Page 67 of Heartless

No answer.

Surging from his chair, Juan paced around the room. Was this true, or was this a test? Were they trying to determine how loyal he was? If he questioned them, would they turn on him? His only contact was The Killer. The thought of questioning The Killer sent ice through his veins. Especially after what the man had told him—if Juan saw him again, he would be the last person he saw.

Juan glanced at his computer screen, torn between wanting another instant message from his concerned friend and wanting to never hear from him again.

Taking a breath, Juan returned to his computer and typed, If this is true, what do you want me to do with this information?

Is there anyone you can trust other than your mamá?

His first thought was no, he had no one. But then he rethought that. There were two men who had been loyal to his father. Two men who would protect both him and Mamá without question.

Yes.

Sending you details via email. This won’t be easy, but if you want a different, better life for you and your mother, do what it says.

His hand shaking, Juan clicked on the email and read through the detailed instructions. There were no real answers there. Just five paragraphs of specific instructions on what he should do to start this process.

Juan pictured how he would tell his mamá that a stranger was communicating with him, casting aspersions on the organization they owed everything to. How could he explain that he wanted to leave this life and all it stood for? After all she’d done to preserve it for him, how was he going to do that?

She would tell him that it was a trick, a trap. And she could be right. But what if she wasn’t? What if this person really was trying to help him?

Juan had never felt more helpless and terrified in his life.

Tears stinging his eyes, he powered off his computer. This person wasn’t trying to help him. It was a trap, and he had almost fallen for it. He would do what he was told to do, and everything would work out fine.

Hopelessness filled him as he acknowledged that no matter what happened, there was no way out for him or Mamá. They had signed a deal with the devil, and in this business, the devil always won.

Walking out the door, his shoulders slumped with dejection, he stopped on the landing and looked around at the surrounding opulence. When his father had been arrested, everything but this house had been seized. There had been five other houses, cars, yachts, speedboats, prize-winning horses. Everything had been gone. And other than the horses, he had missed none of it. Neither had his mamá. They had talked about it, about how you could live in only one house at a time or drive one car at a time. The boats had held no appeal. At the time, he had believed he had used those excuses because they had made things easier to accept, but now he realized that was not the case. Even though he had recently started acquiring things again, none of those items held the appeal he had thought they would. He really didn’t want things.

He wanted a life—a real life.

Taking a determined breath, he turned, went back to his computer, and powered it back on. He reread the instructions. And then, finally feeling like an adult for the first time in his life, he made a decision.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

OZ Headquarters

Her eyes narrowed in concentration, Olivia looked at the board she and Liam had created. She was expecting him at any minute to go over the final details, but she wanted to make sure she knew this op backward and forward before anything happened. This would be one of the bigger jobs, and they needed to ensure there were no holes. One slight miscalculation could spell complete disaster.

The last demolition she’d been in charge of had been a major muck-up, almost costing Hawke his life. That could not happen again. It didn’t matter that she could not have anticipated what had happened—she’d been in charge of the op. The failure was on her.

The scars on Hawke’s chest were a road map of that failure, but the scars on his back were a testament to the man’s incredible strength. The pain would have been agonizing on its own, but that had been made worse by the fact that he had believed she had done it on purpose. She could only imagine how betrayed he had felt.

That could never happen again. She didn’t care if she had to stand in the middle of the warehouse while the charges went off. She could never allow anything so disastrous to happen again.

Working with Liam was an interesting change of pace for her. Hawke was intense to the point of hyperalertness. While Liam could be intense, he didn’t display the same level of extremeness that Hawke often did. Or maybe it just seemed that way because she was always so very aware when she was with Hawke.

While they’d worked, Liam had told her about his reunion with Cat, who’d turned out to be an award-winning documentary maker. Their reunion had been epic, and a little thrill rippled in the part of her soul that still carried romantic notions. A love like theirs, one that had held solid even when they’d faced the most horrific events life could offer, would last forever.

Sometimes, no matter what happened, love endured.

And sometimes, it didn’t.

The knock on the door brought her out of the past. Returning her thoughts to the job ahead, she opened the door, surprised to find Hawke standing in front of her. He had been gone for almost a week. She hadn’t heard from him, not even a text. The fact that she was hurt by that was downright ridiculous. And yet, as she looked up at his face, which showed exhaustion and something else she couldn’t define, she was torn between saying something hateful and wanting to throw herself into his arms. She did neither.

Opening the door wider, she said, “Welcome back. Liam is due any minute to go over some final details. You want to sit in?”

He walked in the door, glanced at the board, and then turned his eyes back to her, giving her a very thorough up-and-down look.

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