by Fox, Logan
“You sure?” Neo’s look became frantic.
“We still have to search the place,” came Bailey’s voice. From the sound of it, he’d stepped closer. All four of them now surrounded Neo, and it looked like he was sweating fucking bullets.
At least he wasn’t idiotic enough not to know when he was in deep, deep shit.
Kane rose, and the other three men stepped back.
They might have fooled themselves by saying it was to give him enough space to stand, but he knew better.
Kane Price was in charge of this operation now.
And their first order of business was tracking down and killing Zachary West.
37
It’s not kopi Luwak
Coffee and baking bread teased Cora awake. She opened her eyes, blinking to force them into focus. White walls and a fluttering curtain slowly appeared. She stretched, groaning softly as her muscles warmed, and propped herself up on an elbow.
Just visible beyond the curtain were the fronds of a palm tree. A faint susurration filled the air— familiar and yet completely foreign at the same time.
Pressing her palms into her eyes, Cora sat up. The sheets under her felt like satin against her skin. She looked down at herself, staring in confusion at the silk nightie draping her. The cream-colored garment was slightly too big for her—the two v’s at the top of the short dress barely covered her nipples.
She tugged up the fabric, squinting around the room. She could have been looking at the page of a home decor magazine with this place’s wicker furniture, and white-and-blue striped upholstery.
There was even a bottle with a ship inside it on the mantle.
Nails clicked against the shiny wooden floor.
Cora’s eyes widened as a white pitbull emerged from the hallway, standing on the threshold and staring inside.
Its jowls hung open. A string of foamy saliva slowly drooled from its drooping lip before splattering on the floor by its dirty paws.
It left a few grains of sea sand in its wake as it slowly made its way into the room.
Lady.
But it sure didn’t look like a lady. She’d seen stray dogs with more meat on their bones.
Cora swallowed, and drew her legs up tight against her, withdrawing to the center of the queen-sized bed. The dog stopped a foot away from the side of the bed, watching her as it slowly panted.
The sound of bare footsteps drew her eye. Zachary stepped into the room, a tray in his hands. On it, cutlery rattled faintly against crockery.
Of course: this was a dream.
Cora dipped her head, closing her eyes as she allowed herself a rueful smile. The beach house, the sickly dog, a cheerful Zachary West.
A strange, twisted dream, but a dream nonetheless.
“Morning, my love,” Zachary said, giving her a broad smile.
She’d never seen him smile like that before. He was so handsome when he did, dark eyes sparkling and adding boyish charm to his usually severe expression.
He wore a short-sleeved shirt, the buttons undone, and a pair of beige slacks that came just above his knees. Paired with bare feet and that mop of unruly brown hair, he looked like a man who’d still slip out some morning for a surf, hoping he wouldn’t run into the younger bucks as he tried to catch a few waves before breakfast.
Zachary came around the bed, gently moving Lady aside with his foot and placing the tray on the nightstand closest to Cora.
The light in the room seemed too bright, and would flicker and falter every few seconds.
She hated dreams like this; they always felt like they went on forever.
“Is that for me?” she asked, completely unintentionally.
Zachary beamed at her, and perched on the edge of the bed. “How are you feeling, my love?”
She smiled at the term of endearment. “Good. A bit stiff, but good.” She stretched, and Zachary ran a hand over the sheet draping her shin.
She should have flinched at the touch, but she didn’t.
Dreams were weird like that.
“This’ll see you right,” he said, gesturing toward the tray. Then he leaned closer, and pressed his lips to her forehead. “Your things are in the closet,” he said as he drew back. His eyes drew a lingering line over her body. “Not that I would mind if you stayed in that for the rest of the day. What’s left of it, anyway, sleepy head.”
He left while she was still giggling to herself like a school girl. She glanced at the tray. Her stomach felt hollow, but she didn’t want the food—the coffee would do for now.
It burnt her tongue.
Cora jerked, hurriedly setting the mug down and staring at it if it was a pile of snakes.
A tongue rasped over the back of her hand. She stared wide-eyed at the dog as it turned gorgeous, imploring eyes on her, and then looked at the tray.
Cora’s hand shook when she set the plate on the floor. She yanked her legs up as the dog wolfed down the bacon, eggs, and toast in case one of her toes got in the way.
She slowly backed away, her feet tangling in the sheet as she tried to get off the bed without catching Lady’s attention.
So intent was she on the dog, that when she slipped off the bed and backed up into a warm, tight body, she screamed in shock.
A hand clapped over her mouth.
“No, no, no!” Zachary yelled in her ear, giving her a rough shake. “No more noise!”
So Cora squeezed her eyes shut and tried desperately to stifle her next scream.
She couldn’t.
38
Shadow heart
As soon as dawn broke, Lars, Finn, Bailey, Kane and Ana split up to begin searching Zachary’s property. Lars had tied Neo to the rocking chair on the porch, despite the man’s protests.
Grass crunched under Lars’s boots as he headed away from the farm house. Kane had come up with a way for them to cover as much of the farmhouse’s grounds as possible between the five of them; each heading straight out to the furthest points, and then circling back in at an angle. Like the spokes of a wheel, and then a mandala slowly winding inward to its center. Well, that’s how he’d explained it.
For some reason, it sounded almost logical. Lars put it down to the fact that, in the last twenty-four hours, he’d been drugged, lied to, and deprived of food…and that he’d done all of that without a single nap.
A rohypnol induced semi-coma didn’t count, because it just fucking didn’t. And despite his body begging him for sleep, he hadn’t been able to get any shut eye, not even when he’d gone to lay down in the back of the SUV.
It might have had something to do with the dead body Milo had taken to show him. That was the last time he called bullshit on anything Milo said.
Zachary’s property was surprisingly serene. Birds sang from the branches of the many trees dotting the land, and larger mammals moved just out of sight— either gearing up for the day ahead or moving back to their burrows to wait for night.
The air smelled crisp and clean. But, about twenty minutes into his walk, he reached a crooked chain link fence that he assumed was the property’s boundary. And, five minutes after that as he headed back toward the farmhouse at an angle, a light breeze wafted the smell of char to him.
Whatever had burned, it had been big. His boots stirred smog where it lay like thin cotton wool over the ground.
The smell intensified to a sweet miasma of burned wood, damp ash, and…?
Lars slowed, but didn’t stop walking. His hand went to his pocket. Ahead, the trees cleared out and a large, squat building appeared.
Well, its shell.
Smoke curled up from what remained of the stone walls—those that hadn’t toppled.
Lars dialed Milo.
“I was just about to call you,” Milo said. “We found a tunnel.”
Lars crunched over grass that had turned to spiky charcoal. It seemed the fire hadn’t been adequately contained by the building.
Fires were hungry things, after all.
“My burned down building beats you
r tunnel,” Lars said, but he could hear how strained his voice was.
“Your…what?”
“I think you should get over here.”
“You should get over here,” Milo said sternly. “This tunnel goes all the way to fucking Mexico.”
Lars stepped carefully. The stench of smoke turned the air to a soupy stink that seemed to cling to him as he climbed over a fallen beam.
The warm ambience of dawn painted the fire’s remains a sickly hue.
“You know that thing Neo said, about how Zachary’s supposed to have like a lot of staff?”
“Yes, but what does that—?”
“I just found them,” Lars said. “All of them.”
Then he turned and hurled up everything that was left in his stomach.
* * *
Finn glanced aside at Lars. The man sat shotgun in the SUV, fingers curled against his mouth as he stared out the window. He hadn’t said a word after giving Finn directions to the staff quarters. They’d found him sitting on a rickety chair that had somehow escaped the carnage, watching dawn break over the horizon.
More than anything, Finn would always be grateful for Lars’s warning, his last words before he’d hung up.
“Don’t bring Ana. I don’t care if you have to tie her down…Don’t. Bring. Ana.”
So he hadn’t brought Ana, but he’d gathered up Bailey and Kane. Bailey had been the one to find the tunnel entrance, Kane the one to realize that, from its position so close to the Rio Grande, it had to be a conduit between USA and Mexico.
Both had been adamant they’d wanted to see the other side.
But Lars had needed them.
They’d left Ana to keep an eye on Neo. Kane and Bailey rode in the back, silent as the rest. The SUV’s interior smelled faintly of weed; Kane had offered Lars a hit of a joint after they’d inspected the grotesque remains of Zachary’s staff quarters…and the bodies that had still been inside when he’d set fire to the place.
In fact, Finn was the only one who hadn’t taken a hit from that joint. Everyone — even Kane — had seemed shocked by just how many people had been consumed by those flames.
Some had been children young enough to die in their mother’s arms.
Yet Kane, although shocked, hadn’t seemed surprised. According to the DEA agent, Zachary had a history of starting fires. He himself was covered with burn marks from the first fire he set that killed someone. Apparently, he’d had enough of being sexually abused by the man who’d taken him in after his parents had died.
A one Gregory Yule had been the tragic victim of an oil fire back in ninety-eight. Young Zachary, merely a teenager at the time, had barely survived and definitely not unscathed. Burn marks covered most of the left-hand side of his body.
He’d refused skin grafting.
Instead, it seemed, he’d found solace in more violence.
Finn’s knuckles creaked as he tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
Cora was in the hands of the devil himself. Maybe that’s why Lars had taken to silence, and why the air inside the vehicle prickled with dread apprehension.
Finn parked the SUV at the mouth of the tunnel.
It was their last hope.
Kane stirred first, catching Finn’s eye as his reflection moved in the rear view mirror. “Times a-wasting,” Kane murmured, glancing over the faces of everyone inside the car. “Let’s go get our girl, shall we?”
Finn’s beast growled deep and low. Claws clicked as the creature came hesitantly forward and sniffed the air. Then it slunk back to its shadows, nothing but a sullen gleam of its eyes to prove it was there.
It was probably better that way; he couldn’t afford to lose control. Not now. Not with so much at stake.
He would never forgive himself if he did something to fuck this up. If he lost Cora forever.
Four sets of footsteps sounded through the dirt, and then off concrete steps. The four of them spread out into a line; Finn in front, followed by Lars, then Bailey, and finally Kane.
When Finn glanced back, Kane was studying the inside of the tunnel with visible admiration.
“You know El Chapo had one of these too?” Kane said, but more as if to himself. “Several, in fact. Soon as we shut one down, he’d just build another.”
“First time I’ve heard of it,” Bailey said.
“Well, he didn’t have anything on this scale,” Kane said. The man’s voice sounded sonorous how it echoed back to them. “His tunnels were quite small, ill lit. This is…this is downright fucking cocky.”
“Wasn’t like he’d be disturbed,” Bailey agreed somewhat hesitantly. “It’s his own land.”
“Probably owns the property on the other side too. That would be genius. Never worrying that a landlord is going to snitch on you. Not that Zachary West tolerates snitches.”
This brought a wave of stillness crashing over the men again.
Those bodies.
Finn picked up his pace. He knew Cora wouldn’t be waiting on the other side of this tunnel, but the sooner he could get to the next step, the sooner he would find her.
Minutes later, the tunnel sloped up and opened into a field. Yards behind them, the Rio Grande filled the air with the melody of water chafing its banks.
The first thing Finn spotted was the dead dog.
The second was the glint of the ring that lay on its unmoving flank.
As he crouched beside the animal, the other three spread out. The field was mostly grass with large pockets of bare ground interspersed between.
Kane went to go stand at one of them, hands on his hips as he studied the dust.
Lars came up to Finn. Fingers brushed the tip of his ear, and he glanced up at the man.
“Her ring,” Lars said as he slowly came into a crouch beside Finn.
“A message,” Finn murmured, twisting the ruby until the light caught it just right. He looked up at Lars. The man’s eyes were bright, if blood shot.
He was falling apart.
“Guys!” Kane’s voice rang out, and Finn flinched at the sound.
Fuck, they were both falling apart.
He and Lars clustered beside Kane, Bailey joining them a second later. The man went into a crouch, using a long stem of dry grass to point out a faint track in the dust.
“Helicopter.”
At that word, Finn’s beast threw back its head and howled.
“They could be anywhere by now,” Kane added, coming to a stand as he brushed his hands on his pants.
Anywhere.
When Finn forced his eyes up and happened to catch Lars’s eyes, he could see his own dismal suffering reflected in those green irises.
Their group had gone so still, so silent that, a few yards away, crickets began scraping out their melancholy tunes again.
It was over.
They’d lost her.
One by one, the men turned away and headed back to the tunnel. Bailey was the last to leave, perhaps because he would take the longest to mourn Cora.
And Finn left first, because he knew he’d never, ever get over her.
39
Home
“You need to eat something.” Zachary’s voice roused Cora from the blank slate that had become her mind.
A tray slid over the table. Mouth-watering smells wafted over to her—crisp bread, creamy pasta, red wine—but her stomach clenched at the thought of eating.
She sat on the beach house’s porch. It faced a wide expanse of beach front.
Waiting. That’s what she was doing. Waiting for the perfect moment.
She’d already planned her escape. While Zachary had been in the kitchen, she’d taken small, inconspicuous glances up and down the coastline.
Half a mile away, a tangle of jungle-like vegetation had encroached on the sandy beach. Less than a yard in, darkness beckoned.
It would be a hard run, and she wasn’t exactly an athlete, but she knew she could make it.
She would make it. She had to. There was no other choice
.
Not unless she wanted to spend the rest of her life here, with Zachary.
The cottage was beautiful, of course. The beach as idyllic as that on a travel brochure.
If it had been any of her men here with her, she would have thanked Santa Muerte for blessing her with just a wonderful life.
But Zachary presence left the feel of sticky oil on her skin.
Nearby, Lady lay curled in a ball, watching the waves ebb and flow. Had the dog been here before that she was so relaxed? Or was that because of how weak she was?
Cora tried to feel sorry for the dog, but then she might start feeling sorry for herself too and that was a slippery fucking slope, one she refused to go down.
They were both trapped, but one of them, at least, had the desire to break free. To escape. As soon as—
“Eat!” Cutlery rattled as Zachary’s fist slammed down on the distressed wood table. “I won’t have you fainting on me.”
Fainting?
Cora lifted a fork and toyed with a strip of fettuccine.
Was it poisoned? Drugged?
Her mind didn’t feel right. Everything was soft, and insubstantial. Touching a thought made it dissipate, like puffing on a dandelion. Fragments of her mind fluttered away, beautiful in their flight but lost forever.
Escape.
That was what she had to remain focused on.
Escape.
She dropped her fork, and lifted the wine glass to her lips. The first sip made her tongue recoil, but she welcomed the trickle of coolness as the wine went down her throat.
“You really shouldn’t drink on an empty stomach, Eleodora.”
She drew a deep breathe.
Now or never.
“I don’t want this,” she said, pushing her plate away with trembling fingertips.
“It’s all there is.”
She glanced at his plate. “I want a steak.”
Zachary patted a napkin against his lips. “Then I’ll bring you one.”
The kitchen faced the porch. Zachary had been keeping an eye on her the whole time while he’d been cooking. But, to reach the kitchen, he had to go through the front door and down a short hallway.