Page 145 of The Kiss Of Death
“They’ve been threatening my Dalia this time,” Mercier muttered, his fingers digging into his skull. “They’ll kill her if I don’t comply.”
His words hit me like a virus, corrupting my thoughts.Threatening. Dalia. Kill.The repetition echoed in my mind. My fists clenched. My blood boiled. My jaw locked in a vise grip. “You’re a fucking damn bastard! You put her in danger!”
Once again, I seized Mercier, hurling him against the door, but his lack of resistance suggested a man who had already given up.Weak, so fucking weak.His weakness was underscored by a lone tear lingering in the corner of his eye.
“I thought I could handle them, protect her like I failed to protect my Diana. I agreed for her to go to Pantheon because of its high security, thinking it would be enough.” He gasped, his glassy eyes boring into mine. He massaged his throat where the collar of his shirt dug into his skin. “I thought she’d be protected with Archambault’s family. That’s why she had to be with Sylas and not someone like you. Now it’s over.”
I delivered a powerful blow to the door inches from his face, causing him to flinch. Stepping back, I paced around the room, resisting the urge to throttle him then and there—killing him right now wouldn’t serve me well.
“Why didn’t you say anything to your friend?”
“He was never able to track them down. He doesn’t have any leads on their whereabouts or who they are,” Mercier stammered.
I cracked my neck to the side, the sound of snapping bones filling the room. “What did Los Calaveras say exactly?”
“I have a week to deliver the drone to a geolocation in the Mediterranean Sea, or they’ll kill Dalia. A slow death, not like…”He couldn’t finish the sentence as he sank to his knees, his face buried in his hands.
“Seven days? You’re telling me this now!” I erupted, clearing the desk in a fit of rage. “How long have you known?”
“A couple of weeks, I thought I had it under control, that I could reason with them and—”
“You’re….” I took a deep, steadying breath. “A…” Another breath, my hand trembling with fury. “Fucking.” My heart pounded in my chest. “Idiot.”
The only reason I was sparing him was to protect Dalia, and this fucker had put her in danger all this time. Seven days wasn’t enough. I needed more time to find a way to hack them.
This shouldn’t have happened.
This can’t happen.
I gripped my hair, my nails gouging into my scalp.
His chin quivered. “What you said at Christmas, you really do love her? If you’re as skilled as you say you are, you have to find them before… I can’t give them the drone.”
I pressed my hand against my forehead, and my feet rhythmically tapped the floor. No one had found them in twenty years; they were ghosts.A week.“How did they contact you?”
“Emails, phone calls. All encrypted and self-destructive. No name. My best engineers couldn’t penetrate their encryption. I’ll give you my passwords, everything, but I—”
A laugh escaped my lips. Even by hacking Mercier, I couldn’t trace back to them. I had nothing to start with. “So I, a single man, have to find the deadliest mercenary group in the world in order to fixyourmistake, or else I lose the only person I’ve ever loved?”
I hate this bastard.
He stayed quiet, and my mind went into a fucking delirium.
I had to regain control.
“You’ve got a rat in your enterprise,” I stated. “They wouldn’t have this intel without an insider.”
“I trust my—”
“Shut up!” I bellowed, the voices in my head clamoring for control. I needed a plan and fast. I was almost making my skull bleed by jabbing it with my fingers, already running algorithms in my head. “Don’t say anything to anyone. Trust nobody. They’ll check the drone for tampering or malware. If they sense a threat, they’ll neutralize it. They’ll run it at the coordinates, so it has to work perfectly.”
“They can’t deploy it! The repercussions would be catastrophic, and—”
“I know,” I croaked, folding my arms at my sides. “We must outsmart them, and for that, you’ll hand over the drone.”
“But what if you fail?” His voice pitched. “Do you even have a plan?”
“You don’t have a choice,” I rasped. I didn’t have a choice either. “I’m not letting them threaten my Dalia.”
