This Year's Black (14 page)

One of the Molinas
’
gorillas loomed over her, holding a broken ceramic cat in his right hand. Devin didn’t think, he didn’t consider, he just knew. He was going to kill that man. Slowly.

Powered by blood-boiling rage, he shot out of the Jeep. His only aim was to destroy everything within reach and get to Ryder.

Men
poured out of the van like rats escaping a sinking ship. Most were bruised and battered from the day before. Each looked more than ready to even the score. Devin didn’t give a shit. Pulling Ryder out of this shit storm and getting her on the jet was all that mattered.

He executed a hammerfist punch, connecting with a long-haired guy’s jaw. The crunch of breaking bone fed the flame of fury inside him. He wheeled around, executing a chest-high side kick that planted his boot against the second thug’s sternum.

After that, it was just a maelstrom of jabs, kicks, and punches. Each was meant to inflict the most severe pain possible and clear a path to Ryder.

He got within arm’s reach of her when a forearm as thick as a redwood wrapped around his neck. In the next heartbeat, only his tiptoes touched the pavement.

He landed an elbow to the man’s solar plexus. Air wheezed out of the giant, but his grip stayed true. Smelling blood in the water, the other goons circled closer. The cocky looks on their faces showed they thought they
’
d already had this thing won.

They were wrong.

Back in his mixed martial arts days, the fights were hard, but they were one-on-one. The odds were majorly against him now, but what was on the line mattered a hell of a lot more to him than a champion’s belt.

Blackness danced around the edges of his vision. He had to get out of this choke hold or he’d never get to her.

Tucking his chin into the crook of the goon’s arm, Devin raised his shoulders and jerked his chin into his attacker’s forearm. The pressure loosened. Air whooshed into his lungs. He dropped enough for his feet to touch the ground. Immediately, he delivered a chop punch to the asshole’s groin and twisted. He burst from the thug
’
s deadly hold.

In that single moment of clarity, he fell back to his MMA mantra:
focus, finesse, fight
.

Eight guys on their feet, two on the ground, and one too busy holding his smashed nut sack to be of much trouble. A glimmer caught his eye. Sarah stood behind one of the thugs.

Understanding whacked him in the face.

Cut off the head and kill the snake
.

Using reserves he didn’t realize he had, Devin pivoted away from Ryder and plowed through a freckle-faced goon like a three-hundred-pounder versus a bag of chips. Grabbing Sarah’s arm, he pulled her close so she stood between him and the pack of enforcers. He slid his other arm around her throat, ready to snap it clean in half.

“Long time no see, Sarah.”

Taken by surprise, she didn’t even try to break free. “I suppose you think this is the optimum solution?”

“Returning the money is your best option.” He softened his tone, hoping to remind her of the easy working relationship they’d had for the past ten years. “You return the money, we leave. No authorities get involved. You don’t serve time.”

“Jail? Are you kidding? Did you know George and I met on Andol? My father told me he
’
d disown me if I left with George. I was young and did it anyway. I gave George my undying loyalty and he repaid me by hiring a flighty nincompoop in a short skirt. I made him pay, and he
’
ll keep paying when the MultiCorp deal falls through. It’s past time for me to get my due, and no one’s taking it from me.”

One of the thugs grabbed Ryder. She was awake, but groggy.

Devin wanted to pluck out the guy’s eyeballs and grill them on a skewer. But action without the benefit of thinking first had never turned out well for him. That’s how James had ended up as he had. Devin couldn’t risk hurting Ryder any more than he already had by dragging her into this mess. He had to protect her.

She blinked unfocused eyes and feebly pushed away the guy’s arm, but it didn’t move an inch. A crowd of tourists watched from a safe distance while the locals, on the other hand, kept their gaze purposefully averted. There wasn’t a cop in sight. Naturally.

He had to play this just right or it would go sideways. That couldn’t happen.

“Tell your little army to let her go.”

“No.” Sarah sounded as bored as if he’d asked her about the weather.

He tightened his grip around her neck. “Let. Her. Go.”

“Oh, I would if it was just me, but my son is quite particular about his reputation.” She shrugged. “You two caught him flat-footed with the diamonds-in-the-tea-pots scheme. It would be bad form to let both of you go.”

There it was. The out he’d been looking for. “Fine. Leave her. Take me.”

Sarah
tsk-tsk
ed and shook her head. “Ah, self-sacrifice. I know that stage of love all too well. It’s not the most comfortable place, is it?”

His gut screamed for him to pull out all the stops and go full-on crazy, but he couldn’t. The only way he’d get Ryder out of here was if he used his brain instead of his brawn.

He released Sarah. “Let her go and I’ll go willingly. Maybe my father will pay a ransom.” He shrugged.

Sarah, well aware of the billions his father had in the bank, considered him for a moment. “But your father hates you.”

“He does, but he hates looking weak even more.” Letting kidnappers keep his first born would do just that.

“Get him in the van.” Sarah glanced at Ryder, who was still fighting weakly against her captor, then back at him. “Leave her.”

Relief seeped into his marrow. He had no fucking clue what would happen to him next, but he imagined it would be painful and prolonged. It didn’t matter, as long as Ryder was safe.

Two of the men grabbed his arms, shoved him into the vehicle, and tied him to one of the seats.

As the van doors slid closed, the last thing he saw was Ryder sinking to the ground.

Chapter Fourteen

“
You can be anyone you want to be, with the right outfit.”

— Melody Minagar

Ryder cracked open her eyelids and light pierced through her eyes like a shiv, jabbing into her pounding brain. Reflexively, she squeezed them shut again and tried to process the anxiety chewing a hole in her stomach. Her memory of how she’d gotten here, and where exactly here was, was a jumbled mess. The last thing she remembered was the blue van pulling up, followed by the Jeep and—

Devin
.

Her breath caught as a hot flash of fear razed what was left of the haze fogging up her thinking. Had he made it to the bakery? Did the Molinas have him, too? She’d asked him to trust her judgment and he had.
Fuck
.

That decision may have cost him his life—or at the very least his freedom, and possibly a whole lot of pain.

Finding him wasn’t an option. It was
the
only
option.

While it may be warranted, panicking wasn’t going to do shit to get either of them out of this situation. Without opening her eyes, she took in a deep breath and used her other senses to gather intel and figure out where in the hell she was. She didn
’
t dare let on she was awake, in case she was being watched. Crisp sheets and a soft mattress lay beneath her. Salty air wafted in from the left. The quiet
click
of a door shutting broke the perfect silence. In or out? Best to bet on in and act accordingly.

A squinty-eyed peek confirmed she wasn’t outside the bakery anymore. She was in the suite at the Palm Inn.

Soft footsteps sounded behind her, setting off her internal alarms.

If the Molinas were planning to kill her, she sure as hell wasn’t about to make it easy for them. She visualized the room, searching her memory for a weapon.

She rolled to her side facing away from the door and wrapped her fingers around the bedside lamp’s solid brass base. In one fluid motion, she sat up, twisted, and brought the lamp down toward the approaching target.

“Oh good, you’re awake—” Borja’s greeting ended in a squawk.

She stopped the lamp’s downward path inches from his black hair. “Where’s Devin?” she demanded. Her chest heaved, not with exertion but with the desperate, aching need to know. She couldn’t attribute that kind of physical reaction to a missing client.

Devin had become much more than a mere client, well before she’d ever had the good sense to realize it…because she’d been too caught up in constantly proving what a badass she was.

Borja held his hands up, palms out. “Everything will be fine. The Molinas are nowhere near here. You’re safe with us.”

“Where is he?” she asked again.

“I do not have good news on that front.” Borja took several steps back from the bed, his gaze locked on the heavy lamp in her hand. “He is alive—at least he was when he got in the van. But the Molinas have him.”

Ryder jackknifed off the bed, intent on finding Devin. But the room swum before her and the lamp fell from her grasp. The throbbing in her head intensified, rattling her molars. Borja’s hand on her shoulder gently pushed her back down to the mattress before her knees gave way.

“Take these.” The hotel manager held out two white pills and a glass of clear liquid.

She pushed his hand away. “Forget it. I remember what happened last time I had something to drink here.”

“What do you…? Ah, the wine. It is particularly potent. But this is plain water and aspirin. I promise.”

“Potent? It was drugged.”

“Oh, Mama likes to talk about its mystical powers, but it’s just home-brewed wine that’s fermented too long. It always gives me the worst headaches. Speaking of which—” He dropped the aspirin in her hand and held out the water glass. “Take this, it will help.”

The pills carried the markings of a major pharmaceutical company on one side and the word aspirin stamped on the other. She sniffed the liquid. If it was drugged, it was unscented. “Why are you helping me?”

“Not everyone on the island is happy with how things work in Andol City.” He shrugged. “We do what we can.”

His tone was as easy as if she’d asked about that night’s dinner special, but his nostrils flared with emotion.

“What have they done to you?” she asked, sensing there was a story there, and not a good one.

A dark shadow crossed Borja’s face and his jaw tightened. “You notice I have my mother here, but not my father.”

“
I’m sorry.
”

“I was twelve. They kept Mama for three weeks before we could scrape together enough money to pay the ransom.”

Ryder couldn’t miss the raw pain that deepened each one of the lines dividing his forehead before he looked to his feet, blinking rapidly. Better not to go there. But that look did not bode well for anyone they
’
d kidnapped.

She popped the aspirin in her mouth and swallowed a mouthful of water. “Do you know where they’re holding Devin?”

“I imagine he’s at their farm.”

Picturing the small, single-story house with its weathered appearance and lack of guards, she couldn’t get it to jibe with a secure location. “The house with the pineapples out front? It didn’t seem like a good spot for that.”

“Oh, not there. They have a much bigger place a few miles further inland.” A knock sounded at the door. “That must be your friends.”

She tossed the pills in her mouth and washed them down with the water. Everything ached, but nothing hurt more than the knowledge that all of this was her fault for rushing in when she should have called for backup. She just prayed it wasn
’
t too late for Devin. She grabbed the bedside telephone and dialed.

Her brother picked up on the second ring.

“Tony, I need you. How soon can you be here?”

Silence loud enough to break her eardrum thrummed through the line before he answered. “How soon do you need me?”

…

The sun had almost disappeared below the western horizon when
Maltese Security’s three musketeers filed into Ryder’s hotel room. Carlos shuffled in first wearing a Dr. Who T-shirt, jeans cuffed at the ankles, and a commiserating grimace. Cam strutted in next. They had to have been airborne for nearly ten hours, yet he looked like he’d just walked off a magazine cover with his glossy hair and almost too pretty face. He gave Ryder a quick wink and a thumbs up.

Her big brother marched in last, looking about as happy as a vegetarian at a North Carolina barbecue where greens fried in bacon fat was the only non-meat option.

Ryder held up her hand before Tony could open his mouth. “You’re right and, yes, I need your help.”

All three men stopped in their tracks.

Cam was the first to recover. “Who are you, and what’ve you done with Ryder?”

She rolled her eyes. “Stuff it, Cam.”

“That’s more like the Ryder I know and love.” He flashed his signature wicked grin.

“The Molinas have taken Devin captive.” Just saying the words made her stomach cramp, the perfect accompaniment to the dull pounding of her head and the ache in her chest no amount of medicine could dull. “I can’t get him back without your help.”

She gulped around the rock lodged deep in her throat and glanced down at her matching bracelet of interwoven gold threads and recalled the feel of his strong hands on her foot during their plane ride to The Andol Republic. His touch had been the only thing keeping her sane when her fear of flying had gone into the danger zone. And at their blessing ceremony, his nearness had kept her from running away in a panic. Even this morning, when he’d been annoyed as all hell and thinking her plan was nuts, he’d trusted her.

The realization landed like an elephant on her chest. She couldn’t lose him now. He meant too much to her.

Carlos sat down at the small hotel room desk and took out his laptop. Used to his quirks, Ryder didn’t think twice when he kept his gaze glued to his screen and his fingers busy on the keyboard while she quickly went through everything that had happened since she and Devin arrived two days ago. Well, almost everything. She never mentioned the blessing ceremony and Borja didn’t speak up, thank God, but she couldn’t stop touching the golden bracelet as if it really tied her to Devin.

“Any proof that he’s still on the island…or alive?” The blunt question marked the first time Tony had spoken since entering.

She shook her head, not even wanting to think about the second possibility. “Only my gut.”

“No offense, girlie”—Cam sat down on the bed next to her—“but that’s not much to go on.”

“If I may.” Borja stepped forward. “I was just telling Ms. Falcon earlier that the family has a large warehouse on their farm.”

Cam quirked an eyebrow at the manager
’
s formal use of her name, but kept his smart mouth shut for once.

Carlos didn’t bother to look up from his laptop. “I brought up the farm on satellite the other day. There is a large building about three miles from the house.”

“I never saw that image,” Ryder said, annoyed.

“That’s because you took off half-cocked before I got all the intel to you.”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah, well don’t do it again.” Carlos’ fingers flew across the keyboard. “I’m bringing the images up now. Looks like there’s just one road leading into the property. It’s all flat grassland with no cover in any direction. We’d need an invisibility cloak to get in without giving them at least a twenty minute heads up to our approach. But that’s not the worst of it. They have a small runway and the warehouse is big enough to house a prop plane.”

“So they can fly on out at any time. That sucks,” Cam muttered. “How are the authorities here?”

Ryder snorted. “Complicit or afraid.”

“Let me work on backup.” Cam strolled to the corner and started working his charm on whoever was lucky enough to pick up the other end of his phone call.

Borja cleared his throat and backed to the door. “If you’ll excuse me, I must make a telephone call.” He slipped out without waiting for a response.

“Is he safe?” Tony’s voice held a mercenary edge that sent a shiver down her spine.

She traced her thumb across the rope bracelet, certainty calming her nerves. “Yes.”

“Fine. Are you good enough to get off that bed? We need to talk.” He strode out onto the patio, sitting down at the table where she’d had breakfast with Devin only the day before.

Planting her feet on the floor, she stood slowly and took in a calming breath. The room didn’t spin and her head didn’t explode. It may not be much, but it was progress and she’d take what she could get. She had to. Devin didn’t have time for her to stop and whine about her probable-concussion aftereffects. Cam gave her another thumbs up while Carlos never looked up from his screen.

She stepped outside and shut the sliding door behind her. A warm breeze lifted her hair, making it dance along her skin, reminding her of Devin’s touch.

“Just what in the fuck do you think you were doing?” Her brother’s angry voice jarred her back to the present. “You were supposed to find an embezzler. Then you leave the country with some harebrained plan to go kidnap someone from a foreign country like some kind of rogue CIA agent in a bad movie. Jesus, Ryder, you didn’t even send me a text until you were already on the plane.”

He wasn’t saying anything she hadn’t already told herself, but still her hackles went up. Old habits died hard. “I’m not a complete idiot, Tony. I am capable of running a case.”

“I know that, and if you actually ever tried to do something by the book as a team instead of constantly going off on your own and playing by your own rule book, I’d be more than happy to put you on your own cases. Lord knows it would benefit the business.”

She blinked and looked, really looked, at her brother. He had dark circles under his eyes and a weariness that she realized had been there for the past few months. “What are you talking about?”

“You think I’ve kept you on cheating spouses cases because I thought you were incompetent? Shit, if that was the case I would have fired you, sister or not.” He shoved a hand through his thick hair and sighed. “I never doubted your ability. Whenever it counts, you’re always point on.”

A list of mistakes ran through her mind longer than the end movie credits. “Not always.”

“I know about Heath.” The vein in Tony’s temple throbbed.

Surprise emptied out nearly every thought in her head but one. “How?”

“Sylvie.” He shrugged. “She was so mad, she wanted to burn down the world looking for him, and after she told me what happened, so did I.” He held up his hand. “Don’t worry, once we find him, you’ll get first crack at his melon. But you can’t lose your trust in yourself because of him. Don’t give him that power.”

That’s when it hit her. It wasn’t her judgment on the job that was most important. Heath hadn’t only lied to her and hurt her, he’d made her question her own instincts when it came to life, to the people she cared about, to what really mattered. But not anymore.

Fear for Devin one-two punched her hard. “Devin’s not just a client.”

“What do you—” He slumped back against the metal chair. “Shit, Ryder, when did this happen? You’ve only known him for what, a week?”

“We knew each other before this.” She blinked back emotion.

Their first night together seemed like a lifetime ago, but somehow she’d known even then that Devin was different. Which was why she’d run as fast as she could…only to end up right back smack dab in the middle of a bed with him again. The sex was great, but it wasn’t just that. It never had been all about the sex. What exactly it was about him that spoke to her, she couldn’t deal with thinking about right now. That would have to wait until they got him back safely.

“Tony, I
’
ll do whatever it takes to make sure Devin’s safe.” She bit the inside of her cheek and held her breath to keep tears from falling.

Tony shook his head, reached across the table, and covered her hand with his. “We’ll get him. I swear.” He leaned back. “Now, I need some food so we can put together a plan. How’s room service in this joint?”