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“You don’t mean that.”
“I very much do,” I assured him.
That shut him up for a while, and when I finally registered what was out the window, I saw we had made it out of the city and darkness surrounded us. Traffic was nonexistent. We were the only car on a desolate road, the headlights shining on the overgrown grass in the ditch. I realized the airport we were headed to must be isolated, and I saw that when it was safe for me to run, there would be plenty of places to hide. There weren’t even any stars. The clouds hid them.
“All these years I suffered because I thought you were dead,” my father said quietly. “Now that I have you back, I won’t let you go, Camila. Resign yourself to that.”
“No matter what you do to me, I will never be yours. I am not your family. You are nothing to me.”
“I’ve cut out people’s tongues for saying less offensive things,” he said with an air of indifference.
“Do what you must. That’s your way, isn’t it?”
Carlos slowed the car, making a turn onto a dirt driveway. He flipped on the high beams, illuminating a couple of buildings in the distance, one unmistakably an airplane hangar. My throat constricted as our proximity to the plane that could take me back to captivity reignited my fear that Carlos wouldn’t help me escape after all. He’d given me a gun, but I hadn’t thought to check if it was loaded. His show of alliance may have merely been a way to keep me calm as they brought me here.
We rounded a shallow curve, and the headlights landed on a dark pickup truck parked in front of the wide hangar doors. A lone figure leaned casually against the passenger door. I squinted, and dread and relief flooded through me.
Stone.
Chapter Forty-Four
Stone
The second theheadlights hit me, I was glad I’d trusted my gut. Daniel had agreed, putting me in touch with the head of his security team. They’d been held up in traffic by some visiting dignitary’s motorcade and re-routed here. At last contact, they were ten minutes out. I’d been warned to wait for them, but that wasn’t something I was willing to do. Every second counted right now. I didn’t know if she was in that car, but chances were in my favor, and I had zero regrets about going it alone. Bottom line, I wasn’t leaving here without her.
Grateful for my hat shielding my eyes, the car pulled to a stop, followed by an SUV. A man climbed out of the driver’s seat who shared Muriella’s features. I squinted and scanned for any sign of weapons as he strode toward me. If he had them, they were concealed.
“What are you doing here?” he hissed as a second man approached.
“Taking Muriella back where she belongs.”
His jaw worked, and upon closer inspection, I saw the man looked an awful lot like a younger version of her father I’d seen in a photo. Carlos. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell whose side he was on.
Relief and horror attacked me from opposite sides when the back door of the car opened and Muriella appeared. I lifted my chin and prayed she’d understand I was telling her to go.
A third man got out of the car. I recognized him immediately.
Juan Carlos Calderón.
He strode toward us, as commanding and formidable as described in the script I’d read. I leaned against the side of the truck and crossed one ankle over the other.
I kept my eyes trained on him, though out of my peripheral vision I saw Muriella reach behind her. A sense of dread washed over me, but I forced myself to remain calm.
“She’s not going anywhere with you,” I said steadily.
“My daughter is coming home to be with her family. You can leave now with no consequence, or you can stay and die.” He said this in accented English as calmly as if he’d just told us the time of day.
I itched to reach for the gun, but that was a method of last resort. “Nobody’s going to die. You’re going to get on that plane and go back where you came from. She stays.”
Her father laughed without a trace of humor. “Who does he think he is?” he asked Carlos. He stopped abruptly and leaned within an inch of my face. “This is your last chance. Be grateful I’m giving it to you. Get in the truck and leave. Forget you ever heard the name Calderón. Forget Camila. In turn, I will forget you.”
I let out a long breath. “I can’t do that.”
I pushed away from the truck and dug in my pocket for the keys so we could get the hell out of here. Juan Carlos grabbed me by the shoulder. I stopped in disbelief. “I don’t think you want to go that route.”
Her father clapped his hands in delight. “It’s decided. You will die. Slowly. I don’t know if Camila cares for you or not, but she needs to get over that to assume her role in our family.”
The man was insane if he thought I would ever let her anywhere near him again.
