“She’s my everything,” he says. “And the day I realized that was the day she was captured by the head of the Nevsky Bratva—Russian mafia. He beat her, drugged her repeatedly, and would have killed her if she hadn’t found a way to escape.”
“She escaped?” I can’t hide my shock. She’s looks like she’s all of a hundred pounds after a good downpour.
“Yep.” Obvious pride relaxes his features, and it’s like he’s a different man when he talks about Wren. He rubs his hand over his scalp and gets a faraway look in his eyes. “When she was taken, I shut down. If it hadn’t been for West and Inara…” With a shake of his head, he focuses on me. “Keeping it together when the person you love is in danger is the hardest thing you’ll ever do. But you do it because they need you.”
He reopens the connection with Wren and she glances up at him with an impatient look on her face. “Took you long enough. Cam and I have been trying to crack the firewall on this Venezuelan contractor’s server for five hours.”
“And?” Ry leans forward, a gleam in his eye. “Tell me you found what I think you found.”
“Yep.” The screen splits in two, Wren giving Ry an exhausted but triumphant smile on the left, and on the right?
“Blueprints for The Crypt,” Ry says. “I love you, little bird. You just gave us the advantage that’ll let us take these fuckers down.”
* * *
“You know what to do,”Austin says as he wraps his arms around me in a maintenance closet at the Caracas airport and holds on tight. “We’ll be there at shift change. Not a single minute later than 5:00 p.m. Wherever you are in that place, we’ll find you.”
“Get Trevor out first.”
My brother’s body goes rigid. “No. If we do that, he’ll kill me. You first, then Trev. If you can find a way to get to him, do it, but be careful. I mean it, squirt.”
“Love you,” I whisper. Before he can stop me, I pull away and rush into the women’s bathroom. Once I throw the black floppy hat, sunglasses, and bright pink coat into the trash, I scrub my hands over my thighs. They’re suddenly damp and shaking.
I can do this. For Trevor. Whatever the general is planning on doing to me, he won’t kill me in the first twenty-four hours. Anything else, I can survive. As long as it gets Trevor out of there.
All I have in my small messenger bag is my wallet, phone, passport, and one of my tins of thinking putty. Or…what looks like a tin of thinking putty. The odds of me being able to keep it are slim to none, but Ry has so many contingencies built into this plan, I’d consider it ridiculous if my life weren’t on the line.
Before I open the stall door, I unlock my phone and stare at the video of Trevor the general sent me a few hours ago. My proof of life. He’s lying on the dirty floor of a cell, handcuffed, with his eyes closed. Until a booted foot jabs his hip and he tries to curl away from the assault. His eyes never open, and he never makes a sound. But he’s alive. Or was. According to Wren, the video was recorded twenty minutes before it was sent.
“I’m coming, Trevor. Hold on for me,” I whisper as I touch the screen. With a final deep breath, I push through the door and head for the sink to splash some water on my face.
There’s a tiny comms unit sewn into the lining of my bag at the seam. Graham did the sewing, and the bag had to pass inspection by Ry, Austin, Leo, and Ronan. None of them could find the unit.
“Here I go. Let’s hope the general got the memo about not killing me.”
Joining a line of people emerging from Customs, I breathe deeply. My heart’s pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears, and I feel like I just got off the treadmill after doing sprints.
That sensation ratchets up another hundred levels when two soldiers approach me, one with his hand on the butt of his gun. “Daniella Monroe, you will come with us.”
They don’t give me a chance to respond before taking my bag, spinning me around, and cuffing my wrists together. One of them starts to pull me towards the exit by my upper arm, but I plant my feet and jerk free of his hold. “I can walk on my own. I came here voluntarily, and I’m not going to run.”
Whatever the soldiers see in my eyes must convince them, because the one on my left gestures for me to keep moving. Five minutes later, I’m locked in the back of a police car that’s speeding away from any semblance of safety.
No one speaks for the forty-minute drive to The Crypt, and when we arrive, General Ochoa meets us inside the doors. The experience feels eerily similar to the visit I made here with Trevor, except for the handcuffs and my worry for the man I love.
“Señorita Monroe, thank you for joining us,” the general says with his plastered-on fake smile and overly solicitous tone. He’s dressed to show off his position today, with even more medals covering both sides of his chest and gold braids on each shoulder.
“You can drop the act, General. I know why I’m here and I have a pretty good idea what you’re going to do to me. I can’t stop you. But I want to see Trevor Moana. Right now.”
His dark brown eyes narrow and he leans close enough for me to smell his stale breath. “Watch your tone,puta. You are a resident of La Cripta now, and you will learn that here, I control everything.” He snaps his gaze to the guard behind me. “Search her. Thoroughly. Then put her in a cell on Sublevel One.”
As the guards practically lift me off my feet and carry me into the elevator, the general calls after us, “I hope you enjoy your time with us, Señorita Monroe.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Dani
Cold air hitsmy bare shoulders as I remove my shirt and place it on the table in front of me. The two soldiers—their name tags read Alvarado and Gurrero—removed my cuffs as soon as we walked through the door and ordered me to strip.
