Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 59119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 296(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 296(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Our situation was so fucked. I felt bad for giving him shit when he was going to great lengths to make me comfortable, but in the end, he was keeping me from doing my job. All the while…I was growing attached. I wanted to be near him.
“You speak German,” I noted.
He stopped chewing for a moment and glanced at me.
I bit into my burger, and I fucking salivated. Bacon, cheese, crisp lettuce, sliced onion… Was the bread toasted?
“Have you heard of Dimitri Petrov?” he asked.
I nodded with a dip of my chin. He was a freelancer too. Elliott believed he was the man who’d orchestrated Carillo’s escape from prison.
“It was him I spoke to,” he went on. “His German is better than his English.”
Got it.
I swallowed and licked some kind of delicious barbecue-flavored mayo from the corner of my mouth.
“We’ve arranged for a new meet-up location.”
I snapped my gaze to his. He’d done fucking what?
“You know where we are, Crew,” he explained. “I’m exhausted. If you wanna break in to the pilothouse and make contact with your team, I don’t think I can stop you.”
My mouthful of burger slid down my throat like a chunk of meaty dough.
“The hurricane has changed its course, so they’re underway again,” he said. “Carillo, Petrov, and seven guards are scheduled to reach us in two days. It just won’t be here—and I won’t be here either.”
I set down my burger and rested my forearms on the table. “When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin, then poured Coke into our glasses. “I’m afraid I’m gonna have to put you in a tight spot. Because I’ll be leaving all the information you need behind. The moment Fred comes to get me tomorrow, you will know exactly when and where to intercept and catch Carillo. You’ll also be able to tell Jones about it.”
I felt my jaw tick with tension, and I started drumming my feet restlessly.
You goddamn asshole.
“It’ll be up to you,” he told me. “Either you set your plan in motion right away—you grab Carillo and use him for leverage to get your loved ones back—or you withhold the information and allow me seventy-two hours to finish my job.”
Just when my headache had faded, it came crashing back into my skull. “When would be the earliest time for us to grab Carillo?”
“When he goes ashore,” he answered. “We were originally dropping them in Cádiz, and now we’re changing that to a small town near Biarritz. It’s on the southern Atlantic coast in France.”
My stomach tightened with unease, and I leaned back in my seat and folded my arms over my chest. I didn’t like this one fucking bit, because to give Elliott that intel, I would be jeopardizing everything Adrien had worked for. It would put his life at risk.
I cleared my throat. “If we kill Carillo before you’re done in Colombia, the news might reach Luca while you’re still there, and that could be the end of you.”
He nodded with a dip of his chin.
“It could also scare Carillo’s associates in California,” I went on. “Gomez and Gajero—whoever’s in charge of keeping Shay, Blake, and Marisa locked up—might lose their nerve and start killing off evidence.”
“Absolutely.”
I scrubbed my hands over my face, so fucking sick and tired of keeping track of everything.
“Your safest bet would be to keep Carillo alive,” he said.
I nodded tiredly and let my arms fall again. “You’d still be at risk, though. If you get a sit-down with Luca’s closest, I’d imagine they want some form of contact with Carillo during your negotiation too.”
“We’re getting that sit-down,” he said confidently. “Petrov’s trying to work Carillo right now, and Carillo’s not stupid. He knows there’s much more money in a peace deal.”
My point remained. Let’s say Elliott and Javier were in charge of Carillo while Adrien was in Colombia. Could I trust my guys—who’d be standing there, staring at the man who’d kidnapped their niece and wife—to let Carillo talk his way through a fucking cartel negotiation as if nothing was wrong? Would Carillo speak like a free man, when he was anything but?
“It’s up to you, Crew,” he repeated.
Yeah. It was up to me. Fucking wonderful. Either I gave Elliott the information right away, and we’d hopefully find Blake, Marisa, and Shay faster. And maybe Adrien would die. Maybe Jack would never see his dad again. Maybe I would never see Adrien again. Or I sat there with my team and withheld the information for seventy-two hours while they glared daggers at me.
It would be more than seventy-two hours. I mean, I assumed the clock started once Adrien and Carillo had parted ways and Adrien was on his way to Colombia.
“You’re an asshole, you know that?” I tapped my feet faster and felt the frustration building up for the hundredth time since I’d crashed into Adrien’s life.