2. Chapter 1
Serena
“We’re going to die!” I yell at Liam, my eyes flicking over the small clearing of trees. There are no escape routes. I can literally feel the end drawing near.
“I’ll admit this situation is less than ideal,” he says, far too calm for the circumstances.
I glare at the man I love so much, even though I’ve considered murdering him on more than one occasion.
“We are tied to poles about to be burned alive! What could be less ideal?” I wiggle my hands furiously beneath the rope binding my wrists.
It turns out, Cillian Moore’s treasure is not in South America. What is in South America is an angry tribe ready to murder us for daring to step foot on an ancient burial ground. Twelve of their members are now waving pitchforks and torches at us while screaming words I can’t understand.
“Hey, you brought us here,” Liam says, placing the blame on me.
“It was as much your fault as mine,” I shoot back.
He raises a brow. “At least you can accept it. Though I suggest we put the blame game on pause for the time being.”
He’s right. This line of thinking isn’t helping anyone. What are we doing here, anyway? This was supposed to be the right spot. Liam had been researching the treasure for the last six months, and he’d been so sure he’d found it that I’d gotten excited as well.
When we landed in Peru, we’d been conveniently well-rested after drugging each other, so Liam rented a jeep, and we got to it. That was eight hours ago.
Oh, how things can turn in eight hours.
I twist my hands again, and the rope around my wrist seems to slide. I wiggle them more, desperation making me work faster.
“Don’t worry; I’ll get us out of here, love,” Liam says, more confidently now.
I trust this man with my life, but right now, my hope is dwindling. Except for a miracle, there doesn’t seem to be a positive way out of this.
The man leading the charge yells and brings his torch closer, causing my heart to leap into my throat.
“I think that was Spanish for ‘it’s time to die’, so can you get moving on that escape plan?” My pitch rises with each word, each worry. I should be used to the rush of adrenaline that comes from living life in the danger zone, but surprisingly, I’m not.
“He actually said, ‘It’s a shame I’ll have to kill the beautiful one,’ so he could have been talking about either of us,” Liam says.
“Now is not the time for jokes,” I hiss.
“There’s always time for one more joke. Now, on the count of three, I want you to whistle like a bird. Ready?”
I shake my head; I must have heard him wrong. “What are you talkin—”
“One, two—” He doesn’t make it to three.
Something falls from the sky, and in the next moment, the small village erupts in smoke.
The whistle I was preparing forces me to suck in the smoke instead and I cough, gagging on the toxins.
Someone is at my back untying my hands, but I can’t see who because my eyes are watering now.
“Let’s go,” Liam says, grabbing onto my now free arms and dragging me into the trees.
“Liam? What?” The words are merely a raspy whisper as I cough on more smoke.
“Don’t talk. Move.”
I stumble along after him, dodging tree after tree.
There’s noise somewhere behind us, or maybe it’s all around us. I’m glad he knows where we are going because I…wait, where are we going?
Not that it matters. Anywhere is better than being burned at the stake.
A buzzing fills my head and I groan. What is happening?
I stumble over the rough forest floor, but Liam keeps me upright. We burst through the trees and there in a clearing is his helicopter. That beautiful thing. Why did I ever think it was a waste of money?
My legs speed up with renewed energy.
“Wait for me.” Liam chuckles as I pass him.
“Don’t slow me down then,” I yell back.
He helps me up into the helicopter then jumps in beside me just as a group of men burst into the clearing.
“Go!” I screech to the pilot.
The helicopter rises, but not nearly fast enough. One of the men grabs onto the leg, and it feels like a scene out of an unrealistic action movie. “He’s hanging on!”
The pilot wiggles the helicopter back and forth, and the man drops. Then he pulls the gears, turning as we fly high.
“Excellent timing, by the way,” Liam says to the pilot.
“That homing beacon really works,” the pilot hollers. “I thought you were crazy.”
Of course he made a homing beacon to his helicopter. “A crazy genius,” I mutter, pressing my hand to my chest to confirm I’m still breathing. We made it.
I sag into my seat, my limbs going weak.
“Where to?” The pilot asks.
Liam looks at me and I shrug. That was our last lead. Our only lead.
“I’m not visiting your dad in jail to beg for the coordinates if that’s what you were wondering.” After testifying in many depositions, I’ve seen enough of that man to last a lifetime. “The Boss” is still an egotistical, narcissistic sociopath.
“Wait.” Liam shakes his head then pulls out his phone, his brows furrowing. “Remember that bullet you found on the Moore estate?”
“Yeah.” I frown. “What about it?”
“It had numbers on it. I didn’t think about it at the time, but…”
Were there numbers on it? I dropped it in Liam’s apartment that day and never looked at it again. I figured it was nothing. But… “Wait. Are you saying my bullet might be the key to this mystery?” I raise a brow at him, waiting for the opportunity to say “told you so.”
He pinches his eyes closed then opens them again. “It pains me to say this, but possibly. I remember reading something about his love of guns, and then I remembered the bullet had numbers on it.”
“And you couldn’t have remembered this, I don’t know, two days ago?!”
He winces. “My brain works better under pressure.”
“I should have strangled you sooner.”
“We’ll keep that idea in your back pocket,” he says. “Now, back to the bullet.”
“The one I found.” I smirk, extremely pleased with myself. Liam flips through picture after picture until he gets to one of the bullet. He zooms in, reading the numbers out loud. I write them down on my phone next to the coordinates that led us here.
Coordinates I have memorized. The two strings of numbers are nearly identical. Except…
“Two of the numbers don’t match the original coordinates that led us here,” I say.
Liam taps the coordinates into his phone then looks at me with a grin. “I guess it's back to the UK. That’s where our treasure is.”