Chapter Thirty-Two

“No!” Laia spun and tucked Rosa to her chest, as if that could actually protect her from a bullet.

“Idiot,” Colon shouted. “Take them outside. I don’t want any blood in the cabin.”

“No, please,” she cried over her shoulder.

“Mommy, I want to go home.” Tears began streaming from Rosa’s eyes.

It can’t end this way. Not for her baby.

“Let Rosa go,” she pleaded. “She’s just a child. She doesn’t understand any of this. She can’t tell anyone anything. If you drop her off at a rest stop somewhere on the highway, I promise she won’t say anything. She wouldn’t even know what to say. Just let her go. Please.”

A quick glance over her shoulder, and she thought she might have gotten through to Colon. His face had softened. Some, anyway.

“I’m truly sorry, Mrs. Sampson. Children should never be separated from their parents. Sometimes, it’s unavoidable. She is a precocious little girl. Too precocious.” Colon’s face returned to what she now understood was his typical look. Mean. Unfeeling. Homicidal. “I can’t take the chance. I’m sorry.”

When he turned to leave, any remaining hope died that at least Rosa would survive this.

She’d tried, really tried. And failed. At least they would die together.

Laia squeezed her eyes shut and began doing something she hadn’t done in years.

She prayed to God.

Please, God. Don’t let my daughter suffer. Let her feel no pain. Let her—

A radio crackled. “There’s a fed here. He wants to see you.”

“What?” Colon barked, echoing Laia’s thoughts.

It can’t be.

Still holding Rosa away from the goon with the gun, she glanced over her shoulder to see Colon grab the other man’s radio.

“What fed?” Colon shouted into the radio.

“Kade Sampson,” came the response. “Homeland Security.”

Happiness and hope burst inside Laia’s chest.

Kade is here. Actually here. He’d come for her.

Colon’s eyes narrowed, on her this time. “You were told not to call the police or the FBI. Did you tell your brother-in-law where you were going?”

“I didn’t. I swear it. I did exactly as you told me to.” Well, aside from the tiny little thing about creating a phony ledger. “I came here alone and didn’t tell anyone where I was going.”

“Then how did he find this cabin?” Colon said through his clenched jaw.

“I don’t know.” Was it possible Kade had managed to track her phone from the brief moments she’d had it on earlier?

“Did you check her for devices?” he asked the goon, who nodded. “What about her car?”

“Si.” The goon nodded vigorously. “No tracking devices.”

These idiots had missed her phone. Or they hadn’t searched well enough and didn’t want to admit their mistake. But she’d only just turned it back on, so that couldn’t have been how Kade had found her so quickly.

Colon clicked a button on the side of the radio. “Is he alone?”

“Si.”

“Are you sure?”

“Looks like it.”

“What does he want?” Colon asked.

“Says he wants to talk to you and only you. He says he has the ledger, and he wants to make a trade.”

Kade brought the ledger? He’d made it crystal clear that giving the ledger to Colon wasn’t an option. Did his agency know he’d taken it? Had he stolen it? Was he lying?

Either way, he’s here.

Colon’s eyes narrowed to slits so thin they were barely open. He began tapping his finger on the side of the radio. “Search him, then bring him up here. Check him again for wires or guns. Comprendes?”

“Si.”

“Diego, watch them,” Colon said to the goon, then walked out.

Through the open door, she saw Colon talking to the man who’d gone through her ledger. She couldn’t see them leave the cabin, but they both disappeared from view followed by the sound of a door squeaking open, then closing.

The goon closed the bedroom door, then stuffed the gun back inside his waistband and sat on the only other piece of furniture in the room, a simple wood chair next to the door.

Laia sat on the edge of the bed, still holding Rosa who, thankfully, had begun drifting off again, leading her to believe that they had indeed drugged her, and whatever they’d used was still in her system.

Outside the cabin, she heard a vehicle drive up. Kade. He was outside, less than thirty feet away. She couldn’t begin to understand what his plan could be. All she knew was that just when she’d been about to lose all hope of her and Rosa getting out of this alive, he’d come for them.

Gently, she laid her now-sleeping daughter on the bed. If he’d really stolen the ledger…if he’d come here alone…how did he plan to take out Colon and his small army all by himself without getting them all killed?

She stole another glance at the armed man in the chair.

Kade might have come for them, but they might very well all die here. Together.

…

The moment Kade stepped out of the SUV, he was shoved roughly against the hood, then patted down yet again for weapons. Knowing he’d be thoroughly searched, he’d handed over his duty weapon to Jamie at the rest stop on I-80 just before they’d all exited the highway.

Handing over his weapon had been hard enough. Transferring Smoke to Jamie’s care had been worse. Smoke had resisted, straining at the leash and whining as Jamie had loaded him into the other vehicle, but he wouldn’t risk his dog getting hurt. Colon’s men would rightly assume Smoke was a K-9—a weapon—and deal with him accordingly, something Kade wouldn’t chance. Without a gun, most officers would feel powerless. Not Kade. But without his K-9 at his side, he did feel powerless.

During the pat down, he methodically and tactically assessed his surroundings and exactly what he was up against.

Two Escalades were parked in front of the cabin. Alvita’s green minivan was parked off to the side. Laia and Rosa were nowhere in sight, probably being held in the cabin.

If they weren’t dead already.

Focus. They have to be alive.

If they weren’t, he’d know it. He’d feel it in his gut.

The two men who’d escorted him up here were both armed, one with a handgun and the other with a rifle that was now aimed at Kade’s head. Three other men surrounded him, all sporting Glocks. That made five armed assholes plus the two on the front porch, one of whom he’d ID’d as Colon. He had to assume everyone was armed.

One of the men pulled a device from his pocket—a bug-detection wand.

“Does it really take six of you to babysit one fed?” he asked, knowing it would piss the men off but doing it anyway so that his friends would hear what they were up against.

“Shut the fuck up, cop.” The guy with the rifle raised the muzzle and held it two inches from Kade’s head. “Hold out your arms.”

“Copy that,” came Jamie’s voice in Kade’s ear. “At least six yahoos.”

Which was a good thing.

With Colon’s resources, Kade had expected a small army, not half a dozen men. Which could explain why there’d been no gossip in the wind about a kidnapping. Wisely, Colon had kept the circle of his people in the know very tight, limiting the number of loose lips that could sink his ship.

Kade did as ordered, holding out his arms while the wand was run down his back then his legs. If the tiny transmitter/receiver in his ear wasn’t up to spec, the detection instrument would beep and flash, a warning that he was wired.

Being several inches taller than the guy with the wand, the guy had to stand on his toes to run the device over and around Kade’s head. No beeps that he could hear and no flashing lights that he could see.

“He’s clean,” the man shouted.

“Get the ledger,” Colon called out. “Then search the truck. And tie him up, for fuck’s sake.”

One of the men opened the passenger door and retrieved the ledger, bringing it to Colon while two others began opening all the doors of Kade’s SUV. One of them procured a thin piece of rope and tightly bound Kade’s wrists behind his back.

That left three guns aimed at Kade.

“Where are Laia and Rosa?” he said loudly enough for Colon to hear. “I assume she brought you the money. I brought you the ledger, so you can let them go now.” He knew Colon had no intention of letting any of them go free. That’s why even his backup plan had a backup.

Colon handed the ledger to the man standing beside him—his new accountant?—who went back inside the cabin, taking the ledger with him. Whoever that was, Colon trusted him to verify the book’s authenticity. Kade was counting on that man to figure out the ledger was worthless without the code.

The one that only Kade knew.

Colon stepped off the porch and strolled over. “You’re either the bravest man I’ve ever met or the stupidest. Maybe both. You didn’t really think I’d let them go, did you?”

Kade smiled, doing his best to mimic Colon’s smirk when what he really wanted was to smash his fist into the guy’s jaw and wipe it off for him. “I might not be the bravest, but I’m definitely not the stupidest. So no. I didn’t think you’d let us go.” Especially not me.

Colon held his arms wide. “Then what did you hope to accomplish here?”

Stalling for time, he needed Colon’s new accountant to do his thing, and he also wanted to alert his friends to Laia and Rosa’s general location. Until he knew where exactly they were and how many guns were guarding them, he couldn’t risk sending his friends in and inadvertently getting them killed. “That’s my sister-in-law and my niece you’ve got inside that cabin.”

“Copy that,” Jamie said. “We’re in position. Waiting on your signal.”

“I couldn’t leave them here without at least trying.” And getting a confession.

“Take him into the woods,” Colon said. “Bury the body. Then do the same with the woman and child.”

Colon’s new accountant must not be the sharpest tool in the shed. He was taking too long.

“Kade?” came Jamie’s worried voice.

Two of Colon’s men grabbed his arms, then started to drag him away.

“If you want your money,” Kade said over his shoulder, wincing as a shaft of pain shot up his arms, “you might want to hold off killing me.”

“Wait!” Colon held up his hand to his men, who stopped. Wariness had crept into his dark eyes. “Why?”

The door to the cabin swung open, and the accountant hustled out, holding the ledger in his hand. “We have a problem. Based on the numbers and the dates they were transferred to your accounts, I can verify the ledger is authentic. What I can’t verify is what bank the last $20 million is located in.”

“Why the fuck not?” Colon growled.

Good. When people began losing control, they tended to say things without thinking, which was exactly what Kade was counting on. The more agitated he could make Colon, the better the evidence transmitted to the receiver in Jamie’s SUV.

The accountant flipped open the ledger and began running his finger down the page. “These are account numbers that Sampson used to temporarily park the money before transferring it to your overseas accounts.”

“I know that,” Colon bit out.

“And these,” the accountant continued, again running his finger down the page, “are the amounts of money that were in these accounts. That’s how I verified the ledger is authentic. These numbers add up right down to the dollar with the list you gave me. But these…”

The accountant ran his finger down the page again. While Kade couldn’t see exactly what the man was pointing to, he knew he’d discovered the two-letter codes.

“You see these two letters under the bank column? I don’t know what they mean. These aren’t abbreviations for any bank that I know of. We have no idea what banks Sampson was using to park the money in.”

A muscle in Colon’s cheek began twitching. “What about my $20 million?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” The man flipped to the final page of the ledger. “Here’s the entry for the $20 million. See this column? There’s a password for every account. But in the bank column, there’s only a two-letter code. MA, OA, KA, IA, the list goes on. There’s an account number for the $20 million and a bank code: OA. But I have no idea what that stands for or where it is. There’s no way to find the money. It could be anywhere in the world.”

Colon reached behind his back and pulled out a Glock. He stalked over and rammed it against Kade’s forehead. “Tell me where it is.”

Kade’s heart jackhammered faster than an AK-47 spewing out rounds. “You want something from me…I want something from you. Looks like we’re at an impasse.”

He was playing a dangerous game of chicken with a man who might very well blast him full of lead. The only question was which of them would flinch first.