Chapter Forty
Valencia, Spain
From her table on the mezzanine level of the restaurant, Verena Kaine had a perfect line of sight across the promenade and the yacht brokerage firm’s entrance.
She stirred a third espresso she didn’t need, her eyes hidden behind her round mirrored sunglasses.
She wore a flowing linen shirt over a tank top, and a brimmed hat sat low on her forehead, its front tilted down toward her eyes.
She didn’t particularly like the hat, she thought it made her look older than she was, but Mia had insisted on it.
When Verena had first tried it on, she’d worn it a bit higher. Mia had shaken her head.
“You know, Vee, even the cherry on top of the fudge sundae needs to be put there with a certain flair, don’t you think?
” Mia had said, adjusting the hat. “See? Now it’s better,” she’d continued.
“This way, you’re wearing the hat, not the other way around.
And it helps cover your face without making it obvious you’re doing so. ”
Verena’s phone was on the table beside her coffee, and a fashion magazine was open next to it.
To anyone watching, she looked like another tourist killing time while waiting for her overpriced tapas to arrive.
The brokerage office had been mostly still for the last thirty minutes.
There had been only one visitor, a man in a blue shirt, but he hadn’t stayed more than ten minutes.
She set the spoon at the center of the paper napkin, positioning it parallel to the cup. She made a quick adjustment to the napkin, then angled the cup’s handle with the edge of the table.
Perfect.
Her phone buzzed. Finally.
She read Mia’s text. Things were getting interesting, but a bit scary too. She still didn’t know what to think of Mia Hernandez. Verena adjusted her sunglasses by the bridge, not because they needed to be, but because she just needed something to do with her hands while she thought.
She was usually good at reading people. It had been one of her strengths as a detective.
Whether it was nervous energy behind a fake smile, the twitch of a jaw, or the widening of pupils when one of her questions hit too close to the truth, she’d been great at picking apart a suspect. But Mia Hernandez?
That woman was a goddamn cipher.
Verena couldn’t tell if Mia trusted her, liked her, or had already decided she was disposable. And the worst part in all this was that she knew she was in too deep to walk away. Her gaze dropped to the spoon on the napkin. It was still perfectly centered, which was a relief.
Mia had done her job. The broker that Justin Burton had used to handle the charter agreement and the payment was dead.
In her last text, Mia had confirmed that the broker, Francisco Morientes, had kept the original charter agreement tied to Veloce at his office.
It was now up to Verena to get it and to erase all traces of its existence.
Verena got up, careful not to touch the napkin, and froze mid-movement.
A man was headed straight toward the brokerage firm.
She only caught a quick glimpse of his face as he had glanced over his shoulder, but she knew him.
Not by name, but from the drone footage over Port de Sóller.
She remembered rewinding the video feed over and over, studying the way he moved.
She was sure of it. This was the man who had taken out her team at the restaurant.
This was the man who had bested her two security officers, Pam and Oscar, at the beach.
And now he’s here?
Verena snapped a photo with her phone, doing it as discreetly as possible. She opened the encrypted thread and sent the picture to Mia with a single line.
The man from Sóller. He’s heading into the office.
She sat back down, hand clamped on her phone, waiting for Mia’s reply. The response came quickly.
Stop him. Now! I’ll back you up, but I need six minutes to get there.
She stared at the message, her stomach tightening.
She was too late to stop the man. He was already crossing the final stretch of the promenade.
He was less than ten seconds from the door.
She considered texting back to tell Mia the truth, that she’d missed her window.
But she didn’t. Instead, she slipped her phone into her pocket and stood.
Her hands moved automatically, aligning the chair she’d just vacated so its back was perfectly parallel to the one beside it.
She straightened the small table, adjusted the salt-and-pepper set by less than an inch, even though every single fiber in her body screamed that she was wasting precious seconds.
She wasn’t doing this by choice; her mind simply wouldn’t let her leave the table disorderly.
Satisfied, she stepped away, her chest hammering.
There was something in the way Mia had worded her message that suggested this wasn’t a request, but a directive.
One that Verena had no choice but to successfully handle.
She had the distinct impression that she was being tested, and that if she didn’t act now, decisively, she wouldn’t get another chance.