“This one claims the same thing.” Izmir shrugged. “Said he made some quick cash to help. Hired to watch the woman’s house. Took some work, but he did give me Carlos’s name.”
Carlos would not fault Lee for that. In fact, he commended him on keeping the story straight and only using a first name. This way they were corroborating each other’s story.
Turga jerked his head in a sign for Izmir to come to him. When Izmir reached Turga, they spoke quietly.
Turga was a poacher, an opportunist who waited for someone like Baby Face to make a deal and do all the work before Turga showed up at the last minute to snatch the prize out from under everyone. His success depended on timing. Right about now, he was trying to figure out if he’d made a mistake by jumping too soon before he found out what Baby Face was after.
Turga would have given Baby Face one chance to tell him, then cut his throat since he was too damn big to carry out easily.
Carlos glanced at Lee, who lifted his head an inch and angled his face toward Carlos, but there was no way to tell if he could actually see anything out of those bloated eyes. Carlos gave him a slight nod he hoped translated into a promise that he’d make that bastard pay.
Lee moved his chin up and down a fraction, just enough to let Carlos know he had seen something.
Carlos glanced at his watch. How could he use the fact that it was eighteen minutes to six?
“Ask him more,” Turga ordered.
Izmir walked to a table next to Lee where a couple towels were piled. To clean up his hands when the blood got too sticky?
You will pay, a**hole.
Izmir lifted a pole with a loop on the end like the kind used to catch a snake, except the loop on the end was a wire that ran to a machine plugged into the wall. Carlos flinched, guessing at what Izmir had in mind. The bastard moved the loop toward Lee’s gen**als.
“Stop!” Carlos ordered.
“You want to talk?” Turga asked with so much humor Carlos shook with the need to rip him to pieces.
“Turn him loose and we’ll talk,” Carlos offered in as even a voice as he could muster.
“Don’t think so.”
“You’re going to kill all of us, Turga. I’ll give you what you want if you leave the kid alone.”
“So you’ll tell me your deal with Baby Face? I know it was big score, something that electronic ferret lucked into.”
So Baby Face had found Mirage for someone else he planned to shop her to and Turga didn’t know.
Hard to imagine that the woman behind Carlos was the infamous electronic informant, but to be honest he’d seen stranger things.
He made a production of checking his watch, then sighed. “Okay, here’s the deal. Baby Face offered me a cut to help him make a risky trade. He wanted professional backup, not the clowns he normally dragged around. He had to contact someone by six tonight or the deal was off. I was out of the country. Just got back and found out he was offered more money to deliver sooner, and I know who has the money. So he was trying to snake me on the deal. You cut the kid loose,” Carlos said, nodding at Lee, “and I’ll tell you the deal, names, everything. In trade, no torture, just a bullet between the eyes.”
Turga glanced at his watch and back at Carlos, his eyes twitching as if he couldn’t decide whether to kill Carlos or make a deal. He finally cursed something in Turkish.
“If you lie, you look worse than him when I get through with you.” Angling his head at Lee, Turga’s face creased with confusion, the time element now causing him grief. “Not like Baby Face to pick up an asset himself. Don’t f**k with me, Carlos. Only reason she not strung up yet is I’m still not buying this girlfriend bit. I no risk damaging merchandise in case she is what Baby Face selling. If not, she all mine.”
Carlos forced himself not to charge Turga. Fury rode up his back, demanding immediate payment for Lee’s bloody body. And, yes, for Gabrielle’s terror even if she had put herself in this predicament.
“Take him down and I’ll tell you what Baby Face was really after and how to cut the deal…or risk missing Baby Face’s deadline.” Carlos delivered that with a venomous finality that assured he was through negotiating.
Turga finally nodded at Izmir, who grumbled, then tossed his stick to the ground. He produced a switchblade and cut Lee’s ankles loose, then his wrists.
A hiss of pain and moans escaped when Lee fell to his knees before his arms and head slapped the floor. He didn’t move.
Carlos had covered several steps toward Turga while his attention was turned.
When Turga cut his gaze back, he waved the 9 mm. “Stop there.” A jingle played, interrupting the tense silence. Turga dug a cell phone out of his front pants pocket and answered with “What you find out?” After a pause, he smiled and said, “He put out a bounty? No, no, we’re old friends. I contact him soon. Good work. You almost as good as Baby Face.” He closed his phone and shoved it back into his front pants pocket.
“I thought we were going to talk.” But Carlos knew deep in his gut that call had complicated things.
“Yes, yes. First, you tell me what she knows about this Mirage Durand Anguis has bounty on.”
Hell. Wait. Turga thinks Gabrielle only knew something about the Mirage.
Carlos offered his most arrogant smile. “That’s what I was trying to tell you. Durand made Baby Face a new offer for more money to deliver her to him. Durand’s far more persuasive than Izmir when it comes to making someone talk.” He ignored the feminine gasp behind him and continued, “Baby Face figured he’d save what he was going to pay me and make a bonus amount by picking her up. Not a bad plan even for Baby Face. As you said, he doesn’t normally do his own dirty work.”
“So she has information?” Turga’s smile gleamed with anticipation.
“You’re smarter than that.” Carlos doubted the possibility, but hoped a threat would force Turga to hesitate. “Touch her and Durand will take your balls off with a pair of pliers.”
Turga shrugged. “So, no reason to keep you alive, eh?”
That was a tricky one. Carlos needed a minute to come up with an answer. “Go ahead and shoot me.”
Turga smiled, shoved the gun inside his waistband, and swung the rifle up.
“But it will cost you,” Carlos said quickly.
That unglued the bastard’s smile. “What you mean?”
Good news? Turga’s greed outweighed his intelligence.
“Let’s sit down and talk.” Carlos started forward, angling toward the table and chairs, gaining another two steps closer to Turga.
“Stop. We discuss nothing until Izmir tie your hands so you no make one of those moves you famous for.”
“Me famous?” Carlos laughed, keeping his eyes on Izmir, who grabbed a length of cord he snapped with pleasure and headed for him.
“I hear stories.” Turga scowled. “I would keep you alive if not so risky. Bet someone has price on your head, too.”
Carlos shrugged as if he couldn’t care less about Turga’s debate to kill him or shop his head. He put his palms together, lifting his wrists in front of him all compliant and nice.
Turga’s gaze danced past Carlos to where Gabrielle sat behind him.
Carlos turned his head to look at her.
Gabrielle frowned up at him, lips parted in total confusion.
He winked at her.
She blinked, then closed her mouth and gave a tiny dip of her head. A nod he took to mean she was still on the same page with him.
He turned back around and used the opportunity to shuffle another step forward. Izmir stepped between him and Turga, lifting the cord to wrap around Carlos’s wrists. It was now or never. He could only hope Lee had a breath of life still in him.
Carlos swung a feigned look of shock toward Lee and yelled, “No, don’t!”
Izmir jerked around to Lee, who amazingly lurched to his feet.
Turga swung the weapon at Lee. “In a hurry to die?”
Lee lowered his chin to his chest, submissive.
Turga grunted with satisfaction, so confident with a gun against a nak*d and beaten man.
Just stay there, Lee. Carlos used the two seconds he’d been given to curl his fingers tight and lunge, ramming a fist into Izmir’s throat, snapping his windpipe. Out of the corner of Carlos’s eye, he could see Lee move, but Izmir grabbed at Carlos with one hand and clutched his choking throat with the other.
A gunshot-Turga’s rifle-exploded, echoing against the concrete walls.
Screams ricocheted behind the echo. Gabrielle’s.
Izmir sucked air, staggering back, eyes bulging. Carlos spun and kicked high, knocking Izmir back at Turga.
Another gunshot. The bullet ripped through the middle of Izmir, catching Carlos across his side, a gash at worst.
The air reeked with curses, screams, and fresh blood.
Izmir tottered. Carlos ran headfirst, ramming him all the way into Turga. The gun exploded again, so close Carlos lost his hearing, but the bullet deflected high.
Carlos crashed down on top of Izmir, who landed on Turga with a heavy thud. Rolling over, he pushed to his feet.
Turga struggled to squirm free of the dead body pinning him. His hand still clutched the rifle. Carlos slammed his bootheel down on Turga’s wrist, satisfied with the snap of bone and the howl of pain that followed. He kicked the rifle out of reach and found his 9 mm nearby on the concrete floor. Turga cursed, yelled, and beat his undamaged hand against Izmir, who didn’t move. Carlos wanted to kill the f**ker, but that would be murder. He had to get to Lee to see how bad he was. Izmir’s bulk had Turga pinned.
Carlos hurried to Lee’s sprawled body. Fresh blood poured from a hole ripped into his chest. His first duty was to get Gabrielle out of here, but she’d live.
The kid wouldn’t.
Dropping down on his knees, Carlos gently lifted Lee’s ravaged body into his arms. When he did, his fingers slipped into a gaping wound in Lee’s back no bandage would plug enough to save him. Warm liquid gushed down Carlos’s arm and pooled on the floor.
“You just had to be a hero, huh?” Carlos said in a voice raw with regret.
Lee’s lips twisted up on one side, teeth missing from the perfect set he’d had just an hour ago.
Carlos pulled him close to hear the whispered words Lee struggled to form.
“Sorry.” Lee drew hard for a gurgling breath that shuddered through him. A scarlet trail of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. “Failed…first time.”
“No.” Carlos swallowed against the lump in his throat. He’d never get used to watching the young die. “You aced it.” His eyes stung.
“Carlos!” Gabrielle yelled.
He swung, instinctively lifting the handgun as he did.
Turga had somehow freed himself of Izmir and was running at him with a knife.
Rage blinded Carlos.
He unloaded four shots in succession…all into the lower h*ps and genital area. Not the spot a marksman of his ability would normally aim for, but Turga didn’t deserve a bullet between the eyes.
Turga hit the ground, hands grabbing himself. Guttural howls rocked the warehouse for several seconds, then he just cried, rolling from side to side.
When Carlos turned back to Lee, the kid’s lips were moving, his eyes bright. Carlos leaned his ear close to Lee’s mouth.
“Thanks” wheezed out, then one hard shudder racked the broken body before Lee’s soul passed on.
Carlos dropped his chin to his chest, breathing hard. His eyes stung. There was nothing more helpless than feeling the last breath of someone he held, knowing he couldn’t do anything to save that person.
Just as he couldn’t sixteen years ago.
Pain knifed through him, dredging up a memory from the past with brutal clarity. He’d held another battered body, that of the young girl he’d loved with all his being, as she’d drawn her last breath.
His heart beat erratically, aching in his chest.
Light footsteps approached him. Not Turga, who had finally silenced. Dead at last.
Lee was no longer in pain. Carlos still had a job to do and another woman to protect. He eased Lee to the floor. With one phone call, BAD would have a cleanup crew here in a half hour. He couldn’t wait that long and risk one of Turga’s people coming back.
Leaving Lee uncovered just seemed wrong, but Carlos couldn’t expend the time to put his clothes on him.
He stood and turned to Gabrielle, the informant everyone wanted. She’d stopped on the other side of Turga. Chestnut brown hair scattered from having gone overboard and drying in a wild wind. Face white as a ghost and hands trembling, she sure as hell didn’t look the part of an international operative. The baggy workout clothes underneath her open trench coat were still damp.
Turga lay dead on the floor between them, the room littered in carnage.
She lifted misery-filled eyes to his, punching him in the gut with her suffering. “Is he, is he dead?”
Carlos wasn’t sure which he she referred to, but since they were all three dead he just said, “Yes.”
The blank stare worried him. They had to go. Chances were they’d have to interact with someone in the public once they were out of here. He needed her lucid.
When she showed no real signs of coherence, he stepped over Turga to reach her. He held her shoulders, careful not to get blood on her. Considering everything, she should be screaming her head off right now or completely catatonic. Her eyes drifted past him to where Lee lay silently.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Me, too. He was a good man.” Carlos shoved his mind back into gear. “We have to go before someone else shows up.”
She nodded, but when he started to move around her, she pulled out of his grasp.
“What?”
Gabrielle didn’t answer. She just took her trench coat off as she stepped over Turga, then draped the coat over Lee’s body.
Nothing could have endeared her more to Carlos in that moment. He swallowed down the lump in his throat and waited until she returned to his side.