Tia and Marcus spent the next day relaxing at his beach house. The roads were cleared and the damage was being hauled away, life getting back to normal. The family of the old woman they’d rescued had found out who he was and sent a basket of fruits and flowers, a sweet gesture of gratitude for the heroic act that happened the day before.

“I only did what I was called upon to do,” Marcus said, biting into a juicy mango.

“A lot of people would have become suddenly deaf to a call like that, Marcus. I’m very proud of you, of the man you are.”

“You were there with me through the whole ordeal, Tia. The risk was as great for you as for me.”

“I suppose so,” Tia said with a satisfied little smile. She’d lived her life achieving her own goals, or at least what she thought of as her true goals: success, power, respect. But now she was living for something more, something greater.

Love.

And the acts of giving to others, pure charity even at personal risk, was something that had been missing from Tia’s life and from her heart. But Marcus had brought that out in her, making her a better person than she’d been before—more whole.

The phone rang inside the house, and Marcus stood up to answer it. For all of Ecuador’s splendor and luxury, there were drawbacks, and the fact that the nearest cell phone dealer was in Quito was only one of the minor inconveniences.

Marcus said, “Hello…Carlo? Cosa sta succedendo?” Tia wasn’t sure if it was the fact that Marcus was speaking Italian that bothered her, or his sudden turn of mood and tone, but something about that call struck Tia as being somehow wrong.

Marcus nodded, listening and glancing at Tia before turning back to the phone. “Veramente? No, Carlo, non c’è più che tu possa fare, ma tu hai ben salvato le nostre vite. Mi faccia un favore e rimani a New York, attaccati da loro quanto più tu puoi e chiamate con tutte le nuove informazioni che hai... Giusto. Buon lavoro, Carlo. Grazie.”

Marcus hung up the phone.

Tia asked, “What is it? Who was that?”

“Service provider of mine, flew him into New York from Italy. But I was worried about Denise, tell you the truth, so I told him to dummy up on the English. Of course he understands it perfectly, even if he hates speaking it. A lot of Europeans resent it.”

“What’s wrong? What did he want?”

“Our assistants, Denise and your little Asian friend, they’re trying to take us out.”

“Take us—? You mean, they want to kill us?”

“Take over the companies, probably join forces after that…or kill one another…or both.”

Tia sat back, a chill running through her veins. She’d long suspected Shin Lu of harboring a grudge against her, or secret ambitions, and it only made sense that it would take a second person of equal ambition and aggression to goad her into action.

But…murder?

“How? What can they do to us out here?”

“He doesn’t know, but they’ve got somebody coming for us. Denise could have any number of connections, or…how much do you know about that assistant of yours?”

“Shin Lu? I…not much, tell you the truth. I tried to get to know her better, but she’s…she plays it close to the chest.”

“Not close enough,” he said. “Anyway, they know we’re here. Denise knows I own this house; it’ll be the first place they look for us. We have to leave.”

“Leave? Where?”

Marcus turned to gaze over the ocean. “We have to confront those women.”

“You think they’re still in New York?”

“I’ll check the business credit cards, see if they’ve bought plane tickets out of town. I’ve got Denise’s personal card numbers too; I’ll double check those.”

“You keep your employee’s credit card numbers?”

“Don’t you?”

After a moment, he went on, “All we really have to do is make it to the airport; I think we’ll be okay.”

“How do you know we’re not flying straight back into an ambush?”

Marcus gave that some thought, rubbing his bearded chin. “Denise’s connections are going to be European. What about yours?”

“She’s Korean, South Korean I’m pretty sure. She doesn’t seem to have many friends in New York.”

“South Korea,” Marcus repeated. “That’s any number of bad hombres, but it still makes New York our best bet.” Marcus took Tia’s hand and stood up; she followed his lead. “Let’s go.”

Marcus had a small car parked at the house for his personal use, and it was never more useful than then. Tia gathered her few belongings, leaving the clothes and bringing her purse and passport and other necessities.

Marcus drove fast, and it made Tia nervous. She’d never seen him under this kind of pressure, and though he was as cool and collected as ever, Tia couldn’t help but worry that there was an underlying current of concern, a tremble of doubt. And if Marcus was worried, Tia reasoned, that was bad, that was very bad.

The little Fiat sped along the lone highway running along the coast, north toward Quito.

But they passed a car passing in the other direction which slowed down and turned to follow, and that grabbed Marcus’s and Tia’s mutual attention. “You think that’s them?”

Marcus nodded. “Denise knows what kind of car I’ve got down here—the colors. She’d have passed that along to whomever they sent.”

“Shit!”

He stepped on the gas and the engine roared, the little car jerky and unstable around them. But the road was straight, the traffic was fairly light, and their chances seemed good. Tia glanced back to see a white sedan with rental car plates speeding up behind them.

“They’re coming!”

“Take it easy,” Marcus said, glancing into the rearview mirror. He stepped on the accelerator again, engine gunning louder as he pushed the Fiat forward, barreling up to a green pickup truck and swerving into the lane next to it. Another car honked and turned sharply to avoid a collision, and he sped past the pickup truck, turning again to pull in front of it.

“Be careful!”

“I’m trying to keep us alive, Tia. Careful is not a priority.”

“If you’re not careful you won’t keep us alive, Marcus!”

He shrugged, still gripping the steering wheel. “That’s a good point.”

Tia looked ahead to see a big eighteen-wheeler on the highway in front of them, slow-moving, obstructing their way. And behind them, the white car was coming up fast.

Bang! Bang-bang-bang!

The rear window shattered, Tia and Marcus ducking their heads down. Marcus said, “Glove compartment,” and Tia didn’t need any more direction than that. She flipped the plastic door down to reveal a nickel-plated Cobra semi-automatic handgun and a second clip. Marcus shrugged. “For self-defense.”

“I get it.”

Tia checked the gun, cocked it, and turned to take aim.

Bam-bam-bam! Tia knocked out three quick shots, the car behind them swerving, windshield shattering. But the driver wasn’t hit, and the car sped on behind them. Tia could see the driver and his companion clearly for the first time, distinctly Asian features indicating who’d brought them in on that murderous job.

“It’s Shin Lu’s people,” Tia said. “Koreans, I think.”

But that was all she had time to say before the car jostled around them, Marcus’s eyes going wide. She turned to see that the freeway in front of them was suddenly jammed, both lanes clogged with traffic. They had no way to move forward and their enemies were closing in from behind.

Tia knew both men would be armed, and that put her and Marcus at a fifty-percent disadvantage. That meant one of them was probably going to die, and that was a compromise she wasn’t willing to accept.

But Marcus had already made his own decision, craning the wheel sharply to the left and pushing the Fiat into the median in the center of the freeway. The safety barrier scraped against the side of the Fiat, sparks rising up, the car grinding heavily as he forced it forward. On the other side, a parade of nearly parked cars sat just inches from Tia’s side of the car, no room at all for mistake.

The Fiat roared out in agony, transmission trembling as Marcus drove it past the traffic blockage to finally reveal an old station wagon sitting in one lane, smoke rising up out of the engine. Marcus reached a point where he could spill back into the proper lane of the freeway, past the slow crawl of other drivers and into a relatively clear stretch of highway.

Tia looked back to see the traffic knot still tightly tied behind them, the white car still far back among the other trapped drivers, no doubt too wide to have followed the little Fiat down the shoulder of the highway.

But the Fiat was shaking, wobbling severely on its wheels. “This thing gonna hold up?”

He listened to the machine, sensing its injuries, its vulnerabilities. “As long as the—”

Bam! The car was suddenly listing hard, leaning forward, rubber flapping loudly from the driver’s tire.

Tia guessed, “Tires don’t blow?”