“As he carried me to his car, a dragonfly landed on his shoulder. It had iridescent blue wings. I’ll never forget the color of those wings. The dragonfly looked at me and said, ‘Survive.’ I know I must’ve been hallucinating, but that’s what it said. ‘Survive.’ And somehow in my mind, the dragonfly was my sister, and she was telling me to live, to live for all of us, all the girls in that dark cage who would never grow up to be wives and mothers and lovers. All the girls who’d had their childhoods stolen, who were abused so brutally, who were sold off by adults with no more care than you’d sell a used car.
“So I did what the dragonfly told me to. I survived. Reynard nursed me back to health. He was kind to me. He raised me and gave me an education and continued to skim money from Capo’s operation so that every once in a while he could save a little girl from a nightmare.
“And every time I steal something at Capo’s request, I honor the memory of my sister and those dead girls by leaving the totem of the dragonfly, a beautiful creature that has a very short life. A creature that visited me when I was close to death and gave me a reason to live. Without that dragonfly on Reynard’s shoulder, I know I wouldn’t have made it past that night.”
After I stop speaking, there’s total silence. Ryan’s heartbeat thuds against my shoulder blades. His breathing is shallow, and there’s a small tremor in the arm he’s bound around me. Finally, he presses the softest of kisses to the nape of my neck.
I turn over and throw my arms around his shoulders, burying my face in his chest.
He cradles me close, his feet tangling with mine, a low sigh slipping from his lips. “Angel,” he whispers gruffly, “you’re a miracle. I’m so grateful you lived. And for as long as you do, I want to be beside you.”
I burst into tears.
He lets me cry without shushing me, just holding me tight against his body, letting me take strength from him, giving me a soft place to fall. When it’s over and I’m sniffling and snot-faced, he goes to the bathroom and comes back with a wet washcloth and gently wipes my cheeks and nose. Then he strips off his jeans and underwear, crawls under the covers, and spoons me again, one arm under my head and the other tight around my waist, his breath warm and soft on my shoulders.
I fall in love with him the way the dying give up their last breath: irrevocably, with both hope and terror for what lies on the other side.
* * *
We sleep.
I don’t know for how long, but we both come awake at the same time, our hands and mouths finding each other, our bodies and hearts perfectly in tune. Ryan makes love to me with a tenderness that’s painful because it’s so raw. I’ve been stripped of the hard, protective skin I’ve worn for so long. I’m nothing but exposed nerves and a beating heart and a ravenous, insatiable hunger. Hunger for him, for this beautiful man who saw me from the beginning, who so easily saw what I really was and accepted me without judgment or fear, only good humor and open arms.
He gives me hope for mankind.
“What time is it?” I ask hours later, when we’re both sated and sweaty, a tangle of arms and legs under the rumpled sheets.
“Dunno,” he replies sleepily. He turns his head on the pillow and gazes at me, smiling. “Why, you ready to go again?”
My laugh is low and happy. “Sure, if you have a wheelchair handy. I don’t think I’ll be able to walk right for a week.”
Ryan looks like this is the best compliment he’s ever received. Beaming, he lifts himself up to an elbow and kisses my shoulder. “You don’t need to walk, remember? You’ve got your own personal wheelchair right here.” He flexes his arm, making his biceps muscles bulge, and me laugh.
“You’re crazy.”
“Crazy for you.” He smiles into my eyes, and I’m so floating and light, I must be hooked up to a helium tank.
“I need a shower,” he says, throwing back the covers. “You in?”
“Get the water warm for me. Be right there.”
“Don’t take too long, Angel. I’m a hot-water hog.”
He winks, rises from the bed, and treats me to the sight of his gorgeous backside as he swaggers naked into the bathroom. I stretch under the covers, feeling the soreness in all my muscles, trying not to let darker thoughts of what’s going to happen tomorrow intrude on my happy little oasis.
But as soon as I try to push my worries away, they come back in full force and the moment is ruined.
As the water goes on in the bathroom, I sit up in bed and scrub my hands over my face. The need to check in with Reynard has been scratching at my brain for hours, and now it’s finally turned into an all-out assault I can no longer avoid if I want to stay sane.
I don’t know exactly what I can tell him, but at the very least I need to let him know I have the diamond, and I’ll be back soon.
Ryan is whistling in the shower when I rise from bed. I dig the phone he gave me out of the pocket of my jeans, discarded on the floor hours ago, and dial Reynard’s number.
It rings. And rings.
And rings.
He’s never not answered my call before.
My fear is an invisible fist that reaches out and grabs my heart. It’s impossible to breathe. My pulse beats fast and fluttery. I wait, holding the phone tight to my ear, fighting a sense of doom so strong it makes my hands tremble.
Finally, the ringing stops as the call clicks through.
“Reynard?” I say into the silence, my voice high with panic.
There’s a strange sound I can’t identify. A wet sound, almost like a rheumy cough, but weaker. Then, as horror blooms over me like a pestilent flower, Reynard’s voice finally comes over the line.
“Dragonfly,” he says, his voice raspy and low, a death rattle. “My darling. Don’t come ba—”
He cuts off abruptly. I’m about to frantically shout his name, but the words die on my lips when I hear what comes over the line next.
“Hello, Mariana. We’ve been waiting for your call.”
Cold with horror, I sink to my knees on the floor. Clutching the phone in both of my shaking hands, I whisper, “Please. Please don’t hurt him.”
Capo’s chuckle is soft and dark. “Oops. Too late.”
My groan is a terrified animal’s. “No. Please. I-I have the diamond, I’ll be there soon—”
“With your boyfriend the mercenary? I think not. I understand he has quite close ties with American government agencies that go by three initials. Now listen carefully. A plane is waiting for you at JFK Airport. Go to the Sheltair private jet terminal and tell the gate agent your name. Your real name, please, none of your covert identity nonsense—”
“Capo, please,” I beg, “Reynard had nothing to do with this—”
“Don’t insult my intelligence!” he thunders, his patience snapping like a twig. “I’ve been recording everything that goes on in that fucking trinket shop for years!”
I think of our plan to tell Capo that I thought Reynard’s shop was bugged, and sob.
It was bugged. When Ryan went in and demanded Reynard tell him where I was, after he left and I emerged from my hiding place inside the sarcophagus…the whole time, Capo was listening.
“If you don’t shake your American, he’s going to start a war with the Devil and drag us all into hell.”
I recall Reynard’s warning to me that day, and sob again.
“Tears won’t help you.” Capo’s voice is softer now, his control regained as quickly as it was lost. “You know what I want. Come to me, or Reynard dies. Try to run, and your boyfriend dies, too. I know where he lives, Mariana. I know everything there is to know about him.”
“You’ll kill them both no matter if I come to you or not,” I say bitterly. “You’ll kill us all.”
Capo’s voice drops an octave and gains an intimate, seductive edge. “I could have killed you a lifetime ago, Mari. But you have something I want. And I’m tired of waiting for it. Come to me now, and you have my word I’ll let them live.”
“The word of a m
urderer,” I hiss, shaking so hard I almost can’t keep a grip on the phone.
He turns nonchalant. “Well, it’s up to you. Don’t come, and they die. Not easily. Not quickly. You will, too, because I don’t tolerate disobedience. Come, and all of you live to see another day. The way I look at it, your only real option is to see if I’ll keep my word. The odds are fifty-fifty. Flip a coin, make a choice. Heads, everyone dies. Tails…”
His voice drops again. “Everyone lives, and you and I get to spend a little quality time alone together before I decide what to do with you. Maybe you can convince me to be lenient.”
I don’t speak. There aren’t any words in any language for this moment.
Except “Fuck you.”
Capo laughs. After a split-second pause, I hear a scream in the background, high and wavering, full of anguish.
“He won’t last much longer, Mari. Better hurry. Come alone and don’t be followed, or all the blood will be on your hands.”
A click, final as the last nail in a coffin, and he’s gone.
I thought I knew what hell was before, but now I realize that, like the circles in Dante’s Inferno, you have to go through many different layers before you finally reach the center where the Devil waits, licking his lips.
I take a moment to say a silent farewell to my beautiful dream, and to Ryan, the beautiful dreamer who made me believe in fairy-tale endings.
Then I rise, wipe the tears from my cheeks, and quickly dress.
Twenty-Six
Ryan
I stand in the shower with my hands flat on the wall in front of me and my head bent under the spray, letting the hot water pummel and soothe my muscles. I’m calm, my mind focused and clear, my heart like an eagle with spread wings riding an updraft over the crest of a mountain.
I always thought falling in love would be like falling apart somehow. Like losing your mind. Well, there’s that too, I admit with a wry chuckle. But it’s more like…finding something you didn’t even know you’d lost.
I feel like me, only better. Bigger. Turbocharged. With Mariana by my side, I can take on the world and win.
I really hope there’s an opportunity for me to take a shot at Moreno during the op, because a life behind bars isn’t enough punishment for that scumbag.
A bullet isn’t, either, but I’m sure the government would frown on me going full Hurt Locker on him like I want to. Like the son of a bitch deserves.
I shake the water from my eyes and thoughts of Vincent Moreno from my head and straighten. “Angel!” I call out, my voice echoing against the tile. “Water’s gettin’ cold!”
I picture her snuggled in my bed, warm and soft under my covers, her hair messy and her dark eyes lit with fire like they always are when she looks at me, whether pissed off or turned on. My dick gets heavy just from the thought of it.
I smile down at the big guy. “Still got some juice left in you, huh?” Better fix that. “Angel!” I call again, louder this time.
I grab the bar of soap and start to lather my chest, but something stops me. I don’t know what. Intuition, maybe. I cock an ear toward the door and listen.
Nothing. No answering call.
I crank the knob, turning off the spray of water. “Mariana?”
Not a sound.
No. It’s not that. It’s only your mind playing tricks on you. You’re becoming an old woman, worrying over everything. She’s in the kitchen, grabbing something to eat.
Then I remember what’s in the kitchen.
“No.” This time I say it out loud, and firmly, because I’m being an idiot. After what we just shared, after everything she told me, there’s no way in hell she ran out on me again. There’s no fucking way…
I’m out of the shower and into the bedroom before I can even finish the thought.
She’s not there.
“Mariana!”
I stride naked into the living room.
She’s not there.
I run into the kitchen.
She’s not there.
I run, wet and frantic, shouting her name through every room in the house.
It’s only when I see the note taped to the elevator doors that I stop running. Unfortunately, I stop breathing then, too. I read what she’s written and inhale what feels like my last breath.
Ryan,
I’m not saying goodbye, because goodbye means going away, and going away means forgetting. And I’m never going to forget a single moment with you.
Forever,
M.
My enraged bellow of “FUCK!” echoes throughout the whole house.
When I yank open the fridge and find the milk container empty, the roar that tears from my chest isn’t even human.
Twenty-Seven
Mariana
I don’t have any money, so when the cab I flagged down on the street pulls up to the curb at the private jet terminal at JFK, I throw open the door and run out before the driver can stop me. His angry shouts quickly fade as I run into the terminal, and I head straight for the nearest customer service counter.
“Mariana Lora,” I say breathlessly the moment I get there. “My name is Mariana Lora. I was told—”
“Yes, Ms. Lora.” The woman behind the counter, an attractive, middle-aged brunette in a navy-blue suit, smiles at me with all her teeth showing. Then she gestures like a spokesmodel to a set of sliding double glass doors to her left. “Right through those doors. The jet is waiting on the tarmac.”
Of course I don’t need a ticket, or identification. I don’t have to go through security, either. Such is Capo’s power.
I run through the glass doors into the cool evening, my hair blowing wild around my face. There are a dozen jets of different sizes spaced up and down the tarmac, but the one closest to the doors is large and has a man in a black suit waiting at the bottom of fold-out stairs. He lifts his hand in greeting. I wonder how long he’s been waiting there like that for me.
I wonder who else is on that plane.
As it turns out, two other men in suits. I enter the plane and find gleaming luxury: large, buff-colored leather seats and a few small tables, and a pair of big, unsmiling guys seated at the back who stand when I come in, adjusting their suit jackets like they’re hoping for a chance to use the weapons under them. The man on the tarmac follows me inside, folds the stairs up, and locks them into place. Then he raps twice on the closed cockpit door and asks if I’m carrying a cell phone.
I debate whether or not to give it to him, but judging by his expression and the gun glimpsed in the holster at his waist, it would be a bad decision to lie.
I hand it over wordlessly. He removes the SIM card, smashes it under the heel of his shoe, and tosses the phone aside.
He motions for me to extend my arms. I obey silently and he frisks me for weapons, head to foot. When he doesn’t find any, he asks if I’d like a drink.
I decline. He pours me one anyway—vodka, straight—and points to the closest chair.
“Why don’t you sit there for the flight?” he says, his voice as quiet as his eyes are hard.
It’s not a request. I sit. Then he gives me the drink and a smile so chilling, I shrink back into the chair.
He switches to Italian. “The vodka will help.”
I answer in English. “With what? I’m not afraid of flying.”
“Not the flight,” he says, still in Italian, still smiling. “With what comes after.”
He leaves the bottle on the table in front of me and goes to sit at the back of the plane with his two friends as the engines roar to life.
Twenty-Eight
Ryan
“Take it easy, brother, calm down, I can’t understand you—”
“She took the diamond!” I holler as I take a corner at top speed, tires squealing. “She’s gone, Mariana’s gone!”
The Bluetooth in the truck emits a crackle, then silence. “Well, that fucking sucks,” Connor says.
“I’m on my way to Metrix right now! We need to scramble th
e team and get everyone locked and loaded—”
“The team?”
“—and ready to go within thirty minutes!”
“Sorry, I’m not following. You know where she went?”
“Thirty minutes!” I shout at the top of my lungs and disconnect the call.
* * *
I fly so fast through the streets of lower Manhattan, it’s a miracle I don’t kill anyone, including myself. By the time I arrive at Metrix, I’ve achieved a tenuous grip on my fury and am able to slow at the gate and punch in the security code instead of gunning it and trying to crash straight through like my adrenaline would like. I park, jump out of the truck, and hump it across the parking lot without even closing the driver’s door.
Connor has already beat me here.
The big steel door slides open, and he’s standing with his arms folded over his chest, wearing his usual black boots, cargo pants, T-shirt, and Glock, along with a credible poker face—although I can tell he’s on high alert.
“What’s the 411, brother?”
I hold up my cell phone. “Let’s get the satellite up. I’ve got a bead on her.”
He turns and strides beside me as I head to the war room. Even at this hour, all the computer stations are manned. We don’t even get a single curious glance as we blow past the crew. They’re used to seeing us in combat mode.
“You wanna tell me what happened?”
“You know what happened,” I growl. “She took the diamond and left.”
“Uh-huh. And what precipitated that?”
I stop dead in my tracks, swing around, and stare at him. “Precipitated? Are you fuckin’ kidding me?”
Connor spreads his hands wide in a placating gesture, so I know what’s about to come out of his mouth is gonna be something I won’t like.
Wicked Intentions: The Wicked Games Series, Book 3 Page 23