Unmasked: Volume Three (3 page)

N
ick narrows
his eyes at me and I keep my gaze locked on his gun, bracing myself for him to make a move. As soon as his arm twitches, I land a lightning fast jab to his bicep, sending his Glock whizzing through the air and into the ocean. I throw another jab at his left cheek and he dodges it.

“You bitch!” he roars as he grabs my right arm.

I kick my knee up toward his crotch and he jumps sideways so the blow lands on his hip. He attempts to retrieve a set of handcuffs from his pocket, but I karate chop his forearm and he drops the cuffs onto the floor of the boat.

I twist my arm around until he’s behind me and I attempt to elbow him with my left arm, but he’s standing too far to the right for me to reach him. I stomp on his right foot then throw my head back to headbutt him just as he doubles over from the pain in his foot. The blow to his head dazes me for a moment. Just long enough for him to tackle me.

He lands on my back as I’m laid out halfway across the bench seat, the other half of my torso hanging over the back railing of the boat. I reach back, trying to get a grip on his nostrils or poke him in the eyes, but his head is flailing. He grunts as he squirms on top of me, trying to push me farther over the railing. At least, I think that’s what he’s trying to do until I hear the sound of his shoe scraping around the floor of the boat. He’s trying to get the cuffs.

My left arm is pinned between the railing and my abdomen. He has a firm grip on my right wrist. My only leverage here is to attempt to roll over, so his back is pinned against the railing. Or, if I can wrench my wrist free, I can try to throw him overboard.

“You don’t need to do this, Nick!” I shout. “I’ll go with you freely! If you just tell me where you’re taking me!”

His laughter shrieks in my ear. “You think I’m going to fall for that? Aha!” he exclaims as the soft clink of handcuffs breaks through the roaring airstream.

I have to headbutt him again, even if it means I may knock myself out. I bow my face forward and throw my head back. This time I hear an audible crunch when the back of my skull makes contact with his nose.

He releases me immediately and I flip over onto my back. My hands grasp the railing for support as I lift my leg and land a hard blow to his crotch with the bottom of my foot. He flies backward, landing on top of the driver. The boat swerves wildly to the left and I hold on for dear life as I watch Nick nearly get thrown overboard.

The driver shouts at us as he gains control of the boat. Nick’s nose pours blood as he gazes into the water, then at his empty hand. He lost the handcuffs. I stand up straight to face him and his hand disappears behind his back.

Disarm. Disable. Disengage.

Those are the three tenets of combat my father pounded into me. The only way to disengage on a speedboat is to throw your opponent overboard… or kill them.

Sorry, Nick.

“You’re going down!” I shout as he pulls his hand out from behind his back brandishing a shiny knife.

I kick my leg out to disarm him, but he’s quick. He lunges toward me and I feel the knife go into my side. The same side where I was stabbed just a few weeks ago. The pain is beyond excruciating. But I maintain enough wits to grab his wrist, twist his arm around, and bring my elbow crashing down on his elbow.

The gruesome crunch of his arm breaking is enough to make me sick to my stomach. But I can’t help but laugh as he drops to his knees and howls in pain as his arm hangs limply at his side. He reaches for the blade he dropped, but I land a hard knee to his jaw.

He’s dazed for a few seconds and I take the opportunity to pick up the knife. But he’s not giving up. He lumbers to his feet and lunges for me, his good arm outstretched. I move out of the way easily, but he manages to reach up and grab a fistful of my hair, pulling me down on top of him as he falls onto the bench seat.

I elbow him in the gut and he responds by locking his good arm around my throat. He knows what he’s doing because my eyes begin to prickle and I can’t breathe. I wrap my fingers tightly around the handle of the blade and drive it into his thigh.

He releases his grip on me while shouting curses, but I don’t wait for him to come at me again. I reach forward, twisting my fingers into his hair to get a firm grip before I slash the knife from one side of his neck to the other.

His body goes limp immediately as blood spurts out of his throat and all over my face and chest. I grab his legs and struggle a bit, but I manage to get him overboard in a few seconds.

I turn around to face the driver and the boat begins to wobble beneath me. But I don’t think it’s the boat moving. I’m going to pass out.

He’s shouting at me in Spanish. I don’t know what he’s saying, but he’s pointing at the pool of blood on the floor of the boat. He’s angry. His eyes flit toward the knife in my hand then back to the woozy look on my face.

Suddenly, he reaches for the knife, but I throw a quick jab to his throat and an elbow to his temple. He’s out.

The boat begins to slow as I heave him out of the drivers’ seat. I sit down in his place, one hand on the steering wheel, the other applying pressure to my knife wound. I need to get to Tenerife fast or I’m going to pass out and die in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

I push down the gas pedal, but the boat doesn’t seem to be moving fast at all. Maybe he’s running out of gas. Or maybe… maybe I’m already dead.

I
f two speedboats
with varied horsepower set off into the water at the same time, at full speed, the one with more power will always win. This boat has doomed me. But I cannot give up. I may arrive in Tenerife minutes behind Nick and Alex, but I should get a signal on my phone by the time they reach the shore ahead of me. Then I can call an associate in the city to head them off.

I glance back and forth from the dark, shimmering water ahead of me to my phone in my hand, waiting for the moment my cell is close enough to the island to get some reception. At last, a single bar appears on my phone and I begin dialing the number for Antonio.

It takes a few seconds before the call is connected and the ringing begins. Pressing the phone to my ear, I look up and a stalled boat materializes in the dark waters just ahead of me. I swerve to the left to avoid a collision, sending a wave of water cascading into the other boat.

“Alpha-Whiskey-Echo, this is Foxtrot-Mike-Lima, responding. Over,” Antonio says, answering the phone.

I struggle to maintain control over the boat with one arm as I turn it around. “Foxtrot-Mike-Lima, this is Alpha-Whiskey-Echo. I need a safe house near Puerto de la Cruz. Over.”

“Alpha-Whiskey-Echo, I can confirm a safe house at one-eight-three Calle Verde. Repeat: We have a safe house at one-eight-three Calle Verde, just two clicks south of Puerto de la Cruz. Over.”

I slow my boat down as I approach the other speedboat, aware that this could be a trap. But the closer I get, I see I’ve stumbled upon something much worse. The entire backseat of the boat is covered in blood and Alex is slumped over in the drivers’ seat.

“Foxtrot-Mike-Lima… I need emergency medical dispatched to the safe house. Over.”

“Alpha-Whiskey-Echo, emergency medical en route. Foxtrot-Mike-Lima, over and out.”

“Alpha-Whiskey-Echo, over and out.”

I remove my long-sleeved black shirt and use it to tie the two vessels together, then I hop inside the other boat. An older gentleman, probably the boat’s owner, is passed out on the floor of the vessel. I don’t know if he’s injured, but I can’t be bothered to check. I go straight to Alex and lift her into a sitting position.

The fluttering of her eyelids tells me she’s alive. But when her eyes fall closed again, I know I don’t have much time. She’s barely holding on.

My first priority is to get her to the safe house, but I can’t lose my head. I have to cover our tracks. The first thing I do is undress her down to her underwear and toss the clothing overboard. This is to get rid of the bloody evidence, since I have a strong feeling a lot of this is Nick’s blood. Also, if they find her clothes in the water, they’ll assume she went down with Nick.

As soon as I remove her shirt, my heart clenches at the sight of the knife wound in her side, less than an inch from her previous wound. I am not a praying man. I don’t think I’ve uttered a single prayer since I was an altar boy. But I close my eyes and point my face toward the heavens as I pray.

Please, God, don’t take my Alex or my child. I am not a good man. I know I don’t deserve Your mercy. But she does not deserve to suffer. Please don’t take her.

I wipe down Alex’s body to remove most of Nick’s blood. Then I lay her down in the back of the other speedboat. Back in the other boat, the older gentleman begins to stir.

“Desculpa me!”
Forgive me
, I shout at the man. Then I shoot him in the head and he falls limp on the bloody floor of the boat.

I dig into the right knee-pocket of my cargo pants for a small flash grenade. I untie the two boats and pull my shirt back on. Then I slide into the drivers’ seat and drive away. When I’m about forty meters out, I pull the pin on the grenade and chuck it into the other boat. The explosion sends shrapnel about thirty meters in all directions. I don’t stick around to watch the boat sink.

The speedboat glides like a bullet over the ocean, never slowing until I’m a few meters from the shore. I slow it down a bit as I approach, then I ride a small wave and hit the gas to drive the boat as far up the sandy embankment as possible. A couple sitting on the beach stands as I lift Alex into my arms and jump down into the sand.

They shout at me in Spanish, asking if I need help. I respond with a roaring
no
.
Please don’t try to help me unless you want to get killed. I can’t leave any witnesses
, I think to myself.

I carry Alex across the beach and toward a small parking lot where an SUV is pulling out of a parking space with a surfboard tied to the roof. I gently set Alex’s cold, wet body down on the pavement, then I rush the driver’s side door.

I whip my gun out of my waistband and shoot out the window. The SUV screeches to a halt.

“Get out!” I shout at the driver in both Spanish and English.

A guy with wet brown hair pulled back into a ponytail jumps out of the car, holding his hands in the air. I tell him I won’t shoot him if he helps me put Alex in the backseat. Once she’s lying safely in the back, I pistol-whip him across his right temple to keep him from contacting the authorities for at least a few minutes.

I drive the car through the quiet streets until I reach the safe house at 183 Calle Verde. It’s a warehouse. I pull the car next to a truck bay secured with a rolling steel door. Hopping out of the car, I shoot out the lock on the door and force it open.

My heart sinks when I realize no one is here yet. But I need an emergency medical team now. I’ll have to attempt to stop the bleeding and try my best to keep her alive until they arrive.

Motion-activated lights turn on as I pull the SUV into the warehouse. It doesn’t seem as though the building is temperature controlled. The hot air is sticky with humidity and smells of dusty cardboard and rubber. I hop out of the car and close the rolling door behind us. I carry Alex to a steel worktable in the back of the warehouse, tossing aside a desktop computer and stacks of unassembled cardboard boxes to make room for her to lie down.

I press my fingers to her neck and can’t find a pulse. I check the other side of her neck and find it, but it’s faint. She’s fading.

I pull my shirt off and lift her body so I can tie it around her waist, over her wound. Grabbing a steel rod from the floor, I thread it beneath the tied sleeves. Then I twist the rod to tighten the shirt around her. I lay her body down on top of the rod so her weight will hold it in place, then I begin CPR to get more oxygen into her lungs and keep her heart from stopping.

“Please,
chérie.
Please stay with me.” I brush her hair away from her temple with my lips and plant a soft kiss on her damp skin. “Please don’t leave me, Alex.”

I’ve never been more frightened in my life. When the steel door rolls open, I nearly jump out of my skin as I point my gun at the truck bay. I don’t recognize the elderly gentleman with the bald hair and thick glasses, but I almost fall to my knees with gratitude when I see the medical bag in his hand. Tucking my gun away, I race to him to see if he needs help.

“There’s an I.V. stand and more supplies in the trunk,” he says in Spanish, nodding his head toward the black BMW parked behind him just outside the door.

He hands me the car keys and I retrieve the I.V. stand and the rest of his supplies from the trunk of the car. I meet him inside and find him cutting away the crude tourniquet I made with my shirt and the steel rod. He tosses it to the floor and performs a brief examination of the stab wound.

Once we have a sterile sheet laid beneath Alex’s body and he’s cleaned her up, he hooks her up to a machine that pumps her body with O-negative blood, pain medication, and I.V. fluids. Then he stitches her up.

“When will I know if she’s okay?” I ask, not bothering to hide the desperation in my tone.

He points to the bag of clear I.V. fluids hanging from the stand. “When this is gone in four hours, she’ll wake up. She will think she’s ready to run a marathon, but you must keep her off her feet for at least twenty-four hours. I’ll be back to check on her tomorrow night. Then she should take it easy for a couple of weeks.”

He grabs his bag to leave and I grab his wrist to stop him. “Wait… She’s pregnant. Can you check on the baby?”

His eyes widen in horror and I know what that look means. There’s no way the baby could survive this.

M
y eyelids struggle to open
. The lashes are sealed together. Blinking furiously, I groan against the stinging pull on the rims of my eyes. Then a new pain comes to me from my left side. Now I remember. I was stabbed. Again.

My eyelids finally come apart and the first thing I see is Daimon’s face hovering over me. His face is framed by the dim glow of yellow light above us. His blue eyes are rimmed pink and full of relief.

“What… where… where am I?” My voice is husky. My throat raw and parched, probably from the loss of blood.

“We’re still in Tenerife. How are you feeling?”

“What time is it? I… I have to go. I have to go to Monaco.”

I attempt to sit up and a blinding pain lights up my left side. Daimon grabs my shoulders and gently pushes me down, but not before I notice the intravenous lines snaking out of my arm.

“You’re not going anywhere right now. You have to rest,” he murmurs, brushing my hair away from my eyes. “Vengeance can wait.”

The word vengeance hits me like a kick in the chest. “You were right,” I whisper, looking into his eyes. “About Nick. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. I was—”

“Shh. You don’t have to apologize.”

He strokes my hair and leans down to kiss my forehead. His new beard brushes against my brow and his lips are cool against my hot skin. So soft and familiar, yet still so new.

“These days apart have felt like years,” I whisper, my throat thickened with emotion. “I didn’t want to kill you.”

“I know,
chérie
. If you wanted to kill me I’d be dead.”

I chuckle and the smile on his face makes my heart feel full. “What happened to me? How bad is it?”

He closes his eyes and hangs his head for a moment. He doesn’t have to say a word for me to know it’s serious. Every second I wait for him to break his silence feels like an eternity.

“Daimon, please. Just tell me.”

His eyes find mind, but his gaze is burning through me. My heart pounds an agonizing beat inside my chest. Then, finally, he speaks.

“The baby is gone.”

My throat constricts until I can’t speak or breathe.
No
, I try to say, but nothing comes out. Nothing but tears.

“Breathe, Alex,” he urges me.

I shake my head wildly as Daimon’s face begins to flicker and my vision begins to close into a tiny speck.

What did I do to deserve this?
I was born a mutant and I’ve spent eighteen years paying for a sin I didn’t commit. And now this? My father dead. The hope of a child gone.

What do I have left?

T
he arguing gets louder
as I open my eyes, but I can’t understand any of it. All I see is a single incandescent lightbulb hanging overhead, illuminating steel beams that criss-cross an industrial ceiling. I’m in a warehouse.

I try to sit up and the sharp pain in my side reminds me of my injury. I take a deep breath as I lie back, trying to hear my thoughts over the sound of the arguing. Then I remember.

Daimon said the baby is gone.

My eyes sting and I grit my teeth against the pain, but I can’t hold back the tears. “Why?” I mutter through my grief.

The arguing stops. The silence is followed by hurried shuffling, and Daimon is at my side again. The curves of his beautiful face, hardened by the argument, begin to soften as he gazes into my eyes.

“You’re awake.”

“Why did this happen to me?”

Daimon’s face screws up as he shakes his head, unable to provide an answer.

“I… I just wanted someone to love… to love me.” I squeeze my eyes shut to block out his face. To hide from the shame.

He grabs my face to force me to look at him. His lips tremble slightly as he presses his mouth into a hard line, trying in vain to suppress his emotions.

“I love you, Alex. I’ll always love you.” He kisses the corner of my mouth and more tears roll out of my eyes and onto his fingertips. “In the light and in the dark. With a mask or without. I love everything about you.”

I reach up slowly and coil my arms around his neck to pull him closer. He buries his face in my neck and allows me to weep as he caresses my hair.

“It’s okay,
chérie
. You’re with me now. Everything is going to be okay.”

I squeeze him tighter, savoring the sensation of his solid chest against mine. Breathing in the slightly briny fragrance of the ocean mixed with the woodsy scent of his skin. I nuzzle my cheek against his neck and draw in a deep breath.

“I missed you,” I whisper against his skin. “I knew you were alive. I knew you’d come back.”

He chuckles and the sound sends a sweet chill through me. “I can’t even be angry with you for trying to kill me. I am hopeless.”

I loosen my hold on him and grab the sides of his face to look him in the eye. “Not hopeless. This isn’t over. We’re not finished. We have to kill her.”

His eyes narrow as a slow smile forms on his gorgeous face. “What I have planned is much more satisfying than a simple assassination.” He kisses the tip of my nose as a bald man in a white coat begins hanging another bag of fluids on an I.V. stand next to me. “Rest,
chérie
. You’ll need your strength.”

The bald man presses a button on a machine and Daimon and I both watch as the fluid travels through the line and into my arm. He begins to draw away, but I lock my arms around his neck and pull him in for a real kiss. He tastes a bit sweet and metallic, but the cool sensation of his tongue in my mouth is better than any pain medication. Almost as soon as a painful longing sweeps through me, the medication kicks in and my grip on his neck slackens.

He pulls away and kisses my forehead. “Sleep,
chérie
. I’ll be standing right here when you wake up.”

T
he next time I wake
, I’m surrounded by darkness. I’m not on the hard steel table anymore. I’ve been moved.

“Daimon!” I whisper frantically.

I hear movement in the dark and suddenly the room is flooded with light. I blink against the bright glow of the lamplight, blue spots obscuring my vision. Then Daimon appears at my side.

“How are you feeling?” he murmurs as he kneels next to me.

I’m lying on a sofa in an office. I blink a few more times to clear the spots, then I reach for his hand and see the bandage on the inside of the crook of my arm. The I.V. line is gone and I’m dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt.

“Where are we?”

“We’re still in Tenerife, in the warehouse. We moved you so you’d be more comfortable. How are you feeling?”

I move my hand to my side to touch my injury and grunt at the searing pain that results from this brief touch. “I’m fine. I need to get out of here.”

I grit my teeth as Daimon helps me sit up. Then he sits next to me and wraps his arm around my shoulder. “Do you feel well enough to travel?”

“We’re going to Monaco?”

“Not yet. You’re not ready physically, or mentally.”

“What does that mean?” I turn my head to face him and just this small movement causes a sharp pain to explode in my side. “What do you mean, I’m not ready mentally?”

“Alex, you’re not able to see beyond your pain right now.”

“I’m fine!”

“No, you’re not,” he growls. “Let me make this very clear, you are not going to Monaco until you’re ready. And you are
far
from ready, Alex.”

I glare at him, but he stares right back at me, never blinking. “I will leave when I’m ready to leave.”

He lowers his gaze for a moment, taking a beat before he peers into my eyes again. I can already sense that I’m not going to like what he’s about to say.

“Alex, we need to talk about what happened. You can’t set off on the path of vengeance without any contemplation.”

“You said you have a plan! Whatever you have planned is fine with me. I just want to get out of here.”

He shakes his head. “No, that is not how you operate. And it is certainly not how I operate. Neither of us will be jumping into this mission with hot heads.” He grabs my chin and forces me to look him in the eye. “We need to talk about what happened, between you and me. And we need to talk about your father… and the baby. We have to talk about this or it will destroy us both.”

I push his hand off my chin and hang my head to hide the tears. “There’s nothing to talk about. You were hired to kill me. I tried to kill you. My father and… and the baby got caught in the crossfire. Collateral damage. End of story.”

“This story is far from over. Listen to me.” He lowers himself from the sofa, grabbing my hand as he kneels before me. “We are going to live the rest of our lives with the repercussions of our decisions . We have to lay it all out and promise that we will forgive each other, or this will never work.
We
will never work. Look at me, Alex.” I look up from my lap and his eyes are pleading with me. “Alex, I am on my knees asking for your forgiveness. I know that there will be times when you will look at me and you’ll think of your father. There will probably be times when you’ll want to poison me or step on my throat, but I need you to promise me that you won’t.”

I smile reluctantly through the tears. “I promise I won’t try to kill you… even when you infuriate me by making fun of how I tried to kill you.”

“It’s not funny.”

He smiles as he says this and I shove his shoulder. “It’s not funny. And it’s especially not funny because I know you’re right. I will try to kill you. It’s what I was trained to do. It’s my natural instinct.” My gaze falls to his hand in my lap. I take it in mine and squeeze. “I need you to save me, and
you
, from myself.”

He brings my hand to his lips and lays a soft kiss on the back of my fingers. “It would be my honor to save you and me from you.”

I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I wasn’t ready for a baby,” I whisper the shameful words that have been haunting me since this conversation began. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.”

“But… if I wasn’t ready… why does it hurt so much?”

He squeezes my hand, though he’s silent for a moment. “The baby was a part of us. It always hurts when you lose a part of yourself.”

I lift my hand and run my fingers through his dark hair. “Promise me it won’t always hurt this much.”

“I can’t,” he replies, taking a seat next to me again. “But I can promise I’ll be there to hold you when the pain becomes unbearable.”

He takes me in his arms and I remember what my mother told me.
The monsters we can’t see are the scariest ones of all.
I finally understand what she meant by this. The monsters we can’t see, the ones that dwell only in our minds, are the scariest ones of all. Because there’s only one way to fight those monsters.

With the help of someone who loves you.

I squeeze Daimon and he holds me tightly until the tears stop. It must be the hormones raging inside me after the miscarriage. I don’t think I’ve cried this much in all my life. But something about the way he holds me, as if he’d tear the Earth apart before he allowed anyone to tear us apart, it makes me feel safe. Like I can let go and… feel everything.

Finally, I draw in a cleansing breath and look up at him. “I’m ready. Tell me about your plans for the princess.”