“All I’m asking is, did you two have a fight?”
“Jesus. Fucking. Christ,” I grind out.
“’Cause when you guys were here earlier, I was getting the vibe that she was basically…in love with you.”
“Of course she’s in love with me, dickhead!” I roar, my face exploding with heat.
Connor blinks. He drags a hand over his dark hair, shorn short like he always wears it. “Yeah, you lost me again, brother.”
I lift a hand and start to count the obvious facts on my fingers. “One: everything was peachy keen one minute, afterglow like a motherfucker painting my bedroom walls pink; the next minute, she’s gone. With the diamond. Two: she left a cryptic fuckin’ note with some weird Peter Pan quote her and Tabby were yakkin’ about the night they met. Three: She made a call on the cell phone I gave her right after I went into the shower and right before I discovered her gone. A call that lasted exactly forty-six seconds before bein’ disconnected from the other end. Guess who she called?”
“Reynard,” Connor says immediately.
“Bingo. Only the number she dialed was rerouted all over the fuckin’ place and bounced off practically every fuckin’ telecom satellite we got up in space before bein’ encrypted and obfuscated all to hell, then pingin’ back to a Chinese restaurant a block away from my house.”
Connor’s eyes turn poison black. Crazy-person black. The black of a man who’s getting ready to go to war. “Vincent Moreno. And that ping-back was his way of telling you he knows where you live.”
“And Mariana’s headed to him with the diamond in exchange for Reynard’s life.”
“She’s lucky you trust her,” he says, after a beat. “With her history of running out on you, most other guys would’ve figured this was the same thing.”
I turn and head toward the war room again. “Yeah, well, don’t give me a medal yet, ’cause I told her the phone was untraceable, which it isn’t.”
“Good thinking,” Connor says. “Unless Moreno or one of his men take it away from her at some point, which we have to assume they will.”
“We’ll still be able to locate her.”
“Oh? How’s that?”
“I might’ve put a tracker on her sweatshirt,” I grudgingly admit.
When he doesn’t say anything, I go on. “And one on her belt. And another one in each of her boots.”
He chuckles, shaking his head. “Ain’t love grand?”
“Don’t judge me!”
“I’m not, brother. I’ve got GPS on every piece of Hello Kitty shit in Tabby’s closet.”
I push through the glass doors of the war room, muttering. “You must need extra bandwidth.”
The command center in Metrix—referred to by everyone as the war room—is exactly what its name suggests. All our ops are planned and monitored in the large rectangular space. It’s the central hub for every mission, the beating heart of the company, the one place I know that will be able to pinpoint Mariana’s location to within a five-foot radius.
An array of electronic equipment bristles from every wall and flat surface. Computers, video screens, satellite monitoring systems, you name it. In the center of the room is a long black table surrounded by leather captain’s chairs. One end of the room has a raised dais with computer terminals. I think it was modeled after the combat ops center at the Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker complex in Colorado Springs, but Connor won’t admit it.
He’d never fess up to getting ideas from the Air Force.
I jog over to the nearest computer terminal, pull up the tracking program linked to my phone, and navigate to the map. And there’s Mariana, designated as a cluster of red dots, her location irrefutable.
Six thousand feet above the Atlantic Ocean and climbing.
“Shit,” Connor says. “She’s in a bird. Gonna need to scramble the FBI.”
“They’ll take too long!” I growl in frustration. “Fuckin’ paper pushers!”
I look over at him and he sees my expression. “Oh no. Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?”
“Ask Tabby to hack into air traffic control and see which flight has those coordinates.” I point at the screen. “Find out where it’s going. And see if she can fiddle with the onboard flight management system to get it to slow down a little, or at least tamper with the fuel gauge readout or something else so the pilot has to make an unscheduled landing.”
His brows lift. “Would you like her to make it rain, too, brother?”
After a moment, I ask, “Can she do that?”
He just shakes his head, sighs, and removes his cell phone from his pocket.
Twenty-Nine
Ryan
The flight is hours long. I don’t know exactly how many because I don’t have a watch and there aren’t any clocks on the plane, but when we begin to descend, the sun is rising over the distant horizon in a brilliant orange glow, and I can finally see land.
I unbuckle my lap belt and rise. Instantly, all three men behind me rise, too, watching me like hungry vultures.
I don’t bother pointing at the lavatory. They can fucking figure it out on their own.
Slamming the door behind me, I turn on the faucet and splash cold water on my face. I’m exhausted. I need a shower, clean clothes, and to brush my teeth. I use the toilet, flush, then comb my fingers through my hair. I’m hot, so I drag the hoodie over my head and enjoy the relief of cool air on my bare skin.
A tinny metal plink catches my attention. I look down.
In the sink, caught next to the drain stopper, is a round metal object the size of a dime. I instantly recognize it, because I’ve seen this thing before. I pick it up and stare at it until my hand shakes with the hot rush of adrenaline flooding my veins.
GPS.
My mind is a sudden blizzard of flying goose feathers. I have to stuff my fist in my mouth to stifle my groan.
What do I do? If Ryan follows me, Capo will kill him. And me. And Reynard.
Which he’ll probably do anyway, my brain unhelpfully reminds me.
I stand holding the tiny tracker until there’s a knock on the door and a sharp question in Italian.
“Give me a minute!” I snap. Then I’m overcome with terror at the thought of what will happen if Capo or his men discover this device.
I look frantically around the small lavatory for a hiding place, but the knock is coming on the door again, louder this time, and I decide there’s really only one thing to do.
I swallow the tracker in one gulp.
I yank the hoodie back over my head, take a breath, smooth my hands down my stomach to calm myself, then open the door and stare up into the glowering face of one of the black-suited triplets. His hand rests menacingly on the butt of his sidearm.
“Had to go number two,” I say, and push past him to go back to my seat.
The assassin takes a long, narrow-eyed look around the bathroom, then closes the door and moves silently past me toward the back of the plane. I stare out the window and watch a rugged coastline rise up to greet us. In a few minutes, we’ve landed at a small airport and are taxiing off the runway and toward a gate.
A cell phone rings behind me. It’s answered with a curt “Ya.” There’s a short silence, then a deferential “Si, Capo. Certo.”
Then one of the assassins is lifting me to my feet with a hand wrapped around my upper arm.
“Ouch! You’re hurting me!” I try to yank away, but his grip is steel. He gives me a quick, hard shake that makes my teeth clatter.
He tells me in Italian how he’d love to hurt me in other ways, to which I furiously respond, “Capo will kill you if I come to him with even a bruise!”
It’s a long shot, but it hits the mark. The assassin’s nostrils flare and his lips thin, but his grip loosens so it’s no longer cutting off circulation.
“Be nice,” I add bitingly, “or I’ll tell him some pretty lies about what you did to me in the bathroom.”
He smiles, a dark, lazy smile that makes
my skin crawl. “Who do you think gets his leftovers, bitch?” he says in succinct English. He drags me closer as I try to pull away. “The three of us share them,” he says hotly into my ear. “You’re a little old, but you’ll do.”
He grabs my other arm and pushes me in front of him down the aisle. I stumble but quickly regain my balance, throw him a poisonous look over my shoulder, then stand with my arms folded protectively over my chest in the galley near the cockpit door.
All three men in black come to stand in a row in front of me and stare at me with identical small, knowing smiles.
It’s so creepy, I have to look away, even though it makes me feel like a coward.
“First dibs,” one of them says to the others.
Their smiles grow wider when they see my expression. Then I grow so angry, I want to spit.
“Well, I hope you like AIDS,” I say with as much dignity as I can muster, “because I’ve been HIV-positive for eight years, and it’s recently taken a turn for the worse.” I motion to my mouth. “I get these sores. Painful, pus-filled things, and skin rashes like you wouldn’t believe, and right now I’ve got a really nasty yeast infection—”
“We’re allowed to subdue you if you fight,” interrupts the one I think is their leader. “What do you think, Sal? Is she fighting?”
My blood runs cold, but Sal merely shakes his head. “She’s just scared.”
“Ya,” says the leader, softly. “Scared.” He adjusts a thickening bulge in his crotch, and I want to throw up.
Mercifully, I’m saved from any further discourse with the sicko squad when the cockpit door opens. The pilot emerges, tall and slim with hair the color of cast iron, and a nose that’s been broken more than once. He looks sharply at the four of us. His gaze lingers the longest on me.
“Change of plan,” he says, turning his attention back to the assassins. “You’re to take a Cessna from here. It’s already fueled up and waiting down the tarmac. No need to go in the terminal, just head straight over to gate forty-two. It’s a two-minute walk south.”
Two minutes. A lot can happen in two minutes. In two minutes, a person can die of a heart attack, achieve an orgasm, post a Facebook status update, fall in love.
In two minutes, a person could find a way to escape from her captors.
But no. I have to see this through, because Reynard’s life is in the balance and maybe, maybe there’s a way for me to escape or make a new plan after I know Reynard is alive and safe. Until then, I’m stuck.
We exit the plane. The morning is cool and bright, the salt air bracing against my heated cheeks. There are a few airport workers within sight, a luggage handler unloading bags onto a conveyor belt, a guy with neon signaling sticks and headphones steering a twin-engine jet into a nearby gate, a woman driving by in a pushback tug. The urge to scream to all of them for help is almost overwhelming.
I choke it back with thoughts of how Reynard sounded on the phone, that bloodcurdling shriek he made when Capo did whatever horrible thing he did to cause it.
Waiting for us at the Cessna is another man in a black suit. They seem to be in endless supply. He motions for us to come quickly, but as soon as we’re at the steps that lead up into the plane, he stops us and produces a long, black plastic wand from behind his back.
A metal detector.
With brisk efficiency, he swipes it over my head and neck, my chest and arms, my stomach and back, then stops abruptly at my waist when the wand emits a frazzled squawk.
He yanks up my hoodie and stares at my belt.
Then he glares at my three companions. “You fucking idiots.”
“What?” says the leader, offended. “We searched her!”
“Not good enough.” New guy rips off my belt and throws it on the tarmac.
I stare at it in disbelief. Another GPS?
I decide that if I ever see him again, Ryan and I are going to have a nice, long talk about this “trust” thing he keeps harping on about.
The man proceeds to slowly wand down both my legs, then around my feet, where the wand squawks again. Muttering curses, he straightens and glares at me. “Take the boots off.”
I do as I’m told and shuck them off. He kicks them aside, then begins another careful full body wanding until he’s satisfied I’m clean.
Thank God the wand doesn’t penetrate flesh, because I don’t want to imagine what horrible thing would happen to me if my bare midriff gave off an alert.
I’m roughly loaded onto the plane. There are only enough seats for me, the three assassins, the pilot—who’s already seated—and the new guy. After a short wait on the runway and clearance from the tower, we take off once more, banking hard into the glare of the morning sky.
God, if you’re up there, now would be a good time to prove it.
* * *
The small plane lands on a tiny island, deserted except for the concrete strip of runway and the black helicopter waiting at one end. No one has spoken for the duration of the flight, so I have no idea where we are or where we’re going, but if the next leg of the journey involves a helicopter, it must be close.
The pilot coasts to a stop at the end of the runway but keeps the engine running, the props spinning.
“Out,” the lead assassin commands, opening the small door.
He barely moves aside to let me pass, so I’m forced to press against him. He grins down at me, leering, and I quickly jerk away and hop down to the cracked runway.
It’s obvious he’s not worried about me escaping at this point, which makes sense. Unless I had a mind to drown myself, I’ve got nowhere to go. There’s nothing on this island except sand, scrub brush, and seabirds wheeling overhead, their lonely cries like the wails of lost children.
The assassins follow me out of the plane, one by one. They lead me over to the helicopter as the Cessna turns around. The plane takes off again as I’m climbing into the chopper. I watch it go, getting smaller and smaller until it’s just a glinting speck against the sky.
Blue as a dragonfly’s wings, that sky. Blue as my lover’s eyes.
The chopper starts up with a mechanical roar and a burst of wind, the blades rotating until they’re a silver blur above us. When we lift off, I’m praying again, only this time with all my might.
* * *
For a long time, there’s nothing below us but water. Endless water, in every direction. But then I glimpse a spot of white in the distance against the unceasing navy blanket, and it all makes sense.
As we fly closer, the size of the yacht grows and grows until we’re hovering over it, and I get a better sense of how massive it truly is. I’ve seen city blocks that are shorter. The helipad we’re headed toward is on the lowest of the vessel’s six decks, to the rear of an oval swimming pool which is situated at the extreme forward tip. There’s another helipad on the aft deck, an enormous bridge deck topped with bulbous satellites, and a tender on the starboard side that’s about the size of an average ski boat, only it looks miniscule in comparison to the sheer enormity of its berth.
The megayacht’s name is spelled out in italic lettering on one section of white siding:
Sea Fox.
“She has a two-seater submarine, too,” says the lead assassin, startling me. When I stare at him, he smiles. “In case Capo wants to take you for a deep-sea dive after dinner.”
His smile turns evil. Heart pounding, I look away.
We land on the helipad with a gentle bump.
A manservant in a white uniform opens the door from the outside. Ignoring everyone else, he gestures at me to disembark. I do, with the assassins following at my heels. We’re led off the deck and through an outer lounging area of tables, cushioned sofas, and a large, built-in fire pit. Then we enter the yacht through electrically operated sliding-glass doors.
The first thing I hear is opera music. Muted and beautiful, it plays over hidden speakers and instantly makes my stomach curdle. I force back memories of the last time I heard opera and try to remain calm.
I fail. Every part of my body that has sweat glands is working overtime.
The interior of the yacht is decorated in muted earth tones of sand, brown and gray, with ultramodern furnishings and a lot of polished wood. Colorful, contemporary art adorns the walls. We head toward a glass staircase in the center of a lobby-like area, and I follow the manservant as he mutely motions me on.
Why doesn’t he speak?
“Loose lips sink ships,” one of the men behind me says with a low, sinister chuckle. I realize he’s read my mind at the same time I realize the probable meaning of those words. The manservant is missing his tongue.
Breathe, Mari. Just breathe. One foot in front of the other.
We walk for what feels like a lifetime, navigating through a warren of rooms—each more spectacular and luxurious than the last—until we arrive at a pair of mahogany doors flanked by marble statues of roaring lions, fangs bared, crouched to pounce. The manservant raps twice on the doors, waits until he hears a murmur from within, then pushes open the doors and stands aside.
The suite is vast, maybe five thousand square feet from glass wall to glass wall, with a private outside deck at the opposite end. It’s tall, too, three stories capped with the brilliance of a modern, sculpture-like chandelier suspended from clear cables so it appears to float in midair.
The floor is white marble, the view is of sparkling ocean, and the man looking out the windows across from me with his hands in his trouser pockets and his back turned in my direction is Vincent Moreno.
My heart stutters. For one long, breathless moment, I’m transported back in time to that fateful night, the last time I saw my sister alive, when I was so near death and a dragonfly saved me.
Reynard saved me. I owe him my life. That’s why I’m here.
The thought gives me strength as Capo turns around and meets my eyes.
Our gazes lock.
I’m certain one of us isn’t leaving this room alive.
He’s wearing a crisp white linen suit, which sets off his dark tan. The collar of his shirt is open, revealing a strong neck. A small gold medallion nestles in the hollow of his throat. He’s calm and spotless, and I hate him so fiercely, it’s like I’ve swallowed fire.
Wicked Intentions: The Wicked Games Series, Book 3 Page 24