Further down the canal, I spotted a speedboat coming toward us, much faster than boats should be traveling on this stretch at dawn. On the back of it, I thought I glimpsed a Colombian flag, and I took the gamble that this was my rescue vehicle.
Glancing from Eli on one side of the bridge, to Kai on the other, I climbed onto the stone railing.
“Danielle, don’t! ” Kai barked, taking a hesitant step forward. Eli pulled his gun, aiming at me, but Kai put up a hand to stop him shooting.
I gave Kai a sad smile. “Like I said, Danielle doesn’t exist. Say goodbye to Mo for her, though.”
Before I could change my mind, I jumped. I timed it just right, landing in the back of the speedboat as it slowed ever so slightly under the bridge I’d been standing on.
“Fuck,” I hissed when my ankle rolled slightly on landing, but the driver caught me in a strong grip even as he slowed the boat further.
I glanced up, expecting to find Carlos sweeping to my rescue, but gasped when I found Leon looking down at me instead.
“Leon!” I exclaimed. “What are you—”
My question was cut off as his lips crashed into mine. The arm around my back hugged me tight, and he kissed me like a long lost lover… all while still keeping our boat from crashing.
I gave a small sound of shock but melted into his kiss all the same as he guided our boat under the famous Bridge of Sighs and toward the lagoon. As incredible as it felt to be in Leon’s arms—kissing him after dreaming about it so fucking often—I couldn’t help peeking a look in the direction we’d come.
Kai stood on the bridge, staring after us, and a chill raced down my spine. His words from a week ago echoed through my mind, his vehemence as he’d promised to kill anyone who touched me… because I was his .
Did that still apply, now that he knew I’d played him?
Leon banked the boat sharply after we passed under the Bridge of Paglia, turning us into the lagoon and out of sight from Kai and Eli.
“Hey, babe,” he said in a husky voice as I gripped his waist for balance.
I grinned, unable to help myself. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, and there seemed to be something drastically different about him. But maybe that was just the situation we were in.
“Leon Marx, you’re just full of surprises,” I said with a laugh, releasing his waist and sitting down in the passenger seat of the speedboat. I lifted my shirt up and ripped the tape off that was holding Kai’s stolen phone, showing it to him.
Leon tossed his head back with a bark of laughter. “Damn, DeLuna. I underestimated you.”
“People often do,” I replied as my mood plummeted and my gaze drifted behind us. As elated as I should have been to finally be free again, a horrible hole had opened inside me. One that I was willing to bet only one person could ever fill.
I should have listened to Leon from the beginning. I never should have taken this job. Now, I had to live with the consequences.
35
S he’d been utterly fearless as she jumped from the bridge and into the boat below. Even though it felt like she was ripping my heart out and taking it with her, I couldn’t let Eli shoot. Not even when she kissed that slick piece of shit driving her getaway boat, I just… couldn’t do it. So I stood there on the bridge, watching him pull my woman close and kiss her like she was his everything.
Bile rose in my throat as I thought about his hands on her porcelain pale skin, his mouth on her perfect breasts and—
“Her tracker is still active, boss,” Eli told me in a low voice, jerking my thoughts back to the present.
She was gone.
I shook my head slowly. “It won’t be for long, now that she knows it’s there.”
Eli frowned at me. “You let her go. That wasn’t the plan.”
Agony rippled through my chest, making me grimace as we left the bridge. “I know,” I said. None of it was the plan . Not really. I had told the truth when I said I’d fallen for her. What had started as a double cross, as a ruse to play her and manipulate her, had ended in me totally losing my head. Somewhere along the way, I’d truly believed her.
“She’s good,” I said after a long silence between us.
Eli gave a heavy sigh, checking his phone. “One of the best.”
I nodded. “I’d believe that.” She hadn’t broken for even a moment. Not a single clue had peeked through her disguise, so much so that I’d let my guard down. I hadn’t let her go , she’d bettered me.
“No, I mean she’s actually one of the best,” he told me with a wince. “Sam just finished hacking into CIA’s classified list of known mercenaries. The ones who they leave active because they’re too dangerous to go after.”
“And the ones they occasionally use on unsanctioned jobs. Yeah, I’m familiar.” My stomach clenched with dread. “She’s on their list?”
Eli showed me his phone, Danielle’s perfect, angelic face in the picture along with a case file number. “Danny DeLuna. Boss, she’s with the Mercenary Guild.”
Rage and disbelief swept through me so hard I staggered and needed to catch myself on the wall we were walking past. “Guild,” I gritted out from behind clenched teeth. “That explains so much.” Like how she could fake her feelings so convincingly. I’d foolishly convinced myself that no one was that good, but if anyone could pull it off… it was the Guild.
“What about the guy?” I gritted out, letting my anger burn away the hurt. “Who is he?”
Eli consulted his phone again. The team hadn’t been gone from the island to give Danny space to get used to her captivity. They’d been working on this hack. My job had simply been to kill time, to keep her distracted until we could access the secure servers and uncover some concrete evidence on her. It was just my fucking luck that she escaped mere hours before Sam got into the files.
“No idea, yet. He’s not on the CIA’s list, which just means he’s probably not at her level.”
I grunted, shaking my head. “Bullshit. You saw that shit in Brussels. He’s no amateur. Tell Sam to get working on the Guild database. I want to know everything about Danny DeLuna and her partner . Fucking everything.”
My job had only been to distract her. To possibly win her trust and persuade her to confide in me. But somewhere along the way, I’d lost sight of the objective. Now I was too far gone.
Eli grunted as he checked his phone again. “You were right. Her tracker just went dead. Did she get away with anything we need to be worried about?”
I shook my head. “No, she took a ghost phone. It’s full of encrypted nonsense. The Guild will spend weeks decoding it, only to find nothing .” Would she come back to me when they didn’t find anything? Would she try again? Fuck, I hope so.
My friend gave a small sigh of relief. “Good. You don’t think they’ve worked out what we’re doing, do you?”
“No,” I replied confidently. “No way. This is unrelated to that, I’m sure of it. Or we’d all be dead already.”
Eli nodded his agreement with that. There was no way a Guild agent had been sent after us for anything less than a massacre if they knew what we’d been working on. Nah, this was an info grab above anything else… or that’s what my gut told me.