Page 105 of Fixed Asset

“Who is this?” he clipped.

“Jack. You called—”

“You’ve got two Emiratis there and two former . . .”

“Tom?”

“Watch your back . . .” The connection cut off again. “. . . here . . .”

“You’re breaking up.”

I heard three tones indicating the call dropped. I looked at my screen. Full bars. That meant Tom had shit service.

“Bad copy,” I told Mase. “All I got was two guys from the UAE and two former something before he broke up. He said to watch our back and the word here.”

For a long moment, Mase didn’t say anything, though he didn’t need to.

It was one thing to be dealing with the cousin of a gangster who thought he was a predator—and he was to women and children—but the big dogs in the cartel would eat him alive. It was another to be dealing with professionals.

Pete thought we were dealing with locals, so he made the call to eliminate the threat.

He would’ve made a different choice if he’d spoken to Tom before he’d taken off.

“Let’s hope Pete didn’t just step into a heaping pile of shit.”

We could hope.

But my gut said we’d be buried in shit before the night was over. And part of that was missing Catarina’s deadline, then my woman would circle back.

“We need to get to the airport before Cat comes looking for us.”

A look I couldn’t decipher flooded Mason’s features, and before I got a lock on it, his mask fell back into place.

But it looked a lot like panic and his voice was tight when he said, “Let’s hit it.”

“Mase—”

“She’ll be fine. The woman’s tough as fuck.”

I wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince me or himself.

But right then I didn’t have the time nor the headspace for contemplation.

We needed to get to Pete, then haul ass to the airport.

The knot sinched tighter.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“Is that the cemetery?” Calista asked.

There hadn’t been a tree or bush in sight for the last thirty minutes we’d been walking. Which made the aboveground tombs stand out in stark relief.

Rows and rows of them. Some with tall monuments, others just the vault. It was an odd place for a cemetery—on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere. Then again, it wasn’t. It was peaceful up here. A place to come and mourn with a view of the sea. If we were in the States, houses would dot these hilltops, the bluffs would be littered with homes, the natural beauty decimated, the tranquility lost to mankind.

But right then, all was peaceful. I hadn’t heard gunfire since I’d left the guys. For my mental health I wasn’t going to contemplate what that could mean—at least not right now. I had a mission: get Calista to the airport and find a safe place to wait. If the guys were a no-show, I’d figure it out then.

I hadn’t answered Calista when she went on, “It’s kinda creepy in a beautiful sorta way.”