by Elise Noble
But Rafael didn’t look so happy.
“I told you, I don’t need Vicente’s help here. He should have stayed to take care of you and Dores. What if there’s a problem in Medellín?” A pause. “What do you mean? Wait. You’re where?”
Emmy came back in and handed Black a mug of coffee. “Everything okay?”
“I’m not sure.”
Rafael had lost a few shades of colour, which according to Emmy, he hadn’t done even under interrogation.
“Don’t go anywhere. I’ll sort something out.”
He hung up and cursed the phone.
“What’s wrong?” Black asked.
“Grandma. She’s worried about—and I quote—leaving something so important as the search for Cora and Isabella to someone outside our Valento family.”
“But you told her you were handling it. Right?”
“This is Marisol da Silva we’re talking about. She’s just landed in Fort Lauderdale with Vicente, Dores, and my fucking dog. Oh, and she wants to vet you.”
Silence fell, broken only by the sound of Emmy’s laughter.
“And I thought my family was dysfunctional.”
“Diamond, shut up.”
A door slammed, and Bradley jingled into the room. Yes, he’d tied bells onto his damn shoelaces.
“Hey, what did I miss?” He jerked his head towards Black. “Why does he look as if someone shit in his ice cream?”
“We’ll explain later,” Emmy said. “Could you be an angel and arrange transport from the airport for a lady in a wheelchair, two other people, and a dog? Rafael’ll go along for the ride.”
“Of course I can, but who are they?”
“We’ll discuss that later.”
“But—”
Emmy pushed him out of the room.
“Okay, okay. I’m going.”
Panic. That feeling was panic, something Black hadn’t felt since the first time his commanding officer pushed him into a swimming pool with his hands and feet tied together during BUD/S training. But that had passed after a second, and this too would pass.
“Maybe we could put them up in a hotel?” he suggested. “I own one near Orlando.”
“You really think she’d stay there?” Rafael asked.
Good point.
“How about a house near Blackwood’s Miami office? If we pretended they were running the investigation, we could carry on working from here.”
“She’d see straight through that. I can lie to anyone except Grandma. She always knows when I’m not telling the truth.”
“Guys, just bring her here,” Emmy said. “Yes, this has all gone a bit pear-shaped, but she’ll be more upset if you try to keep her in the dark.” Emmy leaned forward to check the marks on Rafael’s neck. “And if you could not tell her I made those bruises, I’d be very grateful. I don’t want to die.”
Black took a deep breath. Decision made.
“Yes, bring her here.” He’d only ever have one first meeting with his mother, and he’d hoped it would be under better circumstances, but Emmy was right. They couldn’t try to hide what was going on. “Let’s get it over with.”
The wait for Rafael and Marisol to arrive from the airport was the longest hour of Black’s life, and considering some of the torture sessions he’d endured as part of his “education,” that was saying something.
“You okay, buddy?” Nate asked.
“No.”
Finally, the front door opened, and he heard voices.
“You said we were going to meet the investigator. This is just a house. What kind of outfit is this man running?”
Three figures appeared in the doorway. A wiry man with a salt-and-pepper goatee, a dark-haired woman who looked to be in her fifties, although Black knew Dores was no older than him, and Marisol da Silva. Even grey-haired and sitting in a wheelchair, she had a commanding presence. Her gaze locked straight onto his.
“Are you the man looking for Corazon?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t take her eyes off him and wheeled herself closer, closer, until she was two feet away. Now she didn’t look quite so confident, and she glanced back at her grandson before closing her eyes for a second. When she opened them again, the hardness was back.
“My apologies. For a moment, you reminded me of somebody I lost.”
Now Rafael stepped forward.
“Grandma, he is somebody you lost.”
“What are you talking about? Ramiro died.”
Ramiro. The other, older brother Black never got to meet.
“Not Ramiro. I don’t even know where to start with this story. Neither of us does. We hadn’t planned on telling you until we found Cora, but now you’re here and—”
“Just spit it out.”
“He’s one of the twins. I don’t know which.”
Marisol looked back at Black, and if he’d thought her stare was intense before, now he wanted to wither like a seedling in the desert.
“How did…” Her words trailed off, and a tear rolled down her cheek.
Black did the only thing he could. He knelt before her and opened his arms, and then she was crying, he was crying, everyone in the whole fucking place was crying.
Only Emmy managed to speak.
“Reckon this breaks the record for the most assassins in one room?”
CHAPTER 26 - CORA
IF YESTERDAY WAS an unexpectedly good day, then today more than made up for it, like some weird form of karma.
Leandro had been kind last night, pleasant, even, but when I got downstairs for breakfast, he’d totally blanked me. Chad tracked my every move, though, with nasty little piggy eyes that matched his nasty little heart, and when he walked me to the bathroom, he rested his hand on my ass as if he owned me. I pushed it away, but it came right back, and this time he clamped his fingers onto one cheek.
“Didn’t your mama ever teach you that it’s rude to take without being asked?”
“Didn’t anyone ever teach you that your job is to serve us, not to make stupid comments?”
“Serve you? No, querido, you’re just a glorified babysitter.”
That earned me a slap, but it was worth it. The irony was, I didn’t even need to use the bathroom. Rather, I wanted to take every chance I got to look around the house, to memorise the layout and search for possible ways to escape. Finding out where Izzy went before I left would be a bonus, but now I knew for sure that she’d been here, I hoped my brother would be able to extract that information from Radcliffe if I could only let him know where I was.
But Radcliffe was careful. The windows were double-glazed and locked shut, and all the doors except for the guards’ rooms locked with electronic pass cards. Even if I managed to get hold of one, someone could shut down my access remotely within seconds. The apes each carried some sort of weapon, fastened securely onto a belt or into a shoulder holster. Either a pistol, a Taser, or a stun gun. The walls around the garden were ten feet tall and topped with spikes, and Hallie said there were guards in a hut at the end of the driveway to monitor who came and went.
My brother could have found a way out, but not me. Not yet.
And so I had no choice but to do my business in the bathroom, then walk back to the lounge with Chad rubbing his grubby hands all over me.
Then things got worse. I got picked first in the evening, and I knew from the look on Hallie’s face that the client was bad news. A big man in his thirties but already balding, he dragged me upstairs, tied me to a leather bench, and did unmentionable things while smacking me with what looked like a spatula. And when I cried out in pain, he just wound my hair around his fist and snapped my head back.
“Cry harder, little girl. I like that.”
I refused to give him the satisfaction, and by the time he’d finished with me, my bottom lip was split from where I’d bitten it shut, and that wasn’t the only part of me that was bleeding. Mierda. I could barely even walk.
And the evil bastard simply strolled out, grinning.
/>
When Leandro heard me crying and rushed in, I tried to cover myself up with my hands, but I don’t suppose they hid much. He looked away then tugged the sheet off the bed, cursing under his breath.
“What the hell did he do to you?” he asked as he wrapped it around me.
“You don’t want to know. But there’s not a part of me that doesn’t hurt.”
“Shit. I didn’t realise it was that bad here.”
“We’re kidnapped and sold into the sex trade. What the hell did you think was happening to us when you were working at that warehouse?”
“Well, I knew it wasn’t good, but this…” He shook his head, biting his bottom lip much the way I had. “When I was here before, I never came upstairs.”
“Just let me go back to my room, will you?”
Rather than helping me to my feet, he scooped me up in his arms and headed for the door. I was too tired to argue. All I wanted to do was take a shower in a vain attempt to wash the filth off myself, then crawl into bed.
“Tell Chad that if he stops by tonight, I’ll bite his damn dick off,” I said after Leandro had deposited me on my bed.
“I’ll make sure he stays away. Did you eat?”
“Yeah, I chewed on a ball gag for a while.”
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled as he backed out of the room.
So was I.
Sorry for myself, sorry because my family must be going through hell, and sorry because I hadn’t found Izzy. Had she gone through that experience too? Because it would have broken her.
The door beeped again as I was about to step into the shower, and I froze.
“It’s me,” Leandro said from the bedroom. “I brought you some food and a packet of painkillers.”
He was still sitting on the stool when I emerged clean on the outside, grimy on the inside, and wrapped in my silk bathrobe.
“You don’t have to stay here. I’ll survive.”
“I promised I’d make sure Chad stayed clear. He was hanging around in the hallway when I brought your dinner.”
Suddenly, I was grateful rather than annoyed.
“Thank you.”
“Do you want anything else? A hot drink? Wine?”
“What I really want is to go home.”
Now he shifted uncomfortably. “Can’t help with that.”
“Why are you here? The others, I get, but you don’t seem like a bad guy.”
He shrugged. “It’s a job.”
No, it was more than that, but I didn’t want to push Leandro. Not now. He seemed to exhibit an odd protectiveness over me, and if there was one guard I might be able to exploit, it would be him, the weakest member of the pack. How could I turn that vulnerability to my advantage?
Tomorrow. I’d work that out tomorrow. Tonight, I just wanted to eat the snacks he’d brought me, then go to sleep.
My ass throbbed as I lay there in the darkness, listening to Leandro’s steady breathing, but eventually, I drifted off. And I had a weird dream that in the early hours, Leandro brushed the hair out of my face, then softly kissed my forehead before he retreated back to his basement lair. Strange. And when I woke in the morning, he’d vanished, taking any evidence of his nocturnal visit with him.
CHAPTER 27 - BLACK
“DAMMIT.”
BLACK COULDN’T help laughing as Emmy cursed. Yes, laughing. Despite the circumstances, he felt oddly happy.
He’d worried that meeting his mother would be an awkward affair, but after he got over the initial nerves, talking to her became as natural as breathing. They’d stayed up into the early hours with Emmy, Rafael, and Vicente, putting together the jigsaw puzzle of his childhood. And he had a name now.
Before he died, his twin brother had written him a letter with a few snippets of information. When Marisol read the scanned copy Black accessed on his phone, she’d welled up exactly as he did when he first received it.
“He said he was the one who smiled as a baby, which makes him Emilio.”
“So I’m Mathias?”
“Yes. You liked to scowl a lot.”
“No change there,” Emmy said. “But thank goodness he’s Mathias because one Emmy in the family is quite enough. Emerson and Emilio? Awkward.”
Mathias da Silva. Yes, he preferred Mathias to Charles. It was a shame he’d never be able to use the name—people would ask too many questions that he didn’t want to answer. And after a short discussion, they decided Marisol would remain as Marisol and not Mom. She said she was just thrilled to hear him call her anything after all these years.
When she got tired, he’d helped her upstairs—thankfully, his architect had included an elevator as part of the renovations—and lifted her into the king-sized bed in the master suite. Bradley had brought in an extra double for Dores, and Black and Emmy moved to a smaller bedroom on the other side of the house. Emmy didn’t care where she slept, and he wanted Marisol to have the best.
Marisol reminded him a little of Emmy, in fact. She had the same steel core and the same irreverent attitude. Double the sneakiness and double the snark might drive him to distraction, but he wouldn’t want it any other way.
Right now, Emmy was kneeling on the floor, pieces of duct tape clenched between her teeth, trying to stick a bunch of electrical cables to the tile so nobody would trip over them. But the tape wasn’t behaving, hence her frustration.
“Diamond, did you just swallow a piece?”
“I think…” Cough. “So.”
Fortunately, Marisol was on hand to help out.
“Here, try this.” She lifted the arm of her wheelchair and pulled out a rather impressive ceramic knife. “It’ll cut anything.”
Good grief.
“Did you bring that on the plane?” he asked.
“Of course. Being an old lady in a wheelchair does have some advantages. I just smiled sweetly and they carried me on board.”
“Chuck, I love your mom.”
See? Double the trouble.
And because Black didn’t have enough problems in his life today, Bradley bounced in with a sparkly pen and a clipboard covered in unicorn stickers.
“Okay. I’ve purchased clothing and toiletries for Rafael, Vicente, Dores, and Marisol.”
“I already have plenty to wear,” Marisol said, but he ignored her.
“Groceries are arriving in thirty minutes, and the restaurant down the road is delivering a sushi platter for lunch. Squeaky toys and dog food will be here at three, but the doggy bed won’t arrive until tomorrow because the memory foam mattress was a special order. Anything else?” He took a step towards Marisol, then backed off when he saw the knife in her hand. “What about your hair? Your bangs are getting untidy.”
“We’re busy looking for my granddaughter right now.”
“It won’t take long, just—”
Black planted himself in front of Bradley. “I have a new task for you. By the time we’re finished here, Riverley Hall has to be wheelchair accessible. Ask Marisol what she needs and fix it.”
Bradley saluted. “Wheelchair accessible. Got it. We’ll need to adapt a bedroom, and install handrails, and lower the bathroom fittings, and…”
He was still talking to himself as he wandered out of the room, but hopefully that little project would keep him busy for a few days. Black wanted everything to be perfect when his mom visited Virginia, and he’d have to go to Colombia too, which meant he needed a house in Medellín. He pulled out his phone and fired off a message to his property manager.
Black: Need to buy a place in Medellín. Wheelchair friendly.
Hmm. Where did Marisol even live? She’d mentioned an apartment, which sounded small, and like he said, he wanted her to have the best. Perhaps he could buy her somewhere bigger?
“How would you like a new house in Medellín?”
She rolled her eyes. “Mathias, work. Focus.”
Fuck, he was losing his mind.
“Right. Of course.”
Now it was Emmy’s turn to laugh. “Yeah, dude
. Focus.”
By the time dusk fell, Black had talked with the team investigating the warehouse fire and learned that three men had been charged with possession of drugs with intent to supply—it was hard for them to mount a defence when their prints were found on twelve kilos of waterlogged coke—but they’d denied having any knowledge of why the girls were in the warehouse. The burns victim in the hospital was in an induced coma, but Black wasn’t sure she’d be much help even if she did wake up. He wanted to know where the girls went after their stay at the warehouse, not where they came from.
And since he’d pretended from the beginning that Blackwood’s interest was in Rafael and not the warehouse operation, it was difficult to dig deeper without arousing suspicion.
“One of our guys received a death threat,” the police captain told Black as they parted company. “Probably from the Mafia. So if this man you’re after is La Cosa Nostra, watch your back.”
Message understood.
Nate split his hacking efforts between the police and the Mafia, but so far, he hadn’t found anything useful. The Florida operation was an offshoot of one of the New York families, but they seemed quite insular in their activity. Cruz and his Floridian colleagues hit the streets, and while the word was that nobody liked the newcomers much, nobody knew much either. Most of the members of the gang whose territory they’d taken over were in prison. Meanwhile, back in Richmond, Mack was trying to find out more information on Task Force Atlantis, but so far, she hadn’t had any luck.
And sometimes luck was what they needed. A big break.
Cases like this were often slow to progress, but this time, Black’s family was involved. Every hour, the cold anger building inside him ratcheted up a notch.
“You’re tense,” Emmy said at the end of the day. “Not just determined like you usually are. This is different.”
“Everything’s changed.”
“But it’s a good change. Last year, I saw how dejected you were after Valento, even if you tried to hide it. At least you have answers now.”
“Corazon is still missing.”
She stood on tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. “We’ll find her. And those fuckers who took her aren’t gonna know what’s hit them.”