Page 41 of Durango

He nods. “Yes. You need to find them before anyone else does. Tell your associates. If word gets out that I’m not the only person who knows, hopefully, my life will be spared.”

And the true reason for sharing this information comes out. He’s trying to save himself.

“We might have better luck keeping you safe if we know who you are working for.” He glances over at his wife and then back at me. “Stanvich,” he says quietly.

I don’t recognize the name, but hopefully Harding will.

“Our plan now is to keep you in custody until we can get you somewhere safe.

Damien laughs. “Trust me, there is no place you all can take me that is safe. I won’t be safe until the US retrieves those weapons and makes some public announcement. Then my wife and I can go back home safely.”

I don’t feel like arguing with him. He just admitted to being part of an attack on military members of the United States. And while I don’t have the details, it’s likely some or all of them died. This man isn’t going free anytime soon. But I don’t want him trying to escape from us, either.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I lie.

“You hear him over there?” Sylvia says to Moose. “He speaks in Russian when he doesn’t want me to know what’s going on. Considering the situation he’s gotten me into, he should fill me in on the mess he’s gotten us into.”

“The less you know, the better, my dear,” Damien says.

“Bullshit,” Sylvia says. She turns away from us to sleep.

“Don’t get married,” Damien says. “It’s highly overrated.”

I hadn’t really thought about getting married, but now that he has brought it up, my mind goes to Willow. Could I see myself married to her someday? A vision of us hosting a barbecue for our friends is vivid in my mind. We both have gray hair.

Startled, I shake the thought away. I’ve never imagined growing old with someone before. And as much as I’d like to dig deeper into that thought, I need to stay focused. We could be found at any time.

CHAPTER 14

Willow

My palms sweatas we wait on the front porch of a large home. The second influencer, as Samantha refers to her, agreed to meet us this evening at her home in Connecticut. During the entire drive here, I kept going over what I would say. I’m worried she’s going to try to say the video is fake, like the last woman.

The door swings open, and a woman in her forties appears. She’s stunning in a designer dress. Her hair and makeup look like they have been professionally done.

“Please come in,” she says. “I just finished shooting some videos.”

We follow her through the house, past a room with an assortment of lights and props, and out the back to a large patio. It’s still light out, and the view is stunning. The property overlooks the Atlantic Ocean, and I can imagine she must have the most amazing sunrises here.

“You can call me Carmen. You must be Samantha?” she says, looking at my friend.

“Yes. And this is Willow.”

Carmen glances at me and then turns her attention back to Samantha. “Do you have the video?”

“Yes, it’s on here.” Samantha pulls a USB stick from her purse and hands it to Carmen.

When we dropped off our things at the apartment, Samantha insisted we make a copy of only Carmen’s video to give her. Since we don’t know the other women, we don’t want to risk their videos being exposed because of some vendetta.

Carmen takes the file to her laptop and watches the video. “That son of a bitch.”

“How did you meet him?” I ask.

She frowns. “What does that matter?”

I glance at Samantha, who nods. “Because I was his girlfriend. For six years. And you weren’t the only woman he made a video with. I don’t recognize the place you’re in. I want to know how he lured so many women in and where he did it.”

The woman’s brows shoot up. “You were with him for six years and had no idea he was cheating on you?”

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