Page 36 of Wicked Intention

He made it to the café with minutes to spare. Two bodyguards waited outside the building, and another climbed out of the front seat of the limo when he arrived. The driver remained behind the wheel. Finn recognized two of them as the men who had searched him the first time he’d met with Silva. Automatically, he raised his hands over his head.

The pat-down on the sidewalk only garnered brief glances before passersby hurried away. Life in Puerto Jardin wasn’t easy.

After he’d been disarmed, the man who’d been in the front seat took his weapons to the trunk of the limousine and locked them away. That was new. The older bodyguard gestured toward the black sedan, and the younger bodyguard opened the door.Well, shit.“We’re going for a ride?” Finn asked.

“Please get in, Señor Finley.” Despite the politeness, it wasn’t a request.

He hesitated. This was either really good or really bad. He thought of Zo, of his promise to be careful, and shrugged. His teammates would follow, and if the situation went to hell, they’d save his ass. He hoped.

Finn got in the car.

Two of the bodyguards joined him in the back while the other returned to his place beside the driver. Both men sat across from him, and neither removed his sunglasses despitethe tinted windows. As always, they wore tailored black suits, slate blue ties, and polished black oxford dress shoes.

“What’s our agenda for today, gentlemen?” Finn asked in Spanish.

They stared at him stonily.

He got the same response to several other conversational gambits. That was fine by Finn—he’d rather quietly observe. It was Tom, who was the talker.

The car headed north, and the land transformed gradually into foothills. They had to be headed for Torres’ compound. Finn took an unobtrusive deep breath and ran through what he knew about the home.

A Mediterranean-style mansion set on a multi-acre piece of land. It was gated and patrolled, and in the past, intruders had been mowed down by assault rifles. Finn hoped he didn’t need to escape because he probably wouldn’t make it out. He drew another quiet breath.

It was forty-five minutes before they turned off the road and paused. A brown gate slowly began to open, and when it was wide enough, the limo proceeded. This was Torres’ estate, no question about it.

The driver pulled up such that the rear passenger door lined up perfectly with the entrance to the mansion. Within seconds, the car door was opened by someone on the outside, and the older bodyguard gestured for him to exit. Finn was met by another pair of bodyguards who urged him toward the door. The duo who’d been riding with him fell into step with them.

All the photos he’d seen had been taken by satellite or drone. They had a sketch of the floor plan that Finn assumed had been drawn by someone who used to work in the house. It had been a rough rendering. They’d also sketched the front of the house, but nothing prepared him for the reality.

Iron and glass doors went up almost two stories. They opened soundlessly, and another bodyguard stood there,waiting for Finn and his entourage to enter. Yeah, getting out of here would be a bitch, and if he needed help, getting in would be harder yet.

The house was a surprise. It was a very feminine space—white marble floors, ornate columns, fussy furniture, chandeliers, and gilded everything. In Puerto Jardin, women were in complete charge of the home, but even so, Finn had a hard time believing an international arms dealer with an ugly reputation lived in this garish palace.

Silva made an appearance then, his face impassive. “Señor Torres is ready to meet with you,” he said without preamble.

As he walked through the house, surrounded by armed men, Finn memorized everything. The layout, the pictures of Torres’ grandchildren on the walls, and the myriad of entrances and windows. Every inch of the home was as ornate as the entrance.

After a light tap, Silva opened the door to the office. This space was at least a masculine brown—paneling covering the walls and ceiling—but it was no less opulent. Torres sat behind a desk made of expensive wood and burnished with gold leaf. The two barrel-shaped chairs in front of the desk were also brushed with gold. It was ostentatious beyond anything Finn would have guessed.

Jorge Torres was in his mid-sixties, with a snow-white, neatly trimmed beard. His hair, though, was salt and pepper, with less gray than the much-younger Silva sported. There were furrows across his forehead, over the bridge of his nose, and at the corners of his eyes. He looked like a kindly grandfather, and if Finn hadn’t read the dossier and seen the evidence, he’d have a hard time believing Torres was an arms dealer.

The man eyed him, glanced at his guest chairs, and then stood. He was about five foot nine and trim. Unlike his second in command, who was in his usual business-formal attire, Torres wore black trousers and a white dress shirt with thecollar open, and the sleeves were rolled up. “We’ll walk as we talk,” he said in heavily accented English.

Finn guessed that meant Torres didn’t want to chance Finn ruining the furniture. He was dressed in Tom Finley’s usual camo fatigue pants, olive drab T-shirt, and scuffed tactical boots. There was a set of French doors from the office outside, and with bodyguards flanking them, he, Silva, and Torres went outside.

The back of the mansion was more spectacular than the front. There was a full outdoor kitchen, a rotunda with an enormous flat-screen television, and an ornate fireplace on the other side of the patio with a seating area in front of it. A water feature cascaded into a crystal blue pool, and beyond that, Trujillo could be seen in the distance. “This view must be magnificent at night,” Finn commented in Spanish.

“That it is,” Torres said with obvious pride. “Come. Walk beside me so we can talk.”

Finn complied, and Silva fell into step behind them.

“Henri tells me you are persistent, Señor Finley. It annoys him.”

“He’s mentioned that.”

Torres laughed. “I’m certain he did. I, however, admire a man who knows what he wants and takes measures to attain it. Within reason, of course.”

“Of course,” Finn agreed. The path they walked was wide enough to travel two abreast comfortably. In the distance, he could see a guest house. He also noted how tight security was around him, but especially on the walls around the estate. Yeah, there was no fucking way he was escaping if Torres wanted him to stay.

---