Be Careful What You Wish For(41)

He turned away from the airstrip and nodded to his driver. For a man who had walked six miles through the jungle, he seemed surprisingly unfazed. The driver came around and opened the SUV door for him, and he got in, noting that the leather seats were as perfect and undisturbed as ever. The SUV had cost him nearly 100,000 when all was said and done, fully customized and capable of surviving a hail of bullets. This car was one of ten or twenty that he owned, spread out across the various countries and islands where he did his business. Like him, it was self-contained, holding everything he needed to survive and manage his empire.
For one brief moment he wondered what it would be like if he had met Sandra, if she had fallen in love with in him instead of Sean. Of course, he had many women in his life. They fell all over him. After all, he was rich, powerful, relatively young and handsome.
He could snap his finger and have any woman he wanted.
But he knew deep down inside that none of them were interested in him. They liked his money, his power. They found him sexy because he was dangerous. They giggled with their girlfriends over him, and talked about him in hushed whispers. Briefly, he found himself wishing that he had a woman like Sandra, a woman who would risk her life to stay with him. A woman interested in more than his money and power.
His cell phone rang and he picked it up automatically. It was his lieutenant; they’d found one of the spies.
All business now, Valzar listened closely to the man’s words, his mind spinning through possibilities and planning his next step.
As the SUV pulled away from the airstrip, he didn’t give a thought to the wish he’d made just seconds earlier. Like so many of his wishes in life, it hung in the air behind him, left behind.
Just another forgotten wish…