Chapter Seventy-Five
Nathan
I stepped in front of Bree and shielded her with my body as the motel room door splintered open. She screamed but didn’t duck. Instead, Bree stood next to me, ready to face whomever came barreling through the door.
It occurred to me that it could be the police, or even the FBI. If we had been spotted in connection with the cartel or with the escaped children, there would be more than one government group looking to get their hands on us.
Assaulting a police officer was not something I wanted to add to my ever-growing lists of offenses, but I knew I didn’t have a choice. I had to get the jump on whomever blocked our escape.
I waited until the first assailant, the overly large bodyguard we’d met at the warehouse, kicked his way through. By the size of the shoe Bree and I saw, it couldn’t have been anyone else. The door was thin and came apart in long, jagged strips. When he took his first step into our room, I made my move.
I grabbed his arm and used his own forward momentum to yank him off balance. He stumbled past me and I was able to take out a second bodyguard with a sharp jab to the throat.
A bored voice spoke in the hallway. “You always underestimate him and look what happens,” he said to the bodyguard writhing at his feet.
The larger one recovered and in a surprisingly agile move, he dodged around Bree and grabbed her from behind. She screamed and rammed her fist upward into his nose hard enough to spray blood across the faded watercolor painting that hung on our motel room wall.
The effective move surprised everyone, including Bree. I snapped her out of her shock and pulled her toward the door. Whomever was left outside was going to have to get out of the way because we were leaving no matter what.
“You broke my nose,” the mountain-sized bodyguard groaned. He reached out to grab Bree with a ham-sized fist. “And I was going to be gentle with you.”
I stepped in between her and the bleeding man, but a soft throat-clearing stopped me. Bree and I turned to see Adrian Juarez step lightly over the bodyguard that was still struggling to breath. He walked right into our motel room and smiled at me.
“Hello, Nathan,” Adrian said.
“The man from the bank. The man that kidnapped me,” Bree croaked.
I wasn’t expecting her to move so fast. Her mind should still have been reeling with shock, but Bree was adapting quickly to our life on the edge. She pulled my gun from my belt and leveled it at Adrian’s head.
“You won’t shoot me,” Adrian said. He gestured for his bodyguards to stand down even as the one on the floor struggled to his feet.
Bree’s forehead furrowed in concentration. Her fingers inched the safety off. “I will if any of your goons come near me or Nathan again. We’re leaving.”
Adrian smiled and took another step forward. “Your hand is shaking, my dear. It’s all right if you don’t have it in you. Nathan’s cold-blooded enough for the both of you.”
“Stop. I’ll shoot you!” Bree cried.
Adrian sighed and looked at me. “Is it just me or does this room seem a little too crowded for a private conversation?” he asked.
“Bree, put the gun down,” I said.
“No.” She shook her head and steadied her hand. “We’re leaving, Nathan. It’s over. We’re walking out of here together and that’s that.”
“So sweet. I can see why you kept her around,” Adrian said.
I snarled at him. “One bruise on her, one hair out of place, and I will never cooperate with you.”
“Interesting,” Adrian said. “But I think you know that she has no bearing on this conversation. This is strictly between you and I.”
“Bree, give me the gun. Give me the gun now before I take it from you,” I said.
Bree’s eyes swam with tears. “I don’t understand. This is our chance to get out of here.”
“I can’t leave,” I told her. “I can’t run away anymore. It’s time to end this.”
Adrian shooed his bedraggled bodyguards out of the broken motel room door. “God, you really are this dramatic all the time, aren’t you? As if every little thing is right or wrong, life or death.”
Outside we could hear police sirens wailing. Adrian rapped out a quick command in Spanish, but the shorter bodyguard shook his head. He was still struggling to talk from where I had bruised his windpipe. The mountainous bodyguard stepped out the door and went to deal with the police. It was obvious the authorities would not be joining us.
“You’re telling me all of this isn’t life or death?” I asked Adrian. “Your men have shot at us from day one.”
“Under orders to subdue but not injure you,” Adrian said. “You were the one that was supposed to teach them more subtle techniques than gunfire.”
“What?” Bree asked.
Adrian laughed. “Just one of the many favors he offered me and my associates.”
“No,” Bree said. “Why would Nathan do that?”
“She doesn’t know? I’m surprised you’ve been able to stay clean this long,” Adrian said.
The palms of my hands itched and there was a heavy buzzing in my brain. I had an addiction but it was easy to control unless the stakes were too irresistible. Bree had no idea that I gambled, and she couldn’t even imagine the depths I’d dropped to from time to time.
“Poker. Was that it? Is that why I made a deal with you?” I asked Adrian.
He laughed again. “You make it sound so simple, as if it was just a few men around a table playing cards.”
Bree shifted from foot to foot, not sure who to trust. “Poker is pretty straight-forward.”
“Not the way we played. Huge parties; drinks, drugs, women, and unorthodox betting. That’s what really gets Nathan going. You’ve got a real winner there.”
“Unorthodox betting? What did I bet?” I asked.
“You don’t remember?” Adrian’s jaw dropped open. “I thought it was just a joke. You mean you really don’t remember the big game?”
I wanted to lie and pretend I was still in total control but I was so sick of being in the dark. My own memories were nothing more than weak shadows and I couldn’t go on imagining what I had done. I needed to know.
“The only thing I remember is waking up in a clinic,” I told him.
The shorter bodyguard still couldn’t speak without a painful rasp in his voice, but he chuckled silently and croaked, “guess we must have roughed him up a bit too much.”
“No such thing for a Navy SEAL, right?” Adrian joked. “And here I thought you really were the toughest, most hardheaded colleague I had ever met.”
“I’m not your colleague,” I spat.
“He doesn’t remember anything. You can confirm with the doctor at the clinic,” Bree said. “So, that means the deal is off.”
“How do you figure that?” Adrian asked.
“We won’t know if you’re telling the truth,” Bree said, “so there’s no deal anymore.”
Adrian chuckled but shook his head. “Then we’ll just have to help Nathan remember.”
The bodyguard nodded and cracked his knuckles. The sound set off a ripple in my head. Maybe I would finally remember. That urge, the urge to be complete again, was not something I could turn my back on.
The larger bodyguard returned to the motel room, having bribed or coerced the authorities into leaving this as a private matter. I remembered him, the faded gang sign tattoo that showed just above his collar. Another ripple crossed the dark surface of my memory.
“You can’t do that,” Bree said. “Nathan has to remember on his own. You’re not putting thoughts in his head.”
Adrian checked his watch and was suddenly bored with the whole situation. “Then let’s just get down to the important facts. Nathan owes us a substantial gambling debt. He was going to cover that debt by transporting some goods for us.”
“Running cocaine?” Bree asked. She glanced at me and it hurt to see the way she saw me now.
“Except he never completed the run. He took off and took the cocaine with him,” Adrian said.
My mind flashed over a dark road with headlights barreling toward me. “I didn’t make it very far, did I,” I said.
The larger bodyguard answered. “We caught up to you but the cocaine was already stashed somewhere.”
“The bank,” I muttered.
“That’s right. The bank. That’s where we met the lovely Bree,” Adrian said.
My hands balled into fists. “I didn’t tell you about the bank.”
Adrian laughed. “No, you did not. No matter how my men asked you just couldn’t tell them anything useful. We thought it was your training, but now it seems it was just a lucky hole in your memory.”
“Then how did you know?” Bree asked.
“Enough,” Adrian said. “You remember now, Nathan? How is your memory these days?”
“Fine,” I said with gritted teeth.
“Good. Then remember this: you owe the cartel and we will collect.” Adrian brushed imaginary lint from his suit coat and walked to the broken door of the motel room.
Something about that gesture sent a bolt of lightning through my brain. I remembered sitting at a bar with a bottle of high-end tequila between me and Adrian. I teased him about the lint-picking and pointed out it was his tell.
He only did it when he thought he was holding the winning hand.