No. Even as her mind instantly rejected his words, Audrey’s throat tightened. He wasn’t lying. Why would he? Except maybe to play with her and Gabe, but hadn’t he already gotten his fill of that through the long, agonizing first two courses of the three-course meal? He’d refused to talk about Bryson through the lemon dill crab cake appetizers, or the stuffed veal chops main course. He’d ignored Gabe’s repeated demands for answers and instead rambled on like they were old friends catching up as each new dish arrived. The food had tasted like wood to her, was about as appealing although Mena most certainly had only the best of chefs in his kitchen, and she spent more time pushing it around her plate than eating.
Finally, when the classic Colombian dessert of pastel de tres leches arrived, Mena dropped his bomb and then sat back with that Cheshire Cat smile, scrutinizing her face for a reaction.
Unable to swallow, she returned her wine glass to the table with a hand that shook. Gabe’s solid hand landed on her thigh and squeezed in a silent “I’m here” reminder.
That small gesture meant more than any words of reassurance he could have spoken. She grasped his hand under the table and met Mena’s amused gaze. “What does my brother do for you?”
“Little things.” He flashed a grin. “Nothing too…involved…yet, I assure you, although I admit I was working him up to it.”
Oh God, Bryson. “Why?”
“He was very good at what he did, moving merchandise efficiently in and out of countries. Truly the best I’ve ever met, and I only deal with the best. I cannot suffer fools, which is why I was extremely displeased when Bryson never showed for our afternoon meeting on Thursday. I never thought him a fool, but I started to wonder if I had miscalculated with him and sent people to…find him.”
“So the day Bryson was taken,” Gabe clarified, “you two had a meeting. Here in Cartagena or in Barranquilla?”
“Here, of course.”
The itinerary, Audrey realized. Gabe was trying to pin down Bryson’s plans for that day, trying to figure out who he had dealings with and who might want him out of the picture.
She sat forward. “Do you know why Brys planned to go to Barranquilla before meeting you?”
Mena gave her an indulgent smile that said he thought a woman didn’t belong in this conversation. Yes, well, to borrow a phrase from Gabe’s book, fuck him. Woman or not, she deserved to hear all the details.
“It was not for me,” Mena finally answered when she didn’t back down, his smile straining a little around the edges. “Perhaps he had other business to attend to there. Bryson was a busy man, and as long as his other business did not interfere with mine, I saw no need to keep tabs.”
Uh-huh. Somehow, Audrey doubted that. And it didn’t escape her notice that Mena kept referring to her brother in the past tense. “You said you know where he is. Did you kill him?”
“I said I might know.” He sent an aggravated look toward Gabe. “Really, Commander Bristow, you should muzzle your wife until she learns some tact.”
Outrage burned through Audrey. She opened her mouth to give him a piece and a half of her mind, but Gabe squeezed her thigh hard. She closed her mouth and looked over at him. His expression was dark and shuttered as he leaned toward Mena.
“She’s far more tactful than I am. Now answer her question. Where is Bryson?”
Mena’s jaw slid to one side. Then he motioned to Liam with a flick of the wrist.
Gabe tensed up beside her, readying for who knows what, but Liam simply laid a map out on the table and went back to skulking in the corner like a good little minion.
“I don’t have an exact location,” Mena said and poked a finger at the map. “But I think he might be here.”
Heart hammering, Audrey stood to get a better look at the street map of Bogotá. Mena’s finger rested on an intersection in a well-to-do part of the city barely a mile from Bryson’s apartment.
Gabe also stood and leaned over the map. “What makes you think he’s there? And why haven’t you gone in after him if you want him back so badly?”
Both good questions. Audrey had a feeling he smelled a trap. In fact, even her untrained nose caught a whiff of one.
Mena lifted a negligent shoulder. “Politics, mostly. I do want Bryson back because, despite what you and your government think of me, Commander, I’m not a monster without friends. I like him, consider him a good friend, and I want him safe again. I also want his captors punished for making me lose hundreds of thousands of dollars a day by taking him from me.
“However,” he continued, “I have a rather tenuous relationship with the EPC’s generals. If I send men in after Bryson, and the EPC is involved, the damage to that relationship could be irreparable, thus making me lose more money.”
Gabe’s eyes narrowed. “If you’re so worried about your relationship with the EPC, why send Liam and his men in to destroy Cocodrilo’s camp?”
“I did no such thing.”
“Hm. So where exactly do you think he found us?”
Mena stared at Gabe for a long moment, then turned that lethal gaze to Liam, a vein bugling in his temple. “Is this true? Did you attack Cocodrilo against my specific orders to leave him alone?”
“I did what I had to do,” Liam said. “He killed four of my men in that shootout on the highway, including Estaban’s baby brother. He was not going to get away with that.”
Mena pinched the bridge of his nose and waved a hand as if shooing off a pestering fly. “Get out of my sight. We’ll discuss this insubordination later.”
“Sir—”
“Leave,” Mena said and pulled a gun from under his suit coat. He pointed it directly between Liam’s eyes. “Or die. Your choice, Señor Miller. I do not care either way.”
Liam backed up a step. Then another. After shooting a hate-filled look at Gabe, he disappeared into the house.
“Imbecile.” Mena replaced his gun and returned to the conversation as if he hadn’t just threatened a man’s life. “As I said, my ties with the EPC are tenuous—even more so now—and to keep them from attacking my business, I need to stay on their good side. I’m not convinced they are involved, because this scheme is a little too advanced for them. They are uncouth, uneducated brutes. Still, I did not want to take the chance of sending my own men in to find Bryson.”
He sent Gabe a sly smile. “But, you, Commander. I have no qualms about sending you. In fact, if the EPC kills you in the process, they will have removed a massive thorn from my side. It will effectively kill two birds with one stone, as you Americans like to say.”
Gabe straightened away from the table. “Sorry to disappoint, but that’s not happening.”
“All’s the pity.”
“And until you give me one good reason why you think Bryson is held there, I’m not sending my men within ten blocks of that neighborhood.”
“So cautious. An admirable quality in a mercenary.” He returned to his seat, picked up his wine, and studied Gabe over the rim. “Truthfully, you put Señor Miller to shame; have made me see his unreliability. His job will be opening up very soon. I don’t suppose you would be interested…”
“No.” The finality in Gabe’s voice left no room for argument and Mena laughed.
“No, I didn’t think so. All right.” Finishing his wine, he stood again and motioned them to follow him through the veranda doors into the library. He crossed to a huge, glossy desk and opened a drawer, drew out a file.
“This contains everything I know about Bryson’s abduction, from my own research and from keeping tabs on your team, Commander—and I might add your second-in-command, the invariable Travis Quinn, has been struggling to hold them together in your absence.”
Gabe’s face gave away nothing, no flicker of surprise or another emotion, but Audrey felt him tighten up at her side. Much like he’d done for her earlier, she reached down and grasped his hand in reassurance. He gave hers a small squeeze in return, but then let go and crossed his arms over his chest.
“G
et on with it,” Gabe said, ice in his voice. “Stop yanking my dick and tell us what you know.”
“Ah-ha. I do love your frankness,” Mena laughed. “On with it, then. I know your team, such as it is, is searching for a man named Jacinto Rivera. I know they found nothing at his last known address, and have no idea where else to look. I also know where to find him.” He tossed the file on his desk and it skated across the polished wood.
Gabe caught it before it slid off the edge. “Where?”
“Patience. First, you need to know something about Jacinto Rivera. He is the younger, even less cultured brother of Angel Rivera, the EPC general of the Andean region, and their family tree reads like a horror story of depravity. Their father was a drunk that got himself killed in a bar fight ten years ago. Their mother was a whore murdered by a client a year after that, and their sister, also a whore, disappeared six years ago. God only knows what became of her.
“Their uncle was a disgusting rapist interested in small boys, and his son, Rorro, finally took revenge for all of Papa’s late night visits last year. Rorro’s fifteen and he sliced his father up, the likes of which I haven’t seen since La Violencia. He’s a mean little brat, not to be underestimated, and he’s attached to his cousin’s hip. Wherever Jacinto goes, Rorro’s not far behind.”
“So what does this have to do with Bryson?” Audrey asked.
Mena pointedly ignored her, instead addressing Gabe as he motioned toward the Bogotá map still laid out on the table on the veranda. “That house belonged to Rorro’s father. Your team cannot find it because Rorro’s father, in addition to being a pervert, was also a very accomplished racketeer and money launderer. Nothing he owned is in his name. Even for your analyst, Señor Physick, whom I’m told is one of the best available, it’ll take days to wade through all the paperwork, and that is only if your team is looking in Rorro’s direction. We both know Bryson doesn’t have days. As soon as they get the money, they will kill him. That is what I would do in their place.”
Audrey recoiled in disgust. He spoke of murder like you would crush a cockroach, without a second thought or regret. She looked at Gabe to see his reaction, but he was nodding in agreement.
God. Sometimes, when he was in war mode, he truly scared her.
Gabe opened the file in his hand, leafed through, closed it again and, to her surprise, passed it to her. She opened it and found all the pages written in Spanish. Ah, that explains it.
She shook off her horror and translated without waiting for him to ask. “It’s papers pertaining to the house’s ownership and bank statements for both Rorro and Jacinto. Rorro, a.k.a. Rodrigo Salazar Vargas, is very well off. Jacinto, not so much, but there has been a flurry of activity on his card in both Bryson’s and Rorro’s neighborhoods.” She found a picture dated last night of Rorro leaving a disco and showed it to Gabe.
“Huh,” was all he said.
“There’s also a charge for a limo rental on one of Rorro’s cards the day Bryson was abducted,” she told him. “It’s not an unusual charge, but there’s a note here saying he never returned the car to the limo company.”
“I believe you wanted a good reason to approach Rorro’s house,” Mena chimed in. “There you go. One very good reason.”
“Yeah, it is.” But Gabe didn’t sound happy about it. He looked at Mena and ground his molars for a moment of pure frustration before biting the bullet and asking, “Can I use your phone to contact my team?”
That Cheshire Cat grin flashed again. “Oh, that was painful, wasn’t it? Asking me for a favor.”
“You have no idea,” Gabe said. “But, you’re right, Bryson doesn’t have much time, and I won’t waste it by nursing a grudge.”
“You are so noble. Really, I find it sickening.” He sat in the leather chair behind his desk and waved toward the phone. “It’s all yours, but keep in mind they will not be able to trace the number.”
Audrey stayed where she was, looking through the file, but watched Gabe dial out of the corner of her eye. He stood with all his weight on his left foot again and looked so far beyond fatigued that he was freefalling into exhaustionland.
Poor man. He’d had…what? Not counting his bought of unconsciousness, he’d had about four hours of sleep in the past forty-eight. She had squeezed in a little more than that and still felt dead on her feet, so she couldn’t imagine how he was still going.
Maybe she shouldn’t have pushed him so hard to have sex earlier. Even as much as they both wanted it, and she’d needed it, she should have let him sleep instead. The short afterglow nap obviously hadn’t been long enough to do him any good.
“Quinn,” he said into the phone, and Quinn’s exclamation of surprise was so loud she heard it from across the room.
Gabe made a gesture of impatience and raised his voice in a drill sergeant’s command: “Listen up. You need to destroy your phone as soon as we disconnect.”
Mena lifted his brows at that, but said nothing, smile still in place.
“Then scramble the team and recon this address.” He gave the address in some sort of military code Audrey didn’t understand. “Our principle may be inside. I’ll be—”
Gabe stiffened and turned toward the library doors a second before they burst open and Liam Miller strode in with a gun and a wild, hyped look in his brown eyes. He grinned and shut the doors soundly behind him.
Several things happened at once, so fast Audrey’s mind raced to catch up. Liam raised his weapon to Mena and said, “I quit,” the same moment Mena started to rise and reached inside his jacket for his own gun. Gabe stood directly between them, caught in the crossfire, and could only drop the phone and twist partially out of the way before Liam’s bullet ripped through his side and struck Mena in the face, taking off the back of his head and spraying brains over the back wall. Mena’s finger tightened reflexively on the trigger as he slumped sideways in the chair and the shot went wild. Audrey felt the burn of it slice through her upper arm.
“Gabe!” Shaking, terrified for him, she lurched over to where he had crumpled in front of the desk, but he was already army crawling under it, scrambling for the gun Mena had dropped.
“Hide!” he shouted. “Take cover!”
She couldn’t. There was no place to go, so she lunged toward the phone several feet away. If she could get it, she could tell Quinn where they were and—
Liam plucked the phone out of her hands and dropped it into its cradle. “No calling for help.”
Dismissing her, he shoved her aside and kicked at Gabe’s bad foot before it disappeared under the desk. “We have a score to settle, Bristow. Stand up!”
To her utter horror, Gabe did just that. He rose from behind the desk, limping as his weight settled on his feet, and raised hands covered with blood in surrender.
“I’m unarmed, Liam.” He caught Audrey’s gaze and tilted his head ever so slightly to the right. She looked over and down and saw Mena’s gun had landed closer to her than him.
No. Oh, God, no. He couldn’t expect her… She met his gaze again and shook her head once. He just stared back, expression composed, gold eyes grim.
When violence is the only language your enemies know, you gotta learn to speak it, too.
He said to Liam, “There’s no honor in shooting an unarmed enemy. Is that really how you want this to end?”
“Yeah, mate.” Liam smiled and leveled his gun on Gabe’s chest. “It is.”
…
Tough love worked. Who’d have thought it?
After Quinn’s beat down of Jesse and the hundred push-ups, the team stopped bickering and treated him with a little more respect. Which was a nice reprieve. He’d been so, so tired of battling them.
Now, an hour later, they stood around the table, throwing about ideas, trying to plot their next step.
“I don’t think that will do us much good,” Harvard said in response to an idea Jesse had tossed out. “We might as well go door to door to Jacinto Rivera’s neighbors and ask if any of them have se
en him or Bryson Van Amee.”
“Not in that neighborhood,” Marcus said, and others murmured agreement. “Nobody’s gonna say shit to us.”
“They’re more likely to shoot us,” Ian added. “And what are we doing about that warehouse? I vote we make it go boom before the bad guys move it on us.”
“You always vote to make things go boom,” Jean-Luc said with a friendly elbow nudge in Ian’s side, and Ian didn’t rip his head off for it.
Quinn, still in the chair with his feet on the table and a computer on his lap, was feeling rather proud of them all when his phone rang. All eyes turned toward him and the room went so silent you could hear the proverbial pin drop from a block away. Everyone who would be calling him was present in the room—minus one—and they all knew it.
He slowly lowered his feet to the floor and sat up, checking the phone’s screen.
“Restricted,” he said. “Probably won’t get a trace.”
“We can try. I’m on it. Give me a sec.” Harvard shot over to his computer, fingers flying across the keyboard with the grace of a concert pianist. After another ring, he put on a set of headphones and looked up. “You’re good, boss. Answer it.”
Quinn drew a fortifying breath and raised the phone to his ear. “Yeah?”
“Quinn,” Gabe said.
And his composure soared right out the window, leaving him mired in a mix of relief and worry. He surged to his feet. “Holy shit! Gabe, where are you? What the hell happened? Is Audrey okay? Are you okay?”
“Listen up,” Gabe snapped out in his no-nonsense voice, and Quinn realized he was babbling. He ground his teeth and strived for calm again.
“I’m listening.”
“You need to destroy your phone as soon as we disconnect.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. Yeah, this can’t be good. Gabe would only ask him to destroy the phone if he was afraid someone on that end would try to trace the call back to him. “Aye aye.”
“Then scramble the team and recon this address.” He gave the address in code. Another bad sign and Quinn committed it to memory. “Our principle may be inside. I’ll be—”
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