by Cindy Dees
It could not possibly be good to have drawn the man’s attention in this way, particularly by displaying some of the extremely specialized skills he’d acquired as a member of the Blackjacks. He had to get out of here. The sooner the better.
The phone on the desk bussed briefly to indicate an incoming call. Eduardo glanced down at the digital caller I.D. and swore. “I have to take this. We’ll talk later.”
Saved by the bell. Thank God.
Joe stood. “It’s just as well. Even though I’m digging this father-son bonding thing, I gotta split, man. I gotta get back to Cari and calm her down. She was pretty freaked out by the, uh, altercation.”
“She’ll get over it,” Eduardo replied carelessly. “If you see Gunter on your way out, send him in here.”
Joe had to work at not clenching his jaw at the callous tone from Cari’s own father. He stepped into the hallway and practically ran into Gunter, who looked to be heading for Ferrare’s office already.
“Hey! Just the guy I was looking for,” Joe said jovially. “The boss man wants to talk to you. But he’s on the phone right now.” Message delivered, he headed straight for the stairs and his overwrought wife.
Gunter watched Joe go. Good-looking young man. A lot smarter than he acted. He could see why Cari was head over heels for him. The good news was Joe seemed to feel the same way about her, too. Lord knew, she deserved a little happiness after growing up in this hellhole.
He shook himself out of his reverie and stepped into Eduardo’s office. “You wanted to see me, sir?”
Eduardo gestured for him to close the door and waved him into one of the chairs in front of his desk. He waited out Eduardo’s call, and then his boss asked, “What do you make of the shenanigans by the pool?”
“I think Rico’s damned lucky to be alive right now.”
“Joe handled him pretty easily, didn’t he?”
Gunter snorted. “He owned Rico. Could’ve disarmed Rico and slit the idiot’s throat anytime he wanted to.”
Eduardo’s eyes narrowed.
If Gunter wasn’t mistaken— and he usually wasn’t—his boss was working his way into a cold, killing rage. Those were the worst ones of all. When Eduardo shouted and broke things, one or two people bought the farm and then he was appeased. But when Eduardo went ice-cold like this, Gunter had seen dozens of people die before Eduardo’s rage was assuaged.
Had the fight between Rico and Joe set him off? Why in the world would that make him this angry? Rico would die slowly and painfully and Joe…
Hmm. That was a conundrum now, wasn’t it? Did Eduardo dare kill Cari’s husband? Especially because she was so obviously besotted with him. Eduardo’s hold over his daughter was tenuous at best these days, and the old man knew it. If he killed Joe, Eduardo would, without question, lose Cari.
He’d already lost Julia and, in doing so, had nearly lost his crime empire. Despite the outward appearances of normalcy around here, Eduardo’s elder daughter had taken off with almost every bit of cash in the till. Ferrare was quietly selling art pieces and vacation homes to raise enough operating capital to keep his business afloat.
Desperate men did desperate things. Eduardo’s next move could be absolutely anything. Literally. There was nothing Gunter wouldn’t put past his boss to do.
His gut twisted with a need to protect Cari from whatever came next. If she really cared for Joe and, more importantly, if Joe really cared for her, she’d earned a shot at true love with him. The poor girl had had precious little of that in her life.
“Take a look at this.” Eduardo pulled a folder off the top of a small stack of files sitting in the middle of his desk and pushed it across the glass surface.
Gunter frowned and picked it up. Opened it. Scanned through its rather meager contents.
Joseph Rodriguez, nicknamed Doc. Member of the Blackjacks since…
Gunter did the math in his head. Almost ten years.
Native Spanish speaker, field medic. Height: Six feet two inches. Weight: 180 pounds. Black hair, dark-brown eyes, olive complexion. Current location: Unknown. Subject working an undercover assignment at an undisclosed location. Single, never married. Home address…
Gunter frowned. He didn’t like this. Didn’t like this at all. His gut was fluttering with one of those unpleasant intuitions that never presaged anything good.
Eduardo’s voice was positively silky. “Sound like anyone we know?”
Gunter closed his eyes. Opened them. And nothing but a continuous string of curses came to his mind. The bastard had used Cari to get to her father. It had been an act all along. Cold, killing rage of his own began to bubble up in his gut. Finally, he was able to collect himself enough to mutter, “Are you absolutely sure? It’ll kill her, you know.”
Eduardo bellowed, “It’ll get me killed! The viper is nestled within my very bosom!”
Poor Cari. Poor, poor Cari. She was going to die when her father killed the one man she’d thought really loved her. The one man who’d cravenly and completely betrayed her. If he had betrayed her.
Gunter leaned forward. “You’ve got to be dead sure before you do anything,” he admonished desperately. “For Cari’s sake.”
“To hell with Cari,” Eduardo snarled.
Gunter leaped to his feet. He had to get through Eduardo’s rage. Make him hear reason. The man couldn’t go off half-cocked here and just start killing without verifying the facts. It was too important to the young woman crying her eyes out in her maid’s room in the servants’ quarters right now.
That was where he’d been when the summons had come from Eduardo. He’d been standing around like a damn fool, being generally useless while he tried to figure out some way to comfort Cari. The maids kept murmuring about love hurting and how all men were dogs. He didn’t see how that was going to do any good. He needed Cari to tell him exactly what Joe had done to upset her. Then he could go pound some sense into her young man and fix her pain. Action. He needed to do something to make it better.
Meanwhile, here was her father not giving a tinker’s damn about her and talking himself into destroying what might be the one bright and shining light in her life. Gunter gritted his teeth. He mustn’t let Eduardo do anything disastrous.
He took a deep, calming breath and ground out, “Cari’s all you’ve got left. Make the damned call. It’ll take you two minutes to talk to your mole and find out where this Rodriguez guy is operating at the moment. And then we’ll know for sure.”
Eduardo’s eyes narrowed. He glared at the interference from his number one lieutenant.
Gunter watched his employer gather himself with difficulty. He’d never taken well to anyone contradicting him, and it was a tribute to Gunter’s decades of unswervingly loyal service that Eduardo didn’t pull the pistol out of his drawer and shoot him on the spot. Hell, Gunter was almost more surprised that Eduardo didn’t do it.
“Fine,” Eduardo snapped. “I’ll verify the fucking information. Are you satisfied?”
Gunter subsided in his chair. “Yes, sir. And if it turns out he’s in the Blackjacks, I’ll kill him for you myself.”
That garnered a brief flash of Eduardo’s teeth that was more snarl than smile. “If he’s a Blackjack, I’ll kill him myself. After I make him suffer a great deal.”
Gunter watched apprehensively as Eduardo pulled out his address book and dialed a phone number with great deliberation.
“Hello, it’s me. I need you to get me a piece of information immediately. Yes, now. Where is Joe Rodriguez working undercover at this very moment?”
Gunter waited in suspense so thick he thought it might choke him.
“Then find out!” Eduardo shouted into the phone. “This is life or death! I’ll give you fifty-thousand-dollars if you get the information within the next hour. If you don’t get me an answer by midnight tonight, I’ll kill you. Understood?”
Gunter winced. He’d taught the old silver-or-lead trick to Eduardo himself. Bribe the informants handsomely, but kill the
m if they don’t produce.
Eduardo slammed down the phone. “Now we wait, my old friend.”
Gunter stared at his boss in dismay. Now they waited, indeed.
Chapter Sixteen
Cari’s feet dragged as she headed reluctantly for dinner. She didn’t want to face either her father or Joe right now. But Gunter had been clear when he’d fetched her out of hiding in the servants’ quarters. Tonight’s meal was a command performance. Her eyes narrowed bitterly. Performance being the operative word. She would be expected to paint on a cheerful face, to act as if everything was okay when her mind was in turmoil, her heart in an uproar.
She needed straight talk from Joe. Honesty. Answers. Who was he? What was he really here to do? And, most importantly, how did he really feel about her?
While she was busy stewing over such things, she might as well stew over how she really felt about him. Her primary reaction to the knife fight had been pure, unadulterated panic that Joe would be hurt or even killed. That thought still sent her heart up into her throat and made her palms clammy with the cold sweat of terror. It had even crossed her mind to jump into the fight and throw herself on Rico’s knife to save Joe. She closed her eyes on pain so sharp at the thought of losing Joe that a knife might as well have slipped between her ribs.
He kept telling her she had no idea what love was. But dammit, if being willing to sacrifice herself to keep him safe wasn’t love, she gave up. Whether she liked it or not—and whether he liked it or not—she loved Joe whatever-his-name-was.
No matter that he was capable of explosive violence. No matter whether he did the things he did in the name of serving his country or to advance his own nefarious ambitions. It made no difference whatsoever to her heart. And, frankly, that scared the hell out of her.
She’d loved her father through all of the atrocities he’d committed. Was she repeating the same colossal mistake? Was she simply blind when it came to the men she loved?
And maybe that was her answer. Maybe love was, indeed, blind. She’d told Joe before that the heart loves where it wills. Maybe she should just follow her heart in spite of her concerns over Joe’s alignment with the law.
And maybe she was working too damned hard to justify why she ought to give herself permission to love Joe. Maybe if she would just stop analyzing for a second, she would look herself square in the eye and admit that all these arguments were moot. She loved him. End of discussion.
The real question was what to do about it.
Did she dare pursue a relationship with him? Was she stepping out from between Eduardo and Julia’s feud only to land in the middle of a private war between Eduardo and Joe? Would she live a life of fear, waiting at home alone for an ominous knock on the door from a stranger to tell her Joe had died?
Overthinking again, dammit.
If she’d learned nothing else growing up around her volatile father and the deadly world he lived in, it was to take each day as it came. To enjoy the richness of the moment at hand and not dwell on a past that couldn’t be changed or a future that might or might not ever arrive.
Sure, a future with Joe would have its uncertainties. If he was in the Blackjacks, she would have to wait out the long absences that came with the job. If he was a wannabe crime lord…
Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.
But deep inside, Cari was certain Joe was no criminal. He was one of the good guys, and her father—as much as she loved him—was definitely one of the bad guys. Joe had put Rico back together; Eduardo would have fed him to the sharks.
It occurred to her that this was what unconditional love was all about. Loving someone no matter what he did or who he was. Like her father. Like Joe. But loving them didn’t mean you had to like them or respect them or be loyal to them. Those things had to be earned. And from everything Cari had seen, Joe had earned them, her father had not. In fact, except for the part of her that loved Eduardo, she loathed and hated him and was filled with despair so black and deep she didn’t know if she would ever find the bottom of it.
Until she’d met Joe.
He’d pulled her back from the edge of self-destruction. And he’d been kind to her. Decent. Honorable. She loved Joe, and not knowing the identity of whom he worked for made no difference. At all.
Never in a million years would she have guessed she would meet a man she could love enough to accept no matter what he did or who he was. So this was what unconditional love was all about. She’d heard people talk about it, but now she finally grasped what they were talking about. Go figure.
She reached the bottom of the sweeping staircase and headed for the dining room, her heart immeasurably lighter at having made peace with her feelings for Joe and her father.
The long table was full tonight. Eduardo was already seated at the head of the table. The place on his right was empty, presumably for her. Joe sat at Eduardo’s left. Gunter sat in the seat to the right of hers, and the rest of the table was lined with Eduardo’s primary lieutenants.
She frowned. Was this going to be a working supper? She couldn’t believe her father planned to talk business in front of Joe. Had the way Joe handled himself today made that big an impression on her father? Had Joe passed some sort of unspoken test out there by the pool?
Cautiously, Cari sat down at the table. One of the maids placed a salad in front of her and she picked up her fork.
She looked up at Joe, who was staring fixedly at her, clearly trying to figure out her mood. She smiled shyly at him, glad she didn’t have to talk to him just yet. Even if they had been alone, without a camera or bug in sight, she wouldn’t have known where to begin. It wasn’t like she could just blurt out a proposal to him; they were already married.
Joe smiled back, more with his eyes than any change of facial expression, but it was enough. His gaze spoke volumes to her, silently communicating that they were still okay, that he cared for her in spite of her earlier outburst, that he forgave her for her doubts and hoped she forgave him for the fight and for scaring her.
Her gaze softened even more and she let her eyes fill with all the love she was feeling for him.
His eyes widened in turn, and then a full-blown smile broke across his face.
Jubilation erupted in her belly. She didn’t need words to know he loved her back. No man could look at a woman like that and not be in love with her.
Sudden, overwhelming impatience to get out of there, to be alone with him, to tell him everything in her heart overcame her. She ate faster, speeding the moment when they could make their exit, go upstairs and fall into each other’s arms.
The candles flickering down the length of the table seemed to burn brighter, and the food even tasted better. Everything was going to turn out right. They might just get a shot at happily ever after together.
Even Eduardo was in a jovial mood tonight. He talked and joked with his men freely. Over the platters of fresh fruit the maids carried out next, he even told a couple of stories about his boyhood in the streets of Gavarone. The moral of his misspent youth usually had to do with needing to be tough and smart to survive, and tonight was no different.
A plate of succulent prime rib was placed before her, and she cut into it with relish.
“Cari.”
She looked up, surprised at her father.
“I got you something for your help at my meeting yesterday. You earned it. Vasily said he’s looking forward to doing business with me again and is especially looking forward to getting to know you better. I apologized for your hasty retreat last night but assured him you’d be more accommodating next time.”
She froze, the smile on her face as rigid and fragile as hand-blown glass. Disbelief at what Eduardo was saying swept over her. He was blatantly trying to pay her off to sleep with that disgusting pervert. And he had the gall to do it in front of her husband! What a gigantic… She couldn’t think of a horrible-enough word to describe Eduardo. And, oh God, Joe. What must he be thinking? She couldn’t bring herself to look over a
t him, afraid that if he saw the panic in her eyes, he would attack Eduardo on the spot.
Eduardo reached carelessly into his sports coat and pulled out a long, flat jeweler’s box. He set it on the table beside Cari’s plate. “I guess you can still be of some use to me.”
Her face felt hot. Surely, the mask of ice would melt off any second and she would be able to move again. To open her mouth and scream her outrage at this humiliation. The only thing that kept her in one piece was the knowledge that soon she and Joe would be out of there, and her father would have no more control over her life.
“Open it,” her father snapped. “It cost a lot. You should at least look at the damned thing.”
Woodenly, she reached out and picked up the box. She lifted the lid. Inside lay a necklace made of twin slashes of gold, each nearly as long as her finger. They crossed asymmetrically in the middle. From one of them hung a row of teardrop-shaped ruby pendants that increased in size until the final thumbnail-size drop, which trembled from the very tip of the golden rod.
How very appropriate. The rubies looked just like drops of blood hanging off a big stick.
Blood money.
How many times had she accepted gifts like this from her father and thought that they were a sign of his esteem for her? How many times had she misinterpreted these bribes as a show of affection? Why was it that only now she finally saw them for what they really were—payoffs for silence kept or services rendered? It made her ill to even look at the row of red droplets.
“Well?” Eduardo demanded.
She closed the lid carefully. Set the box back down on the table. Pushed it away from her toward her father’s plate. “I can’t accept it.”
“Why the hell not?” Eduardo’s eyes narrowed in displeasure.
“I’m not planning to earn it.”
Eduardo stopped eating. Stared. And his brows drew together like twin thunderheads. Daddy didn’t like it when people didn’t fall in line like they were supposed to. “You’ll change your mind,” he said confidently before picking up his fork again.