4. Antonio

My phone rings, and I duck into an empty treatment room to take Will’s call. His shit is the last thing I need right now. But it’s his kid, my explosion, and he’s entitled.

“Yeah.”

“Don’t fucking ‘yeah’ me. I want to know how my daughter’s faring.”

He’s a bigger pain in the ass than I am.

“The doctor’s examining her, but it’s just a precaution. The river’s warm this time of year, and she didn’t spend much time in it, anyway. You should be proud. Alexis is a strong swimmer, and she kept her wits about her in the midst of total chaos. Takes after her mother in that regard.”

He snickers, and some of his anxiety seems to dissipate. “How’s Valentina?”

“Okay. She’s not much of a swimmer yet, but despite that, she remained calm enough to be rescued.” No small thanks to Santi and Mia, who deserve a huge bonus and a month off. They can have the former, but the latter is not happening.

“It seems everywhere you go, Huntsman, an explosion follows. What the fuck is that all about?”

“Not entirely sure. The explosion at the church makes more sense than what happened today.”

“How so?”

“The bomb caused a lot of havoc, but it was amateur. I don’t know if the boat’s salvageable, but it’s mostly intact. The device had to be on the boat—not nearby, actually on board. I would have expected it to have been blown to smithereens.”

“Bombs are incredibly finicky. Even in the hands of an expert.”

“I know. But even the timing makes no sense whatsoever. The race was over. The boat was docked. Our boat usually wins. By usually, I mean every year. It’s a running joke. If we’d won, no one would have been on the boat. We would have been headed to the winner’s circle.”

“It might have been a shot across the bow, so to speak. But I wouldn’t put all my eggs in that basket.”

Not putting all my eggs anywhere.

“Any chance this is blowback from the package I had delivered to you recently?”

“Possibly.”

But not likely. Chernov left the country after he was summoned home. Lucas verified it. Other than him, I can’t think of one person who would be interested in avenging Tomas’s disappearance.

“I know this is far-fetched, but you and Samantha were at the church, and—”

“Alexis was on the boat.” Will sighs. “I thought about it, too. Some fucker could be sending me a warning. Wouldn’t be the first time. It’s certainly easier to cause problems for me there than it is here. But it would have to be someone with inside information.”

The bile rises in my throat.

“The wedding was one thing,” he continues, “but I didn’t give Alexis permission to travel until about ten minutes before they left for the airport. I did that on purpose to keep her whereabouts under the radar. And how would have anyone known she was going to be on the boat at precisely that time? It’s a stretch.”

“I agree. But I don’t want to gloss over anything. That’s not how I run an investigation.”

“I’m putting together a team to assist.”

I don’t respond. I like Will, and he might be family, but there’s no way he’s barging in and taking over an investigation in my city.

“Your lead,” he adds. “They move on your orders.”

I can live with that. “The additional manpower will be helpful.”

“They’ll be on the ground before you lay your head on the pillow. I want a piece of the fuckers who forced my daughter into a river. What do you need?”

“Right now, extra hands would be the biggest help. I have men on the pier and along the bank searching for evidence, and divers combing the river for bomb components. We’ll drag the whole damn thing if we have to. We also have feeds to sift through, but that will have to wait until we’ve swept and secured our equipment. We should be fully operational within the hour.”

“You think you were infiltrated?”

Sooner or later, it happens in every organization. Still, it kills me to admit. But I don’t hide behind my failures—I just make sure not to repeat them. “I know we were.”

“I’m listening.”

I fill him in on the Russians, Alvarez, Cristiano—and Fedorov’s latest demand. I’m dispassionate and clear-headed as I lay out the cards. Rage and hatred account for a myriad of the world’s poor decisions. I won’t allow them to skew my calculations.

“I can’t believe that sonofabitch involved your wife in a deal. Only the fucking Russians.”

The cartels aren’t above it either. But they’re usually not interested in breaking bread.

“What are you going to do?” he asks, with rare empathy in his voice.

“I’m not sure I have a goddamn choice. If I make the deal, he wins. If I don’t, he knows without a shadow of a doubt that I would make any sacrifice for her. That might be an even bigger win.”

“Not might be. It would be a huge win for him. Right now, it’s all supposition. But if you sacrifice your buddy to save Daniela from spending a few hours with that slimy asshole, he’ll never wonder again. When Fedorov wants something big, he’ll know just how to go about getting it.”

It’s all true, but it might not be just a few hours with a slimy asshole. I could be sending her into a trap. “It’s only easy from where you sit.”

“I never said it was easy. I said the alternative is untenable.”

“There’s got to be something else he wants.”

“He’s at the top of the food chain, fat and happy. My best guess is that he’s not budging on this.”

There’s always another way. Always. We don’t like to look there first, because it’s often messy. I’d never touch his family, but I wouldn’t hesitate to kill him with my bare hands and call it a good day’s work.

“Hey,” he says, pulling me out of my head. “Whatever you’re thinking? Forget it. We’re not talking about some two-bit Bratva soldier. He’s the Pakhan. If you fail, everyone and everything you love will suffer. It’ll be brutal for them. They’ll keep you alive long enough to witness every atrocity.”

“Then I won’t fail.”

“The consequences are likely to be the same if you succeed. It’ll just be Fedorov’s successor meting them out. We’re talking dinner. You pick the time and the place. No one’s more unreasonable than I am when it comes to my family, but you’ve got to put this in perspective.”

“Dinner is bad enough. But you know as well as I do that it could be a setup. I don’t believe for one second, that in my shoes, you’d expose Samantha to that kind of danger.”

“You’re wrong. I’m telling you, you’re wrong. Would I need a mild sedative and a fifth of gin to make it through the evening without using my steak knife as a weapon? You bet your ass. But I would do it because it’s the best option to ensure her long-term safety. For me, every decision comes down to that.”

You’re not alone. Since her father died, I’ve made few decisions where I didn’t consider her safety paramount.

There’s a knock on the door, and Lucas sticks his head in. I motion for him to come inside. It’s a good excuse to get rid of Will. I’ve heard enough.

“Lucas is here. I need to see what he needs. I’ll talk to you when you get here.”

“We have a lead on Alvarez,” Lucas says, as I toss my phone on the bed.

His name alone is enough to summon my demons. “Bring him to me alive.”

“I figured you’d want to question him.”

“Not me. That fucking traitor isn’t getting one second of my attention.”

Lucas nods. “I’ll take care of it.”

“No. You have enough on your plate. Mia’s going to do it. We’ll tell her what we want to know, and she’ll be the one to encourage him to talk.”

“Mia?”

Alvarez is old school, all the way. “There’s nothing that will humiliate that asshole more than torture and death at the hands of a woman.”

“Brilliant. Wish I’d thought of it.”

“How long before the servers are good to go and all the passwords changed?”

“Forty minutes, give or take. Enough time to get that shoulder cleaned up.”

“It’s fine.”

“You’re not going to be able to get that shirt off without causing a shitload of problems for yourself. We’re in a clinic, Antonio, and everything that can be done to track the sonofabitches is being done. Let me get a doctor.”

“Do it,” I mutter begrudgingly. He’s right. “Anything to get you to stop nagging.”

Lucas pauses as though he’s going to say something, but then he hesitates. He knows about the recording, and about my call with Fedorov, but there’s been no time to hash any of it out. I’m sure he’s torn up about Cristiano. It’s been the three of us for most of our lives.

“Say what’s on your mind. Go ahead.”

He peers at me from the doorway. “Cristiano isn’t a traitor.” His voice is thick with emotion. He sounds a lot like I feel.

“Get the doctor, and we’ll talk while he fixes my shoulder.”