She stood and moved tentatively toward Maria, eyeing everyone in the room as she did.
Carlos said to his aunt, “Go with her to the airport and assure she is on a plane to the U.S. Once you call and tell me she is safe, I’ll tell Durand everything.”
“I will,” his aunt assured him. “I am to leave very soon with Eduardo, who is seeing a doctor in the U.S.”
Carlos smiled. “Damn. Rather be lucky than good any day.”
“No one is going anywhere until you give me proof of at least one right now,” Durand ordered.
Carlos sighed. “Can I lift my hands without getting shot?”
Durand nodded.
Carlos ripped his shirt open, exposing the Anguis tattoo with the scar. “I am Alejandro Anguis.”
TWENTY-FIVE
GABRIELLE STARED AT the inked design of a snake wrapped around a stiletto over Carlos’s heart, with a scar.
“Alejandro?” Durand’s shock stole his breath, then he wailed, “Alejandro!” His face contorted as he moved toward Carlos, his body shaking. He reached out with trembling hands, the muscles in his fingers tight as he cupped Carlos’s face. Durand’s head shook back and forth, disbelief in his harsh voice. “Why would you turn on family?”
Gabrielle’s knees weakened. Carlos was Alejandro Anguis, the man who had killed her mother?
What happened to all the air in the room?
Maria covered her mouth, sobbing. Durand’s men gripped their weapons, every visible muscle taut with anticipation.
Durand clutched Carlos’s face, his fingers digging into the soft skin. His whole body shook with fury. His voice was raw. “You were blood. My blood.”
Given any other situation, Gabrielle would have been moved by Durand’s heart-wrenching keen at seeing his long-lost son.
But she couldn’t find a smidgen of sympathy for this man.
Carlos said nothing, still as a statue. Durand let go of Carlos all at once as if touching him burned his hands and backed away. He’d left red welts where he’d gouged Carlos’s cheeks.
The black eyes Durand turned on his son were crazy wild, and his raw voice was more threatening than anything he’d whispered before now. “You killed your own blood. My brother was in that chateau.”
“Then you killed your blood, because I didn’t send him into a death trap,” Carlos replied in a voice as deadly soft as Durand’s.
But then Durand and Carlos were father and son. Gabrielle felt sick.
Durand had been the monster in her nightmares for years. The blunt silence in the room felt as though the world had stopped spinning right here, this moment frozen.
After a long, tense stillness, Durand seemed to regain his composure and demanded, “Who is Mirage?”
“I’ll tell you once Maria calls to say they have boarded the airplane,” Carlos repeated without looking at anyone.
Gabrielle’s chest hurt as though her heart had been ripped from her. How could Carlos be the man she loved? He had murdered innocent people in a bombing. Women. Her mother.
Her brain screamed with arguments in his favor. He couldn’t possibly be that person. He would never harm a woman or kill without reason. But he’d just admitted as much. His aunt recognized him. Could he really trust his aunt?
Was Carlos now getting her to safety or just giving Gabrielle a head start before he told Durand she was Mirage?
Her head throbbed from trying to process the inconceivable, that she had been intimate with the man who had stolen her mother’s life. That she’d fallen in love with a true mirage. Her heart bled from a thousand cuts. This was the man who had sworn he wouldn’t let anyone hurt her.
Guess Carlos hadn’t included himself in the list of possible threats.
“You are not in a position to negotiate, Alejandro,” Durand warned in a deadly tone.
“That’s why I asked for Maria.” Carlos sat, stoic in the face of sure death. He wouldn’t look at Gabrielle, his gaze landing on his father and staying there.
Durand wasn’t happy about the position he was in, but couldn’t back down now from his agreement. Gabrielle had learned from Ferdinand that Durand’s power lay in the strength of his word.
“Maria, prepare your son for the trip,” Durand ordered as calmly as sending her to make a glass of tea. His eyes reflected a disappointment in his sister Gabrielle didn’t understand. “Julio, have the men take the woman with Maria and Eduardo to fly on my jet once my sister is ready.”
“What will you do with him, Durand?” Maria asked, indicating Carlos.
“Do not interfere in business” was her brother’s reply.
Gabrielle looked at Maria next to her. The woman turned imploring eyes to Carlos. What did his aunt want?
When Carlos averted his gaze, Maria sighed and walked out of the room. Durand ordered Julio to guard their prisoners, then he signaled his other men to follow him out the door.
Julio took a spot across the room, next to the desk. A strategic position so he could watch them both.
Gabrielle stood perfectly still, trying to breathe past the tightness in her chest. Carlos-or Alejandro-sat just as motionless across the room, avoiding eye contact with her.
Durand would kill him. She fought for a breath. An elephant was sitting on her chest. The thought of Carlos dying stripped her emotions raw. She should be glad to see Alejandro Anguis face his mortality, but her traitorous heart cried out to save Carlos.
At least until she could talk to him, find out why he’d lied to her. Then what? Turn him over to the authorities to be tried by a jury of his peers?
In his case, peers would be killers.
Carlos wanted her to get a message to Joe.
Now she had to question just whom Joe and his group of deadly operatives represented.
Carlos finally lifted his head to face her for the first time since entering Durand’s office. The misery burrowed deep in his eyes twisted her heart in knots.
He’d made her promise not to hate him.
He was waiting for a sign of that promise.
She couldn’t give it to a man who freely admitted being a murderer she’d spent a decade trying to bring to justice.
He looked away, but not before agony wrenched his grim face.
Gabrielle couldn’t do it. She could not just leave him here to die. As if he’d heard her thoughts, his eyes cut back to hers. He gave a brief shake of his head she knew meant not to risk the deal he’d made. She checked Julio, who was staring at her. He hadn’t noticed Carlos and couldn’t see Carlos’s face the way she could. When she looked back at Carlos, his lips moved as he mouthed the words Please save them.
He wanted to know she’d take the message to Joe that Carlos suspected something was going to happen while the teens were at Congress today…in a few hours.
No plea for himself, only for others.
Who was this man?
Durand strode back into the room. “Take her to the car, Julio.”
“No, I-” Gabrielle stepped toward Carlos.
“Get out of here,” Carlos snarled at Gabrielle. “I’m not apologizing for getting you into this because I needed you as a cover, but I’m also not going to put up with any more of your whining. Go home. Keep your mouth shut and he’ll let you live. What part of that are you confused about?”
Gabrielle stood there, dazed by the angry outburst, until Julio crossed the room and touched her arm. She jumped. Her insides twisted in indecision. She couldn’t accept any of this.
