“What do you think they were looking for? What have we got that the Guild wants so badly that they’d send one of their top-tier mercs?”
“That’s what I want to know too,” I admitted. I had my own personal hatred of the Guild, but that was nothing new. Plenty of people had hired the Guild to try and kill me, but that had all stopped a few years ago when none of their people completed the job. Something about this felt more personal, like the Guild themselves were behind the contract.
Or maybe that was me being arrogant. “It was probably someone like Sandeep Dara again. I heard he recently came into a windfall; he might have decided to throw some money at eliminating the competition.”
Eli frowned, unconvinced. “So why didn’t she kill you?”
Why indeed? My gun was in the drawer beside the ghost phone, and it was loaded. She could have shot me while I slept, but she hadn’t.
“Have you spoken to Mo?” I asked instead of answering Eli’s question.
He shook his head. “No offense to Moana, but I think I’ll steer clear of her for a few days. She’s not only going to be pissed off at Danny…”
I winced, but he was right. I hadn’t filled my sister in on the ruse I’d been running on my beautiful prisoner. I hadn’t spoken about it with anyone except Eli on the flight home from Brussels. Mo would be furious with me for letting her develop real feelings for Danny.
Well, she wasn’t the only one.
“Just get the boys working on the Guild database,” I snapped. “I want to know everything there is to know about Danny DeLuna. Including where I can find her again.”
Eli gave a short nod. “Yes, boss.” He paused, then gave me a long look. “What will you do when you find her?”
The answer should have been an easy one. It should have been that I’d kill her, just like I should have done the moment I spotted her comms device. But I knew I couldn’t. I wouldn’t . Because I still wanted to capture her and keep her all for myself.
That bastard who’d kissed her would die, slowly and painfully. Then I’d take my siren and never let her go.
36
L eon and I barely had a moment to talk as we fled Venice. We took the speedboat all the way across to Marco Polo International, then jumped straight into a waiting car marked with Carlos’s altered Colombian flag. The driver just gave us a nod and bypassed all of the airport security to take us through to where Carlos’s private jet waited on the tarmac.
My friend was standing at the bottom of the stairs, checking his watch and looking irritated, but when our car pulled up, he grinned.
“Dan, you made it!” he exclaimed as I leapt from the car and into his arms. “I knew you’d be fine. You’re like a cat with nine-hundred lives.”
“Thank fuck you still had my GPS receiver,” I replied, laughing as I hugged him tight. “I missed you, shit head. It’s been ages!”
“You could have just called, this was a bit extreme.” He smacked a kiss on my cheek, then shot Leon a hard look behind me. “Where’s Juan?”
“Didn’t make it,” Leon snapped back, sounding seven levels of pissed off. “Are we going?”
Carlos just looped his arm around my shoulders, guiding me up the stairs of his plane and leaving Leon to follow behind. Something gave me the feeling these two were having a bit of a pissing contest.
Whatever it was about, I doubted it was any of my business. I just needed to shower and eat and sleep . My whole body ached from the hours-long swim from Kai’s island, and my soul ached from the conversation on the bridge.
He’d been playing me all along.
For all the countless men and women I’d honey trapped over my years in the Guild, I’d never had it happen to me. I’d never had someone turn the tables and play my own game against me.
It didn’t feel good.
Regardless of that pained look on his face back on the bridge, the fact remained that he’d set me up. He’d laid a trap, because he had never believed fake-Danny. And stupid fucking me, I’d thought he was really falling in love with her.
“Hey, are you okay?” Carlos asked as I buckled my seat belt silently.
I nodded, then shifted my gaze out the window. From the corner of my eye, I caught Leon throwing a slightly harder than necessary elbow at Carlos, edging him out of the way to take the seat beside me.
Leon didn’t ask me if I was okay. He understood where my head was at better than Carlos ever could. Instead, he just sat silently with me as the plane started to taxi down the runway.
When we took off, ascending into the air above Venice, a handful of rogue tears slipped from my eyes. Leon reached over and gently brushed them away, then took my hand in his, linking our fingers together in a firm gesture of support. He knew. I’d lost myself on this mission, and it was going to take a hot second to slip back into me .
Sometime later, he raised the armrest between us and pulled me close. I rested my head on his shoulder, breathing in his smoky gunpowder scent as I closed my eyes. Hopefully, when I opened them again, the whole month on Kai’s island would be in its proper place within my mind. A distant, detached memory and nothing more.
As I had in that New York hotel, I slept far longer than I ever normally would. When I woke, I felt refreshed, though. Clear and calm.
“Where are we?” I asked with a yawn, uncurling from Leon’s side where I’d been snoozing. He’d reclined both our chairs so it was almost a bed, and it’d been shockingly comfortable for a plane.
“Somewhere over Canada,” Leon replied, his own voice thick with sleep and his eyes bleary. “We refueled in Toronto, but you slept right through it.”
Holy crap, I really needed that sleep. I ran a hand over my messy, tangled hair and cringed. It was crusty from the salt water and the previously tight braid was coming loose. “Where’s Carlos?”
Leon gave me a long look, then shrugged one shoulder. “Left him in Toronto. He had to get back to Bogota for something business related.”
That sounded like Carlos. I wasn’t even surprised to hear he’d gone already, but I’d have to call him when we landed to say thank you for the assist. Sooner or later, my credit would run out with him, and I’d need to start paying for this kind of help.
I stood up and stretched the kinks out of my body with a long groan. Leon watched me with an unreadable expression, then swiped a hand over his face.
“We have another hour before we land,” he told me, glancing at his watch. “One of Carlos’s guys delivered some clean clothes when we refueled.” He nodded to the seat where my friend had been sitting earlier, and I saw a small pile of clothing store bags.
“Thank fuck for that,” I said with a sigh. “Back in a minute.” I grabbed the whole stack of bags, then headed to the back of the plane where I knew there was a shower inside the bathroom. Carlos had all but given me this plane for my own personal use a few years ago, despite pretending it was just a loan.
Untangling my hair from the braid took longer than my whole shower, and I wrinkled my nose at the generic scent of the shampoo and conditioner in the aircraft bathroom. Once I was clean, though, I felt a million times more like myself.
I combed out my wet hair carefully, then blasted it with the hairdryer to take the moisture out. If we were over Canada, it was going to be cold when we landed—a guess that was supported by the warm clothing Carlos had ordered for me.