by Reinke, Sara
Cervantes? As in Tejano Cervantes? Brandon knew that name. He was one of the Nahual, the leader of a rival corillo to Valien.
“You just do what you need to—get the goddamn statue. Got that, tovarisch? Yeah, dos vedanya up your ass, too.” Still frowning, the man jerked the phone away from his ear, slapping it angrily down into the console cup holder.
Who…who are you? Brandon whispered.
The man glanced up in surprise, meeting Brandon’s gaze through the windshield reflections. “Well, hey.”
Please, Brandon groaned, and the man reached out, pinching his nose lightly between his forefingers.
“You’re not supposed to be awake yet,” he said.
As he spoke, Brandon felt another excruciating surge of neuro-electric energy sear through his brain. He convulsed in his seat, thrashing against the seatbelt, smacking the side of his face into the window, then the back of his head against the seat. Every muscle in his body tightened into simultaneous, agonizing knots, and had he been able to, he would have screamed. Within seconds, he was out cold again.
* * *
When the car came to a stop, the rumbling of the engine in the cab surrounding him ceased. The man opened the passenger side door and the hot, humid night air pressed in instantly; when he leaned over Brandon to unfasten his seatbelt, Brandon could smell his cologne, feel the tickle of his hair against his cheek and lips.
Please, Brandon groaned, as the man hauled his limp arm across his shoulders. Why…are you doing…this…?
With a grunt that Brandon felt as a sharp intake of breath near his ear, the man pulled him from the car. His knees immediately buckled beneath him, his legs unable to support his weight, but the man was strong, and bore him easily.
The man began walking with Brandon, pretty much dragging him along. Brandon’s vision was swimming, his eyelids still impossibly heavy, and all he could discern was a smear of bright lights ahead of them, growing closer with every step. He could tell when they went inside by the crisp press of air-conditioning against his skin, and by the swell of glare all around him.
Like the nerve endings in his muscles, those in Brandon’s brain kept firing sporadically, too, his telepathy cutting in and out in a bizarre and confusing cacophony of sudden thoughts and emotions. There were numerous people around them—a hotel lobby? he wondered dimly, and then, through a large mirror behind the front desk—yeah, a hotel lobby—he saw the man smile at one of the clerks on-duty.
“…no, really, he’s fine,” the man said. “Just a little too much celebrating for one night, you know? Poor kid…”
Help me, Brandon tried to tell her, to send to her telepathically, but if the woman heard him, he didn’t know; couldn’t tell. The man led him away in stumbling, clumsy tow from the desk, and she was gone, out of Brandon’s line of sight.
Get…your fucking hands…off me, he seethed at the man, as he dragged Brandon onto an elevator.
The man didn’t reply; he simply leaned forward and, with his free hand, swiped a plastic key card through a port in the elevator control bank. Brandon felt the floor beneath them give a slight shimmy, and then they were in motion, going up.
Who are you? Brandon asked. What…what do you want from me?
Again, the man offered no response. When the elevator doors opened again, he adjusted his grasp around Brandon, then pulled him along as he stepped out into a brightly lit corridor. The man fumbled with the key card reader on the outside of his room door, struggling to prop Brandon upright beside him at the same time, and by the time he managed to unlock it, he was clearly irritable. He shoved the door open forcefully, and his fingers tightened to a painful clamp against Brandon’s side as he hauled the younger man across the threshold.
With an unceremonious shove, he pushed Brandon face-down onto the bed. Out of the corner of his eye, Brandon watched as he flopped down into an easy chair directly beside the bed, and within Brandon’s line of sight to lip-read. He had his cell phone in hand again, and Brandon realized the source of his aggravation—it had been ringing as the man had been fighting to open the door, and he’d been hurrying to answer it.
Whoever was on the other end of the line must have been known to the man, because his harried expression softened and he managed a smile. “Az,” he exclaimed. “I didn’t realize it was you! Why aren’t you using your cell phone?”
For the first time, Brandon realized the man was wearing a suit and tie. As he listened to his caller, the man leaned back, loosening the tie from around his neck, pulling it free from his collar. “What?” As he spoke, he laughed. “Are you kidding? No, I’m in Miami. Father sent me down here on some business with that Cervantes fellow—what’s his name? Tejano?”
That name again—Cervantes.
Had the man somehow taken Brandon all of the way from Bayshore to Miami? Out of the corner of his eye, Brandon could see a digital clock on the bedside table. It said 7:54 p.m. The last time he remembered glancing at a clock in the apartment above Valien’s garage shortly before his abduction, it had been just after seven o’clock. There was no way they could be in Miami, then; no way to have made the trip in anything less than three hours, never mind one.
So why lie about it?
The man stood, shrugging out of his suit coat, which he folded carefully in half length-wise, and then very primly draped across the back of his chair, as if fastidious about protecting it from wrinkles. “What’s up? You sound funny. Not in a funny ha-ha kind of way, either.”
The man dropped his pants, but then lifted them off the floor, shook them out and folded them with the same deliberate care he’d showed the suit coat. He did likewise with his shirt, after first balancing his phone between his shoulder and cheek and unfastening a pair of gold cufflinks.
“Didn’t Father send you to Lake Tahoe?” Brandon saw him say as he cocked his head to accomplish this. “He’s had his Depends all in a twist over Jean Luc. Aren’t you supposed to be…wreaking his vengeance or something like that?”
Lake Tahoe? That was where Brandon and Lina had come from—where the Morin clan lived. At this mention—as well as the name Jean Luc—Brandon felt his skin begin to crawl.
Jean Luc Davenant? he thought. From Augustus, he’d learned that Lamar Davenant had seven sons, but at the time of his five hundredth birthday, only four had still been alive: Allistair, Jean-Luc, Julien, and Jerard.
Allistair had been the one who had tried to burn Brandon alive; Augustus had killed him. Jean-Luc had apparently traveled from Kentucky to California and attacked two of Michel Morin’s kin—his son, Mason, and his grandson, Tristan—although Brandon had only heard reports of this from Augustus since his arrival in Florida with Lina. The other three Davenant sons—including the mysterious Aaron—had died long before Brandon had been born.
“When you get done, come down here and join me,” the man said. He’d stripped naked and walked toward the bathroom, his body lean and strapped with muscles. “It’s been too long since I’ve seen you more than in passing, frérot…”
There was more, but Brandon focused on the word frérot. It was French for little brother. Since Allistair and Jean-Luc were dead, that left only two of Lamar’s sons still breathing. And since Jerard was the youngest, that left little room for mystery, and even less for debate.
I know who you are, Brandon thought, as the man walked out of his line of sight, disappearing from his view. You son of a bitch, I know your name—Julien Davenant.
CHAPTER NINE
“I…um…hope I haven’t kept you waiting,” Lina said as she approached a small table nestled in a quiet corner of the otherwise-bustling Pablo’s.
Marcus was already waiting for her, and rose from his seat. “Not at all,” he replied, drawing her chair back politely for her. “It’s great to see you again, Detective.”
“Thanks.” Lina sat down. “And please, call me Lina.”
“Lina,” he repeated with a smile. “I like that.” He reached for her hand, giving a little shake as if by w
ay of introduction and making her laugh. “Nice to meet you. I’m Marcus.”
A waiter came breezing by, and Marcus didn’t seem the least bit offended when Lina declined his suggestion of a glass of wine, or a martini. Instead, she ordered a Shirley Temple, feeling ridiculous and childlike, but unable to think of anything other than this—or a Diet Coke—that she wanted.
“I’m driving, remember?” she remarked, trying to play off the choice, both with Marcus and herself—because she didn’t want to admit that the real reason she wasn’t drinking alcohol was the same as why she’d stopped by a pharmacy on her way home from the police station that afternoon, and why a little pink-and-blue box was waiting for her on the back of her mother’s toilet at home.
I’m not thinking about that tonight, she told herself firmly, smoothing down the front of the fuchsia blouse over her stomach. She wanted—no, needed—to feel normal, because that little box in the bathroom had scared her more than finding Augustus Noble on her doorstep, more than if she’d found a hundred and fifty bloodthirsty Brethren on her front porch.
“I’d be glad to take you home,” Marcus offered, and she suspected it was deliberate, that little play on words, because he hadn’t quite insinuated that he’d take her to his home—or in this case, his hotel room—but he hadn’t exactly said hers, either.
“I think I’m good. But thanks.” She glanced around the table. “So where are the files?” When he looked puzzled, she added, “The case files. Remember? We were supposed to go over them.”
“Oh.” He hung his head. “I have to admit, I made that up. I mean, I do want to go over the case files with you. Just not tonight.”
She wondered how many times he’d tried that same bait-and-switch tactic, those puppy-dog eyes on female officers before her. And if it had ever worked.
’Cause it sure as hell isn’t tonight, she thought, rising from her seat. “Good night, Agent Simms,” she said drily.
“Wait,” he said, leaping to his feet. “Lina, please. Let me explain.”
“It’s Detective Jones,” she said, her brows narrowing. “And you don’t need to explain shit to me. I’ve been played before—by a hell of a lot better than you. We’re done here.”
She started to storm off, but froze in her tracks as from behind her, he said softly, “You know, it’s a dangerous business owing Augustus Noble a favor.”
Lina stiffened, turning slowly back to face him. “Excuse me?”
“I said owing Augustus Noble is dangerous,” he said again, and in the prolonged, tense silence between them, he motioned with his hand to indicate her newly vacated chair: an invitation to park her ass back down in it.
With a scowl, she sat. “I don’t owe Augustus Noble anything,” she said. “I didn’t ask for his help. I didn’t need it. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
So he knew about her past, what had happened with her ex-boyfriend, Jude Lannam, and with Brandon’s older brother, Caine. He knew she’d been on the lam; that Augustus had bailed her out of her legal woes. Big fucking deal. He was FBI, for Christ’s sake—nothing was a secret, never mind sacred, to them.
The imploring look on Marcus’s face, in his eyes, seemed genuine. “I’m not trying to piss you off,” he said. “I’m on your side, remember? I invited you here tonight to talk to you off the record. You’re a good cop and you’re right—you didn’t do anything wrong. Trust me, you don’t want to get involved with someone like Noble.”
Lina frowned. “What do you mean?”
“He had a lot of ties to various international criminal organizations while he was head of Bloodhorse Industries. There are a lot of off-shore bank accounts I’m sure he’d like to keep the IRS unaware of…a lot of…shall we say investments on his part, in illegal activities that have gone on to significantly supplement his net worth.”
“Like what?”
“Weapons acquisitions,” Marcus said. “Mostly for third-world countries in South America, but at the time he turned over control of Bloodhorse, rumor has it that a couple of Middle Eastern…opportunities, you might say, had become available to him. Human trafficking—mostly Asia and South America again. Funneling illegal aliens into and out of the U.S., mostly for sex trade purposes.”
Lina stifled an inward shudder. The allegations came as no surprise to her; she’d been warning Brandon for months now that Augustus was bad news—of the worst kind. She’d never doubted, not even for a moment, that his sadistic treatment of his own grandson had been the tip of the iceberg in terms of his sick capabilities. That he’d branched out into illegal arms dealing startled her somewhat, but the human trafficking had been expected news. Brandon had described to her the ceremony of the bloodletting among the Brethren clans; a ritualistic slaughter of hundreds of migrant workers—all of whom had come to work for the Brethren Thoroughbred horse farms, and none of whom had a green card. And unlike the Morins in California, the Kentucky Brethren sustained themselves on the blood of humans—undoubtedly thousands each year.
Now I know where they came from, she thought, as a knot of nausea suddenly twisted in her gut. Sex trade, hell—Augustus was knee-deep in the blood trade.
“And drugs, of course,” Marcus continued. “He’s funded some of the biggest kingpins to come out of Mexico in the past half-century. Hell, rumor has it, he has his own personal cartel armed and at the ready, just south of the Texas border.”
Brandon never told me any of this, Lina thought—but it didn’t take a genius to figure out why. Brandon hadn’t known about any of this. While growing up, he’d been too terrified to learn much about his grandfather, except that the son of a bitch had a temper.
“I know you’ve spent time with Augustus’s grandson…” Marcus began.
Lina blinked in surprise. “Brandon doesn’t have anything to do with the kinds of stuff you’re describing,” she said. When Marcus’s expression shifted, growing doubtful, she frowned. “He doesn’t. That’s what started all of this in the first place—Brandon was trying to get away from his family, and Augustus in particular.”
But now that Augustus had taken him under the proverbial wing, he’d groomed Brandon to eat bullshit straight from his hand. He can tell Brandon anything, and he’ll buy it, hook, line and sinker.
“Brandon’s not involved,” she insisted…although, all at once, a quiet voice in the back of her mind began to nag at her.
Is that true? Are you sure about that, Lina?
Once upon a time, she would’ve sworn she’d known Brandon well enough to say with certainty. But then again, she’d also once been convinced that he’d never hurt her, never betray her trust. And if she hadn’t known his character well enough to see that coming from a mile off, who was to say what else she’d missed along the way?
“Augustus is involved with Tejano Cervantes, isn’t he?” she asked softly.
All at once, she felt stupid for having never considered it before. Why else would the Miami office of the FBI—and the Special Agent assigned to investigate Tejano’s alleged activities in Bayshore—be so interested and well-versed in his affairs?
Then another, even more disturbing idea occurred to her. She and Brandon had traveled to Florida, only to have Tejano show up there.
Too goddamn convenient. Maybe that’s why he was so insistent on coming to Florida in the first place. It was always his idea more than yours, wasn’t it? ‘You should visit your mother, Lina…you should let her know you’re alright.’ And all the while, he and Augustus were sharing bourbon shots together, making nice with one another, ‘making up for lost time,’ he’d call it.
“You think Brandon is somehow involved, too,” she said softly.
“Off the record?” Marcus asked. “I don’t know enough right now to say.”
* * *
Lina drove back to Latisha’s bungalow in a daze, tears burning her eyes the entire time.
Brandon couldn’t be involved in that stuff, she thought as Marcus’s words floated around inside her head—off-shore bank accounts,
weapons trafficking, human trafficking, illegal drugs. He just couldn’t.
But again it occurred to her just how perfect it all seemed, how coming to Florida had been Brandon’s idea all along, how he and Augustus had been getting so chummy lately, and how their arrivals had coincided with Tejano’s.
She let herself inside the house and ducked into the bathroom. Here, she spent a long time sitting on the toilet, staring at the pink-and-blue box. She’d opened it and removed the contents: one individually wrapped pregnancy test stick, and one folded set of directions. She’d read them through at least three times already, although they seemed fairly cut and dry: piss on the stick, then wait.
And worry.
With a heavy sigh, she looked up at her reflection. I’m on the pill. But had she missed one somewhere along the way? Doubled up on the doses the next day? She couldn’t remember. Everything had been so crazy in her life for so long, and it had felt like she and Brandon were always on the road, always shacking up in one fleabag motel or another. It was possible.
Hell, anything’s possible.
She sat down on the commode, the pregnancy kit in hand. The instructions had said that using the first urine of the morning was the best, but that the test could be performed at any time of the day.
Or night, Lina thought, closing her eyes. Scooting back on the toilet seat, she reached between her legs, her skirt shoved up to her waist, her panties pushed down to her ankles. For a long moment, she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to pee, and she fought the urges to both weep and giggle all at the same time. Then her bladder relaxed, and she heard a tell-tale splash in the commode.
When she’d finished, she set the test aside on the sink counter without looking at it. She’d cleaned up after herself, flushed the toilet and washed her hands, all while forcing herself to keep her gaze trained anywhere but at the little white plastic stick.