Fiery Surrender

by Mari Carr

  Antonio closed his eyes, the phone receiver creaking in his grip. “You kidnapped someone for a tablet?”

  “Give me the tablet. Once I verify that you have not tampered with or unlocked my private documents, I will release her. I have no wish to kill.”

  Fucking liar. He was planning to murder an entire city. “When and where?”

  “Faneuil Hall, in Boston.”

  “That’s going to take time,” Antonio said.

  “I’ll be in touch soon.”

  The call ended, and Antonio slammed the phone down, only to pick it up again, dialing his sister, Sophia. Wedging it between his shoulder and chin, he texted the company for details, and hopefully a location on where the call had come from.

  “Antonio?” Sophia answered.

  “Call the Americans. I think we just got one of their people kidnapped.”

  * * *

  Rich glanced out the window for the twentieth time in ten minutes. “That law library closed twenty minutes ago.”

  Something was wrong. Rich could feel it.

  Langston opened the door of the suite again, glancing toward the elevator.

  While Rich couldn’t see the guard, he heard Tate’s annoyed voice. “I swear to God, Langston. If you open that door again, I’m going to cuff you to a chair in there. They aren’t back yet.”

  “I thought I heard the ping of the elevator.” Langston was lying. Rich knew it. They hadn’t heard a damn thing.

  Something was wrong. He stalked to the door before Langston could close it. “We’re going out to look for her.”

  “The fuck you are.” Tate’s arms crossed over his chest, the mammoth man letting them know they’d have to go through him, and he wasn’t going down without one hell of a fight.

  “We can take him,” Langston muttered.

  Rich nodded, fully prepared to charge, when his cell phone rang.

  He rushed back into the suite, grabbing it from the coffee table where he’d left it. He frowned and muttered a curse. “Fuck.”

  “Who is it?” Langston was standing next to him, glancing over his shoulder. “The Grand Master?”

  They shared a look, both of them aware this couldn’t be good.

  “Put it on speaker,” Langston said as Rich answered.

  “Grand Master,” Rich said.

  “I have some news.”

  “What happened to her?” Rich asked, his chest so tight he could barely breathe.

  “Mina has been kidnapped.”

  Rich had to hand it to Juliette. She didn’t mince words, didn’t draw this out or try to placate them.

  “By Luca? You’re sure?” Langston asked.

  “Yes. He placed a call to the admiral of Rome.”

  “The Masters’ Admiralty?” Rich asked, wondering why Luca would contact the Europeans.

  “Actually, he called the security company who hired him to analyze the bomb they’d found. That company transferred the call. As far as we know, and given the investigation we’ve conducted, we now think Luca was working alone, and is blessedly still unaware of the existence of both the Masters’ Admiralty and the Trinity Masters.”

  “Fuck!” Rich ran his hand through his hair, still struggling to get any air to his lungs. “Is she okay? Has he hurt her?”

  There was a pause. “We don’t believe so. That would be counterproductive to his desires. He wants to make an exchange. Mina for the tablet. In Faneuil Hall.”

  “When?” Langston asked.

  “We’re awaiting another call from Luca with that information,” Juliette said. “Once he’s determined the tablet hasn’t been tampered with, we’ll get her back.”

  Rich swallowed heavily. “We fucking tampered with it.”

  “I am aware. Devon and Sebastian are on their way to the hotel with it now. We’re hoping Oscar can somehow erase any trace of…our presence in his files.”

  Rich glanced at Langston. His expression was grim, but he nodded.

  “We’re going to get her back,” Juliette said. They were the first words of reassurance she’d offered.

  They fell way short of the mark.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Mina’s stomach knotted, the pain from that, combined with the sudden urge to vomit, rousing her enough from her drug-induced stupor that she rolled onto her side, dry-heaving.

  “Here is water,” an elegantly accented voice said.

  A gentle hand lifted her head, and she felt the plastic of a straw against her lips.

  Still slightly out of it, her first thought was oh no, single-use plastic.

  Followed quickly by you’ve been kidnapped?!

  Mina opened her eyes. She was lying on her side on a bench. Luca Campisi was crouched beside her, holding the bottle of water. She took several long sips, then forced herself to sit up. Luca watched her with worried eyes, hovering like a nurse ready to jump in to aid a patient.

  Once she was sitting up, she looked around. They were in a supply closet of some kind—a roughly eight-by-eight concrete box with two fluorescent lights overhead. The bench was directly across from the windowless door, and mostly bare shelving units were bolted to the other walls.

  She looked around, then back to Luca. She barely remembered him from Italy. There, in his lab, he’d seemed nondescript and boring. He looked a bit different now—there was more emotion on his face, which seemed far more handsome than she’d remembered.

  “Why?” she asked, her voice hoarse despite the water.

  Luca picked up the bucket he’d had beside the bench to catch her vomit and set it aside.

  He reached into the lone cardboard box on the shelf and pulled out a roll of paper towels, tearing off a few and handing them to her. “I take no pleasure in this. Please know, if it were only my own life at stake, I would not have done this.”

  Well, that was a loaded statement. She wiped her mouth. “You didn’t answer my question. Why?”

  “Someone you know has something I need. I want it back.”

  “The tablet,” she said.

  He turned, examining her, eyes sharp with intelligence.

  Don’t let him know you know what’s on it. She’d never know if it was some sensitivity to danger that made her hold back what she knew, or if some part of her brain not dulled by the drugs he’d given her had been thinking ahead, putting the pieces together, and reached that conclusion.

  “You stole my tablet. Then you stole Rich’s. We finally looked at Langston’s and realized the tablet he had wasn’t his.”

  “Tell me, was it a mistake or theft?”

  “Just a mistake,” Mina said quietly. “My mistake. I picked up the wrong one.”

  Luca laughed softly. “All this for a mistake.”

  A mistake that means we know what you’re planning, you psychopath.

  “If you give me my phone, I’ll call Langston. He’ll bring you the tablet.”

  “The ransom demand has already been made, but you’re right. We do need to call Langston.”

  “We make the exchange, and then you’ll let me go?”

  “Yes. Once I have verified it is the right tablet and that your friends have not…done anything to it, I will let you go.”

  “Done anything? You mean like unlock it?”

  Luca’s shoulder’s tightened. “Precisely. Did he?”

  Mina shook her head. “He couldn’t unlock it. If he’d been able to, we might have been able to figure out how to contact you. Why didn’t you just call Milo and have him call us?”

  “Why didn’t you do the same the moment you knew you had taken mine?” Luca countered.

  “We didn’t look at it. We were on our honeymoon.”

  “‘We’ meaning…the three of you.”

  It wasn’t a question. He knew about the trinity marriages? Hadn’t Milo said he didn’t? Because he wasn’t a member of the Masters’ Admiralty.

  Mina didn’t say anything.

  Luca sighed and reached into the bag beside the box. “You say Langston still has
my device?”

  How should she play this? Mina’s mind whirled. Was she waiting too long to answer?

  “I don’t have his number memorized. That’s why I need my phone.” That was the truth, and hopefully enough.

  Luca nodded as if that’s what he’d expected. “I have your things.” He took her phone and a strange-looking metal frame, about the size of half a loaf of bread, out of the box. “I will not turn on your phone. That would risk Cohortes Praetorianae tracking it.

  “Who?”

  “The company Milo works for. That is who I called. It is disconcerting to not know who I should be talking to.”

  “Why didn’t you just call me? Langston?” Mina asked.

  “I didn’t want to reveal myself, and I didn’t trust the information I could find. I do not know American systems so well.”

  “You mean you couldn’t hack them.”

  He placed her phone in the little frame, then powered it on, and grabbed her hand to bypass the lock via thumbprint. She started praying, fervently. Luca frowned at the screen then read a number aloud. The instant he finished, he powered the phone off, leaving it in the cage.

  He took a cheap-looking phone and typed in the number, but set the phone aside rather than call Langston.

  “Your phone is now useless, I’m sorry. It’s a modified time-delay EMP field, but its effects are permanent.”

  “What?” Mina asked.

  “I turned your phone on long enough to get what I needed, but now it is quite useless.”

  “Oh.” There wasn’t much else she could say.

  Luca reached into the bag again, pulling out a heavy, bulky bundle. He stared down at it, and then looked at her, his expression grave.

  “I am very sorry, Mina. I must put this on you.”

  She stiffened, noticing the wires sticking out of the bundle. He carefully adjusted it until he held it up.

  A military vest.

  Mina jerked back, her shoulders hitting the wall behind her. “No,” she whispered. She’d been scared since she woke up, but now a much stronger feeling gripped her.

  “I am very sorry,” Luca breathed. He looked like he was in physical pain. “I must put this on you.”

  “Bomb,” she stammered. “That’s a bomb.”

  “It is. Once I have the tablet and know it’s secure, I will disarm the bomb, and you can remove it.” He walked toward her, holding the vest with one hand, the other one reaching for her.

  “No!” Mina scrambled sideways, her shoulder hitting the metal shelves, causing them to ring.

  Luca grabbed her, yanking her forward. Terror made her tremble, made her feel like thick, greasy oil was sliding under her skin. She fought him, sobbing. She never cried, certainly not in fear, but right now she was overcome with terror, unable to stop the tears and sobs.

  Despite her struggles, Luca shoved her arms into the vest, zipping it closed. He sat on the floor, her body between his legs, her arms trapped between her back and his chest. He reached around in front of her and plucked coiled wires from one of the pockets. He drew the wires across the front of the vest, sliding them into small slots in an electronic device that he tucked back into yet another pocket when he was done.

  Mina was cobbled, helpless in a way she’d never known before. Luca patted her shoulders, his tender, apologetic manner somehow making it worse. If he’d been hard, cruel, she might have been able to use bravado to hide her terror.

  “Do not touch the wires,” he whispered in her ear. “Cutting or disconnecting them will trigger the bomb. Promise me you won’t touch them.”

  “Please, please don’t do this,” she sobbed.

  Luca slid out from behind her. He grabbed a roll of tape, taping the wires down across the front of the vest. “Now you cannot accidentally pull the wires.”

  Mina looked down at her chest—the Army-green tactical vest, each pocket full of what, she didn’t know. Didn’t want to know.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” Luca said quietly. “All I want is my tablet back. As long as I get it back, and untouched, you will be fine.”

  Mina ducked her head, covering her face with her hands. As long as the tablet was untouched, she’d be fine.

  They’d decrypted the tablet. Luca would figure it out…and she would be dead.

  “Now. Get off the floor.”

  Mina pushed herself up and sat on the bench, her head fuzzy from the drugs, the terror, the tears. Luca moved over to the door, jotting something rapidly in a notebook. When he finished, he tore the page out and handed it to her.

  “What’s this?”

  “You will call Langston. This is what you’re going to say. This is all you’re going to say. Stray from the script, and I cannot promise that more people will not be hurt.”

  More blood.

  Levi.

  She hadn’t even thought about the man. Had he been killed? She swallowed the bile that rose in her throat when she realized she’d put his life at risk, simply because of her inability to concentrate on work with her husbands around. As the selfishness of her request and the danger she’d put him in sank in, the tears she’d only just managed to stem started falling once more.

  Mina glanced at the paper, her vision cloudy, blinded by terror. There was a bomb strapped to her.

  I’m going to die.

  She tried to swallow that fear down, but she couldn’t. In the face of death—hers, and possibly Levi’s—she felt herself losing control again.

  “Read the message,” Luca instructed. “Make sure you can read my handwriting.”

  Mina tried, but as she lifted the paper from her lap, her trembling hands made an already difficult task impossible.

  Luca walked over to her and placed his hand over hers. “I am sorry I must ask this of you. But if Langston still has the tablet, it is better I deal with him. No need to involve Milo.”

  Was that supposed to comfort her? He said he was sorry, but he’d strapped her into a bomb.

  Mina batted away the tears that slid down her face, her temper sparking.

  Anger. That was what she needed. What was going to get her through this.

  She let her rage simmer and then begin to boil. She was going to get through this, to survive, to find her way back to Langston and Rich. And then she was going to make sure Luca paid for every single thing he’d done.

  Mina stilled and sucked in a deep, cleansing breath. Luca mistakenly assumed he’d managed to calm her down.

  “Read it,” he repeated.

  She let her eyes slide over the page twice, familiarizing herself with it.

  “Are you ready?” Luca asked, raising his phone.

  She swallowed deeply and cleared her throat, suddenly cursing herself for falling apart. Rich and Langston would hear that she’d been crying. She hated to think about what that would do to them.

  “You will bring the tablet to Faneuil Hall in two hours and give it to me,” Mina said aloud, before looking up at Luca. “You spelled Faneuil wrong.”

  He nodded his head. “My written English isn’t great.”

  “Once I take the tablet to its rightful owner, and he’s verified it, he will deactivate the bomb I am wearing. If it is the wrong tablet, or if we try to trick him, he will detonate the bomb.” Mina felt sick. “I’ll be in Faneuil Hall?”

  “Yes. With me. You will bring me the tablet.”

  “And if the bomb accidentally goes off,” when Luca realizes what we’ve done, and what we know, and you blow me up, “I’ll take out everyone in Faneuil Hall with me.”

  “My bombs do not accidentally go off.”

  “This is too dangerous. We need to meet someplace with no other people.”

  “I’m sorry, but it must be this way.”

  “No.”

  Luca took a step closer and crouched, looking her directly in the eye. “Mina. I do not want to hurt you, but it is important you understand that if I have to, I will.” He raised the phone, hit dial, put it on speakerphone, and placed it on the bench nex
t to her.

  He tapped the paper on her lap.

  Langston answered on the first ring. For one brief moment, she’d actually managed to pull herself back together, but hearing Langston’s voice sent a fresh round of tears to her eyes.

  “Hello?” Langston’s voice was tense, wary. They must have realized something had happened to her. How long had she been gone? How long had she been unconscious?

  “Langston.” Her throat started to close up, so she tried to clear it again. Luca’s eyes narrowed.

  “Mina? Where are you? What happened?” Langston’s questions mingled with Rich’s, and she could hear the concern in both of their voices.

  She ached to answer his questions, to tell him she was alone and terrified and needed him…him and Rich.

  Instead, she lifted the paper and read the words just as she’d practiced. “You will bring the tablet to Faneuil Hall in two hours and give it to me. Once I take the tablet to its rightful owner, and he’s verified it, he will deactivate the bomb I am wearing. If it is the wrong tablet, or if we try to trick him, he will detonate the bomb.”

  “You’re wearing a bomb?” Langston asked softly.

  She looked at Luca, who nodded.

  “Yes.”

  “Mina…are you all right?”

  “No,” the word shook. “Langston, I’m so—”

  Luca reached out and grabbed the phone, ending the call.

  “—scared.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Rich couldn’t breathe. He braced his hands on the bathroom counter and dragged in air, but it didn’t help. His lungs expanded, he exhaled, but he still couldn’t breathe.

  Mina was gone.

  It had been twenty minutes since Mina’s phone call. He and Langston had stared at the damn thing long after the call had been disconnected. It had taken some time for Mina’s words to sink in—she was wearing a fucking bomb—and when they did, panic set in hard.

  He’d excused himself to the bathroom because he couldn’t stand to let Langston see him fall apart.

  Fuck.

  He looked in the mirror, saw the sheer terror written in every tense line on his face.

  They couldn’t lose her.