Wicked Games: The Complete Wicked Games Series Box Set

by J. T. Geissinger

  “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 murderer,” 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.

  26

  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 could 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.

  27

  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.

  28

  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. Then Connor says, “Well, that fucking sucks.”

  “I’m on my way to Metrix right now! We need to scramble the 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.

  “All I’m asking is, did you two have a fight?”

  I grind out, “Jesus. Fucking. Christ.”

  “’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?”

  Connor says immediately, “Reynard.”

  “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.”

  After a beat, he says, “She’s lucky you trust her. After 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.”

  Connor says, “Good thinking. 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 add, “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.

  Connor says, “Shit. She’s in a bird. Gonna need to scramble the FBI.”

  “They’ll take too long!” I growl in frustration. “Fuckin’ paper pushers!”

  When I look over at him and he sees my expression, he says, “Oh no. Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?”

  “Ask Tabby to hack into air traffic control and see which flight has thos
e 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.

  29

  Mariana

  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.

  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.