No Mercy (22 page)

“I will provide for them.” Salvatore spoke calmly now. “I wil make sure they want for nothing.”

“I do not wish to die.” Tears were in Oscar’s voice now. “Please, señor.”

“Do it or your family dies in your stead.” Salvatore injected ice into his tone. “Either Marta dies

today or I will have your wife and children slaughtered. Do you understand?”

“Yes, señor.” Oscar was clearly crying. “I will make sure her life ends today.”

“Your family’s lives depend on it.” Salvatore ended the call.

The next call he placed was to Carl Joplin, who had handled jobs for Salvatore in the past.

“Joplin here,” came the voice.

“I require your services.” Salvatore shoved one hand in his pocket as he spoke. “I am at a safe

house, and I need you to take care of a problem I have as soon as possible. As usual you will be

paid well.”

“I’l take care of whatever it is.” Car; didn’t even have to know what the job was as long as there

was good money in it.

Salvatore gave Carl the information on his location and those guarding the house. “Wait for a

call before coming,” Salvatore said. “I am requesting additional men from El Verdugo.”

“Yes, sir,” Carl said.

“My wife is with me. Do not touch her,” Salvatore added.

“I’l be there as soon as everything is coordinated.”

Salvatore drew in his breath and let it out. Now that he knew Marta would be dead before sunset,

and that he would be rescued from this shithole, he had to make the harder call.

It angered him that his hands shook a little when he keyed in the numbers for his cousin, El

Verdugo’s, private phone.

“What?” The man’s voice was like a bark when he answered in Spanish. “I am busy.”

Probably busy with some young woman sucking his cock,
Salvatore thought. Rodrigo was

known for conducting business while forcing women to perform sexual acts. He’d done so on more

than one occasion when Salvatore had been on business trips to Mexico to meet with the man. It

had been clear that it excited Rodrigo to have other men watch but not participate. Not that Salvatore

would have wanted to.

“I require assistance.” Salvatore took a breath to continue, but was interrupted.

“Have I not given you enough?” Rodrigo spat the words. “I have problems of my own to deal

with.” In the background was a woman’s muffled sound, as if she had something big in her mouth,

confirming Salvatore’s thoughts.

“I would not ask if it was not important.” Salvatore began to feel a sense of panic that he was

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***

Rodrigo gave a grunt. “Wait while I attend to something.”

The phone clattered and then Salvatore heard Rodrigo’s shout of triumph, something Salvatore

had heard Rodrigo do when he climaxed in front of others. A woman’s cry followed. Rodrigo had

probably backhanded her. He liked to get physical with the women when he was finished with them.

He shouted in Spanish, “Leave me, woman.”

Salvatore gritted his teeth. It was one thing to kill a woman if it was necessary, another to treat

innocent women the way Rodrigo did.

When Rodrigo got back on the phone, he sounded more relaxed. “Explain, Salvatore.”

Salvatore told Rodrigo all that had happened, leaving out only the part that the Jimenez Cartel’s

operation was compromised as well. Salvatore spelled out what he needed and gave Rodrigo the

contact information for Carl. Rodrigo agreed that his men would coordinate with Carl.

When Rodrigo disconnected the call, Salvatore gripped the phone and clenched his jaw. He

looked around the bare bathroom. He wanted to slam his fist into the mirror, take a shard, and use

it cut Christie’s throat and the throats of the agents. Breaking their necks wouldn’t be nearly as

satisfying as seeing their blood spray across the room and watching them bleed out.

Instead of allowing himself to lose control, he reined in his emotions. He had to use them to find

Leon, Belle, and Dylan. Marta would be taken care of, and soon Christie would, too.

There would be no mercy for anyone who got in Salvatore’s way. Including—no, especially—his

wife.

As rage poured through him, he pocketed the phone, jerked open the bathroom door.

Christie stood there, her eyes wide, her hand covering her mouth.

And Salvatore knew—she’d heard the conversation. Maybe all the conversations.

Fury burned through him like a raging fire. He glanced down the hallway and saw no one.

Christie started to take a step back and lower her hand as if to scream. He clamped one hand over

her mouth as he grabbed her, whirled her so that he wrapped his other arm around her throat.

She struggled. Kicked him. Clawed at his hands. Made muffled screams behind his hand.

He dragged her to the room they shared. He closed the door behind him and said in a low voice

that he put all the menace in that he felt, “Do not scream, Christie. Or I will snap your neck.”

She went limp in his arms and he threw her on the bed. He unzipped his pants. She looked at

him in horror as he grabbed her foot and dragged her to the edge of the bed.

For the first time since he’d known Christie, he slapped her. He’d never gotten physical with her,

and had been an attentive lover. She stared at him in shock.

When she tried to scramble back, he slapped her again. “Shut up,” he said coldly.

He flipped her onto her belly. She struggled as he shoved her nightgown over her hips, tore off

her panties, and took her without mercy.

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***

The light that came through the open bedroom door of the suite was enough for Dylan to see

Belle’s features. He studied her, looking at her lovely face as she slept, her eyelids closed, her lashes

dark against her fair skin.

A little smile touched her lips and he wondered what she was dreaming about. In all the horror

happening around them, somehow she had found a moment of peace.

So many feelings for Belle wound through him. He felt anger for what her stepfather had done

to her, fear for her safety, the desire to protect her from anything that could ever hurt her… And a

depth of caring that filled his chest with warmth, yet pain at the same time. He thought about the

pain. It came now from knowing what she went through as a teen, her leaving, and all the years

they’d missed together.

God, they’d missed so much. It occurred to him that part of what Nate had written on the postcard

had everything to do with Belle:

“I want you to promise me something. Remember what you had, buddy. If it happens, second

chances only come once. Don’t let it pass you by.”

Dylan’s heart skipped a beat. This was a second chance with Belle and he couldn’t let it pass

him by. He
wouldn’t
let it.

Images of Belle slipped through his mind, images of their youth and the love they’d shared. Even

now it didn’t feel like it was some sil y teenage love. It had been real and deep…and special. And

after all these years, it hadn’t waned. He’d never been able to love another woman after losing the

one woman who had made his world make sense.

When she’d left, that had all crumbled and he’d barely made it from one day to the next for so

long. Eventual y he’d moved on, but he’d never gotten over her.

But she was back now, and he had another chance.

A smile touched his own lips. Maybe she was dreaming the same thing he was thinking.

The blackout shades made it impossible to tell what time it was, but his internal clock told him it

had to be around six-thirty in the morning. He hadn’t intended to fall asleep as early as he had, but

apparently he’d needed it. Belle certainly had.

He wanted to touch her, to brush hair from her cheek and kiss her forehead. He did none of

those things, not wanting to wake her.

It was hard turning his mind back to work. For the time being, everyone should be safe at their

respective safe houses. He could concentrate on the problems at hand.

He thought about the SD card that had been implanted beneath Joe’s skin. Six folders, all

password protected…

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***

the password or passwords to open the folders. Why hadn’t he thought of that before? Probably

because it had been a long couple of days.

Careful not to disturb Belle, he slipped his arm from where he’d settled it on her hip. When he

turned over and looked at the clock on the nightstand, he saw that it was six thirty-five.

He slid out of bed and gathered his discarded clothing. After tugging on his jeans, he strode

barefoot into the front room of the suite. From off a small writing desk he picked up a pen and a pad

of paper with the B & B’s name and logo. He grabbed his duffel bag and retrieved a folder with copies

of the five postcards he’d gathered. At the office he’d scanned everything electronically and it was

all on his tablet, but he’d had a feeling that he needed hard copies to spread out like he and Belle

had at the office.

He crouched on one knee and set each copy of the postcards on the coffee table, in order by

postmark date. Each paper had a copy of the picture on the front of the postcard and a copy of the

back with the message.

He took the notepad and made three columns, then crossed the vertical lines with six horizontal

lines. He looked over the cards, each with a different postmark date. Leon’s was dated first, and

Dylan picked out the incorrect sentence.

“
You were one hell of a receiver.”

On the top line of the chart went
Leon
in the first column,
receiver
in the second
,
and then

quarterback
in the third
.

Marta’s card was second: “
Remember Lindy and the chalkboard incident?”

Down went
Marta,
then
Lindy,
and lastly
Misty.

He studied Christie’s card next.
“You know how chocolate is my favorite flavor and I’m ready to

hit the Dairy Queen again.”

On the grid he wrote her name,
chocolate,
and
vanilla
.

His gut clenched and he paused for a moment when a date skipped. Following the logic, if Nate

had mailed one postcard every day, Tom’s would have been on the fourth day. He wrote
Tom
and

left the next two spots empty.

Belle’s card had been fifth—she’d received hers the day that Nate had died. “
I’ll never forget

when your big brown dog bit me on the ass.”

On the fifth row he wrote her name followed by
brown
in the second column and in the last,

white.

His card had been last, since it had never been mailed. He studied the one sentence that was

off. “
Hey, remember when I served in Iraq?”

In column one, on the sixth row, he wrote
Dylan,
then
Iraq,
followed by
Afghanistan.

He frowned. How could they figure out what the missing words were without Tom’s card? And

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***

Something as simple as the right or wrong word being a password, but he doubted Nate would

do anything so obvious. They could be meant to use the first letter of the wrong words, or the first

letter of all of the right words, or even a twelve-letter password using the first letter of the right
and

the wrong words, and that would have to be done a few different ways.

Or hell, it might not even have anything to do with the password or passwords for the folders on

that SD card.

He blew out his breath as he stared at the table he’d written. “Nate, what the hel did you get us

into? What were
you
into?”

Tom was dead, probably thanks to these damn cards. Dylan knew Nate would never have

intentionally put them in danger, but the anger flowing through him burned in his gut. His muscles

tensed and he clenched his jaw.

“Goddamnit.”
He flung the notepad with the chart across the room and it hit the door with a
thunk

and dropped to the floor.

“Is everything all right?” Belle’s concerned voice came from the bedroom doorway.

Dylan got to his feet from his crouched position and faced her. She was so beautiful wrapped in