Revealing Nicola

by Sam Cheever

  Franco’s gut twisted with alarm. “What do you mean you lost contact?”

  “I mean he stopped responding to my calls. Then when I had the phone traced we discovered it dumped in an empty lot in the warehouse district.” He lifted his smoky gray gaze toward Franco and, unless he was a very good actor, Franco couldn’t deny the fear he saw there. “I never wanted the girl to be harmed, Mr. Martin. I need you to understand that.”

  Franco lowered the gun and stepped back. “You think your guy’s been killed?”

  “Possibly. Or worse.”

  “What’s worse?” Erik asked, his face ashen.

  Osgood fixed an unflinching gaze on Franco. “I believe someone in my organization found out what the DeVitis treasure is and they’re hoping to capitalize on it.” He stood up again and walked back to the window, returning to his previous stance. Only this time Franco could see the man’s hands shaking. “I believe that poor young woman is in terrible danger.”

  They started to leave but Osgood wasn’t quite done with them. “Mr. Martin?”

  Franco turned back, waiting expectantly.

  Osgood gave him a sad smile. “Please tell my good friend Gordon that I’m sorry I couldn’t make our meeting tonight.”

  Franco shook his head and followed his friends out the door. Perfect. Apparently Gordon had known they were coming to see Osgood and had warned him. Franco wondered what else his boss knew that he wasn’t sharing.

  ###

  Franco’s phone rang as they were climbing into the sedan moments later. It was Alf Honeybun. “Hey, Honeybun.”

  Alf didn’t waste any time on pleasantries. “I heard back from my mole at The Foundation.”

  Franco started the car and headed toward the street. “She learned something?”

  “There was a lot of buzz today. Apparently the old man sent out a team of men to get someone and bring them to Osgood.”

  “Yeah, unfortunately I already knew that.”

  “But you didn’t know the rest. Word is that Osgood’s team went rogue. That they snatched their package and carried it off to a secret lab somewhere.”

  Franco suddenly found it hard to swallow. “A lab?”

  “Yeah. Nobody seems to know where it is, but my mole is in charge of electronics for the employees. She was able to give me the number of a cell phone one of the team is using.”

  “Osgood told me his guy dumped his phone.”

  “That might be. But apparently he didn’t think to tell the other guys to dump theirs.”

  The first seeds of excitement wormed their way past Franco’s defenses and bloomed. “You got a location?”

  “I do. I just sent the coordinates to your phone. We used a satellite view to try to determine what you were walking into but there’s nothing much there. It appears to be an old stone building next to a river.”

  The bulb went off in Franco’s head. “I know the place. Thanks, Alf. Now I owe ya two.”

  “I’ll be the judge of how much you owe me, Martin. Good luck, man. I hope you get her back safe.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Nici dived under the gurney and fumbled for the Taser, which was half sticking out of the unconscious man’s pocket.

  “Come on out of there or I’ll shoot you.” The newly arrived guard took a step through the door, his gun pointing right at Nici. The weapon wavered before her eyes, dividing into two, and she shook her head. “Not now,” she murmured to herself, even as the floor flew up to meet her.

  Pain radiated through her head as she slammed into the gritty tile. She fought to stay conscious as whatever the first guy had injected her with ran rampant through her system. Nausea bloomed. Nici swallowed hard, trying to fight it back.

  The man with the gun moved closer. “Drop that Taser or I swear I’ll shoot you.”

  She blinked, her gaze sliding to her hand. She’d somehow pulled the weapon free. Her hand fell out of focus, the image dancing sideways. Struggling to focus made her head pound and bile surge up her throat. Nici groaned, trying to scoot backwards to put the gurney between them.

  He must have realized she was incapacitated because he stepped over his fallen cohort and grabbed the Taser out of her anesthetized grip.

  Nici tried to hold on but her reflexes were way too slow. Her hand closed on empty air.

  The man flung the Taser behind him and reached down, grabbing Nici’s arm. “Look what you’ve done. The boss ain’t gonna be too happy about this mess.”

  She tried to fight him as he dragged her to her feet. Her knees slid through something slick and warm and she looked down to see a puddle of blood beneath the fallen man’s head, running from his no doubt broken nose. She tried to pull away, managed to wrench free for just a beat, and she lost her balance, dropping to the floor again. Her hand covered something long and hard on the floor. As he wrenched her upward, she closed her fingers around the syringe. He hauled her to her feet and shoved her backward. Nici hit the gurney and smashed her head on the rail on the far side. She bit her tongue with the impact and tasted warm salty blood.

  The guard grabbed her wrist and slipped it back into the cuff. “You’re more trouble than you’re worth, aren’t you?”

  The room spun and she fought to stay conscious. Her eyelids were heavy and the spinning was making her sick. If only she could sleep...

  The cuffs pinched her wrist, snapping her out of her daze. He reached for the other arm. Nici pulled her thoughts into focus and, with a scream of pure rage, stabbed the syringe into the big man’s arm. She shoved the plunger with her palm as she buried the needle deep. His eyes went wide and he stumbled backward, slipping in blood and crashing to the floor.

  Nici closed her eyes and pulled air deep into her lungs, trying to fight the drug. If she let it take her under she’d lose the small window of opportunity she’d given herself.

  She pushed off the bed with her free hand and looked for the key she’d used earlier. She couldn’t remember if she’d dropped it...

  Patting the bed around her, Nici finally found a small hardness. She wrapped her benumbed fingers around the key and turned to her side.

  Another door slammed in the distance and Nici whimpered with frustration. She squinted at the cuffs, terrified she wouldn’t get them unlocked in time.

  Heavy footsteps ran toward her room. She shoved the key toward the lock and it slipped sideways. She tried again with the same result. Finally, just as she managed to insert the key, a woman ran through the door, a rifle clutched in her hands. She was tall and thick bodied, almost as big as the male guard Nici had already dispatched. The female guard skidded to a halt and stared down at the man on the floor. He was convulsing, with thick white foam running from his gaping lips.

  The woman’s gaze lifted to Nici and rage turned the brown of her eyes to black. “You killed him.”

  Nici turned the key and jerked her arm free, flinging herself against the rail on the side of the gurney. The railing didn’t give but the gurney started to topple. She braced herself to hit the ground again, expecting to be shot at any second.

  Instead she heard a sizzling sound behind her, and then a loud crash. As she started to fall, a long fingered hand grabbed the side of the gurney and righted it.

  Nici turned to see what fresh horrors had found her. And sucked air in a surprised gasp as she looked into a face just like hers.

  ###

  “Are you sure it’s here?” Mike asked, his hard gaze scouring the empty river bank.

  “These are the coordinates Honeybun gave us.” Franco said. “They didn’t have time to get away when we chased them here. So that tells me they didn’t. They probably went down.”

  “Underground?” Erik asked with a frown.

  Mike nodded, “Some kind of bunker. Makes sense.”

  Franco pointed to the waterwheel, which churned water from the river with a rhythmic whoosh, whoosh, whoosh sound. “If you want to go off the grid, using a wheel for electricity’s a good way to do it.”

  “So
we need to find an entrance.” Erik said.

  They searched the interior of the mill from top to bottom, finding nothing. Franco was back on the first floor, staring out a large window with no glass in it, when Erik and Mike joined him. “It’s not here, Franco,” Mike said from behind him.

  Franco stared at the waterwheel, his nerves firing and thoughts jumbling. He was close. He could feel it. Yet... His gaze caught on a small boat bobbing in the rush of water from the dam feeding the wheel. It was on the opposite side of the wide river and appeared to be tied to a tree. “Was that boat there last night?”

  Erik stepped to the window and nodded. “Yeah. In that same spot.”

  There was a horrendous wrenching squeal and Franco jerked around, looking for Mike. His friend wasn’t there. They hurried outside in time to see Mike jam a large rock into the workings of the wheel. There was already a huge rock wedged in there, which had been the source of the jarring sound they’d heard. Mike looked up and grinned as they came through the door. “Let’s see how long it takes them to figure out their power source is gone.”

  Franco shook his head. “You’re thinking they’ll flood out of the ground like ants?”

  Mike shrugged. “If we’re really lucky. But I’d settle for one guy coming to investigate. At least that way we can see where the access door is.”

  “I like the way you think,” Franco told him. “It’s got to be on the other side of the river. I’m thinking they took that boat across.”

  Erik eyed the raging water. “Smart. There’s no crossing this river without a boat. The undertow would drag you under in a heartbeat.”

  “It’s as good as a moat filled with sharks,” Franco agreed. He crouched down on the bank. “How deep do you think this is?”

  “Too deep for the car to cross if that’s what you’re thinking,” Erik told him.

  But Franco wasn’t listening. He’d started running along the bank.

  “Where are you going, brah?” Mike asked as he took off after him.

  Franco was heading toward a massive tree that hung out over the river, its root system exposed on the water side like the teeth of a half rotted cadaver. A branch hung over the rushing water, nearly to the other shore. If he was lucky the branch would be strong enough to hold him. If he wasn’t lucky...well...

  “Come on, man. Are you kidding me?” Mike huffed up behind him as he launched himself onto the branch.

  Franco resettled the strap of the rifle he carried and threw his friends a glance. “Stay on shore until I make sure it’ll hold. Then come one at a time.” The branch beneath him creaked loudly and Franco stilled. A moment later, when it didn’t fracture beneath him, he started shimmying out over the water. “If you can’t cross here then call Gordon and tell him you need a boat or, even better, a chopper filled with guns.” He gave his friends a long look. “Promise me that if I go into this river you’ll forget about me until you’ve got Nic safe?”

  Erik promised immediately, clearly his priorities were right on target, but Mike hesitated. “Mike?”

  His friend shook his head, planting his big hands on his hips. “How about I call Gordon right now and you wait for him to bring reinforcements?”

  Franco shimmied farther out, pausing again as the branch made a soft, crackling sound. The wood of the tree was damp, clearly saturated from river spray and the rain the night before. A moisture saturated tree was a ticking time bomb, simply waiting for a soft gust of wind or a two hundred pound smart guy to jar it loose from its moorings. “I could be wrong. They may not even be here. I don’t want to alert Gordon that I’m ignoring his orders unless it’s absolutely necessary.” What he didn’t tell his friends was that he feared Gordon would take steps to keep him from pursuing Nicola. There were things he’d done for the family, illegal things. Nothing earthshattering but illegal enough to put him behind bars for a couple of days until Gordon decided to send a lawyer his way. It would probably break their bond forever. But Gordon DeVitis didn’t like to be disobeyed. And in doing what he was about to do, Franco was disobeying him big time. Gordon would do anything he could to teach him a lesson. Including pulling him from the search for Nicola.

  Franco couldn’t allow that to happen. “Promise me, Mike.”

  His friend expelled air in a frustrated breath. “Okay, but if those ants come pouring out of their hidey hole you’re going to be in a tough spot up there.”

  “I’ll make like a tree and become bark.”

  “Barkin’ mad,” Mike murmured on a glower. “This woman must be pretty special.”

  “Special and then some,” Franco responded. In that moment he realized that his resistance to Nic’s charms had been completely shattered. His affection for her had blasted through the limits he’d tried to erect. With a shock he recognized that what he was feeling for her was love.

  And every soldier knew that love made you stupid. Which was why he was currently hanging just a few inches above a dangerously rushing river on a branch no bigger around than his thigh. The branch shuddered and dropped a couple of inches closer to the water. Mike’s voice rose over the thunderous roar of the river, a note of alarm clear in it.

  Spray drenched Franco’s face, getting in his eyes and making it hard to see where he was going. The branch shuddered again and a loud crack sheared through the sound of the roaring river. Franco hit the water hard. He grappled frantically to hold onto the branch but the torrent pummeled him and he was nearly swept away.

  Someone screamed his name but there was nothing he could do. He was fighting just to keep his head above water so he could breathe.

  A quick look around told him he’d already been washed quite a ways downstream. The boat tied on the opposite shore was much smaller than it had been when he’d entered the river.

  Gritting his teeth, he wrapped his arms around the branch, praying it would jam up against something soon and stop his downriver rush.

  The heavy wood slammed into his face and he saw stars. The world turned gray around the edges and Franco was only vaguely aware of the hammer-like pounding of liquid against his torso. Pain radiated up his leg, dragging him from his stupor. He shoved water out of his face and squinted around. The branch had jammed up against a small island of trapped wood and Franco’s foot had gotten caught on something beneath the surface. He carefully twisted his foot until it came free, and then belly crawled over the floating wood as best he could until he found himself in a small inlet, where the water was much calmer. He finally dragged himself free and flopped, panting and beaten to a pulp, onto the damp grass of the bank. He didn’t stay there long. Shoving to his feet, Franco tested his ankle. It nearly gave out beneath him when he put weight on it. “Just flippin’ great!”

  He yanked his shirt over his head and wrung it out, ripping off a sleeve. He wrapped the torn fabric tightly around his foot and ankle. Then he slipped the remains of his shirt back on, emptied a small amount of water out of his boots and wrung liquid from his pants as best he could. Finally, he cleared liquid from the rifle’s barrel and took off running, adrenalin making it easier than it should have been to ignore the pain in his ankle.

  As he neared the boat he slowed, diving behind a tree when he heard voices. He peered around the tree and saw two men standing beside an opening in the ground. The men dropped a hinged covering over the opening and started toward the river on a path that would take them directly past the tree where Franco hid. He prepared for an attack.

  A bird sang out and Franco halted.

  Mike.

  He let the two men pass, easing around the big tree as they went so they wouldn’t see him. Clearly Mike had seen Franco and he wanted a way across the river. If Franco took out the two men he’d have to take the boat back to his friends himself. There was no time for that. So he let Mike and Erik have the two “ants”.

  Hopefully they weren’t the biting kind.

  He moved quickly toward the spot where the men had been standing. He eyed the ground, unable to see the door at first.
They’d done a really good job of disguising it with moss and leaves and, if he hadn’t known it was there he’d probably have missed it.

  But the collection of cigarette butts around the opening gave it away.

  He grabbed a wooden handle that looked like a fallen stick and pulled it open a crack, listening for activity just inside. When he didn’t hear anything he opened the hatch enough to slip through and then, reaching out, snagged a real stick to jam under the door so his friends would be able to see it more easily.

  Then he hurried down the narrow set of concrete steps into a well-lit hallway with concrete block walls and bright white linoleum on the floors. The hall was long, with a couple of cross-passages and several doors on either side.

  It wasn’t going to be easy to find Nic. The only thing he knew for sure was that they wouldn’t put her anywhere near the exit. So clutching that knowledge close, Franco took off running as lightly as he could, determined to traverse the rabbit’s warren of passageways below the ground and find the woman he just realized he loved.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The lights flicked off and Nici gasped, her mind muzzy under the effects of the injection she’d received. Maybe she was imagining things.

  A moment later the lights flickered back on but they weren’t as bright as before.

  “Hello, Nicola.” The woman in the doorway lifted a pistol with an extra-long muzzle and fired at something hanging from the ceiling. The gun spat softly, clearly muffled by a suppressor, and the camera in the corner exploded into bits of plastic and glass.

  Apparently she wasn’t imagining things at all. Nici finally realized who the woman was. “Elena?”

  The other woman smiled. “I’m so glad to finally meet you, sis.” A sound beyond the door had her jerking her head around. “But we’ll have to get to know each other later. This place is all abuzz about something. I’m hoping that means Franc’s finally here.”

  Franc? Nici stood rooted to the spot, feeling heavy and dull. She shook her head, the idea that Elena could be talking about her Franco seemed strange. Then she remembered Franco had been her sister’s bodyguard before...well...before he’d accidently kidnapped Nici.