Chapter Thirty-Five This Is What I Would Call a Pickle #2
I grit my teeth. Goddamn geotagging—the stalker’s favorite tool.
“Why?” I bite out viciously. “Why did you do it?”
He shrugs casually. “When someone offers you a better deal, you take it.”
“It’s always about the money for you.”
“I was always up-front about that.”
“Six years ago…were you the one who sold us out? You’ve been on Berruci’s payroll the whole time?”
“Not the whole time,” Joseph says. “When it became clear I wouldn’t be getting any more jobs out of you, I thought…what the hell? Let’s go with the guy who’s willing to offer me a better payday.”
I want to scream, rage simmering beneath the surface of my skin. “You could have turned us in at any point. Revealed our hotel or ambushed us at the hangar. Why didn’t you?”
Joseph scratched his jaw, contemplative. “Why go through the trouble? Our failed attempt to nab Adelina already had you both spooked. Didn’t want to risk having you two bail altogether. You were going to deliver yourself to Berruci anyway, so I figured I’d save myself the trouble.”
“Where’s your honor?” I snarl through gritted teeth.
“Grow up, Mathieu. That’s not a thing.”
Berruci chuckles. “Desperation is a good look on you.” He steps out from around Lily’s chair and makes his way over, daring to crouch in front of me.
“I gave you one simple task: find me the hacker who stole my money. But you couldn’t even do that.
No, you had to get smart. Try to turn this into a scheme.
Once a thief, always a thief, hm?” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone, opening it up to show me a handful of pictures he has saved on his camera roll.
He holds it up in a twisted version of show-and-tell.
The first picture is of me and Adelina working together in the hangar.
The second is of us at a distance, speaking together on the train from Paris to Nice.
The last one is of us together in the hotel suite in Paris, Adelina helping tend to my bloody nose.
All the air rushes out of the room. I thought we had been alone then. Joseph had yet to arrive, which means…
“Diana took those?” I ask, though a part of me already knows. “She’s in on it too.”
“It was her idea, actually,” Joseph replies.
“When she called me to tell me about the job you were putting together, I thought she was joking. You didn’t just leave me behind, Mathieu.
You left her to rot in jail. I likely wouldn’t have agreed to work with you again, but she insisted.
I’d never seen that woman more determined to screw you over. Hell hath no fury, am I right?”
“But you betrayed her.”
“Yeah. But she doesn’t know that.”
“I thought you cared about her.”
Joseph’s expression softens, but only slightly. “I do care. Once you’re in the ground, Diana will never have to know that I was the one who sold her out.”
My heart thuds loudly against my rib cage, and I’m unable to concentrate on anything other than the fact that Adelina is with Diana right now. She’s in danger.
“Leave them out of this,” I plead. “Punish me however you see fit but let Adelina and her sister go.”
Berruci clicks his tongue. “You’re in no position to be making deals.”
“Please. I’ll do anything.”
He chuckles. “That’s exactly what your brother said.”
My stomach twists. I’m drowning in cold sweat. Things weren’t supposed to end like this. What will happen to Adelina? To Jack?
“Are you going to do to me what you did to him?” I ask, my voice hoarse. “Dump my body in the ocean? Throw me in a ditch somewhere?”
Berruci laughs. It’s a low, menacing cackle that makes my skin crawl. “You think that’s what happened to Michael? No, dear boy. I plan on making good use of you the same way I did your brother.”
I frown. “What?”
He gestures to the bunker at large. “Who do you think I got this idea from? I know you believe me to be some unhinged maniac, but I’m clever—”
“Not to mention boastful.”
Berruci grabs me roughly by the chin, digging his fingers into my cheeks.
“I learn from my mistakes. After you tried to steal from me the first time, I thought to myself…how do I protect my assets from conniving rats like you? By thinking like a thief. Or, more accurately, hiring one on as a consultant.”
My jaw drops. Several thoughts race through my mind: Was that really the deal Michael struck with Berruci to ensure clemency for Jack and me? Was he really the one responsible for the construction of Berruci’s underground bunker? And most importantly…
“Is he still alive?” I ask breathlessly. “Tell me.”
“Shall I bring him in?” Berruci asks with a cruel smile. Responding to a quick wave of his hand, a few of his guards leave only to return moments later, roughly shoving a man into the room.
I recognize his eyes first. They’re green, just like mine, though where they once had a fiery spark, they now hold a heavy dimness.
His blond hair has turned completely gray at the temples, the fine lines at the corners of his eyes and upon his brow physical proof of how much time has passed.
He’s lost a great deal of his bulk, appearing much smaller than I remember.
Standing before me is a ghost of a man, a shell, but there’s no denying what my eyes struggle to comprehend.
My big brother, Michael, alive and in the flesh.
I can’t believe it. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry or some strange combination of both. It almost seems like a cruel tragedy for Berruci to reveal him to me now that all hope is so clearly lost. Knowing him, that’s probably why he does it.
“I thought I told you to stay out of trouble,” Michael grumbles. He doesn’t sound angry, but he isn’t over the moon with joy to see me either.
“And I thought you were dead,” I mutter back.
“Tie them up,” Berruci orders his men. “When Diana finally brings Ms. Choi, it’ll be a family reunion.”
I grit my teeth. “If you so much as lay a finger on her I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” he challenges. “There’s nothing you can do. Face it, West. You’ve lost.”