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‘You don’t have to,’ he said, sitting back and wiping his hands on a napkin. ‘But you have two options right now. You run and tell loverboy Dornan and give him the tip-off. Or we make a deal, and you get to see your son again.’
I saw the corner of his mouth twitch, a suppressed smile.
‘It’s a very good deal.’
I didn’t say anything for a moment, my head whirling. I remembered sitting at a similar table in Colombia nine years ago, swallowing packages of what I believed to be cocaine, only to find out later that I’d couriered eighteen pellets of baker’s-grade flour across the border as a test.
Was this a test? Were they testing my loyalty after all this time?
‘You think you can mention a son I gave up for adoption over eleven years ago and I’ll just do whatever you want?’
Murphy eyed me confidently. ‘That’s exactly what I think.’
Well, I didn’t know what to say to that. I pressed my lips together. ‘He doesn’t even know me,’ I said, but my words came out weaker than I’d planned.
‘You might think you’re covert, and you’re clever, but my dear Mariana,’ Murphy paused and leaned across the table, smiling smugly, ‘you’re also very fucking predictable.’
‘If Emilio heard you talking like this, he would kill you.’ I said. ‘Slowly. Painfully. I heard what he did to Bella. I’m sure he’s done plenty worse since then.’
Murphy’s eyes lit up at the mention of her name; the accountant who had been there before me, the girl who had been tortured, piece by piece over the better part of a week, until Dornan shot her and put her out of her misery.
‘I saw what he did to Bella,’ Murphy said. ‘Did you know if you drill into the right part of a person’s skull, you can see their brain while they’re still conscious?’ He pretended to drill into his forehead with two fingers, a zzzz sound coming from between his teeth.
I was suddenly convinced that he’d played an active part in her grisly demise.
‘Anyway,’ he said, running his tongue over his teeth, ‘your father’s actually stopped drinking and gambling. Crazy, right?’
‘Unbelievable,’ I answered. ‘Just like the rest of your story. Why would the DEA help my father go into hiding? It’s ludicrous. He’s a criminal.’
Murphy waved his fork dismissively. ‘He’s small fry compared to Emilio and Julian Ross. We’re talking about smashing an international drug syndicate here. You think I’d have stuck around for this long if it wasn’t worth something huge? My entire career has been devoted to taking these fuckers down.’
I huffed incredulously. ‘Murphy, you have a bank account in the Bahamas with hundreds of thousands of dollars in it. Drug money.’
‘Drug money,’ he smiled. ‘That’s a cute name for it.’
‘It’s the truth!’ I insisted. ‘What the hell are the DEA going to do when they realise you’re in on this whole mess?’
He shrugged. ‘I’ll lay low for a couple of months, then charter myself a plane straight out of Dodge and into early retirement abroad. The government pension isn’t exactly enough to pay for all my . . . hobbies.’
‘Emilio will know it was you,’ I countered. ‘He’ll empty your accounts quicker than you can snort a line of coke off your desk.’ I’d seen him do it before.
He pursed his lips and stared at me like I was a moron. ‘Why do you think I came here?’ he responded. ‘You’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen. And in return, I get you your son.’
‘What about Dornan?’ I asked, dazed.
‘What about Dornan?’ Murphy rebounded.
I searched his face for an indication of how this could go but got nothing. ‘I’m not participating in anything that would hurt him. He saved my life.’
Murphy sneered. ‘He took you to be his own personal whore. He used – uses – you for his own perverted pleasure. Does he make you say thank you after you swallow?’
Wow. That hurt. Even coming from Murphy. I shouldn’t care, I scolded myself.
‘You don’t know anything about me,’ I answered coldly. ‘Or him.’
‘I know your son is dying to meet you,’ he said, smarmy fuck that he was. ‘What else matters? The whole family is in WITSEC, and if you do this one little thing for me, you’ll be right there with them.’
‘When you say the whole family—’
