“You’re staying in tonight, Rorro. I mean it. We can’t risk him trying to escape again.” And the clubs downtown would be much safer with the little shit tucked away at home. “This will be all over tomorrow.”
Rorro flashed a smile that was all boyish charm, a hint of the kid that Jacinto had once adored like a little brother. “Then we’ll leave here?”
“Yes,” Jacinto said. “We’ll leave.”
He felt only the tiniest prick of regret for lying as he walked inside the house and started upstairs. He had no intention of going anywhere with his psycho cousin. Once this was over, he wanted to be able to sleep soundly at night without the fear of ending up with his throat slit open like that poor bastard stinking up the hot tub.
Jacinto stepped into his bedroom and shot home the deadbolt lock on the door.
…
Gabe passed out on her three times. Twice at the small airfield after he landed the helicopter, and once in the taxi from the airport to the safe house.
The first two times Audrey was able to wake him. This time, he was out cold, and she had no idea how to get his big body from the taxi into the house. She’d hoped to find Quinn and the rest there waiting for them, but no such luck. The place was dark and silent.
C’mon, Gabriel. Wake up again for me.
She tried tugging on his arm, but that only succeeded in making him slouch sideways in the taxi’s backseat. The driver eyed her in the mirror.
“He’s drunk,” she explained in Spanish and then sized up the driver. He was a big guy, more fat than muscle, but moving Gabe would be much easier with his help.
“I’ll pay you extra,” she said when he balked at the suggestion.
Grumbling, the cab driver slid from behind the wheel, and together they managed to half-carry, half-drag Gabe as far as the front entryway.
Ah, the power of the almighty peso.
Audrey didn’t dare turn on any lights, having no idea what the cab driver might see inside the room, so she fished in Gabe’s pants pockets, paid him with every bill left there, and ushered him out as fast as possible. She helped Gabe down to the floor and went to the window to make sure he was gone before hitting the overhead light.
Harvard’s computer hummed on the table in the corner. Marcus’s fedora hung forgotten from a lamp. A box of cold pizza with one measly slice left sat on the table in the center of the room on top of a map, which had a circle around the address Mena had given Gabe.
So they hadn’t abandoned the house. They’d followed Gabe’s orders to check out the address.
Frantic, Audrey searched for Jesse’s medical bag. She’d seen him retrieve it from a bookshelf…
Gone.
Of course the medic wouldn’t leave home without it, but was it too much to ask for him to leave a scrap of gauze behind?
Behind her, Gabe groaned and she spun to find him up on his hands and knees. She’d once teased him about being the Terminator, but, God, he really must be. She hurried to his side and soothed a hand over his head.
“Shh, shh. Lay down, sailor. We’re safe. You got us home. We’re safe now.”
Either he wasn’t fully conscious or he took her words to heart, because he collapsed back to the floor without a word of protest. The too-small coat he’d found on Mena’s helicopter bunched up around his shoulders and she saw that he was bleeding again, blood soaking through the bandages and the side of his dress shirt.
All this time, during the whole four-hour flight from Cartagena to Bogotá, he’d been bleeding when she thought she’d patched up his wound. Duh, of course he’d be the color of flour and as weak as a newborn. He’d lost most of his blood.
She wanted to cry. Hot tears even leaked from her eyes, but a sobbing fit wasn’t going to help him so she dashed them away. Spotting Quinn’s coat on the back of a chair, she figured he wouldn’t mind her ruining it if it saved Gabe’s life and bundled it into a compress. Gabe sucked in a sharp breath when she pressed it to his wounds, which was a good sign. She hoped. She remembered an episode of Grey’s Anatomy—or was it House, M.D.? Whichever, she remembered them saying that if a patient responded to painful stimuli, they were not in a coma.
So now what?
Audrey had no clue what else to do for him, so she sat on the floor, keeping pressure on the compress with one hand, stroking his hair with the other. And she talked to him.
“You stay with me, Gabriel, you hear me?” She tried to keep her voice strong, commanding, positive, but her tears spilled over in earnest and choked the words. “You need to stay here so you can save my brother and protect the world from the bad guys like Cocodrilo and Mena and Liam and—and you’re going to come to Costa Rica and swim with my dolphins. Your men need you to stick around, too. Quinn… God, he really needs you, you know? He seems like a very sad, lonely man and he…he just needs you. And so do I.”