Chapter 30 Augusto
Augusto
I hang up the phone and choose my words carefully.
“We need to go.” I reach for her hand. It’s clammy with sweat even though she just showered.
My chest is battling an unfamiliar twist. I would burn down this whole fucking lodge to keep Erin safe, but I need to work with this motherfucker to bring her daughter back. I do not like to need to do anything, but I will, for her.
“What did he say?” she asks, watching me like a hawk.
When I don’t answer straight away, she tugs at my arm. “Augusto, please. What does he know? What does he want?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her, honestly. “All he said was to make our way to the office.”
“Office?”
“That room I was telling you about? The one where I think there might be proof of Morozov’s involvement?”
She nods.
“That one.”
Her expression blanks as I pull her down the corridor, impatient to know myself what the fucking fuck is going on.
“Why that room? How does he even know about that room? How does he know you?”
That’s exactly what I want to know, but I can’t tell her that. I need her to trust me to take care of her. She doesn’t need to know I’m as in the dark as she is.
“I have some suspicions, but we’re about to find out for sure.”
We cross the lobby and walk briskly toward the meeting suites. Wait staff are readying the dining room for breakfast. I feel each pair of eyes on me like laser dots.
Every single person on this retreat, from the unmemorable man to the table hosts to the concierge are in on this deal.
It’s obvious now. It’s also highly concerning.
It means this deal is even bigger than I thought.
And somehow, in a sordid twist of fate, it appears Erin’s ex-fucking-husband is involved.
As soon as we turn down the corridor toward the office, two men outside the door stand tall anticipating our approach. Erin’s fingers tighten around mine and I squeeze them back. I am not about to let anyone hurt her more than they already have.
One of the men opens the door and we step inside the room.
It’s starker than I’d expected. Gray, dull, barely furnished. Largely unused. It reminds me of the ward where I beat people up only to fix them afterward.
A large thug of a man is standing at the far end, watching us. When we both settle our gazes on him, he steps to one side.
Now, sitting in front of us, tied to a wooden chair with dirty ropes, an obscene amount of duct tape across her mouth, is a young blond-haired woman who looks suspiciously like…
“Paige—” Erin chokes.
Her body lunges forward on instinct, but I hold her back. She’s being used as bait. Keeping distance between Erin and her daughter will make it harder for these cretins to overcome them both.
Erin wriggles against me, her instincts taking over, but I don’t relent. This must be Gerard’s way of getting something out of Erin, but what? What else could she possibly give him? He’s taken all the money and now he thinks he’s taken Paige. What more does the motherfucker need?
I was toying with the idea of killing him before this, but now I’m absolutely positive I’m ending that man’s life. How could anyone put these two beautiful, innocent women through this hell?
“I’m here, baby,” she sobs, even though Paige can’t answer. “I’m right here.”
A door behind Paige opens softly and a man I don’t recognize steps through. I can tell by the way Erin stiffens, this is Gerard.
A man who has abducted his own daughter, tied rotting ropes to her bare ankles and plastered tape across her face. If there weren’t women present I’d be waterboarding him, pulling out every single fucking toenail, slowly, and driving a set of brass knuckles into his face.
One nod from Gerard and the burly man leaves the room. I rake my gaze over the cretin, looking for anything that might give me an advantage.
He’s well dressed in that faintly familiar regimented European way. There’s a Germanic air to him. And an expression I know well. It’s devoid of empathy and filled with conviction.
I’m looking at a cold-hearted killer, and I’m acutely aware that Erin has no idea.
He smiles at her, mildly, then turns to me. His lips are thin, his brow worn down by years of treachery. Gerard Applebaum is not a good man and he’s hidden it from Erin for two decades. That takes a certain kind of personality type. Of the psychopath variety.
I grind my heels into the ground to stop myself from running at him. “What do you want?” I demand.
“Straight to the point, Augusto. I like that. Cuts out all the unnecessary small talk bullshit. Fancy seeing you here… Isn’t it glorious weather we’ve been having? Nope. Augusto Zanotti wants answers.” He saunters toward me. “And you’ll get them. But first…”
He reaches into his pocket and the pistol inside my waistband burns into my back. He comes to a stop right in front of me, extracts a phone and holds it out.
“I want you to call off your fucking dogs.”
My eyes flicker with uncertainty.
“They are causing too much interference.”
“Interference?”
“The Italians,” Gerard says smoothly. “They’re blocking my ports, delaying consignments. It’s causing me a great deal of inconvenience.”
I glance at the phone and recognize the number when I take it from him. Then he walks assuredly back to his daughter, resting a hand on her shoulder. Both Paige and her mother flinch and my vision borders with red rage.
“If you don’t make that call,” he says, “your influence will cost your lover her daughter.”
The room goes very still.
Erin turns to me. “He can’t mean—”
“He means it,” I confirm quietly.
He’s already abducted his fourteen-year-old daughter and tied her up. He sees her as bait—not as someone he’s responsible for.
My heart splits in two. One half absorbs everything of Erin, the other is reaching out to her daughter who is utterly broken. Terrified tears stream down her cheeks. What a fucking unpleasant way to learn the truth about your father.
“I don’t understand,” Erin whispers. “This isn’t you. This isn’t the Gerard I married.”
Gerard tips his head lightly. He looks like he’s really enjoying himself, making my fists sizzle. “Oh? Why don’t you tell me about the Gerard you married?”
Erin swallows loudly. “He was absent, but he wasn’t this. You’ve always been obsessed with your work. That’s why you weren’t around. I don’t understand what this is.”
There’s a long pause that Gerard eats up with a smile.
“Risk management,” I recall, out loud, the cogs in my brain whirring. “Export compliance. Transit consultation.”
Gerard’s eyes widen as though I just figured out a particularly hard math problem.
“It’s all code for professional arms dealer.”
He laughs lightly. “Well done, Augusto. You just figured out in two minutes what my wife couldn’t in twenty years.”
Erin’s weight in my arms deepens, as though her knees just gave out.
“Although, to be fair,” he continues, “I wasn’t always a professional arms dealer. It was only after years of understanding the system, learning how to move sensitive materials legally—and then, quietly—that I discovered I could use the system for my own benefit. And so, I do.”
“B-but… the charities, the galas…” Erin chokes out.
He turns his gaze to his wife. “All designed to deflect, darling. And didn’t it work well? The charismatic Applebaums—hardworking, successful Gerard, and compliant, dazzling Erin… No one ever suspected, did they?”
“You— You used me?”
“No darling. I just allowed you to play the role you were born for. You didn’t need to know why.
But look…” he flicks a hand back and forth between Erin and me, “here you are again, playing another role. I thought perhaps the divorce might help you grow a backbone, that you’d maybe become your own person, but no.
You’ve just fallen straight into the hands of another man who’s using you. ”
I can’t contain the growl in my throat. “I am not using her.”
“You’re paying her to be here, right? Of course you’re using her. I’ve seen the footage, the outfits she’s been wearing—none of them hers. You paid for that closet. You’ve molded her into the person you needed for this retreat.”
I feel Paige’s eyes widen, the discovery that her mom is earning money not by waitressing but by escorting me dawning on her like a dark fog.
“Now,” Gerard says, his voice low. “Are you going to make that call?”
He reaches around his back and when his arm returns to view, he’s holding a gun. Erin gasps, the fraught air scratching at her throat.
Then he aims it at his daughter.
His daughter.
“No! Gerard… What are you doing?” Erin cries, wrestling against me.
“You would hurt her?” I ask, disbelief bleeding into horror. “You would hurt your own daughter?”
He tilts his head. “I would motivate Augusto to make the correct decision.”
I assess him deeply and quickly, as I would assess an opponent in the ward before laying them on the ground.
When I’d planned to break into this room, I’d been expecting monsters.
Arms dealers—especially Russians—tend to announce themselves in the way they carry their weight—loudly, obviously, and designed to intimidate. Men who choose brutality over authority every time.
Gerard isn’t any of those things.
A place name flashes through my memory. Ontario. The Russians weren’t talking about Ontario in Wayne County—they were talking about Ontario, San Bernadino. This whole thing has been orchestrated from California.
Gerard wasn’t out there in the boardroom with us buying weapons. He wasn’t selling them either. He was authorizing them.
I can feel the realization tearing through Erin in waves—shock, betrayal, horror—but she’s still standing. Still breathing and still focused on Paige.
Gerard follows my gaze and smiles.
“She’s always been… too soft,” he says casually, resting his eyes on his daughter. “Too much like her mother.”
Paige makes a sound behind the tape. A small, terrified noise.
“She’s a child,” Erin says hoarsely.
“She’s leverage,” Gerard corrects. “And frankly, with so much of you in her, she was never going to amount to much anyway.”
The words hang in the air as both Erin and Paige mentally rearrange everything they thought they knew about this man, their lives, their world.
This is ugly. Irredeemable.
“Make. The. Call. Zanotti.” He’s aiming for calm command but the words are forced through gritted teeth.
Seconds stretch long and slow. His jaw juts.
I can feel Erin’s beating heart through the arm I have wrapped around her. With my other, I reach for my gun.
I would never have wanted it to come to this—for me to end the life of Erin’s husband and her daughter’s father, right in front of their eyes. I had no intention of getting involved in Erin’s past, only her future. But her past now is my future.
“If you don’t make that call, everything that matters to your little pet dies,” he hisses.
Paige’s sobs escalate and her limbs fight against the ropes.
No one else moves.
My vision lasers on Gerard’s forefinger.
“Fine,” he sighs, his finger flexing. “If that’s the way you w—”
My gun comes up as naturally as a breath.
Gerard staggers backward, a sadistic smile frozen on his face as the sound cracks through the room. He hits the floor hard, the echo still ringing as Erin screams Paige’s name.
I’m already moving—kicking the weapon away and checking Gerard’s body for movement. There’s nothing except for the blood pouring out the back of his head. This is one injury I won’t be attempting to fix.
Erin drops to her knees beside Paige, her hands shaking as she releases the ropes and tears the tape from her daughter’s mouth. Paige gasps for air then falls into her mother.
The door behind us bursts open and the two men waiting outside barrel in, alerted by the gun shot. In a practiced flash I whirl around and fire bullets through them both.
I hear Erin whisper soothingly to her daughter as Paige emits a terrified scream.
We’re now alone in a room surrounding by dead fucking bodies. Never a good look.
I turn to the window to make a different call. It won’t be long before more people descend on us after hearing gunshots.
“The deal’s off,” I state, when the call is answered. “We need to get out. Now.”
The room is feeling smaller by the second.
I turn around and see Erin looking up at me wide-eyed, her daughter trembling in her arms.
“It’s over—the deal,” I tell her. “There are too many people here with too much to lose. When the dust settles, they’ll turn on anyone still standing.”
“So, what do we do? Where do we go?”
“Not home. Not yet. We’re going somewhere safe,” I say. “Until we can neutralize the threats.”
Erin nods, then her mouth falls open. “My mother… Mallorie…”
“Mallorie is with Arrow—she’s safe. I’ll send someone to get your mother.”
I place another call while scanning the gardens. No one appears to be heading our way—yet.
When I turn back to Erin and her daughter, Paige’s red, swollen eyes drop from my face to the metal in my hand, to the gun that just killed her father. She’s still processing it. She’ll be processing for weeks to come.
For now, I give her a quiet nod and push the gun back into my waistband. I’m getting these two out of here, back to safety, and then…
Then I’ll make sure they never have to see another gun again.