind you about the yellow roses. Is that some kind of code? Was she trying to tell us something?”
“Yeah.”
When he didn’t say anything else, Alex wanted to drag him out of his chair and beat the answers out of him. “Care to share what the fuck it is you know that we don’t?”
“Carm’s from Texas. I promised her if she was ever taken out, I’d bury her with a bouquet of yellow roses.”
“What the hell kind of clue is that?” Grace asked. “Rose warehouse? Something to do with Texas…boots, cattle, hats…”
She was thinking out loud as she moved toward the computer, and Alex stopped her with a hand on her arm. She paused, looking up at him. He was aware of the second understanding dawned.
“Carmen doesn’t think we’re going to get her out,” Grace whispered.
“She doesn’t want us to give them the suitcase, even if it means her funeral.”
He watched the dread settle into her eyes. She didn’t have many real friends, and he knew Carmen was one of them. “That’s not acceptable,” she said.
“I agree. We’re going to get her back. Alive. First I want to talk to you.”
“We need to get right on this, Alex.”
He had to do it now—while he had a hope of explaining—so she didn’t hear it from the enemy. “We’ll only be a minute, Grace. And it’s important.”
She opened her mouth, no doubt ready to argue the point, then closed it again and shrugged. “You’re the boss.”
As he led her into the bedroom and closed the door behind them, he tried not to dwell on the irony of that statement. She was about to find out he was, in fact, just that.
When Grace leaned against his dresser and folded her arms, he almost backed out. She could be so damned hard to talk to. But he cleared his throat and dove in.
“You know my mother was killed. That my father was working to take down a crime lord.”
She nodded. “You said he was with an agency.”
Alex swallowed hard and hoped his brain would stay ahead of the words coming out of his mouth. “He was undercover. He was Italian, but born in America. He met my mother during a mission to Italy…while he was using a false name. Devlin, actually.”
“Let me get this straight. Your Italian father was in Italy, using an Irish name?
Alex shrugged. “My paternal grandmother was an American, and my father looked more Irish than Italian. It worked out well, with his cover being that he was an American professor who had fallen in love with Italy and an Italian woman.”
She rubbed at her temples, no doubt trying to process what he was telling her. “Who are you?”
“I’m Alex Rossi. There have been many names in my life, but that’s the name my parents gave me. Allesandro, actually, but only my mother ever called me that.”
“So what does the Devlin Group have to do with…No. Alex, you son of a bitch, who is Sean Devlin?”
“I’m Sean Devlin, Grace.”
“No!” He barely had time to duck the hairbrush she threw at his head. “No, Alex. Sean Devlin is my friend—my only friend besides Carmen. I trusted him.”
“You trusted me.”
“Trust you? Only an idiot would trust you.”
His chest ached so badly it was all he could do not to rub the skin over his heart. “I chose the name Devlin so the bastard would know. So when I find him and kill him, he’ll remember how he gunned down my mother. I chose to keep the secret in the agency because knowing I’m the boss could put the other agents at risk.”
“Who else knows?”
“Gallagher. Charlotte, of course,” he said, referring to his executive assistant.
She pressed heels of her hands to her eyes, and he stopped himself from going to her. The last thing she wanted was comfort from him, and she had the ability to kick his ass if he tried.
“You have no idea how much Sean Devlin meant to me,” she said without moving her hands, and he heard the tears in her voice. “It’s as though you just killed him.”
He said nothing. He didn’t figure there was much he could say at this point. She’d forgive him or she wouldn’t.
“Will you ever stop hurting me?”
Pain sliced through his chest, robbing him of his breath. “At least you’re alive, Grace. Carmen’s probably going to die.”
“Don’t,” she warned. “Don’t throw my friend—my only friend now—at me to distract me from how incredibly pissed off I am at you.”
“I’ve been hunting the bastard for years, Grace, and this is the closest I’ve ever come. It might get ugly—maybe even personal—and I didn’t want this coming at you in the middle of a bad situation.”
She settled on the bed, sitting cross-legged, which Alex took as a good sign. Hell, anything other than her trying to kill him was a good sign right now.
“That’s why he didn’t call.”
He wasn’t quite sure what she meant, and he didn’t want to guess wrong. “That’s why who didn’t call?”
“Sean Devlin,” Grace snapped, and then she shook her head. “I was just wondering why he hadn’t called. My calling him to get your location after all these years should have seemed odd to him, and he should have followed up with me, but he didn’t. Now I know why.”
“I was going to tell you…before.”
“When, Alex? When you took me to Italy to propose to me?”
That hurt. “Yes, actually. I wouldn’t have asked you to marry me without giving you the truth. And now, this time, I wasn’t going to tell you, but after I found out about Danny—I knew I’d have to tell you eventually. I was just waiting for the right time.”
“How have you not found this guy?” she asked after a long silence. “The Devlin Group isn’t the reject squad, you know.”
“He’s good. Damn good.” Alex rubbed his temples. “My father hadn’t gotten that far up the ladder yet. And after my mother was killed, he…”
He paused, and Grace watched his Adam’s apple work as he swallowed. But he took a deep breath and continued. “My father burned our house. Everything. He totally lost it for a while. Then we came back to the States. Years go by and shit gets lost. Memories fade. A lot of people die.”
“Still, you have—”
“I let it simmer on the backburner. There was always a more pressing mission,” he interrupted, not quite willing to admit he’d never launched a full-out search for the guy. He’d preferred to bait the killer, sending jabs through the intelligence grapevine. Making inquiries just to let the man know he was still watching. Waiting. But the asshole never bit.
And Carmen was suffering for it. But there was no way in hell he was going to let her sacrifice herself, whether she was willing or not.
It took almost thirty minutes to make the necessary arrangements, but thankfully they could ta
ke care of most of it while in the air.
Grace was in the process of trying to decide if Alex was a genius or somebody who needed to be thrown out of the private jet. “You’re borrowing a vehicle from a Miami drug lord?”
“They do have the best toys,” Gallagher pointed out.
“And I’m supposed to do what again?” She’d never questioned what Gallagher referred to as his “mission mojo” before, but this was insane even for the Devlin Group.
Alex sighed for what seemed like the hundredth time. “I can only take one of you in with me, and that person can’t be seen. And while you’re my best sniper, Grace, I really need Gallagher in the helo and on satellite. And you’re small.”
“I get that part,” she snapped. “It’s being strapped to the undercarriage of an SUV blowing down the highway I’m having some trouble with.”
“You won’t exactly be strapped to the undercarriage,” Gallagher said, and she was surprised to hear impatience in his voice. He was usually preternaturally laid-back going into a mission. “The SUV has a special box—in layman’s terms. The cargo area in the back has a shallow false bottom with panels that will allow you back into the cargo area, or to exit underneath the vehicle.”
“There’s a chance they’ll do an infrared scan,” Alex took over. “The box is lined, and there’s no way in hell they can detect you without a ruler, time, and an intimate knowledge of the SUV’s measurement specifications.”
Grace nodded, waving a hand impatiently. She wasn’t stupid. She got the plan, she just wasn’t sure she liked it. “And once you park I’ll drop down below the vehicle and take up an ankle-sniping position.”
Gallagher raised his hand for a high five, which she reluctantly gave him, making him smile. “You blow out the ankle and when they drop, go for the head or body shot.”
“This is the single most dumbassed plan the Devlin Group has ever conceived,” she pointed out.
“Agreed,” Alex said. “But going in blind, I’m at a loss as to how else to do this.”
“This is the best way,” Gallagher said. “While we manage to borrow shit on the low-down occasionally, the government can’t give us actual personnel. And time is tight, which leaves just the three of us. Logically, there’s a good chance Carmen has been or will be injured, and we have to factor that in. This way, Alex gets our best shot as ground cover, and I’ve got roof shooters and extraction duty.”
Grace arched an eyebrow at Alex. “So tell me, how do you happen to know a drug lord well enough to borrow his truck, anyway?”
He actually blushed. “He was referred to me when a two-bit wanna-be managed to snatch his five-year-old daughter from Sunday School.”
“The Devlin Group did a drug job?” She was totally blown away. Alex’s standards were high and pretty nonnegotiable.
“No. Alex Rossi got a kidnapped little girl back.”
“Semantics.”
“It was outside of the Group and I didn’t take any money, if that makes it better. But he did tell me if I ever needed anything…” He shrugged. “And this situation is exactly what the vehicle’s designed for.”
They were quiet for a few minutes, each of them silently running scenarios—the what-ifs and the if…thens. And when Alex cleared his throat, she and Gallagher were both startled, so lost were they in their pre-game shows.
“No stupid hero bullshit, people. I’ve wanted to kill this guy most of my life, but I’ll settle for him just being dead. I’d really like it to be my bullet his name is on, but if you get a chance, you take him out.” He waited for them both to nod before continuing. “Carmen is priority one. We’ll let him have the case if there’s no other alternative. We’re good enough to get it back, though we’d have to bust our asses. We don’t get a second chance at Carm.”
The pilot let them know they were on approach over the drug lord’s private landing strip and they buckled up. Grace couldn’t believe they were about to borrow a vehicle and a helicopter from one of Florida’s most notorious criminals. She had an overwhelming urge to close her eyes and stick her fingers in her ears, but now was a good time to have a little faith in Alex.
As if reading her thoughts, he turned, grinned, then held out his fist. “You ready to ride this river?”
Chapter Ten
Alex stood next to the massive SUV, never taking his eyes off the long, black luxury sedan already parked when they arrived.
He imagined the gunfighters of the Old West, standing in the middle of the street under the hot high noon sun. Slow breathing. Fast heartbeat. Finger twitching over the butt of the gun, anticipating the quick draw.
The driver, who—judging by his bulk and the bulge under his coat—doubled as a bodyguard, got out of the car. He opened the back door, and Alex’s villain in a black hat stepped out.
Somehow, over the years, the monster had grown into humongous proportions in his mind. But in reality the man who had murdered Maria Rossi was…average. Average height, average build, brown hair, brown mustache, brown eyes. Brown silk suit, brown leather shoes.
But there was nothing average about his smile. It transformed his face from bland to chilling.
“Mr. Rossi,” the man said, his voice only slightly accented with his native Italian. “After all these years, we finally cross paths.”
Alex tamped down on the little boy inside who wanted to launch himself at the man and beat him bloody with his fists. “I’ve been trying to run into you for years.”
Alex noted the driver crossing to the passenger side and pulling Carmen out of the car. She’d been roughed up, but her eyes were clear and she was steady on her feet. Now he just had to keep her that way and keep possession of the case.
“You look like your mother,” the man said, and Alex came as close as he’d ever come to losing his composure in the field. He could practically feel the man’s skin splitting—his skull caving—under the force of his fist. “Maria Rossi.”
The bastard said her name in a lover’s voice, and Alex rocked onto the balls of his feet, then settled back again. He would get his vengeance tonight. He could feel it in his blood. But it would have to wait until the objective had been met.
“I’ve thought many times about giving you enough crumbs to follow a trail back to me,” the man continued. “But your reputation has preceded you and, to be quite frank, I wasn’t sure I would survive.”
“I want your name,” Alex growled, and he hated himself for showing how much it mattered. He hadn’t wanted to give the son of a bitch anything.
The man made an apologetic gesture with his hands, as if appalled by his lack of manners. “Angelo Contadino.”
Alex’s control broke. With a snarl he launched himself at Contadino, only to be brought up short by the sight of Carmen shoved down to her knees, gun to the nape of her neck—execution style.
Chest heaving with unexpressed rage, Alex glared at the smug crime lord. “You were my father’s friend. I remember you now. You went to her fucking funeral.”
Again with the apology by hand gesture. “Your father confided in me. He was getting close. Too close, and our friendship wasn’t going to matter to him—he was too good, too straight to turn his back on what I was doing. He would have betrayed me to the authorities. Your mother’s murder…it was only business, Allesandro.”
Alex drew his gun, pointing it at Contadino. “Don’t you call me that, you cocksucker. Don’t you ever call me that.”
Shit. Hell had frozen over, the sky was really falling and Alex Rossi was totally losing his cool in the middle of a mission.
Grace shifted her weight and spoke into her mouth piece to Gallagher in an almost nonexistent voice. “Situation officially FUBAR.”
“Acknowledged.”
Like acknowledgement really helped right now. She needed a miracle, dammit. Or barring that, a decent plan, at least. Cursing the three-ton vehicle above her and wishing she’d had time to get totally set up before Alex started losing it, Grace sighted down the scope.
&n
bsp; Through the crosshairs, she spotted Carmen’s knees and the right Achilles of the man behind her. Contadino’s glossy leather shoes. And the lower part of Alex’s legs. And that wasn’t good. He was rocking to the balls of his feet, then relaxing, then rocking forward again. He was going to strike any second, and all hell was going to break loose.
She zeroed back in on Contadino’s sidekick’s Achilles tendon. That she couldn’t see the gun she guessed was pressed against either Carmen’s temple or the nape of her neck kept her from pulling the trigger. If he was holding it casually—merely in the vicinity of her head—she might risk a shot. She’d bet money the sidekick was actually holding the gun away from Carmen, enabling him to shoot either his hostage or Alex in a split second, but she wasn’t willing to bet Carm’s life on it.
“The past is best left in the past,” she heard Contadino saying, and she prayed Alex’s desire to hear what the man had to say would overcome his desire for revenge long enough for her to figure out what the hell she was going to do.
She inched her hand down her body to the utility belt, and opened the well-lubricated, silent zipper. It took only seconds to retrieve the small, dental-like mirror and rezip the pouch. After analyzing the shadows on the ground for a few seconds, she positioned the mirror in such a way as to allow her to see the players in this deadly game without catching any light and reflecting it back at them. Just as she’d expected, Contadino’s henchman was holding the gun so the barrel was aimed at a midpoint between Carmen and Alex.
“At this point, your mother’s death,” Contadino continued, “is …irrelevant.”
Shit. Grace swung the rifle under the truck, found the sidekick’s heel through the crosshairs and took the shot even as Alex launched himself at Contadino. He wouldn’t simply shoot him. He’d want to feel the crunch of the man’s bones under his fists.
Carmen threw herself down, moving toward the man’s bleeding leg, leaving his body open for Grace’s kill shot. Grace fired, then scrambled from under the big SUV, spraying the rooftop with bullets while Carmen made a mad dash for Contadino’s car. Even as Grace rolled and got to her feet to run in a fast zig-zag for cover, she was aware of the silver briefcase making contact with the side of Contadino’s head. But Alex appeared to be off balance, and it was only a glancing blow.
72 Hours Page 9
