“I knew he boxed but I wasn’t aware of the details.”
We step into the warmth of the foyer. Zoran is nowhere to be seen. I follow B into the living room as he kicks off his black and turquoise Adidas Samoas.
“Yeah, he was on his way to turn pro, trained all through the military, boxed when he got out. He gave it up to focus on his security business. He couldn’t give his undivided attention to both so he had to choose. Works too damn much, if you ask me. The crime in Zagreb is climbing so he’s in demand, but only the ones willing to pay the most get his services. He’s been with this jackass businessman Juric for over a year now. Man, the things I hear from Tigar about that guy and his pussy—oops, I mean ladies. Wild shit.”
He shakes his head and flops down on the couch, leaving a large space at the end. “Here, have a seat. I’ll even be a gentleman and let you pick the film.”
“Fair enough.” I slide off Georgina’s boots and take the remote from him as Zoran enters the room. He’s dressed in a black suit and a white shirt, looking much like the night I met him, except today his tie is scarlet red.
Focusing intently on his brother, he speaks quickly and curtly in Croatian. I understand that he is telling him he’s not sure how long he will be gone and that he’ll call his mobile. The rest I can’t make out because he’s speaking low and quickly. My shoulders tense as he opens his suit jacket, pulls out a Sig Sauer P226 pistol, and hands it over to B, handle first.
B takes it, double-checks the safety, and shoves it into the back of his waistband, telling Zoran in English, “We’ll be fine.”
Zoran turns to leave but stops to swivel his head, looking right at me. A torrent of emotion passes between us in the span of several seconds. I’m about to tell him to be careful but he strides out of the room before the words can leave my lips.
I think hard, trying to connect the dots because something is gnawing at my gut. I feel helpless because for the life of me I can’t place it. I do know this: what’s coming isn’t good.
***
We’ve made it halfway through the horror film, The Descent, when I decide to head upstairs to get some rest. It’s only seven forty-five, but it’s already dark outside. I’m worried for Zoran and hope that a shower will relieve some tension.
“B, if you get too scared just shout up to me, ’kay?”
He puffs out an exasperated breath and takes a swig from his Croatian bottled beer. “You forget that I’m the one with the loaded Sig, blondie. I protect you from the boogeyman, not the other way around. Go on up and relax. Today was quite an adventure.”
“Yes, I really loved seeing Plitvice and meeting Georgina. She is an amazing lady.”
“Yeah, you got that right.”
“All right, B, ’night.”
“ ’Night, blondie. And don’t worry about anything. Tigar can handle himself.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
I walk slowly up the stairs to find that a warm fire is in full force. He must have started it before he left. The house feels strangely empty without him here. I’m tired and decide to skip the shower, instead opting to slip into the red silk short slip. It is unbelievably sexy and I smile at the thought of him slipping in bed later tonight to find this little kinky surprise. The eight-inch slit in the side of the slip ends just an inch below my red silk-clad sex. Talk about full access. He is going to love this one.
I snuggle up in the sumptuous white sheets and fall asleep while thinking of our earlier tryst in the forest.
I jerk awake to shouting. Sitting up, I struggle to make out the words. It’s B. He’s coming up the stairs and yelling to me.
“Carew! Wake the fuck up! Someone’s here. You need to hide, like fucking now! I’m thinking maybe it’s Kreshmir, back for round two or some fucking bullshit!”
I scramble out of bed, my head swirling with his words and the wild barking coming from the dogs outside.
His gun is drawn, pointed straight down to the floor, clutched in both hands between his spread legs. He’s on the top step with his eyes fixed on the door. He glances back at me.
“Fucking hide, Carew!”
I know from before that in this open area there is only one place big enough to fit a body besides in the wardrobe, which is full of hanging clothes. I drop to my stomach, mindful of my wrist, and wiggle underneath the high bed. Just as I turn to look at his legs, the unmistakable sound of machine gun fire erupts outside. And then the dogs are silent.
From under the darkness of the bed, I call to him, “B?”
He stands blocking the steps and says in a strained voice, “Fuck, oh fuck! No way Kreshmir would do that. Who the fuck is breaking in?”
I scramble out and run over to him, grabbing his shoulder and pulling him to face me. “B, I can shoot! Where are the other guns? Tell me!”
His eyes are hard and wild as he answers, “He has them locked in the basement safe.”
“Give me the combination.”
“There’s no time.”
Before he finishes the sentence, the front door splinters apart from three explosive blasts. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that there are several men on the other side of the destroyed door.
“He can’t lose us both, Carew. Fucking get way back!”
Without a weapon there is little I can do but offer encouragement. I back away until my ass hits the cold glass of the windows. I hear them. They are inside and shouting loudly. B’s frame locks into place as he begins to unload his gun in the direction of the foyer. He gets off several shots before one slug lands in his lower leg, taking him down to a knee. He turns to me, the firelight projecting the wild panic in his hazel eyes.
He screams one word that chills my blood cold, “Jump!”
I race to his side to help him up onto his good leg. “Not without you!”
We dash to the windows. I throw them open and help him up on the sill. “Push far out,” I say in a trembling voice.
“Follow right behind me, Carew,” he yells before leaping out toward the dark water. I hear a loud splash below but he is nowhere in sight.
Fight or flight kicks in and without coherent thought I step up and perch myself on the ledge. It’s dark. Really dark. I can just make out the water below. I hear angry shouting behind me and the pounding of boots on the stairs.
If I don’t do this, if I don’t jump now, they will shoot me, or rape me, or most likely both. With those horrifying prospects as motivation, I push back hard with my arms braced against the windows and take off, trying to land far out, in the deepest part of the water.
For four full seconds I’m flying. It would be amazing if I wasn’t terrified. I land hard, mostly on my right side. It feels as if I’ve been tossed out of a plane onto a tarmac, and I struggle to right myself in the freezing water. It’s disorienting in the dark, and the rush of water twists me all around. My lungs are burning as I finally surface, gasping for breath.
The fight has just begun because the swift current is pulling me along. I have to get out, now! There could be another waterfall or rock cropping nearby. I swim frantically for the closest shore, my strained wrist exploding from the pressure of each stroke. Come on, girl ….
I grab for a leafy branch that is barely illuminated by the shadowed moonlight. Ever so slowly, I haul my body against the pull of the cold water onto the grassy bank. Forehead pressed to the ground, I struggle to recover from the harrowing encounter. I have to get it together and find B. He’s shot and needs help. Oh God, I hope he didn’t drown!
To my horror, a spotlight illuminates me and loud shouting breaks out. Terrifying, angry male voices rush toward me from across the lawn. I shuffle backward into the cold water. I’ll take my chances rather than face these monsters! Before I can make it all the way back in, one reaches out and grabs my wet hair, hauling me roughly to a standing position before him. After looking his fill, dark eyes raking over me like I’m a cut of meat hanging in a butcher’s window, he says in Croatian, “I can see why Juric
wanted her alive.”
I freeze at the caustic statement. Now I’m really going to have to pay up. My stomach clenches hard at the nauseating thought. I begin to tremble as angry words spew from their mouths while all three men use their Mag lights to search the dark water for B. I hope he made it downstream.
They drag me, shivering, to the car and shove me in the back.
This is a monumental disaster. Oh shit, Carew, what will you do now?
***
We’ve driven for nearly an hour, and thankfully they’ve ignored me. I can’t stop thinking about B. I hope he was able to escape and get help. Maybe the shot was a through and through? I hope to God Zoran is all right. He is going to go insane when he finds out that his brother has been shot.
By the time we reach Juric’s mansion, I’m mostly dry but chilled to the bone. The clock reads five a.m. As soon as the car rolls to a stop, guards waiting for us outside pull me roughly out of the car.
I shudder in the cold air, my bare feet taking me up his stone steps to meet my fate. I almost wish that I bit it in the waterfall, because for Juric to go to this much trouble to get me here alive, he must want to hurt me. Badly.
I’m led by the upper arm into an opulent parlor decorated in gold and dove gray-blue. It is so glitzy in its Art Deco design that I feel visually assaulted. At that moment, I see Zoran and cry out in despair.
“No, no! Oh God! What have you done to him?” The words spill from my lips as my brain tries to make sense of what I’m seeing.
I’m crazed as I lurch for Juric, who steps away from my attack and lets out a cruel laugh. The big guard shoves me down into a Louis XIV-style chair right before tethering me to the ornate gold arms. He’s rough, tying my injured wrist down with unnecessary tightness. My eyes never leave Zoran.
He has been beaten so badly that if it wasn’t for the rise and fall of his chest, I would think he was dead. Fresh blood covers his face and his once white shirt now matches his scarlet tie. Both of his eyes are swollen to slits and his lips have two bad splits in them. His arms are tied behind his back and his legs are bound to the posts of his chair. At his feet is a spray of blood, shockingly pronounced against the cream and gray Aubusson rug.
I look to Juric, my eyes narrowed into an accusatory stare.
My words drip venom as I seethe, “You fucking coward. You beat him while he was tied down to a chair? You are nothing but a two bit loser, Juric!”
“Ah, Zoran, I see what attracts you to her. She is quite brazen to be saying such things to a man in my position, but Zoran knows how spirited I like my women. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to save you, darling. You see, Carew, I was fortunate enough to receive a call from a man named Kreshmir. I nearly didn’t take it; however, after he mentioned he was an acquaintance of Zoran’s and that a blonde American was staying with him, well, let’s just say that I was most intrigued. As I see it, he knew that our Zoran here worked for me and he saw a way to get back at him and make a bit of cash at the same time. Now, Carew, I want to know how you got into my computer and what you took. You have five seconds to talk before I begin shooting.”
I gasp as he pulls out a pistol and points it at Zoran’s left leg. Zoran barely manages to lift his head and look at me with one eye slightly open. He shakes his head back and forth.
“Wait, I’ll tell you, just don’t hurt him anymore, all right?” My voice is high and reedy with desperation.
“Ah, I see that you two sad excuses for human beings have fallen for each other. Well, if this isn’t my lucky day?”
I cast about, noting the three armed guards. My heart sinks. It will take a miracle to get us out of here alive.
“I was hired by a designer to see if you stole his concept. It’s obvious that you didn’t. There you have it.”
His eyes narrow in fury. “Where is the design?”
I lean forward and seethe, “How the hell should I know? I was in a crash, remember? It was lost in the wreckage. I had it on my person and after the crash it wasn’t there.”
“No matter. It has already been patented. Now, on to the business at hand—how to handle traitors. You see, I knew when Zoran and I had a chat about you the day after the crash that he was hiding something, but then again, with Zoran, there is always a mystery. But he is the best, or should I say, was the best in his business. Now, just to show him how I operate, I believe that I will kill the one thing on the planet that he loves. Actually, let me correct myself, I already had his brother shot. I heard that he drowned trying to save you. Did you see it happen, Carew? I hope that it was a slow and painful death.”
A tortured growl floods the room. Oh God! He didn’t know! There is little he can do but sit tethered to the chair as the pain of knowing that his brother was shot and perhaps drowned engulfs him.
“Zoran, look at me.” His tortured, swollen eyes find mine. “Whatever happens, it’s okay. I love you. Just hold on. Don’t you believe a word he says. He’s a fraud, a coward, and a liar!”
Juric breaks out into a mean laugh as he looks at Zoran. “Perfect. With that so elegantly said, I’m going to put a bullet into your mouthy bitch first, just to rub salt in the wound.”
Juric stalks over to me, his pistol leveled at my forehead as Zoran shouts out in a strangled voice, “No! No! Not her! Do me!”
With the pistol still an inch from my face, my heart thundering in my ears, he turns to tell Zoran, “I don’t think—”
Before he can get the last word out, the arched windows behind Juric explode from deafening gunfire. I watch in horror as Juric jerks spastically several times before falling heavily, his blood spraying me as his weapon clatters to the floor.
I scream loudly as a tactical recovery team led by Breck, clad in full fatigues, rushes in, shooting anyone that is armed.
I nod my head frantically to Zoran. ‘Not him! Not him!”
Breck reaches me in a heartbeat, pulling a very dead Juric off my lap by his starched collar before dropping him face first onto the floor. He quickly goes to work on the ropes with his black Sog Seal team knife.
“C’mon, Carew, we need to get the fuck out of here! We’ve been monitoring this place since you disappeared. Got a chopper on the back lawn. Gotta motor like fucking yesterday, doll.”
I’m desperate. “Wait! He’s coming with us!”
“Negative, you’re our only authorized recovery. Chopper’s full anyhow. House rules. You know the drill.”
“I’ll take the heat for it, Breck, please. We have to at least get him to a hospital. He could die!”
“Negative, we are in boiling water as it is. This place will be crawling with police soon.”
He starts to pick me up in a fireman’s carry. “Wait! For God’s sake, Breck, at least cut him loose!”
“Get out to the chopper. I’ll free him up.”
I hesitate, making certain that he keeps his word.
He crosses to Zoran, his imposing knife in hand. “Fuck me, buddy, did these assholes do this to you?”
He cuts him free of the bindings as Zoran grunts out his answer.
Breck glares at me over his shoulder. “Damn it, Carew, get on the fucking chopper now!”
I call out to Zoran, “Timberline street! 503 Timberline street!” I know he’ll find me once he gets out of this mess and searches for his brother.
I take one last look at Zoran. He’s craning his neck to peer around Breck’s large frame. Our eyes lock for a second before my feet become unglued and I turn to race across the back lawn out to the chopper.
Breck is right behind me, along with the four other armed mercenaries Wade Garnett must have hired to retrieve me. Inside of ninety seconds, the black chopper lifts off the ground. I want to wave goodbye, but he’s still inside, no doubt trying to shake off his injuries. My heart breaks. I wipe the streaming tears off my cheeks and try my best not to feel. It’s the only way I can get out of this with my sanity.
***
After touching down at an airport in Turkey, I am give
n a hot drink along with a change of clothing.
While waiting for our private jet to arrive from London, we catch the news of Juric’s “assassination.” An older man sitting nearby translates for us that the police investigation is ongoing but it’s suspected that the bloody hit was carried out by one of the leading Croatian Mafia families. We show nothing but casual interest, but it’s clear that the diversion of blame bodes well for us. My company made a nearly fatal mistake with this one, the most colossal one that I know of, in fact. When I get our senior director on the line my first question will be to ask how they could have suspected Juric. Someone’s going to pay for the shitty intel that led to this disaster.
I excuse myself to get up, needing to go to the ladies room to collect myself. Thankfully there is nobody inside. I splash fresh water on my face.
Staring into the mirror, I pray, Please, please let Zoran survive his injuries!
Chapter Fifteen
Four Weeks Later
It’s a sunny Saturday morning and I’m singing Sia’s sweet song, “Soon, we’ll be found,” while making yummy maple pecan pancakes. Upon my return, I was given two choices: either take a desk job or receive a severance from the company. I took the severance and made the decision to take some time off from work to sort through everything that happened. I’ll never give up cryptography, but it’s time for a change of pace. My director refused to apologize for the mistake, stating almost arrogantly that they pay through the nose for their intel and it’s always sound. Bullshit. You can’t be so cavalier when people’s lives are at stake. He might think of our team as disposable but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Operatives like me don’t come along everyday. However, I’m happy to have gotten out, knowing that I’ll find something better soon enough.
Movement through the front sitting room window of my small, craftsman-style home catches my eye. A red and yellow uniformed man is jogging across my lawn, headed to the front door. I check the little glass security window and see the he is a DHL driver with an envelope in hand.
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