AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Well, open it,” she urges.
There’s no way I’m opening it anywhere near her. Those fuckers love ricin.
“Go back and wait for me on the pier,” I tell her. “I won’t be long.”
“Are the girls okay?”
“They’re safer on the boat than in that crowd.” I turn to Alvarez. “Don’t let her out of your sight.” I shove the silver platter at him. “Take this with you.”
“Antonio,” she says, with a hand on her hip. “Is that letter something we need to be worried about?”
“The only people who need to be worried is Alvarez, if he doesn’t get you off this ramp, and you, if you don’t get moving.”
She lifts her chin, but wisely doesn’t defy me.
I lean against the rail, partway down the ramp, and carefully open the package. There’s a folded piece of paper inside. I pull it out cautiously.
Check your email.
That’s all it says.
I take out my phone and pull up my inbox. There’s a message from someone I don’t recognize. The subject line saysSt. Petersburg.
The message contains an attachment.A recording.I press play and hold the phone to my ear.
72
ANTONIO
The conversation is fuzzy at first—but after several seconds, I can make out Cristiano’s voice and that of another man.
“Tell me why you’ve agreed to help,” a man with a Russian accent demands.
“I’ve been looking for the right opportunity to bring him down, for a long time. At first, I wasn’t sure this was it, but I think it just might be.”
What the hell?My heart is hammering.
“You still haven’t told mewhyyou want to bring him down.”
“He’s a selfish sonofabitch. Only cares about himself. I’ve worked for him for years—my mother for her whole life. When the explosion happened at Santa Ana’s, my mother was there—the bastard never asked about her. Not once.”
Is that true? No.I saw her on my way to the back of the church. I stopped. Alma was unhurt.I told Cristiano that, didn’t I?
“We’re not sending you back. I don’t trust you not to play both sides. You can help us from here.”
“I don’t want to go back. When we’re done, I want to go to the US, and I want the money I was promised. But more than anything, I want to see that bastard on his knees, in ruin.”
The Russian snickers. “It’s always about money. Doesn’t matter what a man says about principles. It always comes down to money. Huntsman doesn’t pay you?”
“Not anywhere near what I’m worth.”
“What do you think he’d do if he knew you were here—working with us?”
“He would be enraged, and ultimately the betrayal would destroy him.”
The man laughs.
The blood is pounding in my ears. I can barely think. There isn’t anything Cristiano doesn’t know about me or my business. He could bring me down in no time or bleed me to death slowly.
