CHAPTER 5
Tate leaned against the window of the second-floor apartment Cole had leased, growing more impatient by the second.
Come on, Lucia. Where are you?
The rustling of Cole’s papers sounded behind him, followed by the clink of Van’s tequila against the coffee table.
“Do you miss your wife yet?” Tate stared down at the grungy alley through a pair of high-powered binoculars.
“I missed her the instant I left the driveway,” Van said from the couch.
They’d only been in Caracas for three hours, and in that time, Tate had watched a man drag a woman out of the apartment next door to Lucia’s, punch her in the face, and stroll away. She called the police, and the five uniformed officers who showed up two hours later decided to rob her instead of helping her. They left with their arms loaded with shit, including a TV, a laptop, and her tiny dog. She’d crumpled on the sidewalk as they drove away and was still sitting there, head down, smoking a cigarette.
In the distance, the report of gunfire sounded. One shot. Then three more in rapid succession.
It wasn’t the first time he’d heard that unnerving noise since he’d been here. He was already getting used to it.
“You should’ve stayed home.” He glanced back at Van, who stared blankly at his empty glass.
“I have an idea.” Van lifted his eyes, his smile clenched with straight white teeth. “Shut the fuck up.”
“I didn’t ask you to come.” Tate sure as shit didn’t want him here.
Forgiveness was one thing. Trusting Van to watch his back was a level of camaraderie they hadn’t reached.
Beside Van, Cole bent over a spread of maps and circled all the danger zones. There were a lot of fucking circles.
They’d left their IDs and personal phones in a locker at the airport. Didn’t bring photos of family members. No wedding ring on Van’s finger. No calling home to check in on loved ones. No connection whatsoever to their lives in Texas. These were Cole’s rules. In the event one of them was kidnapped.
Cole would only stay with them for a week. If something happened to Tate or Van after that, they were to give the kidnappers Cole’s number. He promised to handle any potential ransoms as painlessly as possible.
“Technically, every alley in Caracas is a kidnap alley. But this is the Kidnap Alley.” Cole circled another area on the map and looked up at Tate. “Give the window a rest and come here.”
“But—”
“She eats dinner with Badell every night and isn’t due back for another twenty minutes.”
With reluctance, Tate left his vigilance and crouched beside him.
“See how winding this road is?” Cole traced a snaking street on the map. “It’s a prime target for kidnappers. Lots of places for them to hide and trap motorists. And its proximity to the main motorway makes an easy escape.” He cast Tate a flinty glare. “Stay the fuck away from this road.”
“Got it.”
“I’m going to make this clearer, just in case you don’t.” He pulled a document out of his backpack and set it on the coffee table.
The letter header was stamped with a United States seal, and beneath it was a long list of first and last names. At least a hundred names. Maybe more.
“There’s a fuckton of competition in the Venezuelan kidnapping business. A lot of cops do it, too.” Cole tapped the paper. “These are just the kidnappers the U.S. government watches.”
A quick glance confirmed Tiago Badell was at the top of the list.
“Am I on any of those government watch lists?” Van arched a brow.
“I wouldn’t know.” Cole returned the document to his backpack.
“Bullshit.” Digging in his pocket, Van removed a toothpick and popped it between his teeth. “I looked you up. Know what I found? Nothing. Nada. You might be able to cover your electronic tracks, but no one is that good. Unless you work for an entity like the United States. So what is it? FBI? CIA? Some kind of secret government agency?”
Tate wanted to know those answers, too, but it was none of their business. “Van, don’t be a dick.”
“I work for myself.” Cole straightened, meeting the challenge in Van’s eyes.
“Guys in your line of work can’t be married or committed. Gives your enemies a target. Makes you weak.” Van lowered his gaze to the tattoo on Cole’s arm. “Is that why you lost the girl?”
“You don’t have to answer that.” Tate shot Van a warning look.
Cole slowly rose from the couch and paced to the window. With his back to the room, he gripped the window ledge and said quietly, “I gave up that job for the girl.”
And he lost her anyway. Tate felt bad for the guy and struggled for something to say to break up the thick silence. “I’m sorry, man.”
“I’m not.” Cole turned and rested his fingers in his front pockets. “She’s happy. Happier than I’ve ever seen her. There isn’t a single part of me that regrets that.” He shrugged. “It’s all I ever wanted for her.”
Taking the high road. Good for him. But what about his happiness?
Tate wasn’t in a position to preach. He’d walked into the innards of kidnapping hell to talk to a woman he’d never met. Why? Because he wanted to repay Camila for rescuing him? Wanted her to look at him the way she looked at Matias? Wanted to do something for her that Matias was unable to do? Yep. All those things. Fucked-up or not, his ego demanded it.
“I thought I loved Liv.”
The monotone declaration swung Tate’s head in Van’s direction, his eyebrows lifting in stunned silence. Van’s obsession with Liv hadn’t exactly been a secret, but it was in the past. No one discussed it. Especially not Van.
“Don’t look at me like that.” Van stretched his arms along the back of the couch, smiling at Tate. “You were there.”
“Yeah, I had a front row seat to that madness. Thanks for the reminder.”
Sitting on the floor, Tate reclined against the wall and lit a cigarette. During his captivity, the dynamic between Van and Liv had been the mindfuck of all mindfucks. Van’s temper was unpredictable, and more often than not, he’d unleashed it on Liv—hitting her without warning, fucking her despite her protests—while Tate watched from his chains.
He shuddered.
“I only brought it up to make a point.” The toothpick jogged in Van’s mouth, and his gaze turned inward. “The thing with Liv is I never put her before myself. Fuck her happiness. I wanted her, and that was that. Then I met Amber.” He shook his head and laughed to himself. “Setting her free was the bravest thing I ever did.”
Amber’s agoraphobia had been unmanageable back then, and Van realized he wasn’t helping. It shocked the hell out of everyone when he returned her to her isolated life.
Tate dropped the cigarette in an empty beer bottle. “But you got her back.”
“At the time, I was certain I wouldn’t. And here’s my point. When I lost Amber, I had a goddamn eye-opening epiphany, like a lightning bolt to the chest. I fucking love that woman so much it redefines the meaning of happiness. It’s not a matter of putting her happiness before mine. When she smiles, I feel a peace unlike anything I’ve felt in my life. And if letting her go is the only way for her to keep that smile, I would do it again in a heartbeat.”
“Poetic.” Cole stared at the floor, his mouth twisting in a sad grin. “I mean it. Because I feel the exact same way.”
“I know why you’re telling me this,” Tate said, “and let me remind you Camila is with Matias. I let her go.”
“No, you didn’t.” Van leaned forward with elbows braced on his spread knees. “She was never yours. When she moved to Colombia, you didn’t have a choice in the matter.”
Not exactly true. Tate could’ve told her how he felt, fought for her, made her choose. He certainly didn’t have to go along with Matias’ plan to reunite them.
Matias would crap a cartel brick if he knew Tate was on a meet-and-greet mission with the man who abducted Camila eleven years ago. If Matias had it his way, Van would be dead, because he didn’t just grow up with Camila. He grew up with Lucia, too. Loved her like a sister. He wouldn’t want Van anywhere near her.
“Why are we here?” Van sat back, eyes glinting like razors.
Tate didn’t owe anyone an explanation, so he decided to throw Van’s words back at him. “It’s the right thing to do.”
“Good answer.” With a wolfish smile, Van turned to Cole. “So tell me, hot shot secret agent, what happens if we leave the neighborhood?”
“Don’t call me that.” Cole pushed off the window ledge and knelt beside the map, pointing at an intersection of streets. “We entered the neighborhood here. Remember the men who approached the taxi?”
Tate nodded. The armed thugs had shared words with Cole through the open window. Since Tate didn’t speak Spanish, the short conversation had been abstruse. But when Cole slapped some bills in their palms, the gist was clear. Cole had paid an entrance fee.
“When I came here six weeks ago,” Cole said, “I made a deal with the gang that patrols that corner. Had to work my way up to the boss to negotiate safe passage. Which means that as long as I pay a toll each time I enter, they won’t throw a grenade in my car window. But that only works for me. The gang boss doesn’t know you.”
“So what you’re saying is, if we leave the neighborhood…”
“You won’t be able to return. And one more thing…” Cole scratched his stubbled cheek. “Matias Restrepo doesn’t have any sway here. Badell has more resources, more men, more guns, more everything. I’m not saying not to call him if you need help. Just don’t expect a fast and successful rescue. It would take him weeks to get his men into this neighborhood, and coming here would be at a huge risk to his cartel.”
Fucking great. Not that Tate intended to call him, but it had lingered at the back of his mind like a security blanket.
Cole glanced at his watch. “Lucia should be home any minute.”
They moved to the window, and Tate trained the binoculars on the entrance of the alley, his entire body wound tight with nerves.
He’d only seen her in photos. And that vile video. How would his first encounter with her go? What if there was nothing more to her story? No redeemable reason for her involvement with Badell?
No matter what happened, he would have to tell Camila when it was over. Christ, he wanted more than anything to be the bearer of good news.
Dusk began to move in, making the gloomy street all the more gloomier. The woman who was robbed earlier was still sitting on the curb, hugging her knees to her chest.
Five minutes later, a feminine silhouette emerged in the alley. He didn’t need the binoculars to see her, but he used them anyway, dialing in on her face.
The pale illumination of the moon haloed her head, giving her glossy raven hair an earthshine effect. The graceful curve of her neck, thinly arched brows, deep smoky eyes, and cheekbones so sharp they could draw blood—it was like staring into the face of Queen Nefertiti, one of the hottest women who ever lived.
Fuck him, but she was compelling. A living work of art. It wasn’t just her beauty that arrested him. It was the way she moved, as if cutting through water with finesse and purpose. Not a single motion wasted.
Her black pants and sleeveless top looked painted on, her lips full and parted as she breathed through each seductive stride. Then her chin lifted, and her gaze scanned the top floor apartments, pausing on the one he was in.
Breathless, he lowered the binoculars and stepped back.
“She can’t see us,” Cole said beside him.
Tate pressed a hand against the glass. During Cole’s previous stay here, he’d installed one-way window film. Even with the interior lights on at night, it was supposed to make the apartment look dark and vacant.
Sure enough, her attention quickly moved on.
“Let me see those.” Van grabbed the binoculars and trained them on Lucia. “Not bad. Objectively attractive, in a male model sort of way. Looks like she skipped a few too many meals. I prefer women with more meat on their bones.”
“You’re so full of shit.” Tate snatched the binoculars. “Your wife weighs a hundred pounds soaking wet.”
“Amber’s a fucking knockout, and if you mention her again, I’ll chloroform you while you sleep and hang you by an ankle from the ceiling with a thirteen-inch dildo shoved up your ass.”
Tate stared at him and blinked.
“Too soon?” Van asked.
“Yeah, Van. Fuck.”
“You two are giving me a headache.” Cole leaned a shoulder against the glass, staring down at Lucia. “We all know she’s a solid ten. Eloquent yet cute. She’s…”
“One of the billions of women who wouldn’t touch you with a fifty-foot pole?” Van grinned.
“I was going to say…” Cole squinted at him and returned to the window. “She’s beautiful in an innocent, unintentional way, and she knows how to use that to her advantage. Something to think about when you make contact.”
Tate raised the binoculars as she breezed past the sobbing woman on the street. The woman leapt up and said a string of words while chasing Lucia to her apartment door.
As the woman continued to speak, her body language grew frantic in her efforts to get Lucia’s attention. Without looking at her or acknowledging her in anyway, Lucia unlocked her apartment and shut the door in the woman’s face.
“Cold,” Tate muttered.
“Listen to me.” Cole stabbed a finger at the window. “Out there, every single person is your enemy. Remember that.”
“I get it, but that lady was just—”
“Trust. No one.”
Tate touched his brow to the glass and exhaled. Fuck this place. What on earth would compel Lucia to live here?
The distraught neighbor finally went inside her apartment, and a few seconds later, Lucia’s door opened. She stepped out and locked up again.
“Where’s she going?” Tate asked.
“I don’t know. She never deviates from her patterns.” Cole took the binoculars from Tate and watched her stride down the alley in the direction she’d just come. “She changed her shoes.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. She always carries two compact 9mm Berettas in her waistband and always wears the same black heels. She had the heels on a second ago.”
Tate hadn’t noticed those details. Because he’d been too enamored with the rest of her.
“She’s wearing flat-soled boots.” Cole handed the binoculars to him. “The guns are still at her back, wedged in her waistband.”
As Tate validated that, Van said, “Wherever she’s going, it’s too far to walk in heels.”
“We need to follow her.” Tate glanced at the door, calculating the logistics of tailing her.
The main entrance to their apartment building opened on a different street, a block over from Lucia’s alley. It made coming and going without her detection easier, but circling the exterior of the huge complex to catch up with her would take a few minutes.
“We’re not going anywhere.” Cole paced away from the window, headed toward the open kitchen. “You can’t see them from the window, but her guards are watching. They’ll see us coming from a mile away.”
Hard to argue. They didn’t exactly blend in. At Cole’s suggestion, they’d packed plain clothes—jeans and t-shirts—and hadn’t shaved in over a week. But the whiskers didn’t hide their Caucasian complexions and pale eyes. The three of them didn’t just look American. They looked like Marines on an undercover mission.
Given the total absence of body fat on their muscled frames, Cole and Van clearly shared Tate’s dedication to working out. If they strolled down the street together, the locals would notice.
But Cole had a plan for everything. A local woman would deliver groceries and necessities at a scheduled time every week. Vetted and paid handsomely, she would guard her job with the utmost discretion. In the meantime, they would be cooped up in the tiny one-bedroom apartment until Cole gave them the green light to venture out.
In the kitchen, he lifted a long duffel bag from the table. When they’d arrived at the apartment, the first thing Cole did was pull the bag from one of the tiles in the drop ceiling in the bedroom.
He set it on the coffee table and unzipped it, revealing an arsenal of firearms, knives, and high-tech gadgets. “I collected this stuff during my previous visit here.”
Made sense. It wasn’t like he could sneak an assault rifle into his carry-on.
“When we eventually go out there,” Cole said, “you’ll be fully armed and armored.” He held up a black t-shirt from the bag. “This is bullet-resistant.”
“What?” Tate reached out and touched what appeared to be high-quality cotton. “No way.”
“I was shot in the chest wearing something similar.” Cole lifted the hem of his shirt, baring flawless skin over washboard abs and sculpted pecs. “The bullet broke skin. Fractured ribs.”
“No scar.” Tate couldn’t believe it.
“The bullet didn’t enter my body.” Cole pulled another shirt from the bag and tossed at Van.
“Badass.” Van held it up to his chest. “Machine-washable?”
“Good luck finding a washing machine.” Cole laughed and nodded at the view beyond the window, where laundry hung from sagging balconies from one end of the alley to the other.
Who cared about laundry? Those shirts, though… If they could really bounce bullets, they were worth their weight in gold.
No wonder Cole’s fees were so outrageous. He didn’t just know what he was doing. He had the gear to stay alive. Tate couldn’t imagine what this arsenal cost on the black market or wherever he’d acquired it. And he’d left it all behind after his last trip?
“You have to build a new stockpile of weapons on every job?” Tate asked.
“Yeah.” Cole motioned at the duffel bag. “This was included in your finder fee. Now you’re going to learn how to use it.”
Over the next hour, Cole instructed Van and Tate on the nuances of each firearm and how to conceal the pieces beneath their clothing. They couldn’t hit the streets looking like avatars in a first-person shooter game. Discretion was paramount.
During the instruction, rain began to pelt the glass. By the time Tate made his way to the window, a tropical downpour was fully underway. The deluge of water fell from broken spouts and overfilled dumpsters, rushing a river of sewage through the alley.
Where was Lucia? Surely, she wasn’t walking the steep, winding streets in this storm? After eleven years in this shanty town, she was probably used to it. But he didn’t like it. Every instinct begged him to go out there, hunt her down, and drag her back to the States.
Instead, he stayed at the window, watching, waiting, and finally, she appeared.
“She’s back,” he said, drawing Cole and Van to his side.
Despite the torrential rain, her steps were unhurried, measured, as she navigated streams of rainwater. Her clothes stuck to her thin sodden body, her hair clinging to her face, and in her arms…
“What is she carrying?” He gave the binoculars to Cole, who shook his head and handed them back.
She strode toward her apartment, but before she got there, she stopped and knocked on the door next to hers.
“That’s the apartment that was robbed earlier,” Van said.
The woman poked her head out. Then she swung the door open and grabbed whatever Lucia was holding.
Amid the blur of motion, Tate spotted a furry head. “Holy shit, she has the dog. How did she—?”
“Badell owns this neighborhood,” Cole said. “She must’ve tracked down the officers and demanded Badell’s cut of the loot.”
“She could’ve taken the laptop or demanded money, right?” His chest filled with hope. “But she took the dog. That’s—”
“Don’t read too much into it. The most corrupt explanation is usually the right one. Lucia knows what the woman values most, and now she’s in Lucia’s debt.”
“Christ, you’re jaded.”
“I’m realistic.” Cole paced to the couch and packed away the weapons. “Lucia will stay in her apartment for the rest of the night. At dawn, she heads back to the compound.”
“Every morning?”
“Without fail,” Cole said behind him.
Tate remained at the window as she left the woman without saying a word and vanished inside her own apartment.
What’s going on in your head, Lucia? Why are you here?
“You know why I abducted Camila.” Van stepped beside him and stared out into the rain. “Why she was even on my radar.”
“Yeah.”
Van’s father, Mr. E, had given him Camila’s information and ordered him to take her. Her disappearance had been part of a revenge plan led by Matias’ own brother.
“Two months after I took Camila,” Van said, “Lucia disappeared. It’s related, isn’t it? To Matias’ cartel?”
“Yes, and Matias killed every person involved in the sisters’ kidnappings.”
Except Van. He had Tate to thank for that. Since Camila had made peace with her former captor, Tate had talked Matias out of retaliating.
“When Lucia was captured, Camila was presumed dead.” Tate trained the binoculars on Lucia’s apartment door, and an ache pinched his chest. “When Badell brought her here, he would’ve tried to collect a ransom from her parents, who were already dead.” He met Van’s eyes. “She believes she’s alone.”
He wanted so badly to storm into her apartment and tell her Camila was alive. But he couldn’t. Not while she was being watched.
“I’m trying to be patient,” he said, turning toward Cole, “but I need to know the plan.”
“There’s somewhere she goes twice a month.” Cole lowered onto the couch. “Her guards don’t follow her in.”
“Twice a month?” His pulse raced. “When? Is it always the same days of the month?”
“Yes. Ten days from today, she’ll be there.”
Ten days? That’s an eternity.
Tate paced the length of the room, agitated. “You’re leaving in seven days.”
“I have another job.” Cole narrowed his eyes. “And I don’t want to be a part of whatever you decide to do after you confront her.”
“I’m not going to kidnap her.”
Cole glanced between him and Van, eyebrows arched. “If you say so.”
“Whatever. You already told us we’d be on our own.” He continued to pace. “Where does she go twice a month?”
“A sex club. That’s where you’ll make contact with her.”
“What?” Tate slammed to a stop.
“Don’t look so offended. You should feel right at home there.”
True, but… “What are you suggesting I do?”
“You’ll go in there, and if she’s willing, you’ll fuck her until she loses all logic and paranoia. Then you’ll put your mouth at her ear and say—”
“Thanks for the good time… Oh, and by the way, your sister’s alive?”
“Exactly.”
Tate closed his eyes and breathed, “That’s a terrible idea.”