Chapter 13
It was midmorning when they neared the museum, but they’d agreed there was no point in arriving before it opened.
Cal reached out, took Io’s hand, and stopped her several blocks away.
They could see the building up ahead, but he wanted time to watch the flow of pedestrians so they could merge into it seamlessly.
Cal had his baseball cap back. After breakfast, Io had stopped to buy a palm-leaf hat. Narrow brim, common style, perfect for Trujillo’s heat. She blended in better now than she had in his cap, and the sunglasses didn’t hurt either.
“Why don’t we grab a cup of coffee?” Cal nodded toward the outdoor patio of a café.
For a moment, Io studied him, and he worried he’d have to explain, but she nodded. “Good idea, but why don’t we go to the coffee shop that’s closer? It has a patio as well.” When he hesitated, she added quietly, “Even with a generous perimeter, we’re too far away to spot it from here.”
“Sure,” Cal said, sounding more relaxed than he felt. She wasn’t wrong about the distance, but he wanted Io out of the danger zone. And something else hit him. Io knew there was another coffee shop nearby and that it had outdoor seating.
She’d researched the location.
While they walked, he watched her. Evaluated her skills, her readiness. Io’s posture was alert, and while he couldn’t see her eyes, he knew she was scanning, taking in everything.
She led them unerringly to the coffee shop. Cal opened the door for her, and after giving him a thank-you smile, Io headed for the counter. After they ordered, she paid, and that irritated the hell out of him. He didn’t even know why. When they’d first met, they’d taken turns picking up the tab.
It wasn’t the money. It never had been. He’d always known she’d outearn him. She probably wasn’t even paying out of pocket. The Paladin League would cover it.
It left him annoyed anyway.
Maybe it wasn’t the money. Maybe it was the reminder that she’d built a life without him. That Io would be able to move forward on her own just fine.
Large coffee in hand, she led the way to the patio.
It was almost empty, just two elderly women talking and laughing on the far side.
Cal hung back and watched her choose the same table he would have picked.
Best view of the street. Best cover. She shifted her chair so her back was against the red-brick exterior of the café. He took the seat opposite her.
They had a clean view of the Museo de la Revolución and a wide slice of the surrounding streets.
The domed roof gleamed in the sun, a monument to the country’s fight for freedom.
The treasure had vanished when the revolutionary army neared Trujillo, and there was a chance clues to its location were inside.
As he sipped, he studied the rest of the neighborhood.
And wondered if Io was armed. Her cropped T-shirt fit close, but her khakis were loose enough for an ankle holster.
Cal should know if she was carrying, but she hadn’t shared that intel.
As much as he wanted to be the one protecting her, he knew she could shoot.
They’d gone to the range together more than once.
“Ten o’clock,” Io said quietly.
Cal casually turned his head that direction and took a sip. She’d nailed it. Their clothing was distinctly Russian. Not mercenary. Mobster. “Looks like Vladimir and Igor are out early this morning.”
Io’s gaze settled on him. “Made-up names or you recognize them?”
“Made up. And check out three o’clock. We have Dmitri.”
“With Alexei at our nine.” Io pursed her lips. “They’re not dressed for the heat or to blend in. They’re dressed to be seen. They want to be identified.”
She wasn’t wrong. “If we’re right and they’re after the prize, then it stands to reason they’re positioned here as a warning for other hunters to stay away from the museum.”
“Not a bad theory. Once that brooch went to auction, it was like an alarm bell going off in the treasure-hunting community. Archer mentioned a Norwegian man who was a problem for a while and that I should expect others to be around. Not only my bestie, Fuentes.”
Cal nodded. “I know. My team was involved in rescuing a certain archivist from that Norwegian’s hands.”
Io nodded, and Cal sipped more coffee. She’d said Archer had briefed her about the Nerd being kidnapped, so he didn’t add details. “I don’t see any men associated with our target,” he said quietly.
“Your briefing on his team was thorough?”
“Very thorough. The only people out of place seem to belong to Petrova.”
“That’s how I’m reading it, too.”
Cal drank more coffee to keep quiet. To keep from issuing orders that would aggravate the hell out of her. He didn’t want to risk being replaced.
She seemed content to sit quietly, sip from her cup, and study the area. It made it harder for him to resist taking control. Io’s hair was tucked under the palm-leaf hat and sunglasses shielded her electric-blue eyes. The odds of her being tagged from this distance were low.
He was dressed like ninety-eight percent of the mercenaries roaming Trujillo. With his dark hair, beard, and ink, he was nothing out of the ordinary. Even seeing a mercenary with a woman wouldn’t trigger interest.
And he still wanted to be moving away from the museum.
When he finished his coffee and Io stayed seated, stayed silent, Cal couldn’t take it anymore. “What’s the call, boss?” He kept his tone neutral, but Io still shot him a sharp look. He wasn’t being sarcastic. It was a reminder. He might hate it, but she was team leader.
She studied him for a long moment before she said, “We’re crossing this idea off the list. The wrong shark is circling. Let’s move on to part two of our agenda while we brainstorm some other possibilities to reach the bull shark we’re after.”
Because of the drugs, Io only had vague memories of her time imprisoned in the house, but her stomach was tight anyway, a slow, coiling pressure that made it hard to breathe. Tight enough that her twin used their link to check in and make sure she was okay.
Io reassured Ayla, but blocking her sister completely took more effort than it should have. Her thoughts kept slipping, scattering, refusing to be contained. And the harder she worked at it, the faster and more uneven her pulse became.
Cal drove with quiet competence, but every bump in the road jolted through her too sharply. Her nerves seemed to be sensitive to every stimulus. Like off the charts sensitive. Io hated it. She always had control. But now? Her focus was off.
The odds were good that the house was empty. The report was simple. The residence had been abandoned. The only things left behind were furnishings, dishes, and empty hangers. But the uneasiness remained. To get her mind back to the assignment, she said, “We’ve been out of Trujillo for a while.”
Cal’s lips quirked. “It’s out there a ways. Maybe another twenty minutes, Thing.”
The car looked old and dented, but she’d bet the engine had impressive power. She didn’t ask. Instead, Io worked on taking deep, quiet breaths, but her breaths came too fast. Too shallow. She forced herself to slow them before Cal noticed.
Her vision tunneled for an instant, the edges dimming, and that’s when she realized she couldn’t conceal this from him. Not with a tremor in her hands, her pulse racing, and her fighting not to hyperventilate.
“Cal, I’m having an emotional reaction to returning to the house.” That earned her a quick, sharp glance. “Until I have full control back, you’re in charge.”
“You’re letting me lead?” The flicker of surprise on his face amused her.
“Don’t sound so shocked. It’s the only intelligent thing to do. I’m compromised at the moment. You’re not.” Her humor faded. “I know you don’t think much of my skillset, but I do know when it’s smarter to stand aside.”
It shouldn’t sting. His opinion shouldn’t matter any longer, but it did anyway.
“And as soon as you’re back to one hundred percent, I’ll be relieved of command.”
“Of course.”
They made a turn onto a different road. This one was new, the asphalt smooth. Her breath stuttered, breathing became harder, and the seat belt felt like a boa constrictor, squeezing the oxygen from her lungs.
She’d been in the back of a van, a cloth bag over her head, her arms behind her, duct tape around her wrists.
Around her ankles. Half-drugged, not completely out of it.
Io remembered this turn. Remembered this road.
Her hands fisted, nails digging into her palms as she fought the visceral reaction.
Aside from being drugged and imprisoned, nothing physical had happened to her.
But her body didn’t care about the distinction.
Cal’s hand settled on her knee. “I got you, Io. Hold onto me.”
Io hated being weak, hated needing comfort, but she grabbed onto Cal with both hands and gripped him tightly. His warmth grounded her. His steadiness gave her something to anchor to. She focused on that and on drawing in air, releasing it slowly.
“I’m sorry. I thought I had a better handle on this. I didn’t expect to have this kind of reaction over nothing.”
“Nothing?” Cal gave her another quick look.
“Someone kidnapped you, gave you God-knows-what to keep you unconscious, and locked you in a room you couldn’t escape from.
You had no idea what Fuentes’s intentions were.
If she planned to kill you or sell you or what the hell was going on.
That’s not nothing. The fact you agreed to go back to the house at all shows how tough you are. ”
She didn’t feel tough. Io felt raw and stretched thin, because even as she clung to Cal, she blocked her sister. Protected her from the intensity of her emotions. Not only to avoid questions, but because Ayla didn’t need to deal with this level of fear.
Io needed to lean on Cal right now, but she knew better than to read too much into it. He was a good man. He’d show this kind of compassion, this kind of support, to anyone who was struggling. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t them. It was just who he was.
They’d be making another turn shortly. She released Cal, forcing her fingers to unclench, and got another glance. “You’re going to need both hands on the wheel to make the turn coming up.”
“You clocked the time on the road after being kidnapped.” It wasn’t a question.
“Well, yeah.” Even through the haze of the drugs, her mind had grabbed every detail it could hold onto.
Cal moved the car into the turn lane and made the right into the housing development.
It was clearly upper-middle class. New homes, mostly two-story with a scattering of ranch-style, tile roofs, largely terra cotta. Houses painted in sea-foam, purple, beige, tan, brown. Children running in the yard of an orange home. A man edging his driveway. Another painting trim.
As they continued deeper, the yards grew larger and so did the houses.
Cal kept both hands on the wheel—multiple turns—but he frequently checked on her.
She wasn’t surprised. He’d always watched over her even when she didn’t need it.
Today, she was grateful for the vigilance she used to tease him about. It soothed her to know he cared.
Between how she’d been brought into the neighborhood and being unconscious when Cal’s team rescued her, Io had never seen where she’d been held. It was such an ordinary housing development. Neatly manicured yards, trimmed bushes, a child’s bicycle leaning against a red stucco house. So damn normal.
The ordinary made it worse. Monsters weren’t supposed to live behind trimmed hedges and fresh paint. Bad things weren’t supposed to happen here. They should happen in sketchy areas with graffiti tagging the walls. Not places like this. Not where kids played.
Io swallowed hard, the air suddenly too thick, too warm.
“We’re not going to try for a covert entry,” Cal said quietly. “I’m just going to park in front of the house and we’ll walk up to it.”
“Okay,” Io agreed easily. She’d put Cal in charge. She wasn’t going to argue.
They reached the back of the subdivision when Cal turned into the driveway of a taupe-brown house.
Two-story adobe, natural-stone facade climbing an eighth of the way up the walls.
Sheets of plywood covered a large section of the front.
The house sat deep on the lot, the driveway long. Nothing parked there.
A sidewalk from the road to the front door. Another from the driveway. Both natural stone, perfectly grouted.
Io couldn’t make herself reach for the door handle. She could only stare.
Her fingers went numb even as the trembling became worse. There was a ringing in her ears, one loud enough to block all other sounds. The world narrowed to the house and the memory of being hauled inside, bag over her head.
She shouldn’t be reacting this strongly. She hated that she was. She’d never seen the front of the house. She’d never seen the neighborhood. Don’t hyperventilate, don’t hyperventilate.
Io worked on reining in her emotions, her reactions. She didn’t know how long it took before she realized they were both just sitting there. Cal was watching her, not with pity, but with concern.
“I just need a minute.” Io didn’t like how choked her voice was.
“Take as long as you need, Thing.” His voice was gentle.
“The neighbors—”
“Can’t see much. No one across the street is outside. The yards are big, and this one has trees and bushes for privacy.”
“Because Fuentes didn’t want them to know she had an unwilling guest.”
“If you want to stay in the car, I can go in alone.”
It only took a split second to reject that. “I need to face this, Cal. If I don’t, I feel like it’ll hang over me for years. I don’t want that.” Her voice shook, but the decision was made.
Io reached for the handle and got out before she could change her mind. Cal was at her side before she could close the door. His hand found hers, fingers lacing tight, steady.
“I got you, Wild Thing. Let’s go kick your memories in the teeth.”
“And knock them out cold.”
Leaning into Cal, Io let him lead her to the house. Knew he would protect her no matter what, and it gave her courage.
She trusted him. Maybe more than she should. Maybe more than was safe. Because he’d already shown her how easily he could walk away.
But right now, she needed him.
And that truth settled deep.