“No.”
Connor growls. “Goddammit, Ryan—”
“Twelve guys in combat gear parachuting out of a plane’s gonna get a lot more attention than one. I’m going in alone. Have the team rally on Vis and wait for my call.”
He’s silent for a moment. I know he’s pissed I insisted on taking off on my own before the rest of the team was assembled, because that’s not how we do things, but this is one time I wouldn’t—couldn’t—wait.
My woman’s in danger. If God himself told me to wait, I’d tell him to suck my dick.
“Copy that,” Connor finally says. “But when you get back, we’re gonna have a chat about teamwork, Rambo.”
“If you’re done lecturing me, Grandma, can you send me the number of the nearest skydiving outfit? I’m gonna need to rent a rig.”
“This shit is so much easier in the movies,” Connor mutters.
“You’re tellin’ me.”
“Tabby’s pulling up the info. The number’s on the way.”
“Thanks, brother.”
“No problem. And Ryan?”
“Yeah?”
There’s a pause before he speaks. “Keep frosty, brother. This guy Moreno’s a real piece of work.”
“I will, brother. See you soon.”
I disconnect the call, thumb over to my texts, and click the link to the phone number of Skydive Italia that just popped up on my screen.
Thirty-Two
Mariana
A deafening bang, a blinding flash of light, and a violent recoil jolting up my arm are the three things that happen simultaneously when I shoot Vincent Moreno at point-blank range in the chest.
He staggers back, arms flung wide, eyes bulging. He lands on his back with a whump that shakes the floor. Blood flowers from the hole in the center of his chest, quickly seeping crimson through his pristine white shirt.
Reynard is frozen, staring blankly at his son. I don’t know if his shock is due to finding himself standing when only seconds before my gun was pointed at him, or if he’s still trying to understand what happened.
In case it’s the latter, I provide him with an explanation. “He lunged. It was instinct.”
Reynard shifts his gaze to me. His eyes are so wide, they show white all around the irises. His face is the color of the marble floor.
I stand slowly and face him. My body feels like it’s a thousand years old. As if the words are coming from someone else, I speak in a hollow voice. “Only blood can pay for blood?” I gesture to Vincent, still alive but gasping for air, his hands fluttering uselessly at his sides. “Consider us even.”
Alerted by the sound of a gunshot, four assassins slam through the closed doors. They see Vincent on the floor and me standing there with a gun, and all of them pull up short, draw their weapons, and point them at me.
“Stop!” shouts Reynard in Italian, holding out a hand. “Don’t shoot! This is my daughter! You will not hurt her!”
They freeze. They glance at each other, then at me, then at Vincent, who’s making awful gurgling noises, desperately trying to suck air into lungs that are most likely collapsed.
I can tell by the expression on Vincent’s face—past the pain and panic—that he’s unhappy with this development.
The men slowly lower their weapons. Reynard turns his attention back to me.
“You were the son I should have had,” he says, his voice shaking with emotion. “You were always the strong one. The dedicated one. The one without the sickness in the head.” He gestures to Vincent, who wheezes in outrage.
Blood seeps from one corner of his mouth, and has gathered in a slick, shining pool under his body. His eyes are like a rabid dog’s, rolling viciously in his head. Even fighting death, he’s full of rage.
“You were always the one I intended to pass everything to, Mariana,” Reynard says. “You are my true heir.”
I blink, the assassins gasp, and Vincent roars like a wounded lion.
Then everything takes on the quality of a dream. It all seems to happen in slow motion. I see Vincent reach into his jacket. I see him withdraw his silver pistol. I see him point it at his father. I smell the acrid stench of gunpowder in the air, still lingering from the shot that took him down. I see another burst of brilliant light, hear another bang, and a crack like thunder.
Reynard’s head explodes like a pumpkin. He spins a fast half circle, then crumples facedown to the floor.
An eerie stillness follows. I’m untouchable, inside a cocoon of unreality that’s softening all the hard edges of things, keeping my pulse even and my mind clear, removed from it all, like I’m a spectator watching a movie, serene and safe behind a gauzy screen.
Vincent takes one last, ragged breath, shudders, then closes his eyes. The gun drops from his hand and clatters against the floor. After that, he doesn’t move, his chest stops rising, and I gather from all the evidence that he’s dead.
I feel nothing.
I feel nothing when I look at the mangled pulp that was Reynard. I’m aware I must be deeply in shock, that my body is responding to severe trauma by instinctively defending itself with psychological detachment, and that later I’ll probably develop PTSD, but right now, I don’t care.
When I look at the armed men standing frozen and gaping at the doors, I still don’t care. My utter lack of fear or feeling must show in my face, because they stare back at me in obvious trepidation.
Then one of them whispers, “Capo di tutti capi,” and slowly takes a knee.
He isn’t looking at Vincent or Reynard, lying there motionless.
He’s looking at me.
One by one, the other assassins sink to their knees.
Then they bow their heads, paying their respects to the new leader of the empire.
Thirty-Three
Ryan
“Which one is it?” I shout over the roar of the engines as I stare though the Cessna’s window at the ocean, fourteen thousand feet below me.
And the three fucking megayachts floating within a mile of each other off the coast of Vis.
This was as far as the GPS got us before the final working tracker blinked offline. One mile of ocean, not five feet.
Serves me right for only attaching four trackers to Mariana’s clothing.
When I get my woman back, she’s not going anywhere without a dozen.
“We can’t dial down tight enough on the satellite images to get the hull identifiers to see who owns them, but there’s a huge heat signature coming from the one farthest west,” Connor says in my ear. Our connection is shitty, and his voice is cutting in and out, but I can still hear him when he says, “There’s gotta be hundreds of people on that craft.”
Which would make sense if your business is trafficking bodies.
Imagining a ship full of scared little girls in addition to Mariana, I seethe with anger. I can’t wait to bury a bullet in this sick motherfucker’s skull.
“Copy that. Out.”
I hang up the sat phone before Connor can say anything else. At this point, there’s nothing else that can be said. Except maybe good luck.
Or sayonara.
I zip the phone into a pocket in my jacket, shove a pair of tactical goggles on my face, and give the thumbs-up to the skinny guy with the dreads from Skydive Italia. He was more than happy to take me up solo when I gave him five thousand cash, plus another few thousand for the chute and rig he won’t get back, but he isn’t too happy now, after watching me pull a shit ton of guns and ammo from my ruck and strap ’em all over my body.
He’ll get over it.
He yanks open the door and steps aside. Freezing wind slaps my face. The roar of the engines becomes deafening. At this altitude, I don’t need supplemental oxygen, but breathing’s still gonna be a bitch until I’m under canopy. I sit on the overhanging platform and scooch all the way to the edge, then arch my body and kick my feet back as I jump.
This shit is way more fun when you’re running out the back of a C-130 with your buddies.
Within seconds, I’m falling at terminal velocity. The force and roar of the wind is enormous, but the fall itself is peaceful. I lie on my belly in the void of the sky, the earth a huge blue crescent below, curving at the horizon, the sun a brilliant white gleam above. The sound of freefall is like an everlasting, crashing wave.
And all I can think is Mariana. Mariana. Mariana.
She’s a pulse in my blood. Knowing that I’m this close to her, that I’m almost there, is a kind of madness. I force myself to focus and count the seconds until my altimeter tells me it’s time to pull my chute.
Once I do, the noise level drops. The roar of the wind abates and there’s only a whistle through the lines of the canopy. Breathing is easier, and everything is peaceful.
And now I’m a sitting duck.
If there are antiaircraft missiles on Moreno’s yacht, this is when I’ll find out.
As I rush closer to the yacht, I see how massive it is, longer than a football field and wider, too. No one is in view on any of the decks, which is a stroke of good luck.
With the handles on the chute, I steer toward the aft deck. It rises up fast underneath me. As soon as my feet touch down, I’m out of the harness, dropping it over the side of the ship so the chute sails away, drifting down toward the surface of the water. Crouching low, I run to the back of a massive teak bar and take cover behind it. I’ve instantly got my Glock in hand and my ear trained for warning shouts.