“I care about you that way too, Liesel.”
I don’t want to doubt whether my words can be true when I just broke up with someone. I pray Jorge takes them to mean what I intend. We exchange one more kiss and then he’s headed out the door. I huddle with my family while Hisham speaks quietly to his wife, who just joined us.
Now we wait.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jorge
I slip into the driver’s seat.
“Where’re we going? I need directions.”
We’re headed to the Bahnhofsviertel—Station District—near the central train station. It’s a high-crime area in Frankfurt. The type of place where someone getting beaten to a pulp or left out to suffer after dark is less questionable than in other parts of the city. It’s known for high drug use, and there’s a red-light district there too. It’s worse at night with parties, but it isn’t a desirable destination during the day either.
Alejandro enters the destination in the stolen car’s GPS, and I take quick glances. The police can track the car if they want, but we’ll ditch this one tonight. It’s not even the same one we used earlier.
“Looks like it’ll take us at least half an hour to get there. Though—with the way you drive…Para bola.”
It literally translates to “to stand ball,” but it means pay attention. Alejandro fucks around and grabs the “oh shit handle” above his door’s window.
“Be glad I haven’t killed you yet. And I’m not the one who’s been in three rollovers,primo.” Cousin.
“None of those were my fault.”
I snort. “You were driving all three times.”
“Rolling my Wrangler while off-roading is a rite of passage.”
“You keep telling yourself that about your little Toy Tonka.”
I was in the car for that one, and it really wasn’t that bad. It just sorta—toppled…Then rolled twice. We got it back on all four and were no worse for wear, though he needed a new windshield. There’s a reason they aren’t made out of glass.
“You nearly killed me though.” Joaquin brushes his finger over a scar over his left eyebrow.
I’m certain Alejandro’s rolling his eyes at my brother. “You shouldn’t have egged me on to see if I could beat Seamus in that drag race. He was the dumb fucker who skidded into the turn and took out my tail end. He started to roll and pushed me over the edge. He totaled his car. Mine just needed cleaning off.”
“Both of you were fifteen and didn’t have permits! You’re both lucky your moms never found out. You woulda been hiding behindTíoEnrique while praying the rosary, and Seamus woulda been hiding behind his grandfather doing the same damn thing. Saoirse’s just as terrifying asTíaCatalina.”
We don’t discuss the third time because Juan was drunk in college, and Alejandro went to pick his dumbass up. Juan thought he was funny, yanking at the steering wheel. Alejandro’s car swerved on a patch of ice and rolled twice before slamming into a median. He took the blame for that because he was behind the wheel along with two broken ribs and a broken nose.
Juan was already in trouble for underage drinking once he got home. Juan always managed to slide by despiteTíoLuis andTíaMargherita knowing what a little shit he was. There was always some loophole or technicality. It’s why he made a goodcop for us on the NYPD payroll—until he fucked all the way up, and Maks couldn’t forgive or forget.
Our stroll down memory lane helps pass the time. It only takes us twenty minutes to get to our destination. It might not have been a land speed record, but it was better than what the nav said. I pull over two blocks away on a one-way street. Our men pull up at the end of the block. There are no working streetlights, so that’s why I stopped here.
“Capitanes, aquí tenéis.” Captains, here you go.
One of our men brings our go bags. They have what we need. Not only tactical gear and spare street clothes, but also fake passports and driver’s licenses, and a few thousand dollars in several currencies. We have an extra cache of weapons in each. Joaquin, Alejandro, and I put on jeans, t-shirts, and sweaters after our showers. We’re in sneakers rather than dress shoes like we usually are. None of us enjoy suits, so we take any chance we can to wear comfortable clothes. Our men are already dressed in all black.
All of us suit up with our Kevlar vests, helmets, NVGs—night vision goggles, extra knives in our belts, and pistols strapped to our thighs. We each have our rifles slung across our chests. On missions like this, we have Velcro badges on the back of our vests that saypolizei—police. We have them in seven languages. As long as no one looks too long, it’ll confuse them. We don’t have the letter and number IDs that usually go on the back of German police bulletproof vests. That’s what really gives us away.
We move into a formation with Joaquin to my right as we lead. He has the CCTV feed on a small tablet strapped to his vest that he’s carrying in his left hand. The screen’s so little, I’m not sure how he can tell what anything is, but he always does.
Right at the corner, then across the street, and three buildings down.
My brother tells us all that through hand and arm signals that aren’t standard military. We don’t need to give our plans away to anyone who can understand those. We’re more covert that way. Lessons our grandfather taught our dads—even mine and Alejandro’s, who were his sons-in-law. In my family, in-law is only what outsiders say. There’s no difference. Once you’re family by blood or by marriage, that’s all that matters.
We have a dozen men with us, so we spread out. Six split off, three going in each direction as they creep around to the back of the building. The rest of us hunker down as we wait for them to give us an update. It comes through our earpieces.
