Chapter 23

“Bryson works for me,” Mena said and sipped his wine, taking a moment to let that news flash hit home.

No. Even as her mind instantly rejected his words, Audrey’s throat tightened. He wasn’t lying. Why would he? Except maybe to play with her and Gabe, but hadn’t he already gotten his fill of that through the long, agonizing first two courses of the three-course meal? He’d refused to talk about Bryson through the lemon dill crab cake appetizers or the stuffed veal chops main course. He’d ignored Gabe’s repeated demands for answers and instead rambled on like they were old friends catching up as each new dish arrived. The food had tasted like wood to her and was about as appealing, although Mena most certainly had only the best of chefs in his kitchen. She spent more time pushing it around her plate than eating.

Finally, when the classic Colombian dessert of pastel de tres leches arrived, Mena dropped his bomb and then sat back with that Cheshire Cat smile, scrutinizing her face for a reaction.

Unable to swallow, she returned her wine glass to the table with a hand that shook. Gabe’s solid hand landed on her thigh and squeezed in a silent “I’m here” reminder.

That small gesture meant more than any words of reassurance he could have spoken. She grasped his hand under the table and met Mena’s amused gaze. “What does Bryson do for you?”

“Little things.” He flashed a grin. “Nothing too… involved… yet, I assure you, although I admit I was working him up to it.”

Oh God, Bryson.“Why?”

“He was very good at what he did, moving merchandise efficiently in and out of countries. Truly the best I’ve ever met, and I only deal with the best. I cannot suffer fools, which is why I was extremely displeased when Bryson never showed up for our afternoon meeting on Thursday. I never thought him a fool, but I started to wonder if I had miscalculated with him and sent people to… find him.”

“So the day Bryson was taken,” Gabe clarified, “you two had a meeting. Here in Cartagena or in Barranquilla?”

“Here, of course.”

The itinerary, Audrey realized. Gabe was trying to pin down Bryson’s plans for that day, trying to figure out who he had dealings with and who might want him out of the picture.

She sat forward. “Do you know why Brys planned to go to Barranquilla before meeting you?”

Mena gave her an indulgent smile that said he thought a woman didn’t belong in this conversation. Yes, well, to borrow a phrase from Gabe’s book, fuck him. Woman or not, she deserved to hear all the details.

“It was not for me,” Mena finally answered when she didn’t back down, his smile straining a little around the edges. “Perhaps he had other business to attend to there. Bryson was a busy man, and as long as his other activities did not interfere with mine, I saw no need to monitor him.”

Uh-huh. Somehow, Audrey doubted that. And it didn’t escape her notice that Mena kept referring to her brother in the past tense. “You said you know where he is. Did you kill him?”

Mena sent an aggravated look toward Gabe. “Really, Bristow, you should muzzle your wife until she learns some tact.”

Outrage burned through Audrey. She opened her mouth to give him a piece and a half of her mind, but Gabe squeezed her thigh hard. She closed her mouth and looked over at him. His expression was dark and shuttered as he leaned toward Mena.

“She’s far more diplomatic than I am. Now answer her question. Where is Bryson?”

Mena’s jaw slid to one side. Then he motioned to Liam with a flick of the wrist.

Gabe tensed up beside her, readying for who knows what, but Liam simply laid a map out on the table and went back to skulking in the corner like a good little minion.

“I don’t have an exact location,” Mena said and poked a finger at the map. “But I think he might be here.”

Heart hammering, Audrey stood to get a better look at the street map of Bogotá. Mena’s finger rested on a house in a well-to-do part of the city barely a mile from Bryson’s apartment.

Gabe also stood and leaned over the map. “What makes you think he’s there? And why haven’t you gone in after him if you want him back so badly?”

Both good questions. Audrey had a feeling he smelled a trap. In fact, even her untrained nose caught a whiff of one.

Mena lifted a negligent shoulder. “Politics, mostly. I do want Bryson back because, despite what you and your government think of me, I’m not a monster without friends. I consider him a good friend, and I want him safe again. I also want his captors punished for making me lose hundreds of thousands of dollars a day by taking him from me.

“However,” he continued, “I have a rather tenuous relationship with the EPC’s generals. If I send men in after Bryson, and the EPC is involved, the damage to that relationship could be irreparable, thus making me lose more money.”

Gabe’s eyes narrowed. “If you’re so worried about your relationship with the EPC, why send Liam and his men in to destroy Cocodrilo’s camp?”

“I did no such thing.”

“So where exactly do you think he found us?”

Mena stared at Gabe for a long moment, then turned that lethal gaze to Liam, a vein bulging in his temple. “Is this true? Did you attack Cocodrilo against my specific orders to leave him alone?”

“I did what I had to do,” Liam said. “He killed four of my men in that shootout on the highway. He was not going to get away with that.”

Mena’s face darkened, the jovial veneer giving way to an icy stare that would give anyone chills. “Do you have any idea what you have done? You may have sparked a war.”

“We’re already at war,” Liam retorted, his jaw set stubbornly.

The room filled with a deafening silence, heavy with tension and simmering anger.

Audrey clutched at Gabe’s arm, her heart pounding like a drum in her chest. This had the potential to escalate into a bloodbath.

“Gabe,” she whispered nervously.

“Stay behind me,” he murmured, his gaze flicking back and forth between the two men. His muscles were tense under her grip, ready to spring into action at the first hint of danger.

“No, we’re not,” Mena hissed, pushing back from the table with such force that it screeched against the marble floor. His attention never left Liam as he got to his feet. “I said leave Cocodrilo alone. That was a direct order, and you... you just like to play at being a soldier, don’t you?”

Liam bared his teeth in a feral grin. “I am a soldier. And soldiers don’t back down from a fight.”

“You are nothing but a disobedient dog!”

Liam’s face turned an ugly shade of red. “I’m no one’s pet.”

“You certainly act like a rabid one,” Mena sneered. He looked at Liam with pure contempt. “You’re fired. Get out of my sight before I’m forced to put you down like the animal you are.”

For a moment, Liam simply stood there, his chest heaving as if he were trying to draw breath into lungs that refused to cooperate.

“Leave,” Mena said and pulled a gun from under his suit coat. He pointed it directly between Liam’s eyes. “Or die. Your choice, Se?or Miller. I do not care either way.”

Liam backed up a step. Then another. After shooting a hate-filled look at Gabe, he disappeared into the house.

Audrey sagged against Gabe in relief, the adrenaline that had kept her frozen slowly ebbing away, leaving her knees weak. He wrapped a protective arm around her, but his attention remained on Mena.

“You just made a very dangerous enemy.”

“Who, Liam?” Mena scoffed and replaced his gun under his suit coat. “That’s absurd.”

“Every dog has its bite, Mena,” Gabe said cooly. “And you just backed yours into a corner.”

Mena waved away the warning with a dismissive flick of his wrist and sat back down, returning to the conversation as if he hadn’t just threatened a man’s life. “As I said, my ties with the EPC are tenuous—even more so now—and to keep them from attacking my business, I need to stay on their good side. I’m not convinced they are involved in Bryson’s abduction because this scheme is a little too advanced for them. Still, I did not want to take the chance of sending my men in to find him.”

He sent Gabe a sly smile. “But, you, Commander. I have no qualms about sending you. In fact, if the EPC kills you in the process, they will have removed a massive thorn from my side. It will effectively kill two birds with one stone, as you Americans like to say.”

Gabe straightened away from the table. “Sorry to disappoint, but that’s not happening.”

“All’s the pity.”

“And until you give me one good reason why you think Bryson is held there, I’m not sending my men within ten blocks of that neighborhood.”

“So cautious. An admirable quality in a mercenary.” He returned to his seat, picked up his wine, and studied Gabe over the rim. “Truthfully, you put Se?or Miller to shame. I don’t suppose you would be interested…”

“No.” The finality in Gabe’s voice left no room for argument, and Mena laughed.

“No, I didn’t think so. All right.” Finishing his wine, he stood again and motioned them to follow him through the veranda doors into the library. He crossed to a huge, glossy desk and opened a drawer, drawing out a file.

“This contains everything I know about Bryson’s abduction from my research and from monitoring your team, Commander—and I might add your second-in-command, the invariable Travis Quinn, has been struggling to hold them together in your absence.”

Gabe’s face gave away nothing, no flicker of surprise or another emotion, but Audrey felt him tighten up at her side. Much like he’d done for her earlier, she reached down and grasped his hand in reassurance. He gave hers a small squeeze in return but then let go and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Get on with it,” he said, ice in his voice. “Stop yanking my dick and tell us what you know.”

“Ah-ha. I do love your frankness.” Mena laughed. “On with it, then. I know your team, such as it is, is searching for a man named Jacinto Rivera. I know they found nothing at his last known address and have no idea where else to look. I also know where to find him.” He tossed the file on his desk, and it skated across the polished wood.

Gabe caught it before it slid off the edge. “Where?”

“Patience. First, you need to know something about Jacinto Rivera. He is the younger, even less cultured brother of Angel Rivera, the EPC general of the Andean region, and their family tree reads like a horror story of depravity. Their father was a drunk who got himself killed in a bar fight ten years ago. Their mother was a whore murdered by a client a year after that, and their sister, also a whore, disappeared six years ago. God only knows what became of her.

“Their uncle was a disgusting rapist interested in small boys, and his son, Rorro, finally took revenge for all of Papa’s late-night visits last year. Rorro’s barely out of his teenage years, and he sliced his father up the likes of which I haven’t seen since La Violencia. He’s a mean little brat, not to be underestimated, and he’s attached to his cousin’s hip. Wherever Jacinto goes, Rorro’s not far behind.”

“So what does this have to do with Bryson?” Audrey asked.

Mena pointedly ignored her, instead addressing Gabe as he motioned toward the Bogotá map still laid out on the table on the veranda. “That house belonged to Rorro’s father. Your team cannot find it because Rorro’s father, in addition to being a pervert, was also a very accomplished racketeer and money launderer. Nothing he owned is in his name. Even for your analyst, Se?or Physick, whom I’m told is one of the best available, it’ll take days to wade through all the paperwork, and that is only if your team is looking in Rorro’s direction. We both know Bryson doesn’t have days. As soon as they get the money, they will kill him. That is what I would do in their place.”

Audrey recoiled in disgust. He spoke of murder like crushing a cockroach without a second thought or regret. She looked at Gabe to see his reaction, but he was nodding in agreement.

God. Sometimes, when he was in warrior mode, he truly scared her.

Gabe opened the file in his hand, leafed through it, closed it again, and, to her surprise, passed it to her. She opened it and found all the pages written in Spanish.

Ah, that explained it.

She shook off her horror and translated without waiting for him to ask. “It’s paperwork pertaining to the house’s ownership and bank statements for both Rorro and Jacinto. Rorro, a.k.a. Rodrigo Salazar Vargas, is very well off. Jacinto, not so much, but there has been a flurry of activity on his card in both Bryson’s and Rorro’s neighborhoods.” She found a picture dated last night of Rorro leaving a disco and showed it to Gabe.

“Huh,” was all he said.

“There’s also a charge for a limo rental on one of Rorro’s cards the day Bryson was abducted,” she told him. “It’s not an unusual charge, but there’s a note here saying he never returned the car to the limo company.”

“I believe you wanted a good reason to approach Rorro’s house,” Mena said and nodded toward the file. “There you go. One very good reason.”

“Yeah, it is.” But Gabe didn’t sound happy about it. He looked at Mena and ground his molars for a moment of pure frustration before asking, “Can I use your phone to contact my team?”

That Cheshire Cat grin flashed again. “Oh, that was painful, wasn’t it? Asking me for a favor.”

“You have no idea,” Gabe said. “But, you’re right, Bryson doesn’t have much time, and I won’t waste it by nursing a grudge.”

“You are so noble. I find it both fascinating and exhausting.” He sat in the leather chair and waved toward the corded phone on his desk. “It’s all yours, but keep in mind they will not be able to trace the number.”

Audrey stayed where she was, looking through the file, but watched Gabe dial out of the corner of her eye. He stood with all his weight on his left foot again and looked so far beyond tired that he was free-falling into exhaustion-land.

Poor man. He’d had… what? Not counting his bought of unconsciousness, he’d had about four hours of sleep in the past forty-eight. She had squeezed in a little more than that and still felt dead on her feet, so she couldn’t imagine how he was still going.

Maybe she shouldn’t have pushed him so hard to have sex earlier. Even as much as they both wanted it, she should have let him sleep instead. The short afterglow nap obviously hadn’t been long enough to do him any good.

“Quinn,” he said into the phone, and Quinn’s exclamation of surprise was so loud she heard it from across the room.

Gabe made a gesture of impatience and raised his voice in a drill sergeant’s command: “Listen up. You need to destroy your phone as soon as we disconnect.”

Mena lifted his brows at that but said nothing, smile still in place.

“Then scramble the team and recon this address.” He gave the address in some sort of military code Audrey didn’t understand. “Our principle may be inside. I’ll be?—”

Gabe stiffened and turned toward the library doors a second before they were violently kicked open. Liam Miller stormed in with a gun in hand and a manic, crazed look in his dark brown eyes. He grinned and shut the doors soundly behind him, sealing off any chance of escape.

Several things happened at once, so fast Audrey’s mind raced to catch up.

Liam raised his weapon to Mena and said, “You can’t fire me.”

At the same time, Mena started to rise and reached inside his jacket for his gun.

Gabe stood directly between them, caught in the crossfire, and could only drop the phone and twist partially out of the way before Liam’s bullet ripped through his side and struck Mena. Mena’s head exploded from the impact, spraying blood and brains over the back wall, and his finger tightened reflexively on the trigger as he slumped sideways in the chair. The shot went wild, and pain burned across Audrey’s upper arm, but she ignored it.

“Gabe!” Shaking, terrified for him, she lurched over to where he had crumpled in front of the desk, but he was already army crawling under it, scrambling for the gun Mena had dropped.

“Hide!” he shouted. “Take cover!”

She couldn’t. There was no place to go, so she lunged toward the phone several feet away. If she could get it, she could tell Quinn where they were and?—

Liam plucked the phone out of her hands and dropped it into its cradle. “No calling for help.”

Dismissing her, he shoved her aside and kicked at Gabe’s bad foot before it disappeared under the desk. “We have a score to settle, Bristow. Stand up!”

To her utter horror, Gabe did just that. He rose from behind the desk, limping as his weight settled on his feet, and raised hands covered with blood in surrender.

“I’m unarmed, Liam.” He caught Audrey’s gaze and tilted his head ever so slightly to the right. She looked over and down and saw Mena’s gun had landed closer to her than him.

No. Oh, God, no. He couldn’t expect her… She met his gaze again and shook her head once. He just stared back, expression composed, gold eyes grim.

When violence is the only language your enemies know, you gotta learn to speak it, too.

He said to Liam, “There’s no honor in shooting an unarmed enemy. Is that really how you want this to end?”

“Yeah, mate.” Liam smiled and leveled his gun on Gabe’s chest. “It is.”