She meets my eyes. “But you’re a woman. A woman with many enemies.” She lifts my hair off my shoulders and sets it behind my back then looks me over. “Go,” she tells the soldier holding me.
“Ma’am—”
“I said go. I’ll bring her in. There are girls in the barn.”
He licks his lips and from the look in his eyes I get the feeling he’s anxious to get to the barn.
“If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
A moment later he disappears. The woman and I stand alone in the corridor.
“What do you want?” I ask her, knowing how helpless I am even against this woman who stands several inches shorter than me.
She tucks her hand into her pocket and brings it out, opening it to show me a pill in the palm of her hand.
“I’m no friend of Felix Pérez,” she says.
“That doesn’t make you my friend,” I say, eyes on that pill. I know how these people use their words. Know they’re all monsters.
“No, it doesn’t,” she says distastefully. “Your fate is sealed. You won’t be walking out of here after this night. This will make it easier for you.”
The capsule in her palm looks harmless but I’m sure it’s not. “What is it?”
“Cyanide.”
I shift my gaze back to hers. “You want me to kill myself?”
“It’ll be the best death for you.”
“And you’re doing this to spare me?”
She snorts. “Of course not. There are men out there who have paid Felix well to attend this evening’s event once they learned of your presence. They’ll be displeased because, well, like I said earlier, you have enemies.”
“And you want my enemies to become Felix’s enemies.”
“Oh no, they’re already that. I just want them to act on it.”
“Why don’t you swallow that pill. I’ll take my chances with the snakes out there.”
She gives me a one-sided grin. “Last chance.”
“Alternatively, you could shove it up your ass,” I say, somehow sounding much braver than I feel.
She closes her palm just as the gong goes off. “Looks like it’s your turn.”
40
Cristiano
“Any chance we can get eyes on the estate? Gauge what we’re walking into,” I ask Charlie as we drive toward the location in Eindhoven. I watch the dark sky, the raindrops only a nuisance on the windshield now. Clouds are rolling angrily in the distance, illuminated by still-silent flashes of light.
Antonio is coordinating more manpower and Dante is sitting beside me staring out the window, hands fisted.
“We can’t get closer than the public road leading up to the house. They’ve got their own drones,” Charlie says.
“Of course, they do.”
I have him on speaker phone but I’m not sure Dante’s listening.
“From what I’ve learned about past auctions, they issue, at most, two dozen invitations. In most cases, the buyer himself doesn’t attend. They send someone in their place. None of these men want to be in the same room together if they can help it. None of them want to be seen.”
“Makes sense. How do they know what they’re bidding on?”
“A brochure would have circulated prior to the event.”
“A fucking brochure?”
“These are animals we’re dealing with, Cristiano.”
“Christ.”
“It’s a pretty sophisticated operation. These sort of auctions are extraordinary from what I’m learning. They’ll save the special girls. Your uncle kept pretty good records from what I’ve found, and I get the feeling this is scratching the surface.”
“Do you know what he did with the information?”
“Nothing yet. But you should see what he’s got. Who he’s got. It would surprise you. Although he wasn’t on the cartel’s payroll, he had plenty of ammunition to get what he wanted from a number of people in various countries at various levels of power.”
“Dirty bastard.”
“We walk in,” Dante says.
Charlie stops talking.
I turn to my brother.
He looks determined. “You and me. We walk in like we’re invited. Like we belong there. Once we have Scarlett, we’ll need a distraction so we can get out.”
I study him, head tilting as I think about this.
“They won’t be expecting someone to walk through the front door. You and me walk in, Brother. We get Scarlett. Someone pulls a fucking fire alarm. I don’t know. But we get out. We deal with the mess after. Once she’s out of harm’s way.”
“That’s risky,” Charlie says. “But Dante may be right. It may be your best bet to get on property and get to Scarlett in time. There’s a forest and a fucking stone wall once you cross the property. Getting in any other way will be difficult and we’d have to wait for soldiers to arrive on site.”
“What do you want me to do, bid on my own wife?”
“We do what we need to do to get her out,” Dante says. “Period.”
“If our men aren’t there by the time you get her, I’ll call in a disturbance. Get the local police out there. They won’t want the attention. The attendees will scatter like cockroaches,” Charlie says.