Behind the Mask (Undercover Associates Book 4)

by Carolyn Crane

  They pulled weapons, but they did it too late. Everybody was always too late. He put a knee through the first man’s face. The next man was trouble and they fought hard, taking some pain before he was able to break the man’s elbow; he did this with a loud crack, at which point they all agreed he could tie them up, and that was the end of it.

  “You took so long to react,” he told them in Spanish. He nodded at the one with the broken elbow. “You could’ve rolled and taken cover there, and I’d be dead.”

  Of course this wasn’t the kind of fighting they were trained for and yes, they were watching the road, but still. He nodded at the youngest. “You got a good shot off. A few inches lower…” He shrugged.

  The man with the broken elbow sucked in steady breaths, controlling the pain.

  Rio questioned the three of them.

  He learned they’d been sent by El Gorrion to watch the gringa, the maid. They believed she had become a target of Kabakas.

  The American farmer had driven off with the maid, trying to protect her from Kabakas, they said. Some of El Gorrion’s men were following them; these three were to stay.

  They seemed…inordinately frightened of him, as if they expected him to sprout demon horns.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  He made her drive.

  She understood. With her driving, he could keep his attention free, keep his weapon handy. She’d do the same if their positions were reversed.

  She was even more his captive now. But it was a relief to be fully herself. She wondered if it was a relief for him, too, to be fully himself.

  Even the way they’d fucked was different—more real, more powerful, once their masks were off.

  They’d be who they were for each other, if only for the space of this trip. She didn’t know what would happen after—she’d destroyed his trust in her. If only she could win it back.

  An hour in, they reached the populated valley area, sprawling lushly in the shadow of the this far corner of the Andes, road dotted with cinder block buildings, some painted in bright pastels, many with beautiful ironwork grates over windows and passageways. He directed her to stop at a roadside market and gave her money just before they exited the Jeep.

  “Clothes,” he said. He had her choose a new outfit. She went for an olive green shirt and jeans. Practical. They bought tamales and waters, too. She paid as he stood by, looking for all the world like the sullen boyfriend—not her jailer and would-be executioner with a gun in his pocket aimed at her heart.

  “I’m not going to run,” she said when they were back outside. “I’m on board for this mission.”

  “I think you might try,” he said. “You would not survive it, but you might try it.”

  He was so fierce with her, so angry with her.

  The rains had made the road muddy and nearly impassible; the Jeep bogged down over and over.

  They got stuck so deeply that Hugo had to get out and push. He didn’t say anything, just pulled his black gloves from the duffel bag and went back to push. “Pulse it.”

  She applied the gas, on and off, on and off. Like snowstorm driving.

  The gloves.

  He’d brought the gloves. But of course, they were the Kabakas gloves.

  The Jeep was out on the fifth go. She stopped it, waited for him to get in.

  “Did you hear the sound it made?” he asked, not commenting on her having stayed for him instead of speeding off and leaving him in the muck. How much more would it take to prove herself?

  “The sound isn’t good,” she said thoughtfully.

  “Just for amusement’s sake, how exactly did you imagine you’d bring me in?”

  “I don’t know. I could’ve sedated you,” she said.

  “With what? You had nothing.”

  “I’m a botanist,” she said. “You had a CIA botanist as your cook.”

  “Yet you didn’t move on me.”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “I wasn’t sure it was you.”

  “How could you not be sure?” he asked. “You were there on the airfield.”

  “I thought you were dead. Everybody did.”

  “You thought somebody else could throw like that?” He sounded almost insulted.

  “With a decade of practice? Maybe.”

  He snorted.

  “And you were using the cheap swords. And you had Paolo there.”

  “But afterward—” He fixed her with his gaze. “After the cabinet.”

  She turned to him. “What happened out on the Yacon fields? Leading up to that, you made sense—the people you worked for, the people you attacked. Not that I’m saying you were a good guy before, but…”

  “You have a critique of my performance before Yacon?”

  She glanced at the rearview mirror and changed lanes. “That truck has been back there a while.”

  “I know. Never quite catching up.”

  “A tail?” she asked. Were they being followed?

  He grunted. Nothing to do but go forward at this point.

  “You had so much goodwill,” she said. “And then the Yacon fields. What happened?”

  “You don’t have a theory?” His bitter tone hit her in the gut.

  “Tell me.”

  “Perhaps I woke up one day and decided to be evil.”

  She waited, desperate for him to say it hadn’t been him, in spite of the evidence. Stupid to feel disappointed. “Why?”

  “Do I need a reason?” he asked.

  “Yes. You’d need a reason.”

  He said nothing. She looked over at him, found him studying her face. “I used to wonder if it could be an impostor,” she said, “but Dark Kabakas was so skilled. You spent a lifetime building those skills; they were just too specific for somebody to develop so fast. The eyewitness was so credible.”

  “Do you know where he is now?” Hugo asked.

  She thought back. “He went to live with relatives in Bumcara after we questioned him.”

  He was silent for a long time. His words, when they came, sounded strange. “He never made it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You weren’t the only one looking to question him.”

  She turned to him. “You were after the survivor?”

  “He died soon after. His relatives became quite well off, however. A mysterious windfall.”

  Something turned upside down in her chest. She knew. She’d always known. “It wasn’t you.”

  His gaze was dark and steady. “No, corazón.”

  “He was paid off. It wasn’t you.” Hope bubbled in her chest, along with despair; how could she have disbelieved him? “I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged. “It was convincing. The staging. But if you’d studied the wounds—”

  “The scene was compromised too quickly for any real investigation. So many of the bodies taken away.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “An impostor,” she said. “I should’ve known.”

  His shrug didn’t cover his pain. It pained him that she’d thought it after spending that time together. “The scene was convincing.”

  “I should’ve known.”

  He said nothing. She felt like she’d betrayed him a second time.

  Ten miles farther, they hit another mud patch and this one grabbed the tire and didn’t let go, and Hugo and his gloves couldn’t push it out no matter how he tried. It didn’t help that there was another vehicle in the mud close ahead, so that they had to angle it while pushing. No matter. It was going nowhere. He came around to the side, pulling off his gloves, squinting at the terrain behind them. “And where is the truck now?”

  It was a good question. Not many places to turn off.

  “Change into your new clothes,” he said.

  “We’re walking?”

  “Until we find something better.” He shifted the pockets he held his weapons in and took the duffel bag over his shoulder. She grabbed the small pack and slung it over her shoulders. He handed
her a cap. “Your hair. Too memorable.”

  She nodded.

  “This is your prostitute look?”

  She put her hand to her hair. “My sister’s.”

  “Right. Your twin.”

  Her heart sank. “They know about her, too?”

  “Ruiz had a photo of the two of you as children.”

  She sighed. If word got back to Brujos and Mikos, Liza was in trouble all over again. She hoped Liza would be careful and stay off the grid like she’d promised.

  They walked fast; the sun was setting. It wouldn’t do to be on such a rural stretch of road at night.

  “I would think a photo of your sister is the least of your problems.”

  “I didn’t want her known. This whole thing, me masquerading as her, it was to get her out of trouble.”

  His voice was so low that it was a whisper. “It is you who are in trouble, señorita.”

  “I’m more ready for it,” she said, wondering again what he planned for her afterward. But she’d meant what she said—she was with him for the space of this operation. She would not go down a liar. She didn’t want to go down at all, but certainly not as a liar.

  She could feel his gaze on her. “The card game was real, then. The story you told.”

  She nodded.

  “You were willing to go in your sister’s place. Take what she had coming.”

  “She’s my twin sister, Hugo. I love her, and I wasn’t there for her enough. She’s not a bad person, but she got into bad shit.”

  “The track marks.”

  “Fake. On me, anyway. She’s not really a prostitute. Well, at her level, it’s ambiguous…it’s a flow of drugs and sex, and if one stops, the other does, so…yes, a prostitute. But she couldn’t have handled Brujos. It would’ve been the death of her.”

  He turned to her. “So you took her place.”

  “Yes.”

  “To rescue her.”

  “And get inside the Brujos cartel.”

  He looked away, nodded.

  It was stupid, but she needed him to believe her, to see that she had some nobility in her. But then, like an old familiar song starting up, she pictured Agent Randall’s dead eyes, and the suffocating guilt filled her chest. There was no being noble for her anymore. She’d caved. Caused his death. It could never be undone.

  They came to a crossroads at dusk and took the high road. Eventually, a bus came into sight.

  He gripped her arm and let her see the gun in his belt. “We’ll take that bus. I’ll kill you if you run. You understand that.”

  “I think you made that clear.”

  “Don’t think a busload of witnesses would stop me.”

  She shook away. “I said I’d stay with you to get the cure. I gave you my word.”

  He watched her eyes. She felt so far away from him now. And then the bus was there. The driver agreed to take them even though the bus was full. Zelda wasn’t sure whether it was the bribe he responded to or the threatening air that Hugo seemed to put on so easily, but they got on and sat in the aisle. It was horribly cramped. Zelda wanted to get off at the first small town, but Hugo insisted they stay on through to the next city. “It’s closer to our destination,” he said. “And there will be vehicles there—a far better selection.”

  She hunkered down, utterly exhausted. She’d hardly slept that night in the chair. Had he? His eyes always had that weary look, that slight fold under his inky lashes. She let her eyes drift closed.

  Sometime later—a minute, an hour, she didn’t know—she was jostled awake by a bump. She lifted her head from his shoulder and smiled drowsily at him, feeling happy to be near him, and then she remembered that they were enemies and she rubbed her eyes, like she was maybe just squinting. Had he guided her head to his shoulder? Kept her from rolling down onto the dirty floor as she slept?

  “Almost there,” he said softly.

  She nodded. Huddled together on the dirty floor in the middle of the crowded bus, she had the crazy feeling that they were in their own world.

  She felt as if she’d come back from a cliff. It wasn’t that he’d almost killed her—she’d been almost killed a lot of times. It was that she’d given in to death.

  It scared her that she’d done it.

  The bus bumped along, killing her butt bones as she replayed the night. The feel of the blade to her throat. Like she was already over the cliff. And then he’d crushed his lips onto hers, in defiance of the knife, in defiance of who she was, who he was, a kiss full of gravitational force.

  And God, the way he’d dug his fingers into her ass as he held her against him, moved her against him, kissing her, fucking her. Kabakas.

  She’d fucked Kabakas.

  Heat speared through her as she remembered him inside her. The way he’d felt. And the way he slammed her against the wall.

  The strength and emotion of him, like a mountain breaking open. I’ll say when and how I kill you.

  She didn’t want to die.

  She stood and peered out the windows, holding onto a seatback occupied by three sleepy young men. Students, from the look of them. Dawn, but still dark. A glow up ahead. She stayed standing, shaking out her legs, going up and down on her tippy-toes. As they drew nearer, she could see the lights were strung at the end of a corrugated metal overhang swarming with moths. Small clusters of empty chairs were arranged around plastic tables. The foliage had changed, too. More palms and breadfruit trees. Thicker underbrush. Valencia bordered the Amazon basin on this end. She settled back down.

  “Juachez is near,” he whispered.

  She nodded. Approaching the center of El Gorrion territory, then.

  “We’ll eat,” he said. “We’ll sleep.”

  Again she nodded.

  They stepped off the bus in the midst of an open-air shopping market near the edge of Juachez.

  They paused, forming an island of two as people streamed around them. Hugo adjusted the collar of her shirt; it would look like a fawning motion to anybody else, but he was watching the people, the street, and so was she. She smiled and moved a bit to give them new views. They were already working naturally together, both warriors of a sort.

  He dropped his dark gaze to hers, letting a finger slide along her jaw, trailing shivers. “So easy to forget the beautiful cat is lethal.”

  “What? I’m helping you. We’re working together.” But of course, her skills were threats, too.

  He hoisted the pack over his shoulder. “Come on.” He slung an arm around her shoulders and they set off like lovers exploring a city.

  They stopped at a café full of foreigners and headed as one to the just-right table, seating themselves at a dark bench along the wall. They didn’t even need to discuss it; when you were hunter and hunted, you saw the sight lines and the exit options.

  There were times, being with Hugo in this, that she felt her old confidence.

  It felt amazing.

  They sat and ordered. Beans, rice, eggs, and vegetables with hot aji sauce. The food was plain and good.

  He played with her hair as she finished her rice. “We need to dye this. There’s a farmacia up there. I want you with brown hair.”

  Her heart beat fast. She told herself he hadn’t meant it sexually. “Okay.”

  He slid his rough fingers to her chin.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Playing the dutiful boyfriend.” He picked up a last morsel of tomato from her plate. “We wouldn’t want people to think I’m a dark killer with his prisoner. Open,” he whispered.

  “You’re not a dark killer.”

  “Open.”

  “I can feed myself.”

  “Open, somebody’s watching.”

  “I don’t believe you.” But still she parted her lips.

  He slipped it in, pinning her with his eyes, letting his fingers stay inside her mouth, invading her.

  Unruly heat surged through her. She closed her lips over his fingers and sucked in his fingers, running her tongue around th
em.

  His only movement was a quick intake of breath.

  She was the one invading him, now. The trust and love and danger built thick between them; they were killer and prisoner, hammer and anvil, alive against each other. It was a dangerous game that they could play forever.

  “Zelda,” he growled, yanking out his fingers and forcing his attention back onto the crowd. She turned to get a better view, curling her feet under on the bench. He pulled her legs over his lap. He was such a natural partner. He pulled off a shoe and began to massage her foot. She tried to pull away, but he kept her.

  “Stop,” she said.

  “What?”

  “It doesn’t feel good. Just don’t.” She grabbed her shoe but he wouldn’t let go of her foot. He looked down at it now, running fingers over the angry scars between her toes, the mottled skin where the tips had been cut off. She closed her eyes, flooded with shame.

  “What happened?” he asked hoarsely. “Who did this?”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “Say more.” Hugo always wanted more. Always more.

  “He’s dead.”

  “You killed him?”

  “No. He died, that’s all.”

  “Say more.”

  She sighed and inspected the side of her shoe, knowing he wouldn’t stop pressing. “It happened while I was in the agency. Things don’t always go right.”

  He traced his finger to the last cut, the puncture between the Achilles tendon and the anklebone. He examined it, reading it. “It is good they did not continue with this trajectory. It would’ve hobbled you.”

  “Enough.” She pulled away her foot. “It’s over. Who was watching?”

  He looked thoughtful. She prayed he wouldn’t press. “It was just a prickle,” he said finally.

  She narrowed her eyes, playfully, as though he hadn’t touched her secret shame. “I’m not prickling.” She set her chin on his shoulder, surreptitiously scanning the crowd. “At all.”

  A trio of impoverished-looking Aussies sat next to them. They ordered a meal to share and gobbled it hungrily.