“Imposible,” he hissed, scanning the empty room. “There’s nothing. No juice. No mash. No grapes.”
Wheeling around, Silas stared at Lyssa.
“They make tens of thousands of bottles a day. I’ve seen the trucks leave, loaded up. But where are they getting the grapes from?”
And that’s when Lyssa raised her hand, and pointed at a door marked with a red sign: “No Hay Entrada.”
Silas crossed the room and rattled the handle.
Locked.
“But why?” He asked, trying the door again. “We haven’t found another locked door in this entire place. Not one. Not yet.”
Lyssa turned and scanned the empty warehouse. She was painfully aware that they needed to keep moving – to find Celestina and the kids.
But she was as curious as Silas was.
“Here,” there was a pry bar on a shelf by the door, and Lyssa grabbed it. “We’re going to jail if we get caught anyway, so what’s a little property damage first?”
And then, taking the bar, she jammed it into the crook of the door, and pushed.
At first, the metal door didn’t budge. Then Silas added his own weight to it, and with the creak of bending metal the lock sprang open.
The doorway opened to a darkened room, filled with row upon row of chest freezers. They were all buzzing busily, twenty or more of them.
“W-what the hell?” Silas cocked his head on one side.
He crossed over to the nearest freezer, and hefted open the lid. Light bathed his face as he peered inside.
“Madre de Dios,” he gasped. “T-that’s… that’s impossible.”
Lyssa had to see it for herself. She stepped over, and peered inside.
They were crammed with huge plastic sacks – dozens of them, stacked one on top of another.
Through the clear plastic, Lyssa could see little round grapes, marinating in rich, red juice.
“What are these things?” she demanded, looking up at Silas. “Are these… grapes?”
Silas tore open one of the plastic bags, and dug his hand in. It came out with a fistful of mashed grapes, dripping in slushy, nearly-frozen juice.
“Frozen grapes,” Silas explained. “There must be a hundred tons of them in here.” He licked the juice from his hand. “Garnacha – one of Bodegas Buenaventura’s signature grapes.”
“But… but why, Silas?” Lyssa turned to him. “Why would they have all these grapes in here?”
Silas flattened the plastic sack he’d torn open, and checked the label.
“Vino de Mesa,” he read. “Table wine. These grapes aren’t from La Rioja. They could be from anywhere in Spain.”
The big man turned to Lyssa, and murmured: “The Buenaventuras are importing grapes.”
Lyssa blinked.
“S-so?” She asked. “What’s the big deal about that?”
“The big deal,” Silas answered, “is that to earn your classification as a Rioja wine, your grapes have to be grown here, in the region.” He dumped the grapes he’d scooped up onto the floor. “This shit? It’s trucked in from somewhere else.These grapes are garbage. They’re making fake wine.”
Lyssa opened her mouth to respond – but before she could, the lights in the warehouse suddenly burst into life.
Silas and Lyssa shielded their eyes, as the florescent bulbs burned into them from above.
“What in the..?”
The two of them heard footsteps on the concrete. As their vision returned, they shielded their eyes against the light, and peered towards the sound of the new arrivals.
“Madre de Dios,” Silas gasped.
It was Bruno Beunaventura, flanked by half a dozen or so of his flunkies. Two of them had handguns. One of them was carrying a shotgun. And not one of them looked happy to see the uninvited arrivals.
Chapter One Hundred and Fifty Seven
Lyssa
“Silas Batras,” Bruno sneered, stepping into the light. “Aren’t you and your American puta meant to be back home, under armed guard?”
Silas grabbed Lyssa’s arm, and pulled her close.
“Those two ‘armed guards’ weren’t too smart,” Silas growled, accepting that he and Lyssa were outnumbered. “Mind you, I guess they couldn’t have been – after all, they agreed to protect your treacherous ass.”
Bruno snorted.
“Well, if you want to talk about not being very smart, try looking in a mirror.” He shook his head. “You two weren’t exactly subtle, sneaking in here. You must have set off every motion detector from here to the vineyards.”
Lyssa glanced up at Silas, and rolled her eyes.
“Don’t feel bad,” Bruno scoffed. “We’d have found you eventually, anyway. This is a modern vineyard. We have security systems. We’re not a museum masquerading as a Bodegas, like that shithole you call home.”
Silas growled, but was too smart to retort.
Bruno nodded his head, and the flunky covering them with the shotgun stepped a little closer.
“As you just found out, we haven’t crushed any grapes in here for months,” Bruno sneered. “But, on the bright side, that means Philippe here has no reason not to splatter your insides all over the concrete. We can just rinse it down, afterward.”
He narrowed his eyes.
“Now drop your gun. And any other toys you might have brought.”
Again, Silas and Lyssa exchanged glances. She accepted from the look in her lover’s eyes that their situation was hopeless; and reluctantly dropped the Llama semi-automatic to the concrete.
“Kick it away,” Bruno demanded – and a moment later the gun was skittering across the floor.
Defenseless, Lyssa and Silas clung to each other, as Bruno scooped up the discarded gun.
He examined it, and snorted.
“Your father’s old automatic. I’m surprised it still fires.” He turned to his two prisoners. “But I still have a hole in the windshield of my Mercedes to prove it.”
With a snort, Bruno ordered his men:
“Take them upstairs. Father will want to talk to them.”
Bruno’s lackeys fanned out, and Lyssa counted at least three guns pointed in their direction. Reluctantly, she took Silas’ hand, and they went in the direction the thugs gestured.
Soon they were out of the warehouse, back into the darkness of the evening. Cicadas chirped in the distance. Overhead, the stars shone.
“Father is up there, in the main building,” Bruno sneered, as he lead the way. “You’re just in time. Alberte was about to sign Bodegas Batras over to him.”
“Hijo de perra,” Silas hissed under his breath – but if any of Bruno’s flunkies heard him, they didn’t mention it.
Silas and Lyssa were marched past the outbuildings, towards the long, low building with the metal roof. As they drew closer, Lyssa could see the building had an achingly modern design; with one wall made up of glass windows that looked out across the vineyards.
One of the windows was illuminated from within. Looking up, Lyssa could see silhouettes framed behind the glass – and one of the stockier ones she instantly recognized as Alberte.
“Look,” Lyssa hissed, nudging Silas in the ribs.
But her lover was similarly distracted. As they walked towards the main building, they passed a bed of vines. As Silas passed them, he snatched a clump of grapes and examined the fruit curiously as he walked.
A great glass doorway led them into the lobby of the Bodegas Buenaventura building. Even after-hours, the gift shop and welcome center were illuminated. In daytime, this would be where tourists came, for knickknacks and trinkets from their visit to the vineyard.
But there was no shopping today. Bruno led them straight to an elevator, which quickly whisked them upstairs.
A moment later, the door opened to an expansive lobby – and Silas and Lyssa found Alberte waiting for them – looking tired, and stressed.
Adolphe Buenaventura was also there, and his brother the Inspector Jefe. Two more burly goons stood stoic
ally in the corner - apparently ready to rough Alberte up the moment he stepped out of line.
That nearly happened the moment Silas and Lyssa staggered out of the elevator.
“Silas! Hermano!” Alberte cried, as he saw them. “What are you doing here?”
But the shove Silas received, which sent him staggering across the room, answered that question.
Clutching their pistols and shotgun, Bruno’s goons stepped out of the lobby and covered Silas and Lyssa.
“We found them sneaking around outside,” Bruno explained. “Thought we’d better bring them here.”
Silas and Lyssa ignored the guns pointed in their direction, and crossed the room towards Alberte. Lyssa embraced Silas’ brother in a bear hug.
“Are you okay?” She demanded. “Have you seen Celestina? Or the kids?”
Alberte turned and looked across at Adolphe Buenaventura.
“This bastardo says he’ll show them to me the moment I sign that.”
And then he pointed to a contract, on the table in the center of the room: The one that presumably handed ownership of Bodegas Batras over to the grizzled old businessman.
As for Adolphe himself, he’d remained silent even as Lyssa and Silas had been sent staggering into the room.
But now, as Lyssa unwrapped her arms from Alberte’s waist, the elder Buenaventura made his move.
The old man smiled, and clip-clopped forward using his walking stick to support himself.
“Ah, a family reunion,” he purred. “How fitting.” And then Adolphe held out a fountain pen, and sneered at Alberte: “Now you’ve got an audience, perhaps you can stop fucking stalling. The sooner you sign this, the sooner you and your family can get out of my fucking sight.”
But before Alberte could take the pen, Bruno spoke up.
“Actually, Papi,” he growled. “We have a problem with that.” He jerked his head towards Silas and Lyssa. “We found them in the harvest room. They know.”
Adolphe’s face grew pale as he heard that.
“Know?” Alberte turned to his brother, and Lyssa. He could tell that whatever they’d discovered didn’t bode well. “What do you ‘know’?”
Adolphe snorted bitterly.
“They ‘know’ enough to make letting you and your family go become out of the question…”
Chapter One Hundred and Fifty Eight
Lyssa
Alberte turned to Silas, and Lyssa.
“Know what? What is this pendejo talking about?”
But while Alberte was confused, nobody else in the room was. Adolphe was peering at the two new arrivals with a look of anger and pity – and when he finally spoke, it was to mutter:
“Too bad for them.”
Alberte wheeled around.
“Too bad for them? What do you mean?” He turned to Silas. “What’s going on?”
Silas stepped forward, and dumped the grapes he’d picked earlier onto the table in front of everybody.
“This is what we know. That this place is fucked.”
In the light, it was possible to see something was wrong with the fruit he’d picked. The grapes were wrinkled and rotten. Little black bugs were crawling all over them.
“Phylloxera,” Silas growled. “Grape aphids. All of the vines around here are crawling with them.”
Alberte stepped over to the table, and picked up the grapes. He examined them for a second, and then flung them away with a disgusted grimace.
“Madre de Dios,” he hissed. Looking up at Adolphe, he demanded: “How bad is it?”
Adolphe snorted.
Leaning on his walking stick, the old man hissed: “I suppose I can tell you. The damage has been done already.”
With a sigh, he admitted:
“All of the Garnacha. Half the Tempranillo. We’ll probably lose the rest by fall.” Adolphe snorted bitterly. “Two generations of vines, gone in a single season.”
“So that’s why you’re trucking in frozen grapes,” Lyssa breathed. “You can’t grow any more of your own.”
Alberte’s eyes widened as he heard this.
“Is this true, Adolphe?”
The old man hissed at him.
“Don’t judge me,” he spat. “We have a business to run. When the phylloxera hit, we still had orders to fill. We ship hundreds of thousands of bottles a month. What did you expect me to do? Shut up shop?”
“But imported grapes,” Alberte breathed. “What if the Consejo Regulador finds out?”
“Well, that’s why I need Bodegas Batras,” Adolphe growled. “How many hectares do you have? How many thousands of old vines?” The old man snorted. “Oh, I might give you a hard time, but everybody knows Bodegas Batras has the best grapes in La Rioja. And I need them, or my business is finished.”
Alberte blinked, stunned.
Bam! Adolphe slammed his hand onto the table. He angrily slid the contract over.
“So now you know why, hurry up and sign this fucking contract!”
Adolphe shook his head
“Give me your vineyard, pendejo. Just give it to me, and all this can be over.”
Silence fell across the room.
For a moment, Alberte looked like he was going to reach over and drag the contract towards him – signing the family estate to his rival.
But then Lyssa’s voice broke the silence.
“But it won’t be over, will it?”
Alberte paused, and Adolphe turned to stare at the pretty American.
“I can’t be over,” Lyssa repeated. “Because you know the moment any of us leave this place, we’ll report you to the authorities.”
Inspector Buenaventura, who’d been standing quietly at the back of the room, snorted contemptuously when he heard that.
“I am the authorities. Nobody’s going to listen to your stories of kidnapping, or…”
“I wasn’t talking about those authorities,” Lyssa growled. “I was talking about the real authorities.”
“She means the Consejo Regulador,” Silas explained. “The regional wine regulators. And Lyssa is right.”
Turning to his captors, Silas growled:
“You know you can’t let us leave here, because we’ll tell the authorities that you’ve been selling Vino de Mesa as high-end Rioja. They’ll shut down your business. Lock you up.”
Knocked-off wine was a serious business in Europe.
Adolphe Buenaventura turned to his three prisoners, and laughed bitterly.
“You’re right, of course,” he admitted, shaking his head. “Before you nosed about, we could have worked something out. I could have sent Alberte and the kids running off to Madrid like rats leaving a sinking ship. But now you know…”
Adolphe’s grizzled eyes narrowed.
“…and that means I can’t let you leave this place alive.”
Chapter One Hundred and Fifty Nine
Lyssa
“Listen,” Alberte held up his hands, “I’ll do whatever you ask, entendido? I’ll sign over Bodegas Batras. I’ll put Celestina and the kids in that van, and I’ll drive off into the distance. You’ll never see, or hear from us again.”
He gulped dryly.
“Just don’t hurt them, okay? I’ll do anything.”
Adolphe snorted as he listened to this.
“It’s a little late for that, Alberte. Do you think I can trust you? Any of you? The moment you leave this place, you’ll squeal.”
The old man turned to his son, and snapped: “Bruno. Send two of your men to go and get Alberte’s old van. We need to arrange a little ‘accident.’”
“Si, Papi,” Bruno nodded, and turned to his armed thugs to rattle off instructions.
“No,” Alberte pleaded. “Not Celestina. Not the kids. Don’t hurt them. I’ll do anything.”
Leaning on this walking stick, Adolphe crossed the room.
He stood in front of Alberte, and peered up at the younger man contemptuously.
“Anything?” He asked.
Alberte nodded.
<
br /> “Well,” Adolphe grinned. “Here’s the deal, then. You sign that paperwork, right now. Sell me Bodegas Batras. And then I’ll let Celestina and your kids go. Give them the money I was going to buy your place for – what little of it there is – and pack them off to Madrid. As long as they never speak of what happened, I’ll leave them be.”
But then the old man’s eyes narrowed.
“But you and your brother? And that American whore?” He shook his head sadly. “I’m sorry. I can’t take that risk.”
“Woah,” it was Lyssa, who was standing there clutching Silas. “You’re serious? You’re going to kill us?”
Adolphe wheeled around.
“We’ll make it look like an accident. We’ll get Alberte’s van, and make it all neat, and clean. The mountain roads in La Rioja are dangerous, and nobody will ask questions if you and these two pendejos are found in a wreck at the bottom of a gully.”
Lyssa gulped as she heard that.
“Here,” Adolphe wheeled around again, and snatched up the pen from the table. He held it out towards Alberte. “Sign the contract. Or I’ll make sure your wife and brats are in that van too, entendido?”
Hand trembling, Alberte took the pen.
“W-wait,” he paused, with the pen hovering above the paper. “Just let me see them, before I do. My wife and kids.” Alberte gulped dryly. “One last time. I just want to say goodbye.”
Adolphe angrily narrowed his eyes.
“Fine,” he spat. Wheeling around, the old man turned to two more of Bruno’s lackeys, and demanded: “Go down to the cellars. Bring the perra and her two brats up here.”
Two more of Bruno’s thugs nodded, and wheeled around. A moment later, they were headed down into the elevator.
The room was suddenly a lot emptier. Four of the six armed flunkeys were gone. The one known as Philippe was still covering Silas and Lyssa with his shotgun, though – and that meant the room was still dangerous.
But as Lyssa looked around, she knew that this was the best opportunity they’d get to turn the tables – and she had a plan.
“Hey,” Lyssa barked.
Everybody in the room turned to the pretty American, and listened.
Broken: An Alpha Bad Boy MMA Romance Page 33