The Edge of Obsession

by Diana Muñoz Stewart

  What? Her mind shifted gears. “I can’t see how that would be possible.”

  “No one’s taken notice of you, your mission, or the fact you’re helping this woman? No one could be using her disappearance to lure you into anything?”

  Her brother was very perceptive, but Rosa hadn’t been taken to lure her. That was separate. “Of course not. I’m much too professional for that.”

  “What about your informant? Does he have a clue?”

  Dada’s eyes rose to Sion, standing behind the laptop, arms crossed, listening intently. Tony would not understand him. Not. At. All.

  “That’s a long pause, D. What’s going on?”

  Dada’s ire rose, unexpected and sharp. “I know how to handle an informant.” And she did. But Sion wasn’t an informant. Not anymore. He was her partner. “Can I have approval for Gracie to get tracking information from the phone?”

  Tony snorted. “Transmit it. I’ll take a look.”

  That would take too long. “If you’re afraid of Justice—”

  “Not only Justice. Momma’s nearly as determined to take out Walid, too, so, unless I want to lose my balls—hint, I don’t—nothing can risk the mission.”

  “I’m calling in my favor.”

  He veered back from the screen, eyebrows shooting to his hairline. “On this? You’ve been holding that shit over my head for eleven years.”

  “Which tells you how important this is to me.”

  Tony rubbed fingers back and forth across his forehead. “You’re getting emotional here. This is a mistake.”

  Although she felt bad and feared risking the mission as much as he did, she’d made a promise to every woman in that tomb. The man who’d hurt them would pay.

  “If you think that, if you think any emotional involvement should keep someone from the mission, then what about Justice? She’s chasing down the man who murdered her sister. I’m merely looking for a woman who’s gone missing.”

  And trying to take down the man who’d held her captive. But he didn’t need to know that.

  His hazel eyes closed for a moment. When they opened, they held cold frustration. “I’ve been blessed with some fucking nut-job sisters.”

  Chapter 22

  After all of the bargaining Dada had done with Tony, Gracie hadn’t been able to help out much. Armand’s GPS was incomplete, maybe due to occasional jamming. Gracie had been able to use this pattern of jamming to tell her that it was probably close to the restaurant and bar owned by Walid.

  Backup plan. Gracie had also been able to use her cyber skills to send Armand a message and make it look like the message had originated with one of the men who worked with him at Walid’s. The message was clear—Walid has found the bodies. He knows you are stealing from him.

  Now, all she had to do was wait for Armand to spook, decide to leave town and gather his belongs, one of which he would consider Rosa.

  Seated at the bar, she tensed as Armand, carrying a large leather satchel, neared. She leaned back, accidentally bumping him with her arm, securing the tracking device.

  Armand looked right at her and cursed, but didn’t slow. Shifting the weight of the padding for her disguise, she followed. The extra weight was cumbersome enough to make her exit obvious.

  She walked out into the warm night. It was drizzling.

  Armand looked back. His eyes swept over her. For all intents and purposes, she appeared to be a heavyset, older man with gray hair, large nose, and stooped shoulders.

  Pivoting fast, Armand began walking. Obviously agitated, cursing under his breath, he lit a cigarette.

  The sweet smoke hit Dada’s nose as she followed. Not a cigarette. All the better. Something stronger to soothe his frazzled nerves.

  Keeping track of him on her phone, her heart in her throat, she dropped far enough back that she could only see him through the reflection of a glass window across the street. She kept her distance as he doubled back, practiced surveillance detection, and finally slipped into what appeared to be a corner grocery store that had gone out of business a decade ago.

  Fingers flying over the keyboard, she texted Sion the address and told him—He went inside. Text Walid.

  Shrugging the weight that ached against her shoulders, she inched to the corner and watched.

  She couldn’t afford to wait for his response. Any delay might cost Rosa her life.

  Weapon in hand, she glided around the store with the painted black windows that were a universal signal that someone was hiding something.

  Dropping low, the extra weight pressing on her thighs, she squatted beside an HVAC, which was running, and quietly took off her disguise.

  She shook out her arms, picked the lock, and swung the door open. Rats scurried across a backroom that had been turned into a makeshift kitchen, with a folding table and some chairs.

  She swooped her light over pots and pans that seemed to have been left mid-dinner rush, along with an electric griddle with grease congealing across it, a series of plastic containers with food and numerous discarded beer bottles.

  She lifted her phone from her pocket and glanced at the screen. No Sion. And no signal. Gracie had been right. Armand employed a jamming device.

  Dada continued through the door toward the front of the grocery store. Rotten and blackened food in dark refrigerators lined the back wall. A rolling bucket with a mop sticking from the top sat in the middle of an aisle and cans of food covered in dust littered the ground. The Walking Dead had less creepy stores.

  There was another door leading to a stairwell—and that door was open. She heard voices and a chain rattling.

  Dada crouched, gun raised, and waited. She heard arguing. A woman screamed in terror and pain. Cold fury erupted and Dada rose and entered the door.

  A hair-raising scream and then, “Don’t touch me, you filthy pig!”

  Rosa.

  “How’s this for a touch?” A slap. “Or this?” Another, louder slap.

  Rosa cried out.

  Calm and focused, every step weighted and brought down with absolute quiet, she descended. The stairs were dark, enclosed by brick, hiding whatever lay beyond, but a light streamed from around the corner. At the bottom, she took a calming breath and sent a prayer that her abilities would be enough, that she would be quick enough. Gun raised, she pivoted around the corner and slid into the room.

  Armand had his back to her, fighting the woman on a floor of bloody, vile mattresses. Rosa. Beaten, chained to a pipe, Rosa fought Armand as he tried to unlock her. This was what had happened to all those women. This was what hatred did.

  Dada pointed her gun at Armand. “Leave her.”

  Armand froze. He dropped Rosa’s wrists and turned.

  For a moment, she could see Rosa. The young woman stared at her with sunken, tearful eyes. Dada’s stomach flipped. Sour bile rose into her mouth.

  Armand stepped in front of Rosa, blocking her from view. He smiled, a smile as cold and confident as any Dada had ever seen. “And here is my other whore.”

  Those words. Something tight rose in her chest. Every breath laced with the metallic odor of blood. Her heart pounded in her ears. “I’ll give you to three.”

  She raised her gun. “One.”

  Armand rushed at her. “Don’t you fucking count at me!”

  Everything happened at once.

  A sound from behind her, then Rosa screaming, “Behind!” while Armand rushed at her.

  Dada shot, hitting him in the chest.

  He jerked back and she pivoted.

  Then something slammed into the side of her head, knocking her out.

  #

  Sitting in his car blocks from the bar, Sion gripped his phone, willing it to deliver the information. But something must have gone wrong because the tracker Dada was supposed to put on Armand should have sent the guy’s location to his phone.

  But nothing.

  He’d texted her three times. No response. He punched in her number. His phone went blank. Dead. This was no coi
ncidence. Someone had messed with his phone. But who and when? Could Dada have tried to protect him…

  No. She trusted him as he trusted her. Bugger. The thought of Dada facing down a man who had tortured her as a child sent him into a blind panic.

  He reached into his cup holder, pulled out the cell that Dada had given him for emergency use only, and dialed the one number she’d programmed into it.

  A man answered. “Who the fuck is this?”

  “Hi, Tony, mate, this is Juan. Da—” Fuck. “Dee’s informant. I need your help.”

  “What’s going on?”

  He filled him in. As he spoke, he could hear the man covering the phone, talking to someone else.

  “Hold,” Tony said, “we’re checking her GPS.”

  Sion pressed the phone to his ear, trying to hear behind the muffled sound.

  “I don’t fucking care!” Tony yelled to someone. “Fuck protocols. Give me the information.”

  A split second later, he was back. “Juan?”

  “Here.”

  “Last known has her a dozen blocks from where you are now.”

  How did he know where he was?

  “Her signal winks out. Seems like she went into a building with jamming. I’ve sent the address.”

  The phone beeped. Sion looked down, expecting to have to locate the text message on this unfamiliar phone, but what appeared was a map with a blinking red dot. Sion was that dot. How the fuck?

  Sion turned over his car, spun around, and drove.

  “Juan?”

  Oh, bugger. He put the cell back to his ear. “Got it.”

  “Do you have a gun?”

  Sion’s shoulders drew in. “Aye. Dee left one in the glove compartment.”

  “You don’t sound super confident.”

  “Never shot a gun before.”

  A pause. “What kind of weapon? I can walk you—”

  “No, mate. She’s given me instructions before, and you’re not going to make me an expert in—” he looked at his phone “—eight minutes. I’ve got to get to her.”

  “Call when you have her safe.”

  He hung up. Call when you have her safe. Made it seem inevitable. It felt anything but.

  Sion followed the map on the cell, glancing at the glove compartment. Fuck.

  Ten minutes later, he parked his car outside an abandoned corner grocery. He reached into the glove box. The weight of the weapon in his hand was immense. He hated guns. Hated the idea of doing to any human body what had been done to his.

  Flicking off the safety, he got out of the car. The grocery store wasn’t the only abused looking building. Not a lot going on in the neighborhood.

  He heard a gunshot. Sion’s heart pounded and his feet moved fast around the corner.

  He hadn’t run full-out run since his injury. He lifted like a madman, cross-trained like a freak, but run? Hurt his soul as much as his leg. Hadn’t even been sure those muscles still worked.

  Luckily, they did.

  He entered the alley behind the store, not as graceful as he’d been—not by a long shot—but still quick. Reaching the open door, he realized he had another problem. He needed to not just be quick, he needed to be quiet. Fucking leg.

  #

  Vision blurry, head aching, Dada opened her eyes and saw Armand’s dead body feet from her. And feet from him, arms drawn around her knees, Rosa sat crying.

  She searched for her gun. Something tugged on her leg and clanked. Someone had chained her to the wall. Hands shaking, she grasped the metal and yanked.

  “Good. You’re awake,” a familiar voice said.

  Dada rolled. For a moment her heart jumped with excitement. “Geraldo? Thank God!”

  Geraldo laughed. “I wouldn’t be so quick to thank Him.”

  His voice. It sounded different. Clear.

  “You don’t have a brain injury.”

  “Nope. None.”

  “You work with Armand.”

  “Yep.”

  She saw it then, what her mind and time had not allowed her to see, even when Sister Angelica had come out and told her Geraldo wasn’t who he seemed. She’d forgotten the child. “You’re his brother.”

  “Yes. Our mother went to prison after your letters alerted the authorities. My brother ran away with me and came here. You stole my life.”

  All the pieces fell into place. Armand had never been acting alone. His mother had gone to jail, and he had taken his younger brother and gone to Mexico. He’d given that brother to an older woman, and the whole time had fed him the same poison that was in his mind. He’d made another like himself.

  “You killed her,” Dada said. “Your fiancée. Comandante Javier had been right.”

  Geraldo moved from the shadows, holding Dada’s gun. “He was getting ready to arrest me, so I made a plan to throw Javier and everyone off the trail. Armand was against it at first because he wanted me to leave the city. But I convinced him it could work.” Geraldo tensed, looked over at Armand’s body. “I think he enjoyed it, beating me. Nearly killed me, but it worked, and no one questioned me after that. A man who had nearly died looking for his fiancée. Someone with a brain injury who was in the hospital for months recovering.”

  “You are two monsters,” Rosa said and spat on the ground.

  He shifted the gun toward her. “The one who lives decides the history, and I see two whores and a dead man who will make a perfect scapegoat.”

  A whisper of sound came from the stairs as a shadow slipped across the floor.

  Geraldo’s eyes widened and he spun around.

  Sion’s blow slammed against his skull.

  Geraldo staggered and slipped to his knees. Blood poured from his skull. His face a mask of fury, he rolled onto his back and lifted his gun.

  In a boxer’s stance, feet shoulder-width apart, broad forearms straight out, head level, balance maintained, Sion directed his gun at Geraldo.

  Dada gasped. He wouldn’t shoot. He would be shot instead.

  With a cry that was part wounded animal and part avenging demon, Sion fired.

  The bam, bam, bam filled the room. Dada’s ears rang. The smell of gunpowder clung to her. She stared in horror as Geraldo grabbed at his stomach, groaning in pain.

  Sion slid the weapon Geraldo had dropped away, removed a set of keys hanging from his tool belt, and rushed to Dada.

  He put a hand on her face. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. Help Rosa.”

  After unlocking her, Sion slid over to Rosa. He hissed upon seeing the raw skin under the chain that attached her to the wall. “This might hurt.”

  “Please hurry and release me,” she said, staring at Geraldo, who moaned on the floor.

  Blood leaked from his stomach and spread across the cement, joining with the blood of his brother.

  Dada knelt at his side, her knees in his blood. “Lift your hands, and let me see the wound.”

  “Stay away.” Geraldo’s bloodied hands swung at her. He responded now as was his conditioning—a lifetime of using anger and force—he just expected both to keep working.

  But he was harmless in the end.

  “You did this to me,” Geraldo said. His hands pressed against his wound, sending more blood gushing through his fingers. “Destroyed my… home, my… life. Armand told me the truth. If not for you, the letters, my mother would be alive. And you’d be dead.”

  Cold washed down her body. “Did you expect me to stay silent? Did you expect me to take the abuse, so that you could go on as you were?”

  At her words, Geraldo lashed out with his big, clumsy blood-drenched hands. “I did nothing! It was not me!!”

  No. It wasn’t. He had been a child when his mother had kept Dada prisoner, but he had learned the same lessons his mother had taught Armand.

  Geraldo’s fists flailed ineffectively, weapons deprived of their power. Dada felt only pity for him. This dying man who, even now, could not see that his benefitting from a system that had imprisoned her was wrong. To hi
s mind, her refusing to be held prisoner, refusing a life where she was raped, had cost him. That was all that mattered.

  Her mind worked over these thoughts, but her eyes skimmed him. He was bleeding out. There was nothing that could be done. And nothing she could say would matter to him, make an ounce of difference. But she could do something, offer something.

  Tears streaked his face. He grabbed his bleeding stomach. He cried for his mother, blubbered like an infant denied milk.

  Dada placed a hand on his head. This was not her son, but could it have been? They were nearly the same age. If her son had lived and she had died. If her son had been given to Armand. If Armand had brought him here, trained his thoughts, his entitlement, his need to be placed above others, his grievances.

  Warped by whatever emotional and physical complexities went into creating a stunted human, but still, this man was human.

  And she knew what it was to grow cold on the floor of a building, to feel life slipping away. “Shhh,” she soothed. “You are safe. It is okay.”

  His eyes widened, rolled to her. He saw her. For a moment something clear and defenseless and peaceful filled his eyes. “It hurts,” he said.

  Closing his eyes, he let out a long breath and went silent.

  Chapter 23

  Back in her room at the convent, aching head propped on a pillow against her headboard, Dada stared into her brother’s eyes. He was seated on a wooden chair by her bed, looking agitated and worried.

  Worried enough that, after a call from Sion, he had arranged to come to Mexico.

  “I’m pulling you out,” Tony said.

  Shaking her head caused Dada’s stomach to turn. She pressed the bandage covering her head wound. “You’re overreacting.”

  “The fuck I am. Your cover is blown.”

  “No, it’s not. Juan covered for me, and he told the police that he’d followed Geraldo because he’d been acting suspiciously. He even covered for Walid, earning him an in with the man. We have more access to the traffickers now than before.”

  “I don’t give a shit about how you covered your tracks. I fucking asked you if someone could be setting a trap.”