WHEN CARLOS OPENED the door to the hotel room, he expected Gabrielle to be in the bedroom asleep, Korbin catnapping in a chair, and Rae most likely online communicating with Gotthard.
He was really banking on Gabrielle to be asleep so that once he got rid of Rae and Korbin, he’d have a chance to wash off the residual scum he felt from tonight in a scalding shower. Then slide into bed and make love to Gabrielle.
Instead she stood in the middle of the living room with her arms crossed.
“Did you kill Roberto?” Gabrielle asked point-blank.
There went that fantasy.
Carlos glared at Rae. He pitched the paper sack in his hand to the corner near the door and crossed his arms.
“Before you go wonker, not my fault.” Rae stood and looked at Korbin, who got up from where he’d been sitting in a side chair.
Korbin sauntered toward the door with one of those can’t-help-you-with-this-one looks. He slowed long enough next to Carlos to say, “Gabrielle figured that out for herself, but that’s not the only reason she’s pissed. She knows that we know about Babette.”
“How?” Carlos snapped, but kept his voice low so only Korbin and Rae could hear.
Rae had followed close behind. She stepped up as Korbin opened the door and told Carlos, “That would be my fault. Gotthard sent me a rundown on a list of students and figured out there was a connection between Gabrielle and Babette even though your girl buried Babette’s records.”
Ah, hell. Carlos saw a long night ahead of him. “She thinks I told you, right?”
“I tried to convince her otherwise, but you should have told us.” Rae’s pissy, narrowed look was nothing compared to the heat coming off Gabrielle’s glare.
“I intended to as soon as I had a chance.” Like once Carlos finished this mission and Gabrielle was somewhere safe.
Rae scoffed. “This one’s going to be a problem for you.”
“Too late to do anything about that.”
“How’d you come out tonight?” Korbin asked. “Do we need to cover that front any longer?”
“No.” Carlos shook his head. “Everything is handled. He won’t bother us again.”
Korbin nodded and moved through the doorway, turning to wait on Rae. She paused in front of Carlos and glanced over her shoulder at Gabrielle, who now stood tapping her foot. “Looks like a long night on the floor for you, but I did spare you one headache right now.”
Carlos almost hated to ask. “What?”
“I didn’t tell Gabrielle why Babette’s name hit our radar. She’s on a list of teens listed as not checked in as of tonight’s meal.”
His stomach sank. Not Babette. Carlos took in Gabrielle’s angry gaze, wondering how much to tell her. He whispered to Rae, “Maybe Babette is off the reservation playing. If we don’t find her by morning, I’ll have Gabrielle try to reach her.”
“Call us,” Korbin said, then ushered Rae on out the door.
When the door shut, the silence was like a vacuum sucking the walls in close.
“You think I’m a cold-blooded killer that took out Roberto while he slept?” Carlos would deal with one problem at a time.
Gabrielle flinched, but the frown lines didn’t leave her forehead. “No…but what did you do?”
“I convinced Roberto it would be a bad idea to ever bother you again.”
He could feel each second tick slowly as she passed judgment, trying to decide if he was lying. Carlos took one careful step at a time forward, needing to hold her. He had wanted to kill that bastard for almost killing Gabrielle.
But Roberto still breathed, for now.
“Stop.” She held up a hand, palm out when he was six feet away. “Why should I believe you after exposing Babette to all this.”
“I didn’t tell them about your sister.”
The fight to choose between believing him or not deepened the lines of anxiety across her worried face.
Carlos took another step. “I can’t prove it until tomorrow, but I didn’t tell them. The last thing I want is for anyone to involve her or use her against you.”
Gabrielle’s lip trembled. “Are you telling me the truth?”
“Yes. I’m not using you.” There. He laid the real issue out on the table. She wanted to know he wasn’t sleeping with her to manipulate her.
Another reason he shouldn’t have broken that rule, but now was a little late to be concerned about that.
“Do you know how worried I’ve been?” she asked in complete conflict with everything else she’d said.
But that was enough to tell him he hadn’t destroyed the fragile trust between them.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was leaving. I didn’t want you to worry.” Carlos opened his arms, and that’s all it took for her to rush into them.
His heart started pumping again at the feel of her against his chest. He cupped her head and rubbed his cheek along her hair.
A minute ago, he’d been ready to convince himself keeping away from her was the best thing he could do.
Not now. He couldn’t let go of Gabrielle even if doing so would save his life.
She hugged him hard, her hands gripping his back.
Nothing in his world had felt so right in so long. Somewhere his feeling for Gabrielle had crossed from one of protection to one of possession he shouldn’t be feeling.
But he was just realizing how much he could care for a woman. For this woman.
And that freaked him out at the same time since this could go nowhere but bad.
She lifted her head and held his gaze for a long moment. “I believe you and I trust you. Don’t make me regret that.”
Not much to ask of a man with a normal life, but he lived miles outside the realm of normal. Still, he meant it with all his heart and soul when he said, “I don’t want to hurt you, and I don’t want you to ever think I made love to you for any reason other than the simple fact that I wanted you.”
She lifted up, touching her lips to his. He kissed her back with care, then pulled away.
“I don’t regret what we’ve done,” he said. “But I’ll understand if you don’t want to sleep together…anymore.”
“Really?” She lifted a hand to his cheek, but he couldn’t read what churned behind that intense gaze.
He had to give her space to figure out what she wanted to do. Right now wasn’t the best time to touch her anyhow since he still had to shake off his fury from dealing with Roberto. He’d take her like a wild man if he didn’t move back.
“I need a shower.” Carlos disengaged from her arms and she let him. When he stepped away, she crossed her arms and looked down.
He’d survived almost getting blown to pieces earlier, the gut-wrenching fear he might not have gotten Gabrielle away in time, and fighting a goon half again his size tonight with little thought.
But the picture of Gabrielle’s dejected face pummeled him with steel fists. He’d had no idea until now how much it was going to hurt to lose her.
Carlos crossed the room to pick up the paper bag with a box of condoms that had been a waste of money and tossed the bag next to his duffel on the way to the bathroom. He stripped out of his clothes and climbed into the shower, cranking the water temperature up so high he couldn’t see through the steam.
The scalding water badgered his muscles, but images of Gabrielle’s terror-filled face after the explosion kept breathing life into his dark thoughts. He didn’t realize he was squeezing the bar of soap until it snapped in half.
If anyone else harmed Gabrielle, he’d…
Carlos took a breath and rolled his shoulders, trying to not think about what he’d do.
He already missed her desperately. How was he going to let her go when all this was over? Music filtered into the bathroom from the bedroom. The shower curtain had a clear strip across the top where he saw the door open all the way just before the lights clicked off.
A puff of candlelight glowed on the other side of the shower around the sink. His vision adjusted just as he guessed what might be happening. What he hoped like hell was happening.
The shower curtain slid open a foot and Gabrielle stepped in. Gloriously naked.
His heart pumped hard with hope.
“I got a little candle off the food cart that probably won’t last long,” she said just loud enough for him to hear over the water battering his back. “Is this okay?”
Carlos studied her, wished he could see her eyes that televised her emotions. “Does this mean you made a decision?”
She chuckled. “No, I took my clothes off and came in here to tell you I wasn’t going to make love with you. To use your words, ‘for someone so intelligent, you can be pretty dense.’ I’m angry, not stupid.”
“What do you mean?”
“We both know my future is up in the air. I’m not giving up a minute with you.”
The smile warming his chest reached up to touch his lips. “What do you plan to do with your minutes?”
She moved forward until he could see the glow of white around her irises through the steam.
Her fingers closed around his erection.
Carlos drew in a breath. “Careful, woman, or we won’t need those condoms I picked up while I was out.”
“Really?”
The enthusiasm in that one word pinged a tender spot inside him.
“And here I thought”-she paused and sheathed him-“I had the only one left.”
He sucked in sharply at the jolt of pleasure from her touch. Water poured across his shoulders and sluiced between their bodies. He wrapped her in his arms. “You’re incredible.”
“The funny thing is, I feel like I am when I’m with you,” she whispered.
“Never doubt it.” He wanted to be careful with her tonight, not let the beast still roaming inside him loose. He dipped his mouth down to kiss her, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, loving him with each nip of her sweet lips.
She tasted like wicked honey. When he roamed his fingers over her slick body and slowed to toy with her breasts, she moaned her appreciation.
He reached down and scooped her up. Her legs went around his waist.
His heavy groin ached from the strain of waiting, holding back from driving into her until all he could feel was Gabrielle. No rage at the hand he’d been dealt, no fury over how close she’d come to dying today.
He wanted to feel just her.
With his hands underneath her, he pressed a finger inside. She clenched against him.
“Carlos?”
“What, sweetheart?”
She rubbed against him. “I am so ready. Now.”
He lifted her, gently positioning the tip of his erection to ease inside, slowly, carefully. The need to drive into her clawed at him.
She wiggled her bottom, forcing him close to the frayed edge of his control.
“Carlos, stop being so careful. I’m not crystal. I don’t want slow and easy. Don’t hold back on me tonight.”
Merde. The buried fury roared to life.
DURAND OPENED THE solid-metal door and entered the outbuilding on his property within sight of his home. He called it a granero, the shed, back when he brought his sons here to discipline them. When he’d had sons to be proud of. But this was not like most sheds. Constructed to match the house right down to the stucco finish, this building was eighty feet long and fifty feet wide, with rooms for extracting the truth.
No one was allowed inside without him or Julio. Durand’s right-hand man stood next to a bloated body dangling from chains hooked to the ceiling.
Julio had gotten a man unknown in the region inside a group of local antidrug zealots over the past year. On Durand’s behalf, Julio offered the man a great deal of money to convince the secret group to create a special team that would bear arms against the Anguis. He gave the man a bag full of money to prove to his followers he had financial support.
Men showed up slowly until an Anguis soldier appeared the night the leader called for a show of arms from everyone.
Durand walked over to take a look at what his trap had caught. “Dios, Julio. He smells dead. Is he?”
“No.” Julio prodded the body with a sharp stick.
“Por favor.” The plea floated from the body as if spoken by a ghost. For a man closing in on fifty-eight, Ferdinand was a strapping guy, still fit and strong. Or he had been until spending the last twenty hours with Julio.
Now his eyelids were shut and puffy red lumps. His swollen and yellow skin looked like that of an obese alien.
Durand breathed through his mouth and stepped up to the body. “Ferdinand, spare your son this. Tell me all you know of Mirage.”
“I…told…him.” Ferdinand’s words fluttered.
Julio shook his head. “He gave us nada.”
Why were some men fools? Durand shrugged. “Bring his son.”
“Nooo,” the old guy cried.
Julio reached for a chain running to a hoist mounted to the ceiling and pulled the hook on the end over to a metal box eight feet square and four feet tall. When he opened the box, Julio pushed the hook inside, fitting it into a metal loop, then walked over to the wall and pressed a button.
A wail spewed from the box harboring Ferdinand’s twenty-nine-year-old son.
“What a waste,” Durand told Ferdinand. “I could have used a boy like yours with my men. You work for me, what, fifteen years? Why would you betray me like this?”
Durand shook his head, disgusted.
Raised from the box, Ferdinand’s son howled in pain from the moment the chain tightened until Julio dropped him just close enough to let the pads of his bare feet touch the concrete floor. The son was turned away from his father. He wore only a pair of filthy shorts now soiled from his having been in the box over twenty hours. Dried streaks of sweat and grime fingered across his dirty body, but he no longer had enough water in his system to perspire.
Durand stepped in front of the young man and wrinkled his nose at the acrid smell. He made a mental note to give Julio a raise.
“Agua,” the young man pleaded in a hoarse voice.
“Julio controls your water,” Durand explained. “First, tell me what you and your father have told Mirage about me.”
“I no know…what you mean.” The voice was rough as nails scraped over rusted metal.
“Julio, turn him around so he will see we are busy men and have no time to play games.”
Julio spun Ferdinand’s son, who squinted at his father. His eyes bulged. “Papa, Papa. Wh-what you do to him?”
“Your father’s eyelids and every orifice are glued shut. Except the mouth, which he has failed to make good use of,” Durand patiently answered. “Maybe we glue your eyelids open so you can watch yourself change if you no tell us the truth.”
Ferdinand hung like a silent slab.
His son screamed and jerked against his bindings.
Julio walked over to the table and brought back a syringe he jabbed into the boy’s hip. When he withdrew it, he turned to Durand. “This will last about a half hour. Long enough to prepare his body for interrogation.”
“Take photos. I want my men to know what it means to betray me.”
“Sí.”
Durand walked out of the building, where dark clouds swarmed from the north. Wind stirred leaves on the trees lining the walkway to the hacienda.
Maria headed toward him pushing her useless son through the gardens. She stopped when they met.
“How is my favorite nephew today?” Durand asked, hiding his revulsion. His sister should have let the boy go when he was in the hospital after being injured years ago.
No man wants to live his life as a cripple.
Unfortunate collateral damage from the bombing attempt on Salavatore’s life. Another debt owed by Alejandro when Durand found him.
“Bien, Uncle.” Eduardo kept his eyes on the book in his lap. Always reading. Always the same answer.
The boy never looked him in the eye. Probably too hard to look up at men all the time.
“All is ready for tomorrow?” Durand asked Maria.
“Sí. Thank you for use of your jet.” His sister’s eyes didn’t meet Durand’s either.
She made him feel guilty for her son’s problems. This was no his fault. The fault lay at Alejandro’s feet.
She knew that.
“You don’t have to thank me for everything, Sister. Blood always takes care of blood.” Durand sighed. She asked for so little and only for Eduardo. Just one of many reasons he could deny her no request.
She nodded. “We still thank you for the roof over our heads and the medical treatments.”
“Sí, gracias, Uncle,” Eduardo mumbled on cue as he always did right after his mother.
Durand clamped down on the guilt creeping up his spine. He had provided well for them, been a loving brother to her and loving uncle to his broken nephew.
He had no reason to feel shame.
“I pray this surgery will be the last one for you, Eduardo,” Durand said, changing the subject.
“Gracias.” Her son’s gaze remained on the book in his lap. What could be that interesting?
“Thank you for finding a new doctor,” Maria added.
Dios. Durand wanted to yell at her to stop thanking him. But he reached over and hugged her instead.
“I will see you tonight.” Durand walked off, deciding it was time for Julio to find a place to care for Eduardo around the clock. Maybe leave him in the States, then his sister would have to get on with her life. Maria might fight him on it, but in the end he controlled the checkbook for Eduardo’s care, and this was the last surgery.
Just as soon as he found and dealt with Mirage.
That would happen as soon as Julio broke Ferdinand’s son.
HIS ARMS WERE a safe zone where nothing could touch her.
Gabrielle sighed, happy even if she was living a fool’s dream. She snuggled her back closer against Carlos’s warm chest. After all the years alone and unloved, she refused to face the possibility that she and Carlos might not be able to stay together. What would Joe do after this was all over?
What would he do if he knew that she and Carlos had been intimate? Would Rae or Korbin say anything? She didn’t think so after seeing this team work together.
There were so many more things she didn’t know.
Such as whom Carlos, Joe, and all these people worked for. Who was this Fratelli group they were trying to stop, and what exactly were they trying to stop? Where was Linette and how did her friend fit into all of this? And one big question.
Had Durand learned the true identity of Mirage?
She didn’t know a lot of things, but deep in her heart she believed one thing. Carlos might not be the kind of man who would get seriously involved with a woman, but she believed he cared for her. That didn’t change that he had orders to bring her back.
Carlos kissed the top of her head. A hand brushed over her hair, stroke after stroke.
She smiled. He was so affectionate she could fall hard for a man like him. As if she hadn’t already?
Mon Dieu. Her mind could deny it, but her heart wouldn’t.
“Why aren’t you asleep?” he asked in a voice thick with exhaustion.
“I don’t know. Just thinking.”
“How can you have any energy after the last three hours?”
“The Tynte women are made of stronger stuff than other women,” she teased.
“Yes, they are, and if you’re the signature design, they’re all beautiful, sweet, and intelligent.”
Her whole body sighed with pleasure.
“What’s bothering you?” he asked.
“Nothing really. I haven’t even worried about Durand Anguis catching me for a while.”
His breathing slowed, then his chest moved with one deep breath. “Why are you so focused on the Anguis?”
She’d sidestepped some of his questions earlier.
That was before he’d saved her life yet again. Carlos and his people fought dangerous groups such as the Anguis, so they’d have no reason to share her story or expose her. She’d wanted to tell someone for the longest time, but couldn’t. Carlos knew exactly who she was, so where would be the harm in telling him?
“I’ve targeted the Anguis for a long time,” she started. “My mother believed in being more than a figurehead for a dynasty. She was a bit of a rebel for her era. Her parents didn’t understand the depth of Mama’s humanitarian commitment. Neither did Papa. Against his orders, she slipped away and traveled to South America incognito with a group of teachers who were going to open a new school in Venezuela, but her real plan was to help a very dear friend escape a dangerous man her friend unknowingly married.”
Carlos stopped brushing his hand over her hair and seemed intensely focused on her story. She appreciated his interest and that he didn’t give her a standard “Just leave this to the authorities,” as so many others had said years ago.
“Mama’s friend lived in the Venezuelan town where the teachers were going to set up a school,” Gabrielle continued. “On the way there, the bus passed through a small town near Caracas. Reports said a big black sedan ahead of them was stopped by goats in the road. Just as the bus caught up to the car, bystanders said grenades were launched at the vehicle from a rooftop. The explosion lifted the car into the air and ripped the bus apart.” She’d kept this inside for so long she could hardly share it now without strangling on the pain.
“All the teachers were killed,” she continued, reciting the events she’d played over and over in her mind from memory. “Mama had left a letter for the maid to give Papa two days after she left so he wouldn’t panic when he returned home from a trip and found her missing. Papa sent a highly skilled tracker immediately to find Mama and bring her home. This man did catch up to her, but not until just after the bombing. Papa was devastated when he got the news.” Gabrielle hesitated. “We all were. The man Papa sent to Venezuela was much like your people, with many resources. He arranged for documents that proved the body was his wife, which wasn’t hard to do since Mama was…unrecognizable.”
Carlos rubbed her arm, but remained silent.
Now that she’d started she wanted to get it all out.
“Papa wouldn’t let me tell anyone what really happened since Mama had entered the country illegally. He said the media would focus on that and not the fact that Durand had killed innocent women when he attacked a competitor trying to move into his territory. Papa said Durand would be punished for killing Mama and the teachers. We told everyone Mama had been in a bad car crash while traveling and buried her along with the secret.”
That had been a lifetime ago. Gabrielle still remembered standing in the rain at the cemetery, soaked to the bone, while she waited for everything to go back to normal.
As if it had all just been a bad dream.
“So you went after the Anguis?” Carlos said softly.
“Not exactly. I just got frustrated when as years passed it became clear Durand was not going to be held accountable. No one could prove he’d been behind the bombing even though eyewitnesses swore his men were on-site. The world forgot a month after the bombings, but I didn’t. I didn’t get serious about trying to do something until after I’d graduated, married Roberto, then divorced him and went into hiding, where I spent so much time on the computer.”
“Because of being afraid of Roberto,” Carlos muttered.
“Oui. So I turned to what gave me comfort, researching things. I used my skills to find out everything I could on Durand and the bombings.”
“What exactly did you find?”
“That Durand Anguis was definitely behind the bombing. He’d wanted to make a statement so others wouldn’t try to enter his area. He’s killed many innocents, not just my mother.”
Carlos turned rigid as a statue at that, which she understood because of his protective nature around a woman. Considering his line of work, Carlos was probably more aware of Durand’s atrocities than her.
“Over time, I established a reliable contact,” Gabrielle continued. “Thanks to this person, I have the name of the son who Durand credits with many of the murders.”
The room was so quiet for a moment, Gabrielle could hear the air circulating.
“Who?” Carlos asked so softly it raised the fine hairs along her neck. When she shivered, he lifted the sheet up to cover her and drew her back closer against his chest.
She could feel Carlos’s heart beating powerfully. The heart of a warrior who fought to protect the world.
“Alejandro Anguis, the man I hope to see one day die for his crimes.”