“You’re the best parts of me,” he whispered, barely able to speak, then cleared his throat. “Please don’t be angry with Gabrielle if she says she…hates me. I’ve hurt her even though I didn’t mean to.” He swallowed against the lump of emotion clogging his throat. “And tell Eduardo I forgave him a long time ago. We’re blood. Family takes care of family. I love you. Now go before Durand gets any angrier with you.”
“I love you as a son.” She hugged him again, kissed his cheek, and left.
Julio stepped inside the room with three more men.
“I see you’ve elevated yourself in a pit of snakes,” Carlos told Julio. “From a foot soldier to a mass murderer. Nice.”
“I merely stepped in to help Durand when his own son turned his back on family.”
“I can sleep at night. Can you?”
Julio ignored the question. “You have until they are on the airplane, Alejandro, then you will go with me to the granero. You remember the shed, no?”
AT THE MAIQUETIA International Airport in Caracas, Gabrielle climbed down from the sport utility parked next to a hangar with a private jet. Numb from everything that had happened, wind swept her unbound hair back and forth as she waited for instructions.
Black clouds joined forces and approached from the west, warning them to go airborne soon or be grounded.
The armed guard who had traveled in the rear of the van with Eduardo stepped out and swung the barrel of his automatic weapon to indicate a spot fifteen feet away. Gabrielle followed his silent directions and planted herself in the designated position. Satisfied with her acquiescence, the guard returned to the van and began unloading Maria’s son.
Maria walked over to stand by Gabrielle. The woman hadn’t even acknowledged her during the entire drive. Armed as heavily as the other guard, the driver strode across the tarmac to where they stood. He addressed Maria in Spanish, but Gabrielle caught enough to know he asked if she needed a weapon to prevent Gabrielle from running.
Carlos’s aunt didn’t answer right away, just stared in stony silence until the guard shuffled uneasily. Then she told him she was an Anguis and therefore capable of keeping one mousy female in place. When he bowed his head in deference, she then reminded him his immediate concern was to oversee the safe loading of Eduardo and his wheelchair. She arched an eyebrow and lifted her gaze past the driver to where the other guard struggled to wheel the chair and drag a bag to the plane.
The driver rushed away to assist.
Gabrielle was shocked when the older woman shoved a phone into her hand and whispered in clear English, “Make your call now before the guards come back.”
“Do you know what-” Gabrielle started to ask what Durand would do to Carlos.
“Call now and follow his instructions,” Maria insisted, her gaze going back to her son. Probably watching for any misstep in loading him onto the sleek, white private jet.
With her back to the plane as if she and Maria were in a conversation, Gabrielle punched the numbers and lifted the phone to her ear, which was hidden by her hair. “Thank you,” she whispered to Maria while she waited on the call to go through.
“Do not think I am doing this to help you. If not for you, Alejandro would still be safe from Durand.”
Gabrielle didn’t know what was harder to handle-that Carlos’s being in danger was her fault or realizing she had only a slim hope of helping him. She might be in no better position herself soon. Climbing on Durand’s private airplane with his armed guards and his angry sister who clearly blamed her for Carlos’s being captured didn’t give her any sense of comfort.
Should she try to make a run for it the minute she finished the call? Would they gun her down at a public airport?
Maria leaned near. “The guards are coming back.”
A series of clicks sounded in her ear, then the connection was made. “Hello?” she said quickly.
“Gabrielle? Where are you and Carlos?”
Somewhere between hell and damnation.
DURAND ENTERED HIS office. “Let us walk, Alejandro.”
Julio issued orders. One soldier clipped the cable ties. The other guards stayed in place with weapons aimed at Carlos’s head as the guard latched a pair of handcuffs on his wrists in front of him.
“Does Maria know why the granero is guarded?” Carlos asked, not at all surprised Durand wasn’t waiting on the call.
The man who fathered him broke out a smug smile. “She believes the building hides drugs. She is so wrapped up in that boy she sees nothing.”
Carlos stood, then followed him toward the door, but he paused in front of Durand. “At least Maria has a soul and cares about her family.”
“You should talk.” Durand’s smile disappeared behind a mask of disgust. “Bad enough you fail against Salvatore, but you sneak off in the night and betray your family. I have protected this family alone since then.” Durand nodded to the guard and they all filed out of the office, marching through the foyer and out the back door, where the gardens separated the house from the ominous outbuilding.
One thing Carlos noted-Durand was light on soldiers. Where were his men?
“We may share blood,” Carlos said, shuffling along behind Durand, “but you and I are not family. As for Salvatore, you sent a child to set a bomb. Eduardo didn’t really know what he was doing. I stepped in to keep the blood off his hands.” The lie had held up all these years and would now die with him, but at least Maria and Eduardo would be safe.
Durand stopped and turned to Carlos. “No. You left your cousin in pieces I have spent a fortune to put back together. And you allowed Salvatore to know I sent the bomb. If you had no failed, Salvatore would have blamed Valencia for the death of his goddaughter. Instead, those two mongrels united against me. I planned so well, knew that you would be in Cagua that day and would help Eduardo. I just did no plan on you failing me.”
“How could you know I was going into Cagua that day?” Carlos’s mind raced back through the years, trying to remember the details. “I told everyone I was going to Maracay.”
“My men tracking Salvatore learned that Helena would accompany her godfather to pick up a package in Cagua.” The blank stare on Durand’s face was a study in patience.
Everything from the week Helena died came crashing in on Carlos. He looked away, staring into the distance as he pulled together the events of that day.
His father started nodding. “Yes, I knew you had been meeting Helena behind my back. She was a distraction for you and an enemy of this family. What were you thinking to get involved with Salvatore’s goddaughter?” Durand shifted around and resumed walking to the barn.
A guard prodded Carlos, who fell into step, sorting through the new information on the bombing.
Carlos and Helena had believed they could find a way to mend the rift in the families that had been caused by his mother’s death. An impossible dream, because Carlos had been too young to realize his father was insane.
Durand had intended to blame the death on the Valencia family so Salvatore would war with Valencia.
“You didn’t…,” Carlos muttered in a deadly tone as it all came together. He snapped his gaze back to Durand, not wanting to believe what was gelling in his mind.
“What?” Durand glanced over his shoulder. “Kill Helena? Si. Was necessary. Killing Salvatore’s favorite goddaughter was key to gaining his support.”
Carlos swallowed back the nausea that shot up his throat. All this time he’d believed if he’d arrived sooner he could have saved her. Even if she’d lived that day, Durand would have found another way to kill her and use her death to his benefit.
Because she’d been involved with Carlos.
“You are to blame for Helena’s death and the trouble brought upon our family since then,” Durand added. “I have built a strong army to protect our family, but we would have been even greater by now had you no failed us all.”
Carlos accepted that his soul was damned beyond redemption when he started envisioning the painful ways he
