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“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She growled impatiently. The gun gleamed bluish in the moonlight shafting into the room. He noted that she’d added a silencer. The thought did not give him comfort.
“You know very well what I mean. The Corazón del Diablo. Bring it to me if you wish to live.”
Ah, so now it made sense. He should have ignored the ridiculous claims of the d’Oros and refused to bring the jewel back to America. But his business interests here could suffer if he did not put an end to their fraudulent claims. The courts in Argentina had already ruled in his favor. He did not need an American court’s approval to keep what was rightfully his. What he’d paid for in blood.
Had this woman been sent by the d’Oros? Was the lawsuit merely a ploy to get the stone back into the United States so they could steal it? The old man was dead, but the girls were still alive. He shoved aside the pang of regret he felt when he thought of the youngest d’Oro girl. Why he should still feel regret, when she’d manipulated him as much as any of them, was a mystery.
Part of him insisted she was innocent—and part of him knew the dark depths to which the human soul could travel. Innocence was often a façade for treachery.
“If you shoot me, querida, you will never have the jewel.”
“Maybe I’ll have something far better,” she spat in a low voice.
All of Marcos’s senses went on high alert. Something about that voice …
Something he’d forgotten …
“I’ll take that jewel now,” she continued. “It’s in the safe. Open it.”
Fury began to uncoil within him. Who was this slip of a woman and how dare she try to rob him of his family birthright? She was not the first to attempt it, but she would not succeed.
It was after the jewel had been stolen, when he was only a boy, that the military junta imprisoned his parents. They never returned. They were, like so many thousands of others, among the disappeared, those souls who were taken away by the ruling party and killed before democracy was restored in later years.
He blamed his uncle far more than he did the diamond. If not for Federico Navarre’s ambition and greed, life would have been far different. But the Corazón del Diablo was all he had left of his family, and he would allow no one to take it from him ever again.
“Apparently you have failed to think this through, little one.”
She took a step forward, the gun rock-solid in her grip. And then, as if thinking better of it, she stopped, shook her head so slightly he wondered if he’d imagined the movement. “Shut up and open the safe. Now.”
He stood stiffly for only a moment. “Very well.”
If he were lucky, she’d get too close.
Marcos strode toward the wall that housed the safe. Sliding the wooden panel aside, he flipped the dial in annoyance. Right, left, right. The tumblers clicked into place and the door opened.
“Frankie,” a voice hissed. “Hurry.”
Marcos stilled, straining to pinpoint the source. It had sounded oddly small and disembodied.
“Frankie,” it said again, louder this time.
“Shut up,” the girl said. “I’m working on it.”
Ah, a radio. She was using a two-way radio to communicate with someone outside this room. Odd—and a rather inept choice for a skilled thief. Yet another puzzle piece to consider.
“Step away from the safe,” she ordered, the gun glinting as she used it to motion him away. “And keep your hands where I can see them.”
Marcos backed away carefully, hands at shoulder height. The girl waited until he was nearly against the opposite wall before she moved. A flashlight blazed into life. She swept the interior of the safe, then spun toward him.
“It’s not here,” she said in disbelief. “Where is it?”
He almost felt sorry for her. Almost, but not quite.
“There are plenty of other jewels. Take them instead.”
Her voice shook. “The Corazón del Diablo. Where is it?”
