Chapter Twenty-Four
M athias lay on his back on a cheap motel bed and stared at the pattern of water stains forming on the ceiling.
His body felt unbearably hot beneath the fabric of his clothes, and his brain pulsed inside his skull.
He blinked several times to dispel the fuzzy distortions from his vision, but nothing helped.
Whatever Marsela had given him had done its work well.
He could only vaguely recall how he’d gotten here.
His memory was a highlights reel in Technicolor with whole chunks missing.
There were snatches of a conversation he’d had with Rayan, and the rest remained a hazy blur.
In between the distorted snippets of memory were flashes of vivid sensation—the warmth of Rayan’s lips, the impossible smoothness of the bedcovers.
He felt the residual hum of desire in his bones. Did we fuck?
He staggered to his feet to discover a piercing headache, like nails hammered through his temples. He made it to the bathroom sink, where he splashed a handful of cold water against his face. Then he cupped his hands and drank from them, an unquenchable thirst rising in his throat.
Mathias studied his refection in the mirror, taking in the bruised skin and blotches of dried blood. He looked awful. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d let someone work him over like that.
When he emerged from the bathroom, he found Rayan standing by the bed with a brown paper bag. Rayan handed him a bottle of water and a pack of painkillers, and Mathias popped out several and swallowed them then threw back the water as his thirst persisted.
“Where’s Marsela?” he managed when he was done.
“She’s in the next room.”
Mathias picked up his phone from the nightstand and pocketed it. The movement sent splinters through his foggy brain, and he flinched.
“Maybe you should sit down,” Rayan said.
“The sooner this is sorted, the sooner we’ll be rid of her.”
“The sooner what’s sorted? What are you going to do, hold her for ransom?”
“Exactly.”
Mathias moved through to the other room before Rayan could protest. Marsela sat on the bed with her knees tucked demurely beneath her.
Her hands were tied to the headboard and the scarf fastened around her mouth.
Like him, she appeared worse for wear. Her makeup was streaked, and strings of hair were plastered to her forehead.
He sat on the edge of the bed and tugged down the scarf.
She gave a tinkling laugh, and her eyes flicked from him to Rayan in the doorframe. “I’m surprised you’re standing.”
“I’ll be doing more than that.”
She fluttered her eyelids suggestively. “Something to look forward to, if that kiss was any indication.”
From across the room, Mathias felt Rayan’s eyes on him. Mathias reached behind her and freed one of her hands. She winced and rolled her wrist. Then he pulled out his phone and handed it to her.
“Call your boss.”
“My boss?” she sneered. “Is that what you think I am—hired help?”
Mathias leaned forward menacingly, and she drew back. “Call the person who decides whether you make it out of here alive.”
Marsela paled and took the phone from him. She punched in a series of numbers with a trembling finger, and Mathias reached over and hit the speaker button. The whir of the phone ringing filled the room.
There was a click, and then a man’s voice burst through the speaker. “Who’s this?”
“ I dashur! ” Marsela cried out, her voice cracking.
“Marsela?”
Mathias prized the phone from her hand. “English,” he instructed.
“Burim, please!” she pleaded.
“Now you have my drugs and my woman?” the voice growled in a thick accent. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
“If you’re smart, you’ll get both back in due course. But I have no need for either, so I’d caution you to be careful. I tend to get rid of things that don’t prove useful.”
There was a long pause.
“What do you want?”
“Eight million for my trouble. The product you attempted to pass under my nose is worth twice that at least.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“I can see how she wouldn’t be worth it.”
“Fuck you!” Marsela snarled.
“You’ve wasted my time and disrespected me and my business. That doesn’t come cheap.”
“Who are you?”
“Someone it pays not to mess with,” Mathias said in a low voice. “You don’t want the product back? No skin off my nose. I’ll sell it to the highest bidder. The girl will be a little harder to dispose of.”
The man seemed to be mulling over that particular prospect. After a moment, he spoke. “All right. But she comes back untouched, you hear me?”
As if I’d be tempted to lay a finger on the harpy. “Eight o’clock at the abandoned maritime station in Boulogne. No funny shit.”
“Let me talk to her—”
Mathias thumbed the disconnect button and leaned over to refasten Marsela’s wrist to the headboard.
She glowered at him. “Just you wait. He’s going to—”
Mathias raised the scarf to gag her before she could finish. Nothing I haven’t heard before. He walked back into the adjacent room, and Rayan followed, closing the door behind them.
Mathias’s head throbbed insistently, and he reached for the painkillers on the nightstand. When he saw the look on Rayan’s face, he knew his sparing explanations would no longer cut it.
“That’s what this is about?” Rayan strode over and shoved him hard in the chest. “Money?”
“Hey,” Mathias protested half-heartedly. “Let’s keep this civil. My head feels like a fallout zone.”
“You almost get yourself killed to screw over a bunch of gangsters,” Rayan snapped, his brown eyes flashing. “And now I’m part of a kidnapping plot?”
Mathias knocked another two pills back and swallowed them dry. “I thought we could diversify. It seemed a natural progression from smuggling people.”
“Don’t you fucking joke about this.”
Mathias had to fight the urge to reach out and ruffle the man’s hair.
“You told me you were considering other opportunities.” Rayan was pacing, his hands clenched at his sides. “Is that what this is? A bid at your own group, a chance to get in on the game?”
“With these clowns? Give me some credit.”
“I should have known it wouldn’t be enough. That you would need something else. But this?”
Despite Rayan’s tortured expression, Mathias couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re way off base here.”
“Am I? Then why don’t you tell me what you need with eight million euro—” Rayan’s face went slack with understanding. “No…”
Mathias shrugged. “You were seven short, so I figured, why not round it up to an even eight?” That, and he’d have to cover the mess Marsela’s goons had made at the warehouse. Charles would also expect a cut for his assistance.
Rayan’s eyes were wide, and he was shaking his head. “No, Mathias…”
“Haven’t you learned anything?” Mathias admonished him. “Life doesn’t operate on some well-balanced scale of justice. It’s a fucking wheel of fortune. You think the people in the camp don’t know that?”
The crease in Rayan’s forehead deepened.
“You spin the wheel, and sometimes you get nothing, and sometimes what you need falls right into your lap,” Mathias went on. “You have no business questioning where it came from or whether you should take it.”
“I swear, there’s nothing you can’t talk your way out of.”
“You know as well as I do, Rayan,” Mathias said, his tone hardening, “how unfair this world can be. You do what you have to do to look out for your own.”
Rayan exhaled and ran a hand through his hair. “Do you have any idea the difference this will make?”
“If we can pull it off, that is.” He tugged Rayan to him, but the man pulled away, his eyes darkening.
“You kissed her?”
The corner of Mathias’s mouth tweaked. “Who knew entrapment was such a turn-on?” When Rayan scowled, Mathias chuckled. “It’s a good look,” he murmured, leaning in so their faces were almost touching. “I like you jealous.”
Together, with one hand on each of Marsela’s arms, Mathias and Rayan walked her out to the car. She went easily, as though resigned to her fate. Mathias suspected she’d grown tired of her own little game.
They left the motel shortly before eight and headed toward the coast. Rayan drove, as Mathias couldn’t shake the pinpricks of black that remained at the edges of his vision.
Mathias flipped down the visor and examined his bloodshot eyes in the small mirror.
Worse than the lingering physical effects was the confusion that clouded his memory.
Certain images had come back to him. He remembered Rayan appearing at the villa but not the drive to the motel.
Then he’d get flashes of words exchanged and couldn’t be sure if they’d been spoken or imagined.
It was unsettling to know just how exposed he’d been.
He noticed Rayan watching him. “What?”
“What are we going to do when we get there?” Rayan had turned up the dial on his Quebecois, slipping into joual, the working-class dialect favored by garbage truck drivers and delivery men.
It was one of many things about Rayan that caught people off guard—how he could open his mouth and prove he was someone else entirely. Mathias knew he was doing it so Marsela wouldn’t catch on. Even a French speaker would have trouble deciphering the thick, clipped variation of the language.
“Let me handle things,” Mathias replied.
“You don’t think they’re just going to hand over the money?”
“If the man wants to know the location of his stash, then he’d better hand it over. And we have our collateral in the back seat.”
“And if he proves uncooperative?” Rayan asked.
“Then we’re both decent shots.”
Rayan’s hands tightened around the steering wheel. Mathias hadn’t wanted to pull him into this, but here they were. There was no turning back now.
That thought jogged another. “Where’s my gun?”
Rayan reached over and popped open the glove compartment. “I confiscated it.”
“I was a trigger-happy dopehead?” Mathias mused, removing his pistol and tucking it into the waistband of his slacks.
Rayan smiled cryptically. “More like a careless one.”