Chapter 17
“Do you have any dates coming up?”
Eve was silent, letting Ricardo’s question hang unanswered for a long moment. Then, in a low, warning voice he recognized from the many times he’d tried her patience while they were married, she asked, “Why do you want to know about my dates?”
“Because someone is threatening me,” he said bluntly, “and they’re threatening to get to me through you.”
Another silence, this one not as protracted. “Fuck. I never imagined there’d be a time when I missed the version of you who was cagey and didn’t like to give me straight answers.”
“That version of me would’ve been this straightforward if he thought your life was in danger.”
More silence. His comment was true, too; he wasn’t the best husband in the world to August, and he’d been even worse to Eve.
That they were friendly now was nothing short of a miracle.
But even in the most volatile days of their marriage, he’d have done anything to keep her safe.
Including be as honest as she’d begged him to be the rest of the time.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“For which part?” she asked with genuine curiosity. “Not being as honest back then? Or for… this call?”
Closing his eyes, Ricardo sighed. “Both. And hopefully this won’t be a problem for long. August and I—we’re going to take care of it.”
The fourth extended silence of this call was as loaded as the others. Eve wasn’t stupid. She knew now what he and August did, and she could read between the lines.
“Do whatever you need to do,” she said evenly. “And be careful? I’d like both you and August to still be in one piece after… whatever this is.”
Ricardo glanced at the cold pack loosely wrapped around his aching right wrist. “I’m always careful. I promise.” That was one promise he’d never broken, though Eve and August might both insist otherwise.
They ended the call, and he sat back against the headboard and sighed.
He trusted Eve to take his warning seriously and not do anything reckless.
She was also military-trained herself, and she’d make sure anyone who tried to move in on her regretted their life choices.
And she was smart enough to know that safety in numbers was a thing, so he hoped she was texting Elodie right now to see if she could stay with her for a while.
He hadn’t suggested it because he couldn’t be sure that NightRaven wasn’t listening, but he trusted her to connect those wires herself.
His ex-wife was alert and would be safe. She’d be fine.
Which meant he could no longer use her as a distraction from the situation at hand.
Including the situation with his hand, which he was not pleased with.
Heidi had assured him that the little asshole known as Tityus ocelote wouldn’t kill him or permanently damage his arm, but it would be a day or two before the worst of the symptoms backed off.
His middle and ring fingers were partially numb, and his index finger—his damn trigger finger on his dominant fucking hand—was sore enough that it hurt to bend.
Not ideal for driving, shifting, or knocking NightPigeon off this mortal coil.
“So how’d she take it?” August asked, emerging from the bathroom with a towel around his waist.
Ricardo indulged in a grimace. The hand situation was also not ideal for keeping August safe. Fuck, this was bad. Everything about it was—
“Ricardo?” August tilted his head. “You all right? What did Eve say?”
Ricardo shook himself. “She’s… not happy, but she’s taking it seriously.”
August nodded. “Smart woman.”
“She always is.”
“Even if she has poor taste in men.”
Ricardo rolled his eyes and went to flip off August, but realized a second too late that he shouldn’t be relying on his right hand for things like that. “Fuck!”
August was at his side in a blink. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m…” Ricardo grimaced as he cradled his arm and tried not to jostle the icepack.
His husband’s face fell. “This is too dangerous. You can’t go into this with your hand like—”
“I’m not letting you go in alone,” Ricardo snapped. “Absolutely not.”
August gave him a look that was somewhere between impatient and indulgent. “Ricardo.” He sat beside him on the bed and put his hand on Ricardo’s thigh. “When you were a Green Beret, would you have been sent out on a mission when you couldn’t operate your rifle?”
Ricardo avoided his gaze. Truthfully, yeah, he would’ve been sent out on a mission if he had two unbroken legs and his heart was still pumping blood—the Army wasn’t known for letting people call in sick—but he understood August’s point.
Though Ricardo could shoot left-handed with reasonable accuracy—far more than the average marksman, but still less than he could with his right hand—he wouldn’t have been deployed as a sniper while either hand was out of commission. It was just too risky.
But in those scenarios, he was on a team of Green Berets. If he or one of the others had to be benched, there was someone else to step in and take his place. The mission would still go forward. The team would still move out with a full roster. He wouldn’t be leaving anyone vulnerable.
Finally meeting August’s eyes, he said, “If I don’t go with you, you’ll be alone.” He swallowed. “I’ve already watched you get drugged and kidnapped in a damn public park while I was too far away to do anything about it.”
August dropped his gaze, rolling his shoulders in what seemed like an attempt to mask a shudder. “That wasn’t your fault.”
“No, but it’s why I can’t let you go into this—whatever NightRaven has planned—alone.”
“And you think I can let you go into it when your hand isn’t functioning at a hundred percent?” August gestured at Ricardo’s injured hand. “It isn’t like we can ask NightChicken to postpone things until you’re healed, you know?”
Ricardo grunted. The last thing they needed was NightRaven even knowing about his injury. The fucker would capitalize on it for sure.
Which…
“Oh, shit,” August quipped. “You have that look that says you have an idea.” He inclined his head and grinned. “Spill it.”
Ricardo pursed his lips. “If NightRaven thinks one of us is injured, he’s going to try to take advantage. But he won’t come in with his guard up like he would if he thought we were both functioning normally.”
August furrowed his brow. “Aren’t wild animals most dangerous when they’re wounded?”
“Sure, but how many people look at someone on crutches or in a hospital bed and think they’re an immediate threat?”
“You mean besides me when someone is coming to commit sadistic acts involving my catheter?”
Ricardo rolled his eyes. “Changing your catheter is not a sadistic act.”
“Says the man who wasn’t getting a tire iron shoved up his pee-hole.”
“I’ve done my time in the ICU. Don’t change the subject.”
August hmphed, but then he sighed. “Okay. Okay, so someone who’s obviously injured or incapacitated doesn’t telegraph ‘immediate threat.’ But how does that—are you suggesting we play up your injury to lure him out and get him to let his guard down?”
“It could work.”
“Are…” August blinked. Then he turned away to yank his phone off the nightstand. “Okay, I’m calling Heidi, because I think the scorpion venom fried your brain.”
“It didn’t,” Ricardo insisted. “But think about it. Right now, he’s expecting to meet up with two of the best assassins in the game. If he thinks one of us is incapacitated—”
“He’ll know it’s a fucking trap because—and I can’t believe I’m saying this—he’s not completely stupid!”
“He’s also not completely aware of my condition.”
August eyed him. “What does that mean?”
“He knows I got Darrow. He doesn’t know if Darrow got in any hits.
” Ricardo held up his bandaged hand. “He doesn’t know about the scorpion sting.
For all he knows, I went hand-to-hand with Darrow and then got bitten by something nasty.
And there are a lot of nasty things in Panama that could do a lot worse than fuck up my hand for a few hours. ”
“Such as?”
“Well, besides my idiot husband when he’s mad at me…” Ricardo half-shrugged. “There’s worse scorpions. And some of the deadliest snakes in the world live here.”
August quirked his lips and his eyes lost focus, the expression suggesting he was reluctantly starting to see things Ricardo’s way.
Ricardo went on, “It’s a risky play. But any approach we take is going to be risky. Do it this way, and we might put him off-balance just enough to get the upper hand.” He shrugged. “We go in with the assumption that it won’t work, but if it does, we take advantage.”
August wrinkled his nose and whined, “Ugh, I hate how much sense this is starting to make.”
“Don’t most of my plans?”
“When they don’t involve landscaping, I guess.”
Ricardo rolled his eyes. “Fuck you.”
August allowed a quiet laugh to crack through, but it only lasted a moment. “So, how do we play this? I assume you get to be the gimp?”
“It was my idea, and…” Ricardo held up his already bandaged arm.
August glared at him, and for a few seconds, he seemed to be working up an argument to insist that, no, he would be the wounded princess, thank you very much.
To Ricardo’s surprise, though, he just sighed. “Okay. How do you want to play this?”
By the time NightRaven contacted them with their rendezvous information, August and Ricardo had managed to make Ricardo look like he was firmly at Death’s door.
Bandages around his right hand and forearm concealed the scorpion sting, a non-existent snakebite, and a vicious but lightweight knife.
The makeup August always traveled with, not to mention his wizardry with it, came in handy to make Ricardo look so pale and sickly, even he thought he should see a doctor.
Some industrial-strength setting spray promised to keep the makeup in place even in the never-ending tropical rain, and the heat and humidity promised to have Ricardo sweating enough to add to his cadaverous complexion.
“I look like shit,” he muttered at the mirror. “Nicely done.”