Dirty Deeds(69)

This was an undercover operation. Javier may or may not have known about Este taking the boat but in the end it didn’t really matter. Este had and he was heading out to see with his sister.

A part of me wanted to throw caution to the wind and tell Javier that Este had her. But aside from the fact that Javier probably wanted me dead and would never believe me, I had no real way of contacting her. I had to do something and I had to do it now. I was the only one who could save her.

I grabbed my bag and made it through the locked marina door with ease, strolling through as if I had a proper key and I wasn’t just good at picking locks. I continued to walk purposefully down the docks until I saw the right boat. I needed something that was fast enough but inconspicuous, like a fishing boat. Mazatlan was such a major fishing town that even the bigshots at the marina kept fishing boats docked there.

I carefully looked around, making sure no one was particularly watching, and jumped down into an 18-foot Double Eagle. This one even had the keys tucked inside the nearest cup-holder.

It purred to life and I brought it out of the marina with ease.

In the distance, Beatriz was disappearing over the horizon line, heading in the direction of San Jose del Cabo and the tip of the Baja.

I kept at my speed, not too slow, not too fast, my eyes on the boat and on the blinking red dot on my app.

I eyed the bag on the chair next to me where the C4 was waiting.

I had a boat to blow up.

I had a woman to save.

I had nothing to lose.





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


Alana





When I woke up, I was sure I woke up in hell. My head felt like it was on fire. It was hot and pained and I could swear I heard the crackling of flames somewhere deep inside my skull. I tried to open my eyes but the pain made me wince and the world seemed to rock back and forth. My head fell back down on the bed.

A bed. I was on a bed somewhere, but where? What happened?

Images floated into my brain like a cloud of powder settling.

Derek. I had fought with Derek. I had left Derek. Derek broke my heart.

His name was really Derek.

My chest pinched at the thought, my stomach twisting painfully. The grief was there, just below the surface, competing for the space in my aching body. I had to give into it, just for a moment, just so I could eventually breathe.

I lay back in the bed, staring at the ceiling above me, waiting for the sorrow to swallow me whole. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know where I was, that my head was a fiery mess and I feared something vital had been knocked out of me, that the tiny room I was in with its wooden plank ceiling kept moving up and down and up and down. None of that mattered.

It trickled in slowly. The betrayal. The hurt. The anger and the pain. It was like acid rain on my soul, eating away at me in small doses. And then the memories of Derek flooded me like a raging river. The way he looked at me, like he’d give up the world to keep me safe, the way he felt when I fell asleep in his arms and the kind words he whispered when I woke up from a nightmare. He had ended up being so much more than I ever thought he would be for me. So much fucking more. He had ended up being my man, the one I wanted to see through to the very end, the one that made letting go of my old life okay because it meant starting a new one with him.

And now he was gone. And I was here. And even though the lies still hurt and the truth was even worse, I believe he had loved me just as I had loved him. And I loved the real him, the one he was hiding from the world but showing only to me. The lie was a half-truth in the end and he was never not the man who became my shield against the world.

I shouldn’t have left. Even though it was painfully, stupidly obvious now, I knew I shouldn’t have left. I was just so hurt and shocked and confused that I couldn’t process it around him. But this wasn’t some silly breakup or a fight you have when you’re tired. It wasn’t a reevaluation of a relationship gone wrong or “time alone to think.” I had treated it all like it happened in my normal, everyday life, not my new life where people were waiting to kill me.

I should have sucked up my pride, swallowed my tears and put that all aside just for the chance to stay alive. Instead I was a total idiot, such a foolish girl, who chose the righteousness of her own heart and feelings over the chance to live another day. This all should have mattered some other time.

Now there was no other time. He was somewhere and I was here, taken by the man that had hired him to kill me, the man that my brother considered his second-in-command. I was taken by someone who wanted to use me, hurt me, abuse me and kill me in order to stick it to Javier where it really hurt.

And now he wasn’t going to play games anymore. I’d already shot him. I’d already stolen the man hired to kill me. I’d already made him look like a fool.