35. Bradley
brADLEY
“No apology needed,” I murmur. “We’re with you every step of the way.”
As the words leave me, my stomach twists into several knots and I lean back in my seat. It feels like a lie. I should be with her, right next to her.
Better than that, she shouldn’t even be going.
When I agreed she could be part of this, I didn’t think it would be slap bang in the middle of the meeting and confirming Harris by herself.
Half of us are skilled enough to sneak toward that house without her putting herself in danger, but Zira was adamant.
And I can’t say no. Not when it’s written all over her face how much she needs this, how much she needs to confront Harris and find her own end. It doesn’t make it any easier, and I lean back in my seat at the tree line watching Zira’s car blink along the map on my pad.
“She’ll be okay,” Frank says from beside me. “We’ve got eyes on her from all angles.”
“But not with her,” I reply stiffly. “She’s by herself, driving alone, and for all we know, Harris is waiting along that road somewhere ready to jump out at her.”
“Cassian is close on the quad.” Frank reaches over and taps the screen to expand the map which now shows a second dot blinking alongside Zira’s car. Cassian on the quad racing through the tree line away from prying eyes but ready to step in if need be. “She’s protected.”
“It doesn’t feel like enough.” A deeper breath does nothing to ease the tension in my chest. “We should just flatten that fucking house.”
“As ideal as that would be, we have to make sure he’s even there and then we have to make sure he’s not got anyone else waiting in the wings. For all we know, he has a backup plan that will swallow those diamonds whole if anything happens to him. Zira’s the only one who can get close to him.”
Dragging my eyes from the tablet, I glance up at Frank’s kind face. “Since when did you become the voice of reason?”
“I’ve worked with you for a long time,” he points out.
“I know you and I know how you work. Although this might be the first time I’ve seen you this twisted up over a woman.
” As he speaks, one of the rear doors of the car swings open and Valentina slides in, catching the tail end of the conversation.
“It’s because he’s in love,” she says as she situates herself. “Can’t you tell?”
“Oh, I can tell,” Frank replies with a smirk. “It’s written all over his face.”
“I could kill you both and no one would find your bodies out here,” I reply, narrowing my eyes. “We’re not talking about how I feel.”
“We will if it puts anyone at risk,” Valentina points out with a shake of her head. “I’m not saying it will, but Bradley, you’ve never done things by half. I doubt love would be any different.”
“Why do you think I’m so twisted up having to just sit here?” I mutter. “Distract me.”
“Alright.” Valentina leans forward between the two seats and rests her elbows on the headrests of mine and Frank’s chairs. “I have news.”
“Good news?” I keep one eye on the tablet tracking Zira as she drives and the other on Valentina.
“Mmhmm. Those two ‘cops’ that stalled you and tried to kill you? They were definitely Irish. I had the ink confirmed to be aged, and once I brought that to Damian, there wasn’t anything he could do to deny, but boy, did he try.
He kept talking about how we were making this mess worse, that we should have handed Zira over and he would have found out where Harris was a lot faster.
A bunch of bullshit because like every leader, he thinks he can do this job better than us. ”
“It’s a curse.” Frank snorts.
“True. Anyway, after I got him to shut the fuck up and listen, I reminded him about what happened last year when someone tried to mess with us. How many families do we have at our backs who like peace because it lets them churn out billions without interference? Seems he’d lost sight of that in his panic over the Cartel.
” She rolls her eyes and briefly purses her lips.
“Anyway, turns out those men were actually working for an overzealous Irish General under Damian’s rule.
They had a personal financial stake in this deal and were growing increasingly anxious about how long it was taking to secure the diamonds and payment.
I guess he thought trying to kill our King would send some fucked up message, but the men he sent were pretty green.
From what Raven could dig up, that General’s got gambling debt out of his ears and was relying on the increase of firepower within Damian’s ranks to keep the debt collectors at bay. ”
“But without the firepower, he felt like a sitting duck?” I ask, turning back to the screen as Zira’s flashing dot finally pulls onto the farm property.
“Exactly. He lost an eye to one of the debt collectors so his huge ‘look, we killed the King of the Suit’ was meant to intimidate. It failed, of course, and when Damian realized how it made him and his family look to others, he killed the General for us. He provided the body for inspection and declared the man a traitor as well as offering his deepest apologies for any threat to the lives or livelihood of Suit members.”
“Quite the change.” Glancing up from the tablet, I pick up some of the binoculars from the dash and lift them up, spotting Zira’s car pulling down the gravel path. “I don’t suppose his sudden change of heart comes from learning we’re close to the rest of the diamonds?”
“Probably,” Valentina scoffs. “What is it with these fuckers and asking us for help but trying to make things worse in the same breath?”
“It’s ego,” I reply. “And fear. You know how fragile this world is. One wrong look, one wrong comment, and people get angry. And when that anger is amplified, we have hell on our hands.”
“God.” Valentina slumps slightly. “We start being more active in keeping everyone safe and it somehow makes everyone even more idiotic.”
“I think they were always idiots,” Frank replies with a chuckle. “That’s why they’re in organized crime rather than banking or science.”
“Maybe.” Valentina’s dry laugh fills the car as I grow glued to Zira and watch her like a hawk. She climbs out of the car with the case and walks over the unsteady ground toward the house, then calls up for Harris.
Silence falls in the car as we listen to the exchange between them and every time Harris speaks, my gut tightens.
I want him gone.
Wiped from the world.
I want him erased completely so he never darkens Zira’s life again.
“Do you think he’s really there?” Valentina asks.
“Hard to tell. Can we get infrared?"
Her head dips down to her phone and grimaces. “Cassian’s delayed. Blew an axle so he’s on foot.”
“Shit.”
“It’s fine. He’ll be there.”
“I know.” It doesn’t calm my gut or my rampant heart, but focusing on Zira does.
Harris barked orders to test the diamonds, which were exactly what I expected of a man so cocky, and thankfully, we all agreed to give her the real diamonds for exactly this reason.
Zira’s movements are jerky and slow but she completes it all and is left waiting as Harris drags it out.
Connection issue? Or something more?
Finally, Harris demands the diamonds and orders Zira to leave, and a rush of relief partially eases my chest. “She did it.”
“Cassian’s near,” Valentina says. “He’ll be able to clear up who is in there.”
“C’mon, Zira,” I murmur. “Get out of there.”
But she doesn’t. She lingers on the doorstep and starts talking to Harris like they’re friends, and my heart sinks. I lower the binoculars as if they’re warping my vision and stare at the speaker as the words from Zira stray far from what we all agreed.
“What the hell is she doing?” I snap. “Is she trying to get herself killed?”
Lifting the binoculars again, I glare down them as Zira starts taunting Harris with something better than diamonds and before I know it, the door’s swinging open. Hatred swells in my heart at the faint glimmer of a rifle in his hands. A rifle that lowers as he invites Zira inside.
And she accepts.
“What is she doing?”
I’m out of the car before I’ve finished speaking, binoculars and tablet discarded and all thoughts homed in on one cold, terrifying thought.
If that door closes, I’ll never see Zira alive again.
I sprint full pelt out of the trees and through the first field, then the second, but the door’s already closed. As I run, Valentina’s breathless voice reaches me and a brief glance over my shoulder shows she’s following me just behind.
“Bradley!” she snaps with a gasp, but there’s nothing she can say that I want to hear.
Zira went off plan and I don’t understand why. Maybe I do, but I can’t think about it, and I can’t waste any energy on speaking when everything needs to go to my legs as I run faster than I’ve ever run before toward that ruined farmhouse.
Every second it takes for me to get there lasts an age and is filled with quiet horrors I fear.
The sound of a gunshot ending Zira’s life. The sound of two. Screams that end as soon as I reach the porch. Her falling out of the top floor window. Both of them falling out and her taking the brunt of the fall. Reaching the house and learning he’s dragged her out the back and I’ve lost her.
There’s too much and my chest tightens up like my ribs have become a vise around my lungs. My heart pounds in my ears like a deafening drum, the fabric of my pants bunches up and cuts into my hips, and sweat gleams across my shoulders and back, turning my shirt into a second skin.
I’m fast but not fast enough.
I finally reach the farmhouse and skid to an unsteady stop on the gravel with Valentina just behind me.
Each ragged breath that tears from me threatens to flip my throat inside out with how hard I’m panting, but just as I charge for the porch, Valentina grabs my forearm with surprising strength.
She hauls me backward and around the side of the house with her fingers on her lips.
The only thing keeping me quiet is that I’m too pent up to speak around my gasps for air.
“Bradley,” she hisses breathlessly. “Listen! We can’t charge in there if he’s armed.”
“I’m not leaving her in there,” I snap, my voice more of a whine from lack of air.
“Then come with me. We’ll sneak in the back, okay? Easy. Don’t put her at more risk!”
I want to argue but she’s already jogging down the side of the house, so I follow and together, we reach the back door which, thankfully, is still locked.
I doubt if Harris dragged her out the back, he would have stopped to lock the door.
Valentina slips out her earring and hunches in front of the door, working quickly while my heart continues to beat in my throat in time to my thoughts finally catching up to what I might lose.
The lock clicks and Valentina eases the door inside, and as I follow, relief floods through me.
Zira’s voice, faint, resounds from somewhere within the house and from her tone, she’s not scared or in pain.
I just have to find her before it’s too late.