Page 110 of Wicked Intentions (Wicked Games 3)
He strides toward me. Before I can lift my arm to defend myself, he slaps me hard across the face.
It’s so sudden and violent, I lose my footing and fall on my ass, the breath knocked out of my lungs in a gust. Shocked, I touch my fingers to my nose. They come away bloody.
Looming over me with a red face and wild eyes, Reynard thunders, “Show some respect for your father!”
Behind him, Capo is excited by seeing me stricken and bleeding on the floor. He reaches between his legs and fondles himself, stroking his growing erection through his trousers.
Something inside my mind snaps.
I feel it go, like a tether unwinding and pulling free, a spool abruptly spinning out of thread. In an instant, I’m blank and emotionless, a robot with no heart or soul, no past or future, no hope or love or fear. I look up into Reynard’s face, feeling as calm as morning.
“I’ll show you the same respect you showed my sister, Dad.”
I curl my hand around the gun shoved into the waistband of my jeans, in the small of my back, hidden under my sweatshirt. I pinched it from the assassin on the plane when he forced me to press against him and point it now at the chest of the man who taught me how to expertly steal things right off people’s bodies without them ever knowing.
Capo screams, “No!” and lunges at me.
Without a breath of hesitation, I pull the trigger.
Thirty-One
Ryan
I’m an hour behind her. Only a single hour, but sixty minutes has never felt so goddamn long.
I’m at the rinky-dink airport in Abruzzo, Italy, where Mariana touched down briefly before taking off again, heading east. I hitched a ride out of New York with an old military buddy I once took a belly of lead for in a firefight against insurgents in Iraq, who now flies a transatlantic run for FedEx. But this is as far as his route goes, and I need another plane.
Fast.
“She’s on a yacht in the Adriatic Sea, just off the island of Vis, in Croatia,” Connor tells me over the sat phone. “We’ve got it up on the satellite now. I’m sending you the coordinates.”
“A yacht? Fuck.”
“Yep,” says Connor, sounding grim. “You’re gonna have to jump in. And watch your six, brother, because some of these big-ass megayachts like the one we’re looking at are equipped with surface-to-air missiles.”
“Jesus! Why the hell would you need a
missile defense system on a nonmilitary boat?”
“Because, as a for instance, you’re the paranoid head of an international criminal empire and lots of people would like to see you dead.”
“Good point.”
“Even if there aren’t missiles, there will definitely be a bunch of hired guns. Wait there for the rest of the team, I don’t want you going in alone. They’ll be to you in less than—”
“No.”
Connor growls. “Goddammit, Ryan—”
“Twelve guys in combat gear parachuting out of a plane’s gonna get a lot more attention than one. I’m going in alone. Have the team rally on Vis and wait for my call.”
He’s silent for a moment. I know he’s pissed I insisted on taking off on my own before the rest of the team was assembled, because that’s not how we do things, but this is one time I wouldn’t—couldn’t—wait.
My woman’s in danger. If God himself told me to wait, I’d tell him to suck my dick.
“Copy that,” Connor finally says. “But when you get back, we’re gonna have a chat about teamwork, Rambo.”
“If you’re done lecturing me, Grandma, can you send me the number of the nearest skydiving outfit? I’m gonna need to rent a rig.”
