Destiny Mine (Tormentor Mine Book 3)

by Anna Zaires

  Still, I can’t stop myself from wanting it.

  From wanting him and everything he is.

  “I’m just not ready, Mom,” I tell her and get up to pour myself more coffee. “Please understand. I’m still in love with Peter, and when it’s all resolved, he will be back. You’ll see.”

  And with that, I change the topic, launching into a story about my latest performance with my band.

  It’s better than continuing to lie. Nothing will ever be resolved because there is no misunderstanding.

  Peter is a criminal, and when he returns, it will be to take me with him.

  To take me away for good.

  36

  Peter

  I spend the night in the shed where Esguerra keeps his prisoners, with one ankle chained to the metal ring in the middle of the floor.

  “Just a precaution,” Kent explained when the guards locked the chain in place. “Not that we don’t trust you…”

  “Right.” The chain is about two meters long, which means I can lie down on the cot the guards dragged into the shed. So all in all, it’s not that bad. I’d obviously rather not be chained, but considering what I just saw Esguerra do to the pediatrician, I’m not complaining.

  It’ll take a while to get the woman’s screams out of my mind.

  She cracked instantly, pretty much as soon as the Esguerras, accompanied by me and the guards, entered her room. I don’t know what she expected—to win brownie points for her honesty?—but she admitted her guilt right away, profusely apologizing to both Esguerra and his wife, swearing that she meant no real harm, that she didn’t really know them or Lizzie when she took the bribe.

  It’s like she thought that once she confessed, all would be forgiven and forgotten, that being fired without a reference was the worst that could happen to her.

  Maybe because I watched Esguerra literally fillet the idiot when Nora left to feed the baby, or maybe because I’m so close to my goal, but my sleep is again restless, filled with nightmares. Twice, I dream of finding my son’s body in a pile of corpses, and at least twice more, that body turns out to be Sara’s.

  Still, by morning, I’m bleary-eyed but cautiously optimistic. The fact that I’m still alive is encouraging—a sign that Esguerra might stick to his side of the bargain. There are no guarantees, of course, but I suspect Nora has a fair amount of sway with her husband these days—plus, he owes me for the pediatrician.

  In any case, I’m not surprised when Esguerra and Kent show up together to unchain me.

  “What’s your plan?” Esguerra asks as Kent unlocks the manacle around my ankle. “How are you going to get to him? You realize that the moment you show up without Nora and the baby in tow, he’ll know you double-crossed him. That, or you failed—either way, he won’t be pleased.”

  I take a deep breath. Here comes another tricky part. “Yes. I’ve considered that. And that’s why I need to borrow your wife for this part of the operation. She’ll be in no—”

  “Absolutely not.” Esguerra’s jaw muscles twitch. “Nora is not stepping a foot off this compound.”

  Disappointing but not unexpected. “Okay, then do you think you can find somebody who looks like Nora? At least a little bit?”

  Esguerra frowns, and I sense he’s about to say no when Kent says, “There’s no one on the estate, but I can have the guards scour the nearby settlements for a potential candidate. It shouldn’t be that hard to find a dark-haired girl about Nora’s size. Her coloring is not exactly unusual in these parts.”

  That’s true. If we needed a body double for Kent’s blond, blue-eyed wife, we’d be in trouble, but Nora is part Mexican, with dark eyes and a tan complexion. “You might want to look for someone really young,” I suggest. “Maybe a schoolgirl of some kind, to match Nora’s build. Like I started to tell you, she won’t be in any danger—I just need Novak to find out that I got off the plane with a woman resembling Nora and her infant in tow. A doll will do for the latter; the girl will just need to keep it wrapped up tight.”

  Kent looks at Esguerra, and he nods. “Do it. And if possible, find an infant as well—we don’t want this to fall apart over a doll.”

  I open my mouth to refuse, but then I decide against it.

  I didn’t lie about the lack of danger to “Nora,” so we might as well use an actual child.

  Whatever it takes to bait the trap and end Novak for good.

  Eight hours later, I leave the compound on foot, armed with an M16 that I “stole” from a guard, and with a terrified sixteen-year-old and her two-month-old sister in tow. The girls’ family will be well compensated for their acting gig, but the prospect of pretty clothes and tuition money for college is not enough to keep the sixteen-year-old calm.

  She’s scared out of her mind, and that’s perfect.

  The real Nora would be as well.

  Kent’s guards found a teenager who resembles Mrs. Esguerra to an uncanny degree—at least from the back and side. From the front, the girl’s face is rounder, with a thicker nose and smaller, deep-set eyes, so we used makeup to disguise those features.

  Thanks to skillfully applied eyeshadow, blush, lipstick, and dark-toned foundation, Nora’s doppelgänger now sports two black eyes, a split lip, and several yellowish bruises that disguise the childish fullness of her cheeks.

  She speaks a little bit of English too, but her accent is thick, so we told her not to talk under any circumstances. “You can either cry or be silent,” Esguerra instructed her, and the girl nodded, chin quivering.

  “Sí, señor. I be silent.”

  So far, she’s kept her word. We’ve been trudging through the jungle for over two hours, with her holding her screaming baby sister the entire time, and she hasn’t uttered a single complaint—though there’s much to complain about.

  It hasn’t rained today yet, and the humid heat is stifling, the air so thick it feels like a wet blanket on the skin. We had the girl put on one of Nora’s usual outfits—a casual white sundress and a pair of flat sandals—and I can see the painful welts on her feet where she stepped into an ant pile a couple of miles back. We’re both dripping with sweat, and tiny gnats buzz all around us, biting every centimeter of exposed flesh.

  This is sheer misery, and that’s a good thing.

  It looks more authentic that way.

  After another torturous hour, we meet up with my guys at the designated rendezvous point. I can see the shock on their faces as I push the girl forward, with the crying infant clutched tightly against her chest.

  “You made it out.” Yan’s disbelieving gaze swings from me to my hostage and back. “You actually fucking did it.”

  “Yep. Wasn’t easy, but here we are.”

  My Nora substitute remains silent, giving a good imitation of a traumatized, terrified captive. Her waterproof makeup smeared a little during our journey, but she still looks believably bruised and beaten, her dark gaze dulled by dehydration and exhaustion. None of my guys have seen the real Mrs. Esguerra, only pictures of her, so they have no reason to doubt her authenticity.

  The “bruises” are doing their job.

  The baby keeps crying, and I make a mental note to give her the bottle of formula I had my guys purchase for the plane, just in case “Nora” had trouble breastfeeding. We got diapers on the plane, too, along with other baby paraphernalia.

  “Is he dead?” Anton asks in Russian, and I nod, glancing at the girl as though concerned about her reaction.

  “Yeah, I got the bastard. She might not know that yet, though, so keep it on the down low. She fought like a witch for that baby as is.”

  Ilya looks disgusted but doesn’t say anything as we head for the plane. He doesn’t like what I’m doing, and I can’t blame him. Stealing a newborn and her newly post-partum mother feels wrong, even to remorseless killers like us. And that’s exactly what I’m counting on. The subtle disapproval emanating from my men will give this operation the authentic edge it needs.

  I want Novak to feel the discord amo
ng us.

  I want him to sense the reluctance of my guys to hand over a traumatized young woman and her baby into his cruel, greedy grasp.

  37

  Peter

  I give the formula to the girl as soon as we’re on the plane, and she feeds her baby sister, shooting frightened looks at us the entire time. She’s overdoing it a bit—the real Mrs. Esguerra wouldn’t let her fear show—but since my guys don’t know Nora and everything she’s been through, it works.

  “How did you do it?” Yan asks quietly when the baby finally falls asleep and the girl has calmed down enough to look out the window instead of at the couch where I’m sitting with the twins. “How did you get Esguerra?”

  “I shot him.” My reply is curt and matter-of-fact, but I’m not going to make up an elaborate story for this. “Blew his head off.”

  “Did you get the proof?” Ilya asks, frowning. “Because Novak will need—”

  “Here.” I pull out a phone that I also “stole” from a guard and show a picture of a dark-haired man lying sprawled on the ground in a pool of blood. Half of his skull appears to be missing, but the other half is unmistakably Esguerra.

  It took an hour to get a shot that good; for all his male-model looks, my former employer sucks at posing.

  Yan looks at me, then at the picture and back at me. I stare back at him stonily. Can he tell that the “blood” is ketchup mixed with a lot of dirt, or that the missing half of the skull is Nora’s skilled Photoshopping? I know the picture is fake, so it’s hard for me to be objective.

  To my relief, Yan hands the phone back to me without saying anything, and Ilya turns away, focusing on transferring the bribe to the Serbian air controller’s private bank account in Switzerland. It’s how we get in and out of that country—and many others, US included.

  It’s tempting to talk to my guys and tell them the real plan, but I refrain. I can’t take the risk that they might balk at the last minute. We’ve built a lucrative business on the strength of our reputation, and what I’m about to do—double-cross a paying client—more or less ensures there will be no further job offers.

  We’ve talked about retiring one day, but I don’t know if they’re ready for that day to be now.

  In any case, if all goes well, my team won’t suffer financially. In addition to Novak’s hundred million—half of which is already in our bank accounts—we’ll have the seventy-five-million payment from Esguerra. Even if we don’t get the other half from Novak before I nab him, we’ll have enough for the rest of our lives.

  All we need is to get through this.

  A few more days, and I’ll have Sara.

  I can’t fucking wait.

  Ilya and I meet Novak in his warehouse just outside Belgrade—as per his request. As usual, he arrives with a full contingent of mercenaries and enough firepower to level a small building.

  “Where are they?” he demands as soon as he sees us standing there. “You said you had them. Where are they?”

  “Safe and secure with my team,” I say and pull out the guard’s phone to show him the photos we took an hour ago. They’re of the surrogate Nora and her infant, surrounded by my men and looking all bruised and fragile.

  He snatches the phone from me and studies them with undisguised lust before looking up at me. “Is Esguerra—”

  “Here.” I take the phone from him and flip through the “Nora” photos to the one of Esguerra in a puddle of ketchup. “Head blown off.”

  Novak’s pale eyes glint. “Good job. I knew I could count on you. Now take me to Nora and the child.”

  I cross my arms over my chest. “Payment first.”

  That fifty million might not be necessary, strictly speaking, but it would definitely be nice to have.

  Novak’s mouth thins, but he picks up his phone and calls his accountant. “Make the transfer,” he orders in Serbian, and I wait until he nods at me, then check the account on my phone.

  “All good,” I tell him and glance over at Ilya, whose lack of expression still somehow manages to convey disapproval.

  Novak must notice it too, because he smiles again. He likes the idea of us being on the outs; he thinks it makes us vulnerable, easier to control.

  “Let’s go,” I tell him, pretending to be oblivious to all the undercurrents. “I’ll take you to Nora and the baby.”

  Ilya and I head briskly toward the exit, and Novak hurries to catch up to us. His guards rush to form their usual protective circle, but the three of us step outside first.

  It’s just for a couple of seconds, but that’s all the time I need.

  Grabbing Novak by the arm, I yell, “Duck!” and dive behind a dumpster, shoving Ilya in front of me.

  We hit the pavement hard, skidding on our stomachs as Esguerra’s men open fire, riddling the warehouse and all of Novak’s guards with hundreds of machine gun rounds.

  38

  Peter

  The rest of the takedown is lightning fast. Within moments, we’re surrounded by three dozen of Esguerra’s men, and I tell stunned Ilya to drop his weapons as I do the same. Novak hit his head on the dumpster, and he looks dazed as I tug him to his feet while our captors cuff him and systematically pat him down.

  While I’m handing Novak over to them, Ilya clambers to his feet beside me. His incredulous gaze swings from me to the men dragging Novak away and back to me. “Did you just—”

  “Yes. I’ll explain everything in a moment. For now, call Yan and tell him we’re coming. Make sure he and Anton stand down—we don’t want anyone hurt.”

  Ilya hesitates, clearly torn, then takes out his phone. I leave him to it and follow Novak to a black SUV.

  The Serbian is coming out of his daze and starting to realize what happened. His gaze lights on me with dawning comprehension; then fury contorts his pale face. “You fucking—”

  The guard closest to him smacks him in the mouth. “Shut it, pendejo,” he growls in Spanish-accented English.

  I peer at his helmet-covered head. “Diego?”

  The helmet bobs. “Hey, Peter. How are you doing?” As he speaks, he shoves the newly dazed Novak into the car and shuts the door.

  “Just peachy,” I say dryly as Ilya approaches. “All in a good day’s work.”

  My teammate does not look pleased—probably because we’re both still weaponless. “They’re waiting,” he says curtly. “And they’ll stand down.”

  “Good.” I slap his shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  Yan and Anton are at a construction site nearby, guarding the Nora substitute and her baby sister. Their weapons are at their sides as we approach with Esguerra’s guards, but their eyes are sharp and watchful.

  “You have some explaining to do,” Anton tells me as the guards walk past us to get “Nora” and the baby. “A lot of explaining, really.”

  “I know.” Ilya and I watch the guards usher the girl—who still looks petrified—toward another black SUV. “I’ll explain everything.”

  “What’s there to explain?” Yan says, coming up to stand next to us. His green eyes gleam with a cool, mocking light. “That’s not the real Nora, is it?”

  “No,” I say, meeting his gaze head on. “Esguerra would never put his wife or child in danger like that—not that they were really in danger, mind you.”

  “Right.” Yan’s smile lacks the slightest hint of humor. “So was this the plan from the beginning? Get Novak on the hook, find out what his asset is, and then reel in Esguerra?”

  I incline my head. “You got it.”

  Anton’s black brows pull together. “I don’t understand. Why would you do that—and why not tell us?”

  “Because he doesn’t trust us fully.” Yan’s voice is deceptively soft. “Isn’t that right, Peter? As to why—”

  I cut him off with a sharp wave. “I trust the three of you with my life. But this was a very delicate operation, one that unfolded over many months. I needed to earn Novak’s trust, and for that, all of our reactions and interactions had to be as genuine
as possible. He’s not stupid. If he sensed anything off—just the slightest hint that we’re playing him—all of this would’ve been for nothing.”

  “It’s because of her, isn’t it?” Ilya speaks for the first time. I open my mouth, about to answer, when he says, “Never mind. Of course it is. What is it that you want from Esguerra? More money, so you could disappear with her for good?”

  “No,” Yan tells his brother. “That’s not it.” He looks at me. “Is it, Peter?”

  “No—though the extra money is a definite perk,” I say, looking from one to the other. “Your portion is getting deposited into your accounts as we speak.” I turn to Anton. “Yours too.”

  “Just fucking tell us already,” Anton growls. “Seriously, stop it with the mystery. What did Esguerra promise you for this?”

  “A life,” I say and glance at the SUVs pulling away from the curb. “The kind of life people like us don’t get.”

  “Ah.” Anton’s frown smooths out. “Amnesty.”

  I nod. “And immunity from further prosecution. For all of us.”

  Ilya’s face lightens, but Yan folds his arms across his chest. “Who said we want it? You think we left Spetsnaz and joined up with you so we could become CPAs and teachers?”

  “No, I think you did it so you could get filthy rich,” I say, matching his mocking tone. “Which you now are, congrats. Oh, and in case I didn’t mention it yet, the extra coming from Esguerra is seventy-five mil.”

  Anton whistles low under his breath. “Damn.”

  Yan stares at me. “A hundred-seventy-five million gig? All in?”

  “That, and the freedom to do whatever you want. If you want to carry on with the business, go for it—though you might want to start over under new identities, in case all this”—I circle my index finger in the air—“gets out. Alternatively, you can go legit—open a security firm or some such.”