Page 98 of Lethal Abduction

His mouth curls. “I did not succeed my father as head of the Cardeñas family because I am his son. Our world does not work this way. I made certain I would take his place by killing anyone who might have challenged me.” He leans forward, all trace of his smile gone. “I have you to thank for that, Abby. You and Nico.”

Fear churns inside me.

Rodrigo may never be his father’s son.But that might make him more dangerous than Juan, not less.

“My father had put me in charge of shipping to the Los Angeles market,” he says. “It was the first time he entrusted me with anything outside the local marinas. It was only a small shipment: one yacht, packed with product, that would sail from Buenaventura port to LA. A private delivery to one important client. A client I could then develop, build a market from.”

He moves so fast I don’t have time to get out of the way, and suddenly he’s looming over me, his hands either side of my head on the back of the couch.

“And then you stole it,” he hisses. “Not Nico. Not your stupid boyfriend, who owed me hundreds of thousands of dollars I will never see again. No, Abby.You.” He punches the couch, hard enough to make me flinch. “I thought it was Nico at first. I saw the footage from the marina. The guards knew him well enough to let him through security for a small bribe. He walked straight onto that yacht and sailed it away withoutanyone even realizing what he’d done. He would have gotten away with it, too, if he hadn’t anchored up the coast and come back for you.”

He puts his face close to mine. “It was almost twenty-four hours before I realized what had happened. Before I came to pay you and Nico a visit.” His mouth is so close to my ear I can feel the fetid heat of his breath. “When you both disappeared, I thought Nico’s story about you drugging him was just another lie, told to cover your escape. I searched for you both for months, did you know that,puta?”

He punches me in the stomach, suddenly and brutally, and I fold forward, gasping for breath.

“You humiliated me,” he hisses. “Escaped with a yacht, an entire shipment. You owe me a fortune. Did you honestly think I was going to help you escape from that Myanmar shithole, then just let you go?”

It’s as if every nightmare I’ve had over the last few years has converged in one horrible moment of reckoning.

I was so terrified of Jacey, and then so relieved by Juan’s honor in dealing with me, that I lulled myself into a false sense of security. I thought I was still dealing with the old Rodrigo, the spoiled boy who couldn’t see past his own ambition.

Maybe he’s still ambitious. But Rodrigo isn’t a spoiled boy anymore. He’s a nasty, vengeful killer who ruthlessly murdered anyone who might block his path to the top of his father’s organization. A sadist who finally has his hands on the one person who cheated him out of his first big chance to impress his father.

Rodrigo has no intention of letting me live. He isn’t Juan, able to be negotiated with.

Rodrigo is going to get information out of me. Then he is going to kill me.

Which means I have to get out of here before he does.

“Nico didn’t come back for me.” My voice is small, but I’m so terrified, I’m surprised I can talk at all.

“What?” His face is still inches from mine, the cruel light still glinting in his eyes.

“You said that was Nico’s mistake,” I go on. “Coming back for me after he stole the yacht. But it wasn’t me he came back for. It was the money.”

“Money,” Rodrigo sneers, sitting next to me and reaching for his drink. “What money? You can’t talk your way out of this, Abby—”

“Your money. The money Nico owed you. That’s what he came back for.”

His eyes narrow.

“It was the way that man controlled us,” I say, still shivering at the memory. “The man who killed your father. He told Nico where to find the yacht. He told me where to find the money. That was the deal. We steal the yacht for him, and he gives us enough money to pay Nico’s debt to you. Only I knew he had no intention of letting us go after the deal was done.”

“What do you mean?” Rodrigo’s expression is skeptical. “Why wouldn’t he? What Nico owed me was barely a fraction of what that shipment was worth. It was a good deal for him.”

I laugh hollowly. “Money doesn’t matter to this man. Secrecy does. Guarding his identity. Nobody ever sees his face or hears his voice. And people like Nico and me? People he hires for one-off jobs, to steal or deliver something? They die. Every time. Nobody who’s directly hired ever survives.” I shake my head. “We didn’t know at first. One disappearance, maybe two... we thought they were people who’d cheated him. But then others started disappearing. People we’d met in Thailand or Colombia and stayed in touch with on social media. Backpackers mainly, who worked like we did, dealing on the islands or in a bar somewhere. And they all had the same thing in common: they were about to doone last job.Something that would set them up forever. Only then, they’d go silent. Months later, there’d be a post on their page, a family member asking if anyone had seen them. That was when Nico and I got scared.” I meet Rodrigo’s eyes. “So when he contacted Nico with a job, we knew what it meant. We knew we’d be the next ones to disappear.”

“Keep talking.” His eyes haven’t left my face.

“Nico wanted to steal the yachtandthe money and keep sailing, but I knew that was insane. We’d be running with both your cartel and this man chasing us—we wouldn’t last a week. I figured our only chance was to give this man the shipment he wanted, deliver you the money Nico owed, and just run for our lives. But Nico wouldn’t agree.”

“So you drugged him,” Rodrigo says, watching me.

I nod.It wasn’t hard. Nico was popping so many pills by then he barely noticed what he was swallowing.

Nausea rises in my throat at the memory, and I swallow hard on it.First Nico,I think with a rush of shame,then Dimitry.

If I ever make it out of this, I will spend the rest of my life trying to make up for the mistakes I’ve made. For the coward I’ve been.

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