“Mewling? I assure you Kala Taggart doesn’t mewl, though she did threaten to take me down if I didn’t stop making her repeat assignments.” David’s voice was perfectly steady, as though he knew she needed him to be. “She’s the one who scares me. I’m fairly certain she’s on a path that will lead to a prison or the Agency.”
Who the hell was this man? She was the one panicking when she never did. She was cool under pressure. She’d taken plenty of fire and not even had her blood pressure go up. Yet now she could feel her heart in her throat, her eyes starting to water at the idea of losing him.
She needed to be stronger than this.
Or she just needed to not work with her boyfriend. She needed to stop pretending with this man. Stop pretending with herself.
“You could be someone important.” Luis paced the room like a caged tiger. “But you spend all your time worried about stupid shit. Your brother is the one dragging you down. I hate listening to you whine about him. You know what I did when my brother got in my way? I took him out because this world isn’t about the weak.”
“I take it your brother is the real Luis.” David shrugged into his shirt. “You probably look a lot like him. He was an academic, but you decided to go a different way?”
“The resemblance is uncanny. When I found out my brother was going to America, I studied up on the university he would be attending. I thought it was useless until I realized the connection between you and Montez’s son. You have a picture of you with Montez right there on your faculty page.”
“It was the one time I met the man,” David explained. “It was a big moment for me. There are also pictures of me with my family and my students.”
“Yeah, Montez was the only one I cared about,” Luis admitted. “So I studied up on what I would need to, and when it was time, I took my brother’s place.”
“Did you kill him?” David asked in an academic tone.
“No, I needed him to do the actual work and to coach me on what to say. I broke both his legs, and my friends have kept him and his girlfriend in a safe location,” Luis admitted. “As long as he complies, they both live.”
“By friends he means criminals,” she pointed out. “I take it you’re part of an established group. I am, too. Do you want to start a war with my group?”
Luis’s eyes rolled. “Yeah, I know all about David’s stepfamily, and I know he doesn’t have much to do with them besides playing tutor. He talks about how he doesn’t fit in.”
“That won’t stop my stepdad, and I assure you it won’t stop Ian Taggart,” David said flatly. “The minute I don’t show up or Tessa doesn’t call, he’ll move heaven and earth and the CIA to find me. Like I said to Tessa, it won’t matter that I’m standoffish. I’m a member of his family, and he will not let me go easily. She’s his employee. He won’t let her go either. If you want to start a war with a group of ex-Special Forces soldiers and a couple of former CIA operatives, this is the way to do it.”
Luis actually seemed to think about that. Had he truly not understood what he was going up against?
She could give him more to think about. “Don’t forget the Russians. Charlotte’s got ties to the Denisovitch Syndicate. If Dusan can help out his cousin and gain a foothold here in South America, he’ll do it.”
Mateo’s hand shifted slightly. “No queremos problemas con los rusos.”
“If you don’t want problems with them, then let her go,” David commanded.
But they couldn’t. This was an act of desperation on all sides.
“Maybe we should think about this,” Eddie offered. “You know we could all walk away, and nothing has to happen. I won’t go to the cops.”
“Why would you go to the cops? You’re the reason we’re here,” David said to the man who’d been his friend.
But he might be wrong about that. A few things slipped into place, and she figured out what was going on. Too late, but at least her powers of reasoning hadn’t completely died when her libido took over. “They have your son, right? That picture upstairs. It wasn’t you. It’s your kid.”
Eddie’s head fell forward. “I’m not married to his mother. I didn’t even know she was pregnant until a few months ago, but he’s mine, and I was going to try to work things out with her. He’s barely six weeks old and they have him and Camila. We named him after my father.”
“Fuck,” David said. “They want ransom? Pay it.”
Eddie shook his head. “They want the treasure. You think I haven’t tried to reason with them? I offered them everything I had.”
“You offered two million American dollars,” Luis shot back. “The treasure is worth ten times that. Twenty.”
“If it even exists,” she pointed out.
“It exists,” Luis replied. “And we’ve always known David Hawthorne would be the one to find it. According to my brother, Professor Hawthorne is the expert. No one else has been able to even come close, but he’ll find it, and then we won’t ever have to worry about money again. We’ll crush our enemies and live like kings.”
“Or he won’t be able to find it and you’ll have to kill us all, and you’re right back to getting your ass hunted down by my boss.” She steadied her breathing. She needed to think about this. They might keep her alive in order to give David a reason to work. They had a couple of days before Big Tag would wonder where they were. He knew about the communications issues here on the island, and that would throw him off. Could David keep them on the hook for a couple of days?
“I have your itinerary,” Luis replied. “You’re not expected back until late Sunday. That gives us plenty of time to deal with the problem. I also have your phone, and I’ll get someone into the village to make sure you send out a message saying you’re fine. The question is will the professor do what we need him to do or should I start killing people? I don’t really need Eddie or his kid at this point.”
David’s hands came up. “I’ll do it. Don’t kill anyone, and that includes Eddie’s family. There’s no reason to. I’ll find it for you and then you can let us all go.”
That wasn’t the way this would work, but Luis needed to believe that they thought they would survive. This was a standoff of sorts. They needed to buy time. She had to think that most of the staff was in on this. Perhaps not the maids, but the rest of the group would have been brought in or taken care of. She would need to assess her situation and find a way to get David out of here. She didn’t care about Eddie. Oh, he was doing it for his girlfriend and his son, but he could have found a way to let them know. He could have sent a message of some kind and then David would have brought in the troops. If the bastard had shown an ounce of faith in his friend, they wouldn’t be in this situation.
David was her only priority.
“I want her with me at all times.” David seemed to think that he could negotiate with them. He was naïve. Or maybe a better way to look at it was optimism.
It wouldn’t work.
They didn’t seem to know about the gun in the nightstand. They’d taken her phone, but they hadn’t even looked in the nightstand. At least she knew where one weapon was.