Tabby, pacing a three-foot section of floor in the corner, has her nose pressed against her cell phone screen. Her thumbs fly over it as she types. In comparison to Darcy and Kai, her outfit is almost normal—that is, if you have two part-time jobs at a theme park as a pirate and a slutty witch, and wore both costumes at the same time.
There’s a lot of black ruffles and pale skin, and heels that could double as kebab skewers. A knotted black bandana caps her red hair. Two enormous gold hoops swing from her earlobes.
Juanita is lying on the black leather sofa against the far wall in a Catholic schoolgirl’s uniform of plaid, pleated skirt, white shirt, and knee socks. She’s watching something on a tablet propped on her stomach and feeding Cheetos to the fat black-and-white rat lounging contentedly on her chest.
When we walk in, everyone stops what they’re doing and looks up.
And for a moment, just a few stuttering beats of my heart, I allow myself to remember what it feels like to have a family.
Because it’s obvious they’re all happy to see me.
Darcy lets out a whoop and jerks upright, knocking over the desk phone and almost falling out of the chair in the process. Kai jumps up and down, maniacally clapping. Tabby’s grin is almost as huge as Ryan’s. Juanita is grinning, too, and even the damn rat looks happy, whiskers twitching like mad.
“Oh,” I say in a small voice, my heart thumping with surprise, my eyes wide.
Ryan slings his arm around my shoulder and gives me a reassuring squeeze, as if he knows I’m in need of a little emotional fortification before I face the firing squad.
“Miss Thang!” bellows Darcy, finding her footing with the help of Kai. “You made it!”
She charges.
“This will only hurt a little,” says Ryan regretfully, before jumping out of the way.
Darcy throws her arms around me, engulfing me in her bosom.
She smells sweet and fruity, like coconuts. It’s pleasant, but I’m being suffocated, and so I make a bleating sound of distress.
She releases me to hold me at arm’s length and cackle. “A travel writer! Ha! We all knew that was baloney, girl! No writer in history has ever had ta-tas like that!” She leers at my chest.
“That’s what I’m sayin’,” drawls Ryan, leaning against a bookcase.
Darcy turns scolding, shaking her finger in my face. “Now don’t worry about us telling anyone you got sticky fingers, girl. We’re real used to keeping each other’s big, hairy secrets in this crew, you hear?”
“Um…”
She leans in and says in a stage whisper, “You know, me and you gotta stick together because the redhead is nuts. Tattoos of green fairies, and building computers that think and shit. And don’t get me started on all that Hello Kitty nonsense. It’s like she thinks that cartoon cat is alive.”
Tabby looks at the ceiling. “Darcy. I’m literally four feet away.”
Darcy mutters under her breath, “Lurk much, nutty?”
Exasperated, Tabby throws her hands in the air. “Still! Four! Feet!”
Darcy ignores her. “Now I know you and the boys got some business, so me and my baby”—she blows a kiss to Kai, who giggles and waves with his fingertips—“and short stuff over there with the obese dairy cow rodent just stopped by to say hi real quick on our way to lunch. So. Hi.”
I can tell I’m supposed to say something now, so I pretend this is a completely normal situation and say pleasantly, “Hello. It’s very nice to see you again, Darcy.”
She nods in solemn satisfaction, like we just made a blood pact. Then over her shoulder, she bosses, “Kai, say hello to Miss Thang!”
Kai makes a formal little bow. When he straightens, he says in his charming German accent, “I would like to cook you a meal when this is all over, Miss Thang. Do you enjoy strudel? I make an excellent traditional strudel.”
Wondering what he means by “ven zis is all over,” I reply, “That sounds wonderful. Thank you, Kai. And you can just call me Mariana.”
I notice Connor and Ryan are both trying hard to keep straight faces, and not having much luck.
Juanita rises from the couch and skips over, tossing the rat onto her left shoulder in a smooth, practiced move. All gangly limbs and soft clouds of dark, curly hair, she inserts herself between Darcy and me, dusts orange Cheetos powder from her hands, then stares up into my face.
As if picking up where we left off in an earlier conversation she says, “Me and Elvis have a bet about where you’re from. He says Brazil, but you don’t have a Portuguese accent—”
“I don’t have any accent,” I interrupt, a knot forming in the pit of my stomach.
Everyone else seems to have suddenly fallen silent.
Juanita slowly shakes her head, not in disagreement, but as if I’m not listening. She repeats firmly, “He says Brazil, but I say Colombia. So which is it?”
Her eyes are large and velvet brown, black-lashed and penetrating. They’re also devoid of childlike innocence, or any of the bashful self-consciousness adolescents usually display in a roomful of adults.
I’m looking at a fifteen-year-old girl, but the person looking back at me hasn’t been fifteen in an eternity.
Ghostly pale and unsmiling, my sister’s face swims into my vision. I inhale a hitching breath.
“You remind me so much of someone I once knew,” I whisper in Spanish, reverting to my native tongue without a thought, dragged back by the weight of ancient memory and the kind of wounds that scab over, but never fully heal.
Juanita replies instantly in Spanish, “I knew it. Elvis, you owe me five bucks.”
“Okay, no secrets now. Everybody talks in English from here on out.”
It’s Tabby, her tone light and joking, but she’s looking at me with a gaze that’s anything but light. I realize that she understood everything Juanita and I have said to each other at the same time I understand that she won’t mention another word to me about it, or divulge to anyone else what we’ve said.
This is turning out to be one hell of an interesting day.
22
Ryan
While Tabby and Mariana stare at each other, mentally transmitting some kind of weird, girl-code shit, Connor and I share a look of our own.
His look says She okay? You okay?
My look says I’m good, but my woman’s hangin’ on by a thread.
He nods. His piercing gaze flicks over to Mariana. “All right, kids,” he booms, addressing the room. “Visiting time at the zoo is over. Say your goodbyes.”
Darcy makes her signature farm-animal snort. “C’mon, Kai, let’s roll. It’s Badass Big Guy Meeting Time. Short stuff,” she says to Juanita, “you got a restaurant picked out for lunch? And don’t say anything with the words kale bar in it, or I’ll be forced to kick your tiny Catholic behind.”
Juanita replies, “I’m an atheist, Darcy. I only go to a Catholic school because I’m fifteen and have no legal rights, and that’s where my mother wants me to go. And I was thinking that new Thai-French fusion place on sixth. Elvis loves Thai food.”
Aghast, Darcy cries, “Atheist! Hush, you silly child, God will hear!”
Juanita turns to look at Tabby. “Is it worth it?” she asks.
“Nope.”
Juanita shrugs and flips her hair over her shoulder. She looks at Mariana and sticks out her hand. They shake solemnly, an ocean of unspoken words between them.
I can’t wait to find out what their little exchange in Spanish was all about.
Darcy, Kai, and Juanita take their leave. Connor lowers his bulk to the big captain’s chair behind his desk, Tabby perches on a corner of the desk and folds her hands over a knee, and Mariana and I sit in the two leather guest chairs opposite them. For a moment, we all simply look at one another.
Then Mariana says quietly, “I hope I didn’t ruin your honeymoon.”
“Are you kidding?” laughs Tabby. “You were a highlight!”
Connor swivels his head slowly to look at her, h
is dark brows climbing his forehead.
Tabby smiles tenderly at him. “Not the highlight, honey.”
“Don’t need to hear any details about the other highlights!” I interrupt before Connor forces Tabby to make a list of all his talents in the sack. I know I’ve got an ego on me, but Connor’s got an egosaurus. If he gets a burr under his saddle, we’ll be here all day trying to calm that bucking bronco down. “Connor, you wanna start?”
For a moment, he drums his fingers on the desktop, thinking. Then he looks up at Mariana. “Yeah. Let’s start with Vincent Moreno.”
She stiffens. I reach over and touch her arm. She clutches my hand, threading her fingers through mine and squeezing. The whole time, Connor watches us with unblinking intensity. I can see the wheels turning behind his eyes.
Mariana asks, “What do you want to know?”
“When Ryan told us your situation, we made some inquiries,” Connor says, referring to himself and Tabby.
“Inquiries?” Mariana repeats cautiously.
It’s Tabby who answers this time. “As I told you before, I work for the government. Specifically the NSA. Freelance, but at the highest clearance. We’ve also got contacts in the FBI and the CIA, and the international security and law enforcement communities. All this adds up to a very powerful network of information.”
Mariana sits perfectly still, listening, a look of intense concentration on her face. A faint tremor runs through her hand.
Her voice lower, Tabby continues. “This man you work for… He’s very dangerous.”
“No,” says Mariana without a second’s pause. “Ebola is dangerous. Sharks are dangerous. Live electrical wires are dangerous. Vincent Moreno is pure evil.”
Connor says curtly, “Yet you’re on his payroll.”
Mariana’s eyes slice through him like a hot knife through butter. A vein throbs on the side of her neck. “When the devil tells you to jump, the only question you ask is how high.”
I resist the hot, crackling urge to come to Mariana’s defense only because I already know Connor and Tabby are on our side, and I know this is a conversation that has to be had. But fuck, seeing Mariana upset touches nerves I didn’t even know I had.
Maybe my feelings for her are making me grow new ones.
“I understand that,” says Tabby. “I know something about psychopaths myself.”
“Then you know that they can’t be reasoned with, or easily fooled.”
“Yes.”
“So when Ryan tells me he’s going to return the Hope Diamond and set Capo up with a sting, you’ll understand my opinion that not only is that a particularly stupid plan, it’s also destined to fail.”
To my horror, Tabby replies, “Yes. I happen to agree with you completely.”
I shout, “Tabby! What the fuck?”
Connor says wearily, “Save your outrage for the end, brother. It gets worse.”
Before I can protest further, Tabby continues. “There’s no way a man like Vincent Moreno is going to accept a meet with a stranger, especially when all he has to do to find out who you are, Ryan, is dig a little. Then he discovers your identity, easily guesses what you’re up to, and puts out a hit. You’re dead before dawn. So is Mariana.”
“He wouldn’t kill me right away,” says Mariana, looking at her hands. “There are things he wants from me much more than my death.”
That sucks the air right out of the room. We all stare at her in silence, until Tabby finally breaks it.
“Submission?”
Mariana shakes her head, closing her eyes. “More than that. More like surrender. I’ve been defying him for years. But mostly he just wants my pain.”
She opens her eyes and looks at each of us in turn, me last. “He wants to wring every drop of anguish from me the way you’d wring water from a towel. He’s come close a few times, but always manages to hold himself back. And if I’m being honest, I think the reason he can resist has less to do with self-control or honoring the blood oath I took than it does with heightening his anticipation. All these years, all these jobs, this noose he holds over Reynard’s head… I’ve finally realized it’s not really about repayment of a debt.”
“What’s it about?” I ask, in a raw voice, like I’ve been screaming.
She swallows then says faintly, “Foreplay.”
“That motherfucker!” I growl, hackles bristling, but before I can continue what threatens to be an epic rant, Connor thunders, “Can it, soldier!”
I whip my head around and glare at him.
“You going ballistic isn’t gonna help anything!” he snaps, meeting my blistering glare with a steely one of his own. “Now fucking can it. Your woman needs you steady, not bleedin’ rage outta your eyes.”
He’s right. He’s right and I know it, but that doesn’t make it any easier to swallow.
I jerk out of my chair and start to pace the floor, dragging my hands through my hair and muttering. I want to kill Moreno, I want to tear him limb from limb, but if I can’t control myself, I’ve got zero chance of doing either.
So I pace and breathe and force myself not to think of the word foreplay and how it’s now ruined for me forever.
Eyeing me with surprise at my forceful reaction, Tabby says to Mariana, “I’m sure Ryan’s already told you he’s spoken with the FBI about getting all the charges dropped against you in exchange for Moreno.”
Mariana glances at me, hesitates, then nods.
“And he’s told us that you have approximately forty-eight hours to get the diamond to Moreno before the clock runs out on your friend Reynard.”
Mariana nods again.
“Well then, I think we need to give you the diamond and get you on a plane.”
I stop dead in my tracks and stare at Tabby in complete disbelief, my rage erupting all over again. “We’re not sending her back to him! Under no circumstances is she even gonna be in his general vicinity again!”
“The rest of the plan we talked about stays the same, Ryan,” Connor interjects, his voice tight. “The FBI will have whatever meeting place we designate surrounded. Snipers on rooftops, agents ready to swarm in, you know the drill. All she’ll have to do is wear the wire like you were going to, get him to admit a few damning things on tape—”
“Absolutely not,” I say flatly, blood pulsing in my ears. “Fuck no with a capital F. Would you send Tabby in if the situation was reversed?”
Tabby asks archly, “You think it would be up to him?”
Sounding thoughtful, Mariana answers. “Capo’s never searched me before any of our meetings. He trusts me. He’d never know if I was wearing a wire.”
He trusts me. That makes my stomach roll like my breakfast might make a reappearance.
“What would I have to get him to say?”
“No, Angel,” I say, gripping the back of her chair. When she looks up at me, I shake my head to underscore my words. “No. Never. Gonna. Happen.”
The look in her eyes tells me I’ve already lost this fight.
Unflinchingly holding my gaze, she says, “Reynard bought me from Capo when I was ten years old. Did you know that? Did you find that out in your talks with the FBI?”
The only sound I hear is the pounding of my pulse. The whole room narrows to a small tunnel of black, focused on Mariana’s face. I sink into the chair next to hers.
“What?”
“With money he’d been skimming from Capo’s operation for years,” she continues as if I haven’t said anything. “Very small amounts, nothing that would raise suspicions. My sister Nina and I were in a group of girls being trafficked to Europe from South America in a shipping container. There was no food, only jugs of water, and no receptacles for waste. Twenty-seven of us went into that shipping container. Twelve of us survived the trip to London. We were all children. The oldest, my sister Nina, was fourteen.”
From the corner of my eye, I glimpse Tabby recoil and cover her mouth with her hand, but I can’t look away from Mariana. I can’t move. I can’t
even breathe.
“Normally, girls taken from the villages in my country are smuggled to Tenancingo, Mexico, which is a hub for human trafficking and forced prostitution, but we were sold abroad because we were pretty. Pretty girls get higher prices. And Capo pays the highest prices of them all. Especially for virgins.” She waits a beat, looks at her hands, then whispers, “He gets a new container every month.”
Connor breathes, “Jesus Christ.”
Mariana takes another moment, then shakes her head as if pulling herself from a bad dream. She speaks more briskly, her voice clear and level, but there’s an undercurrent of rage.
“To make a long story short, Reynard went to the docks thinking he was meeting a shipment of stolen paintings, but got the surprise of his life when the workers opened the doors. Somehow the manifests got mixed up, and there we were, a dozen starving, terrified little girls in collars and chains, huddled among corpses.
“Reynard only had enough cash on him to bribe the workers for one of us. They were Capo’s men, of course. The story became that only eleven girls had survived.”
I remember putting a hand around her neck in passion and her stiffly saying “I don’t like to be restrained,” and I have to swallow the bile rising acidly hot in the back of my throat.
“Later I found out that my sister and the others were brutally raped by their transporters before they ever got to Capo. But my sister escaped. She got her hands on one of the men’s guns and blew her brains out. She was lucky, in a way. I understand not one of the other girls made it to sixteen.”
I’m aware that my mouth is open. I’m aware that the silence in the room is one of the most awful sounds I’ve ever heard, filled with the horror of three adults who’ve seen plenty of terrible things in their lives. But I can’t move. I’m frozen. All I can do is stare at Mariana.
She sighs heavily, passing a hand over her face. It’s obvious the toll this tale is taking on her. I wonder if she’s ever spoken about it to anyone before.
“It was another ten years before Capo found out what Reynard had done. I don’t know how. All I know is that one day he came to the shop and said I had a choice to work off Reynard’s debt in one of two ways.”
Wicked Games: The Complete Wicked Games Series Box Set Page 82