What I saw there stopped my heart cold as I gasped in shock.
Agent Richards had my brother on his knees with a gun to his head. Richards spun to face me, his eyes narrowed with rage. “Fuck.”
“Get out of here, Sam!” Travis barked, his hands clasped behind his head.
“Can’t have that.” Richards shook his head. “Come here,” he ordered.
I moved to him on shaking legs, kneeling in front of my big brother. “What’s going on?” I demanded.
“Agent Richards seems to have a taste for jewels,” Travis bit out with disgust.
“Now maybe you’ll tell me where it is,” Richards growled, gripping my hair and pointing his gun at my temple.
“You’re who Osip was waiting for,” I murmured, all the pieces clicking together.
He chuckled darkly. “Give the girl a prize.” He released me for a moment, pacing the space. “I told Ivanov I could get it for him if he took you. I figured it’d draw your brother and his team out—so I could search here. And maybe if I was lucky, those bastards would just kill each other off. But those assholes Trent and Marcus were here and this place was locked up too fucking tight.”
“But you were never going to give it to him anyway, were you?” I surmised. I figured keeping him talking was our best bet. Right now, it was really the only option.
Travis gave me a nearly indiscernible nod of approval.
He snorted. “No. I have a very interested buyer in the Mexican cartel.”
This guy was seriously cracked. The chances that we’d get out of this alive seemed horrifyingly slim.
He grabbed my hair again, his eyes narrowed on Travis. “Let’s try this again, McAllister. Where is my fucking diamond?”
I detected the slightest movement to my right but instinct had me keeping my gaze straight ahead. I knew I’d been in here long enough for Sid to get worried.
“I told you. I gave it to your superior two days ago,” Travis growled with impatience. “You think I’d lie about that shit when you have a gun pressed to my sister’s head?”
“I’m the agent on this case,” Richards barked, seemingly incensed Travis hadn’t gone through him directly.
“Yeah, well, obviously my instinct not to go through you wasn’t far off base,” Travis muttered as Sid crept along the far wall, his gun pointed at Richards’s back. “What the fuck are you thinking anyway, man? You’d have to be seriously fucked to think you can steal from the Russians to pay the cartel.” He shook his head, looking as baffled as I felt.
“Ivanov’s locked up,” Richards shot back.
“He has a long reach,” Travis replied resolutely. “It was a shit plan but fortunately not one that’ll happen, since I don’t have what you want.”
The silence stretched, growing thick with tension as the inevitable conclusion to Richards’s plan became clear. He wasn’t going to get what he came for. Something told me he wasn’t going to pick up and leave.
My heart hammered in my ears as my frightened gaze volleyed between the two men waiting for a conclusion I knew with a sinking feeling could mean the end of me or my brother.
Richards shrugged before his gaze turned toward me. “I hadn’t planned on you. I regret that,” he admitted, his eyes expressionless as he lifted his gun.
In a movement so swift I barely saw it, Travis’s hands shot out toward Richards, forcing his gun downward as a shot rang through the air with a deafening boom.
A burst of red appeared on Richards’s chest as he looked at me with wide-eyed shock. I realized I didn’t even know the man’s first name, and yet I was watching him die. He reached out to me as though I’d break his fall. I leaned back, watching with shock as he crumpled to the ground.
Travis kicked his gun away as the agent lay motionless on the ground. Sid raced toward us, gathering me up in his arms. “Christ, baby.” He panted with adrenaline and anguish. He pulled back when I didn’t respond, stooping low to look me in the eye. “Sam?” his voice was muffled through the ringing in my ears.
I looked back at him and through barely moving lips said the words that despite the terror still percolating in my veins would set us free.
“Now. Now it’s over.”
CHAPTER 23
In the chaotic aftermath that followed when law enforcement swarmed into Talon armed to the teeth, Sid didn’t leave my side. Even when the feds forced him into handcuffs—as a precaution, they said—he kneeled by my side with a growled, “I’m not leaving her.”
Theo and Declan had flanked us protectively, demanding repeatedly for the feds to check the Talon security footage. That’s all they needed to see to get the story straight, they’d lamented.