24. Attila
24
ATTILA
T he tracker is in Tulum, Mexico.
“Any known residences there?” Dante asks. “It would be handy to get blueprints for the location before we arrive.”
The Jekyll looks up from his laptop and regards us carefully. “The tracker has been static for the past couple of hours.” His eyes focus on me and I realize there’s something he doesn’t want to articulate.
“What is it?” I’m guarded, weary, and I don’t miss his hesitance before he speaks.
“No movement. And her location is the edge of a cliff overlooking the Caribbean Ocean.”
The words slice through me, right down the middle, until there are two parts to a whole and I am destroyed. Shattered. I wasn’t made to give a damn. About anything. But now I find myself caring what happens to her and I suddenly understand why I’ve always kept my emotions securely locked away behind a thin, unscalable wall. This fucking hurts. Caring hurts. And it’s not a feeling I want to become accustomed to.
“That could mean anything,” Dante says, looking at me. The way his eyes penetrate my soul tells me he knows the demons I’m fighting. I hate that I’ve become so transparent. I slept with the girl one fucking time and it’s like I’ve grown a conscience.
“It could also mean she’s at the bottom of those rocks about to be washed away by the sea,” I snipe back. “Not that it matters either way.” The tremor in my voice betrays my words. The Jekyll rears back, regards me with disgusted eyes, then scoffs and turns away. He’s really taken a liking to the girl. Fucking bleeding heart.
“You don’t mean that,” Dante says, his way of telling me to stop talking and get a grip on myself. “Regardless of who she is, she’s a human and she’s a woman. You know what the rules are.”
Yes, I know what the rules are. But rules are meant to be broken. They’re broken every day. But I can’t allow myself to give a fuck. Doing so could be my ruination.
I straighten my body as I rise from the bench, turning my face away from the flickering light on the tracking device. I wonder how The Jekyll has access to such equipment; it’s my understanding that his background is in construction, not security.
“You’re being a little hard on him, don’t you think?” Dante says, coming to sit beside me. He chucks his chin in The Jekyll’s direction. I follow his eyes to the man I’ve spent the past two weeks with and watch as he jokes with some of the soldiers in the back of the plane. If I had to admit it, even if only to myself, The Jekyll is anything but what his name States. He is one of the most humane people I’ve ever come across. He’s intelligent and he’s a warrior. But we’re just not on the same page.
“There’s no one else other than you or Caleph I would’ve chosen to be with on this mission,” I tell him. “But The Jekyll comes in a close third.”
“That’s your underhanded attempt at a compliment?”
“I can trust him. But he’s too invested emotionally.”
“He has to be, Attila. It’s obviously the only thing that’s kept him going in his search for Castillo. His feelings for his dead wife; that’s what will keep him focused enough to get this job done. One way or another.”
“He needs to switch off,” I argue.
Dante shakes his head and looks at me sympathetically. I’ve obviously misunderstood something about life that he and The Jekyll understand very well.
“If anyone ever hurt Kingsley the way his wife was killed, I would burn the whole damn country down. I don’t know how the man is actually still functioning.”
When Dante says this, I’m humbled into lowering my head and saying no more. All the men playing a part in my life have been affected in one way or another by a woman. Caleph has found Ariadne, and although he’s still the strong, powerful businessman, he now has a soft spot reserved just for the woman who shot into his life like a typhoon. In finding Ariadne, it’s like he’s complete and he’s come full circle. Dante, too, did a 180 when he met his beautiful wife Kingsley. He became a beast when it came to defending and protecting what was his after she was taken by a madman. All this even before she became his wife. There’s a light in Dante’s eyes which doesn’t often touch men like us. Men who reside in the dark. That light was put there by Kingsley. The same way that Ariadne put the light in Caleph’s eyes. Even The Jekyll, who lost his wife prematurely, had a darkness in him that stemmed from a light placed in him by his deceased wife. He at least had something to occupy him, albeit vengeance. But he had still been privy to that light that fulfilled him. Who was I to tell him he had to turn off his emotions in order to deal Coyin Castillo and his ilk their death blow? Who was I to deprive him of doing things the way he wanted to do them? At his own pace, in his own way. The way I saw it, he’d been waiting five long years for his taste of revenge, and this was the closest he’d ever gotten to it. Getting to that final finish line, whilst still doing things his way, was probably precisely what he needed in order to move on. To have the closure he needed. And properly mourn the death of his wife. But he wouldn’t do it at the expense of another.
“There’s movement.”
I look up at The Jekyll as he comes into my line of view. I don’t even know his real name. We have a common goal, one that may get either or both of us killed, and yet I don’t even know his name. I don’t know his story — not all of it, anyway. And I have no idea what he’ll do or what will happen once we complete our mutual mission. But at the moment, he’s a trusted ally, and I need to treat him as such.
The Jekyll lowers the tracker until it sits between us and I watch the screen as the tiny red dot moves back and forth, like a pendulum.
“Could they have found the tracker?” I ask him. I try not to be infuriated when he grins back at me wickedly.
“Doubtful. I think this means our girl has resumed her irritating habit of pacing again.”