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“I… I mean…” It would be great if I could think, but it seems all the blood left my brain in favor of rushing down to where I am now wet and aching.
For one breathless moment, he stares into my eyes, breathing heavily. Is it desire or rage, though? That’s what I don’t know. He kissed me as I had hoped he would. Now he’s looking at me like he wants to kill me.
He opens his mouth to speak—then lets go of my neck and steps back. “We have to get to the meeting. No fucking around and wasting time.” His accent is thicker than usual now.
I can’t believe I humiliated myself that way. All for nothing. Now he’ll think I want him, and I don’t like that one bit.
“And you’re going to behave yourself, aren’t you?”
When I don’t answer right away, he lunges for me, this time curling his fingers around my jaw and pressing in hard enough that tears spring to my eyes and a pained whimper squeezes itself out of my throat.
“Aren’t you?” he growls, baring his teeth in a snarl only an inch from my face.
Somehow, I manage to nod despite how strong his grip is.
He grunts. “I thought so. Otherwise, things won’t go as smoothly as they have been until now.”
This is smooth? I would hate to see what it would look like if things went poorly.
But something tells me I have no control over that. Because by the time this meeting is over, he’ll know I’m not who he thinks I am.
And then? I might as well kiss my life goodbye.
10
ENZO
We’re fifteen minutes early for the meeting, scheduled to take place in one of the old hangars at an abandoned airfield a dozen miles or so from the townhouse. Prince has already studied the terrain, thanks to satellite images he combed once we were informed of the location.
“This place was a major hub in the middle of the last century,” Prince explains as he drives the last few miles. “Very important to businesses like ours. Major shipments are coming in all the time.”
“I suppose that makes it a natural choice for a meeting such as this,” I muse since it seems he expects an answer.
“That, and the remote location.”
I grunt my agreement, but really, I couldn’t be less interested in the remote location at the moment, nor am I paying the sort of attention I ought to when it comes to watching for anything that seems out of the ordinary. Not that anything does—there’s nothing around as far as the eye can see but tall grass swaying in the breeze.
But a lot of threats can hide in tall grass, just as much as they can in plain sight. Snakes, especially. Snakes like Alvarez. As the thought forms, I glance at the passenger side mirror and get a partial view of the Alvarez girl, daughter of the enemy, but soon to be the pawn to build this alliance my grandfather wants so desperately.
Her hands are bound in front of her, along with her ankles. She gave me no small amount of shit about that. “Remember what I said,” I warn her. “Behave yourself if you hope to see your father.”
She’s staring daggers at the back of my head, and I wish it wouldn’t amuse me so much. That feisty nature of hers. She can’t hide from me. She’s terrified, and I sincerely wish I didn’t care why. I would think she’d be thrilled at the idea of being returned to the man. All she’s done so far is complain that she wants to go home. If returning her is what it takes to get things moving with Josef, so be it. She’s been nothing but a headache from the beginning, anyway.
And the fact that displeasure twists my guts at the thought of handing her over is confirmation that I need to get her away from me. She isn’t my problem. I was stupid and reckless to take her in the first place, no matter how reasonable it seemed at the time. How necessary.
It’s a hot, sticky day, and waves of heat rise from the pavement once we reach the old airport. Aside from the cracked concrete, nature has done its best to reclaim the area; weeds and small trees have haphazardly taken root. It’s a bleak, depressing sight. So much ruin.
Prince is thinking along the same lines. “Can you imagine what this looked like back when it was thriving? The amount of money that passed through here. A river of it.”
I can imagine armed men prowling the area, guarding shipments, and long, sleek cars going to and fro. Now there’s little more than rusted siding, broken windows, and crumbling roofs as we begin passing the abandoned hangars.
Prince scans the numbers still visible above the hangar doors in hopes of locating the specific building we were instructed to report to, which he does after another minute of navigating what’s left of the road. We hit a pothole, and the car lurches with us right along with it.
I notice the way he glances in the rearview mirror at Elena before muttering to me, “I don’t like this. Do you feel it?”
I don’t know what he’s talking about, which makes me question myself. Prince’s instincts are never wrong. I look around again, taking in the full scene, and it finally hits me. “Where is he?” There isn’t so much as a car prowling the grounds, no men waiting outside the hangar we were instructed to meet at.
“Are you sure you have the right place?” I ask him—and immediately, I hear my grandfather speaking through me. He asked me a similar question not long ago, didn’t he? And damned if it didn’t irritate the hell out of me at the time.
