Destiny Mine (Tormentor Mine #3)(45)

This is sheer misery, and that’s a good thing.

It looks more authentic that way.

After another torturous hour, we meet up with my guys at the designated rendezvous point. I can see the shock on their faces as I push the girl forward, with the crying infant clutched tightly against her chest.

“You made it out.” Yan’s disbelieving gaze swings from me to my hostage and back. “You actually fucking did it.”

“Yep. Wasn’t easy, but here we are.”

My Nora substitute remains silent, giving a good imitation of a traumatized, terrified captive. Her waterproof makeup smeared a little during our journey, but she still looks believably bruised and beaten, her dark gaze dulled by dehydration and exhaustion. None of my guys have seen the real Mrs. Esguerra, only pictures of her, so they have no reason to doubt her authenticity.

The “bruises” are doing their job.

The baby keeps crying, and I make a mental note to give her the bottle of formula I had my guys purchase for the plane, just in case “Nora” had trouble breastfeeding. We got diapers on the plane, too, along with other baby paraphernalia.

“Is he dead?” Anton asks in Russian, and I nod, glancing at the girl as though concerned about her reaction.

“Yeah, I got the bastard. She might not know that yet, though, so keep it on the down low. She fought like a witch for that baby as is.”

Ilya looks disgusted but doesn’t say anything as we head for the plane. He doesn’t like what I’m doing, and I can’t blame him. Stealing a newborn and her newly post-partum mother feels wrong, even to remorseless killers like us. And that’s exactly what I’m counting on. The subtle disapproval emanating from my men will give this operation the authentic edge it needs.

I want Novak to feel the discord among us.

I want him to sense the reluctance of my guys to hand over a traumatized young woman and her baby into his cruel, greedy grasp.





37





Peter



I give the formula to the girl as soon as we’re on the plane, and she feeds her baby sister, shooting frightened looks at us the entire time. She’s overdoing it a bit—the real Mrs. Esguerra wouldn’t let her fear show—but since my guys don’t know Nora and everything she’s been through, it works.

“How did you do it?” Yan asks quietly when the baby finally falls asleep and the girl has calmed down enough to look out the window instead of at the couch where I’m sitting with the twins. “How did you get Esguerra?”

“I shot him.” My reply is curt and matter-of-fact, but I’m not going to make up an elaborate story for this. “Blew his head off.”

“Did you get the proof?” Ilya asks, frowning. “Because Novak will need—”

“Here.” I pull out a phone that I also “stole” from a guard and show a picture of a dark-haired man lying sprawled on the ground in a pool of blood. Half of his skull appears to be missing, but the other half is unmistakably Esguerra.

It took an hour to get a shot that good; for all his male-model looks, my former employer sucks at posing.

Yan looks at me, then at the picture and back at me. I stare back at him stonily. Can he tell that the “blood” is ketchup mixed with a lot of dirt, or that the missing half of the skull is Nora’s skilled Photoshopping? I know the picture is fake, so it’s hard for me to be objective.

To my relief, Yan hands the phone back to me without saying anything, and Ilya turns away, focusing on transferring the bribe to the Serbian air controller’s private bank account in Switzerland. It’s how we get in and out of that country—and many others, US included.

It’s tempting to talk to my guys and tell them the real plan, but I refrain. I can’t take the risk that they might balk at the last minute. We’ve built a lucrative business on the strength of our reputation, and what I’m about to do—double-cross a paying client—more or less ensures there will be no further job offers.

We’ve talked about retiring one day, but I don’t know if they’re ready for that day to be now.

In any case, if all goes well, my team won’t suffer financially. In addition to Novak’s hundred million—half of which is already in our bank accounts—we’ll have the seventy-five-million payment from Esguerra. Even if we don’t get the other half from Novak before I nab him, we’ll have enough for the rest of our lives.

All we need is to get through this.

A few more days, and I’ll have Sara.

I can’t fucking wait.





Ilya and I meet Novak in his warehouse just outside Belgrade—as per his request. As usual, he arrives with a full contingent of mercenaries and enough firepower to level a small building.

“Where are they?” he demands as soon as he sees us standing there. “You said you had them. Where are they?”

“Safe and secure with my team,” I say and pull out the guard’s phone to show him the photos we took an hour ago. They’re of the surrogate Nora and her infant, surrounded by my men and looking all bruised and fragile.

He snatches the phone from me and studies them with undisguised lust before looking up at me. “Is Esguerra—”

“Here.” I take the phone from him and flip through the “Nora” photos to the one of Esguerra in a puddle of ketchup. “Head blown off.”