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Wicked Intentions(44)

By:J.T. Geissinger


Finally, the ringing stops as the call clicks through.

“Reynard?” I say into the silence, my voice high with panic.

There’s a strange sound I can’t identify. A wet sound, almost like a rheumy cough, but weaker. Then, as horror blooms over me like a pestilent flower, Reynard’s voice finally comes over the line.

“Dragonfly,” he says, his voice raspy and low, a death rattle. “My darling. Don’t come ba—”

He cuts off abruptly. I’m about to frantically shout his name, but the words die on my lips when I hear what comes over the line next.

“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.





Twenty-Six





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 can 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.





Twenty-Seven





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.