A Beautiful Lie (Playing with Fire, #1)

by Tara Sivec

  “Don’t listen to him, Annabelle. He’s not going to let any of us live. We know too much,” Joe’s scratchy voice said through the speaker.

  “On the contrary, my friend,” Fernandez answered. “Your beautiful daughter here would be quite useful to my organization. I believe I could double the highest price I’ve made on all of my girls for someone to get a taste of this one.”

  Garrett and Joe could both be heard growling obscenities at Fernandez’s words.

  “And the two men in your life, well, obviously neither one of them would be useful to me in any way. Only one of them needs to be around to watch you suffer and to endure his own form of torture. Having two of them lamenting about the horrors being done to your body is just overkill, don’t you think? I think it’s quite generous of me to let one die quickly. So who will it be, Annabelle? Make your choice.”

  Parker looked frantically into Garrett’s eyes. All her years of training boiled down to this one moment. She had no idea how she could possibly choose between her father and Garrett. There was no choice to be made. She couldn’t…she wouldn’t choose one to be hurt worse than the other.

  Milo locked his elbow and pushed the gun harder into Garrett’s skull, his fingers ghosting over the trigger.

  “No, please! Choose me! Kill me instead!” Parker yelled as she looked frantically back and forth between Fernandez and the gun Milo held against Garrett.

  “Parker, no!” Garrett argued.

  “You feel like you need to take a life to make up for the injustices done to you, fine. Pick me,” Parker stated, glancing at Garrett mouthing a silent I’m sorry to him. “I would make the most trouble for you anyway, not them,” she said aloud.

  Parker felt like she was falling over a cliff and there was nothing to grab onto but crumbling dirt and rocks. She knew Fernandez wasn’t a negotiator and got sick pleasure out of hurting people. She knew it, and yet she couldn’t just sit there and do nothing. Parker knew telling him she would make the most trouble for him was a lie. If she died, her father and Garrett would destroy everything in their path to avenge her. Part of her knew Fernandez wasn’t a fool and would never believe a word she said, but she had to try and save her men at all costs, even if it meant sacrificing herself.

  Garrett felt the gun Milo held against him move away from his head and watched it come into his peripheral vision as he pointed it straight at Parker.

  “Jesus, Milo! Think about what the fuck you’re doing?” Garrett yelled in alarm. “Don’t do this!”

  Garrett could feel the panic bubble inside of him and spill over so quickly he felt like he wanted to scream. Everything he’d ever learned about a hostage situation or a rescue mission vanished from his mind. The only thing he saw was the woman he loved with a gun pointed at her. A woman who would rather die than let anything happen to him or her father.

  “Fuck you, Garrett!” Milo screamed at him, stepping forward to shove the gun roughly into the side of Parker’s head now. “Maybe this really is the best decision. I sat around for years and watched you get the best of everything. I thought killing you would be my way of finally getting something I wanted. But maybe having you watch her die will settle the score,” Milo said as he cocked the hammer, releasing a bullet into the chamber of the gun. The click of the hammer echoed through Parker’s head, and she squeezed her eyes closed.

  Garrett didn’t know how much more of this he could take. With one slip of the finger his whole world would collapse.

  “There’s no score to settle, Milo. I’m sorry if you thought I got everything and you got nothing. I’m sorry if you had a shitty childhood but that’s not my fault. It’s not Parker’s fault. I stuck up for you, I protected you, and I was your friend. My family took you in and thought of you as one of their own.”

  Garrett knew reasoning with Milo and reminding him about their friendship wouldn’t work but he didn’t care. He’d say anything to get that gun away from Parker’s head.

  “Oh please, enough of this nonsense. Your family never loved him. They tolerated him. I am his flesh and blood. I gave him life and I gave him everything he deserved for being a faithful son to me. I will continue to reward him from now until eternity for the sacrifices he’s made. Anything he desires shall be his,” Fernandez promised.

  Garrett tore his gaze away from Parker long enough to glance up between Milo and his father. Fernandez almost sounded nervous. Garrett knew there had to be a reason why he felt the need to remind Milo about the rewards he gave him and would continue to provide for him. It was almost like the man was trying to bribe Milo, like he was afraid Milo might actually falter with his decision to follow in his father’s footsteps unless he promised him the world on a silver platter.

  Garrett watched in shock at the staring contest between father and son and quickly realized it was now or never. As corrupt as Milo had become, and as much as Garrett hated him for tainting every good memory they ever shared, the only thing he could hope for at this point was that somewhere in there Milo still had a heart. That deep down inside that little boy who looked up to Garrett when he took care of the bullies who was still in there — the little boy with the easy smile, the big heart, and the yearning for family and friendship.

  “My parents loved you, Milo,” Garrett stated. “My mother hugged you and wiped away your tears every night when you woke up from a nightmare. She made you a scrapbook when we left for college filled with pictures of all of us and little notes about each picture and how much joy you brought to our family by being a part of it. My father taught you how to drive and took you out for your first beer. He bailed you out of jail in the middle of the night when you did something stupid and never, ever lectured you, put you down, or made you feel like anything other than what you were—one of his sons,” Garrett reminded him, punctuating each fact with a shake of his head. “Where was your father when you were thrown down a flight of stairs when you were ten? Where was the man who claims he did everything to make you stronger when cigarettes were being burned into your arm and your bones were being broken? This man, who promises you the world, do you think he’d drop everything and fly across the country just to congratulate you in person about a promotion you got for work like my parents did? Do you think he’d put flowers on your grave every single week and cry from a broken heart like my mother has done for the past year?” Garrett asked, shrugging his shoulders in question.

  Parker watched silently at the transformation in Milo. One minute he stood tall and proud and had nothing but vengeance and murder in his mind. After a few of Garrett’s well-chosen words, he lost his confidence and confusion clouded his features.

  The hand with the gun pointing at Parker began to shake and Garrett knew that what he was doing was actually affecting Milo.

  Fernandez knew what was happening. He’d known all along how weak his son was. He knew that no matter what he did to make sure Milo followed in his footsteps, there was still part of his mother’s blood flowing through him, a pathetic, fragile flowing of conscience that ran through him and fought for dominance. A son worthy of this life would have already pulled the trigger and wouldn’t have let foolish memories cloud his judgment. As much as he wanted a namesake, sadly, it just wasn’t to be.

  “Oh for God’s sake, the decision is now mine,” Fernandez said, snatching the gun out of Milo’s shaking hand. “Trés.”

  The calm, quiet command from Fernandez was immediately followed by the roar of a gun going off, three consecutive explosions of a chamber being emptied.

  <> ~ <>

  “Come on, you piece of shit, work!”

  Brady swore, not for the first time in the last fifteen minutes, and smacked his open palm against the side of the out-of-date computer installed in the back of the van where he sat parked outside of the palace gates.

  Before Garrett even got into the trunk of Margarita’s car, Brady was on his way to the hospital to pick up Austin and Cole. A rushed phone call to Austin while Garrett attached a listening device to Margari
ta’s bra strap gave Brady a tiny inkling of hope that they might actually be able to pull off this half-assed plan. Brady had no intention of asking either one of the men to help them, considering what happened to them earlier in the night. He had called to get an update and to try and find out if their attackers had given away any information that could be useful. Upon hearing about Garrett’s plan for getting Parker out and nailing Fernandez, Austin’s reply was straight, to the point, and one hundred percent SEAL.

  “Get your ass over here and get me and Vargas out of this fucking hospital. We’re coming with you.”

  Brady had wasted entirely too much time arguing with an intern at the hospital to get the two men discharged. Austin’s bullet wound to the shoulder was stitched up nicely, and the area was pumped full of Lidocaine to take the edge off the pain. Luckily the injury was to his left shoulder. He could still raise his right arm and shoot a gun if needed.

  The gash in Cole’s side was also stitched and bandaged and looked like it would heal nicely. The intern said he didn’t have any serious restrictions where that was concerned, aside from not lifting anything heavy or twisting his body in an unnatural way that would rip the stitches out. The nasty pounding he’d taken to the head was another matter. The younger man yelled to everyone who would listen that Cole needed to stay right where he was and be monitored for twenty-four hours to make sure he didn’t have a concussion. Brady assured him he would shine a flashlight in Cole’s eyes every thirty minutes and ask him what year it was before he told the intern to get out of his way.

  Luckily, a code blue alarm went off somewhere else in the hospital and the guy needed to rush off.

  While Brady had been on the way to the hospital, Austin and Cole had called in a few favors. Austin managed to get them a nondescript van that had video and audio equipment installed in the back. Unfortunately, the van and everything inside of it was circa nineteen-ninety-something and the equipment was not up to Brady’s usual standards.

  While Austin and Cole had canvassed the palace for a way inside the gates, Brady hooked his laptop up to the old computer in the van. He was trying unsuccessfully to pull up the listening device software on his laptop so he could find out what was happening inside and instruct the two men on their next moves. Since his own internet connection kept crashing, he switched gears and tried to find a way to bypass the palace’s secure wireless connection. To do this he would need to access the media network that the entire palace ran on. It was proving to be one enormous cluster fuck.

  “Son of a mother fucking…” Brady swore again and wiggled the cables that connected his laptop to the hard drive in the van.

  “It’s Friday night and the beat is sick. I’m gonna get my girls and hit the club up quick.”

  The walkie-talkie next to his laptop on the small table in the van crackled to life with the sound of Austin singing horribly off-key. Brady scooped it up with one hand and pressed the ‘talk’ button, tapping on a few computer keys with his free hand.

  “What the fuck are you singing?”

  “Dude, have you been living under a rock? It’s the new song by Layla Carlysle. It’s a catchy tune,” Austin responded.

  “That’s the worst fucking song I’ve ever heard in my life. What’s your status?” Brady questioned.

  “The good news is Vargas and I just scaled the fence. We’re in the North corner. The guard that was stationed here got called away,” Austin replied.

  “Good work. What’s the bad news?”

  “I’m pretty sure we both just ripped our stitches in the process. That doc is gonna be pissed,” Austin said with a laugh.

  Brady heard Austin breathing heavily and the muted sounds of him shuffling across the grounds of the palace. SEALS were trained to handle more pain than the normal human being in order to complete a mission, but that didn’t mean Brady wouldn’t worry about the two men who were like brothers to him and hope he hadn’t made the wrong decision by checking them out of the hospital against doctor’s orders.

  “Okay, we’re by a window. I see a few of Fernandez’s people. They’re going about their fucking business like there aren’t hostages in there right under their noses,” Austin said angrily.

  Brady unplugged one of the cords and then reattached it, typing in one more command while he held his breath. A new screen suddenly opened on his laptop with the words “Chamberlain Wireless Intercom” at the top.

  “Well son of a bitch,” Brady mumbled in surprise.

  “What’s going on?” Austin voice crackled over the radio.

  “I’m pretty sure I just found out that Chamberlain uses a wide area network, and I linked my WLAN into their secure connection without using Ethernet and running on less than four gigahertz.”

  “Uh, in English please,” Austin replied as Brady typed in a few more codes.

  “Basically, my friend, I just connected the bug that Margarita is wearing to the palace’s intercom system.”

  Within seconds the bug’s audio burst through Brady’s laptop speaker and every single intercom that was inside of the palace walls.

  “Oh, Lieutenant McCarthy, you are so naive. Those young girls you speak of? They weren’t worthy of the pity you give them. They were whores who brought filth to the streets of this country. They asked for what they got and I was more than happy to give it to them…”

  “Whoa! A bunch of people just converged into whatever room this is to listen. This must be the staff quarters by the looks of it. Every person we have visual on just stopped in their tracks,” Austin informed him.

  Brady held down the ‘talk’ button on the walkie-talkie so Austin and Cole could hear what the workers inside the palace heard. It didn’t take long for Fernandez to hang himself with his own rope.

  Austin and Cole watched through the window pane as several people glanced back and forth between two men in their midst. The warriors outside the palace watched the transformation that took place inside: shock, grief, hurt, anger, and finally revenge. The emotions gripped not only the two who were most affected as they listened to Fernandez’s words, but everyone who surrounded them. These people who worked together for the most powerful man in their country, they were like family. They spoke of their kin often, asked for advice, attended birthdays and weddings. They felt each other’s joy; they suffered each other’s sorrow. But most importantly, especially at this moment, they all sought retribution for the wrongs done to their comrades.

  It only took a few moments of silent communication for the employees who had worked tirelessly for Fernandez over the years to take action and for Brady to send up a silent prayer of thanks that their luck was finally turning around.

  Brady quickly got up, slid open the door to the van, and jumped out. He stood by the opening and checked the clip in his gun to make sure it was loaded and added as many extra rounds as he could fit into the pockets of his flak jacket. He fastened the walkie-talkie to his belt and attached the tactical headset with wireless earpiece and throat mic. He let Austin know they were switching to wireless to enter the palace since it was the only way they’d be able to continue listening to what was going on inside.

  Brady slammed the door to the van closed and crouch ran along the perimeter of the fence until he got to the north corner of the property where Austin and Cole were able to get over the fence undetected.

  During his sprint the wireless ear bud crackled and filled with static off and on, and he could barely make out the conversation happening where Parker and Garrett were. He pressed the throat mic and spoke to Austin and Cole.

  “The feed is spotty. What’s going on inside?”

  Brady slid his gun into the holster of his jacket and easily climbed up and over the fence.

  “It’s total chaos,” Cole replied. “People are running in and out of the room and it looks like a few are shouting orders. We need to get our asses in there. What’s your ETA?”

  Brady jumped down to the palace grounds and raced across the lawn.

  “Thirty sec
onds. I have visual on you.”

  In the seconds it took for Brady to make it to Cole and Austin’s location up against one of the palace walls, all hell broke loose somewhere inside. The wireless mic roared to life with the sounds of gunfire and screams.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  With eyes squeezed tightly closed and shoulders hunched to prepare for the bullets that were certain to tear through her flesh, Parker wondered momentarily if she’d been hit and died so quickly she hadn't felt any pain. She heard the firing of a gun and knew there was one pointed at her head just moments before it went off. She reasoned that all of the reports about death being painless were true. She felt nothing.

  Parker slowly blinked her eyes into focus and wondered where the screams were coming from. If this was heaven, no one should be screaming. The room came into focus with the startling clarity of a flashlight being shined into the eyes of someone sleeping. One moment she was wondering if she was dead, and in the next she realized that she was very much alive.

  And screaming very loudly.

  In the stark reality of the quietness that now surrounded the basement, Parker realized the reason for her screams. To her left, Fernandez remained, standing tall and arrogant. Immediately next to him stood Milo, looking properly chastised from having his gun snatched and not being able to perform his job in the swift, efficient way that Fernandez demanded.

  Directly in front of her, still on his knees, his eyes mirroring the pain that obviously clouded her features, Garrett held her face in his hands. He tried in vain to quiet her screams by forcing her to look him in the eyes instead of around the room at the monsters behind them.

  The sounds that came from Parker were heart-wrenching and cut deep into Garrett’s soul. For one solitary second, his life flashed before his eyes when Fernandez gave the command. He prayed to a God he’d never spoken to before, asking him to keep Parker safe and to make sure she got out of this alive. He would give anything to make sure she was safe.