Enemy Mine (23 page)

Yes, she knew that, despite his recent amicable gestures, Joran Cadiz was a cold-blooded killer his immortal peers feared. And that he never acted without planning his next three steps.

The instant Selena walked into her office, the terrible, familiar scent of Paymon hit her.

“You’ve had a visitor,” Joran said from behind her.

Selena whirled and faced him.

He put his hands up defensively. His eyes narrowed dangerously. “Do
not
go there.”

“How did he find me then?”

Joran sniffed the air and cocked a brow. “Ask your
precioso
.”

“Nikko would never—”

“The other one. Your almighty
patrón
.”

Selena’s brow crinkled as she sniffed deeper into the room. It was there, the rich scent of Señor’s special cigar tobacco. Why had he been here when she was not? Because Señor here, with Paymon, made no sense. Except in the case of betrayal, which made even less sense. “Juju said he was looking for me last night. He must have come by to speak with me sometime in the last twenty-four hours.”
El patrón
was the least of her worries. What of Paymon?

Paymon’s awareness of her current location was a giant-size wrench thrown into the master plan she had set in motion eight years ago!
Damn it!
She was not yet prepared to take him on! She needed that last stone to solidify her strength. Even then, it might not be enough. She had always known that. She had been willing to take the risk. But lately … She harshly exhaled and forced herself to be honest. Lately she’d begun to hope for assistance from Nikko to destroy the root of all her problems. Wanting a man to ride in to save her was never a good idea.

Nope, she was going to have to take care of her father on her own. Whether she was ready or not.

The stones around her neck warmed. Absently she stroked them. Her cell phone rang, startling her.

She looked at the number and her adrenaline spiked.

Again, a flash of doubt made her hesitate before she connected.
“Buenas noches, Señor,”
Selena said.

“
Cazadora
, I have been looking for you. We have much to discuss,”
el patrón
said.

Selena looked up at Joran and asked, “I just walked into my office to call you. Were you here …?”

When her voice trailed off, he replied, “
Sí
, Señora Amy was kind enough to show me into your office last night as I tried unsuccessfully on your business lines to reach you.”

The tightness in her chest relaxed. “I was—kind of out of it.”

“You are feeling better tonight?”

“Much. Would you care to meet me here so that we may have our discussion?” A discussion she was suddenly dreading. Damn Nikko and his Mr. Black!

“I am just making my way up.”
El patrón
hung up.

Nervous energy sparked along her spine. “He’s on his way up. Joran, can you disappear for a while?”

“Use me, abuse me, then dispose of me. You women are all the same.” He nodded. “I will be downstairs selecting my entertainment for the evening.”

“Leave some for the other guys.”

The fury that threatened to eat him up continued to gather steam. Nikko had literally run a marathon since he stormed out of Selena’s house. Instead of its dissipating off the quagmire of emotions, his anxiety level continued to rise. Now he paced a noticeable path in the Spanish tile of the secured house Godfather had procured for the team. Cassidy, Cross, Stone, and Satch kept clear of him.

“Cross, this stuff is eating me up. I can barely sleep. I’m fucking Superman twenty-four/seven. I don’t know if I’m coming or going and I can’t keep my hands off Selena! Is there some kind of antidote?” Nikko asked the reticent vampire.

“You can’t blame all of what you’re experiencing on the Rev, Cruz. Some of it is just you.”

Nikko looked down at the vampire. “I don’t follow.”

“Your enhanced senses, strength, and to an extent your libido, you can blame on the Rev, but your emotional state? That’s all you, man.”

“But I’m not like this!”

“You were when you first came to the compound,” Stone said from his seat next to Cross. “You were a powder keg of pissed-off. Controlling that temper of yours was what held you back. Once you got a leash on it, you were good to go, but now? You’ve regressed, Cruz. All the way back to Johnny Cicone. You’ve strayed off course, and you’ve become a detriment to the team. Anyone wanna guess why?”

Nikko opened his mouth to defend himself, but Stone was right. Selena had fucked with his head all over again. And he’d allowed himself to get sucked in by her. But how could he not? She was the mother of his daughter.
His daughter
.

“Nikko,” Cassidy softly said, “I feel your pain. Been there, done that. But you need to find a way to process your past so that you can live in your present.”

Nikko sank into an empty chair and looked around the room. “My daughter is alive.”

“What?” his team asked in collective shock.

Nikko dropped his head into his hands and rubbed his eyes. “I saw her yesterday. She’s amazing and beautiful.”

“You have a kid?” Satch asked, slapping him on the back. “Congrats, man!”

“What the Hell kind of woman lies about having murdered your child?!” Cassidy demanded. “What a monumental bitch!” She began to pace the track Nikko had worn in the tile. “I’ll kill her for you, and make no mistake, when I’m done with her, she won’t rise a third time.”

Nikko rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “It’s damn complicated.”

“Why don’t you fill us in, Cruz,” Godfather said from the flat screen on the wall behind them.

CHAPTER TWENTY

W
ith all that is obviously at stake, Selena, I find it disconcerting that you would just take off without warning. In the future, inform me of your destinations.”

Selena blinked. What was it with the men in her life thinking they owned her? She let it slide with Señor. And not because he was who he was and she was fearful of offending him.
Only
because she did not want him on the defensive when she told him that what he thought was going to happen tomorrow night, wasn’t.

“My apologies, sir, but I have good reason, which I shall explain to you now.” She indicated the chair in front of her desk, while she pulled up the one from the corner and sat down to face him. “You recall when I returned empty-handed from Kyrgyzstan; I told you there was another faction waiting to hijack the cask? The one that was shot to hell?”

He steepled his index fingers and nodded.
“Sí.”

“There was a survivor. He saw me, tracked me to Lost Souls, and showed up here a few days ago, demanding I pony up what information I had regarding Noslov and the cask.”

“Of course you declined.”

She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “I did. But, this man, I know him. He knows me from Georgia, and he works for the US government. They want the cask for the same reasons we do and are insisting that we step aside at the auction and allow them to do what they need to do.”

The only clue to Señor’s reception of this new development was the slow rise of blood in his cheeks. “Are you so naïve, Selena, as to trust this man? Do you have any idea of the value of that cask? And the destruction it could wreak in the wrong hands?”

She blinked, taken aback by his insinuation. “I am well aware of the importance of the uranium, sir,
and
its deadly potential. I am also one hundred percent certain that this operative is on the level. I have explained our position on this—”

Incredulous, he demanded, “You have discussed Los Cuatro’s business with an outsider? Do you forget our cause?”

Selena raised her chin a notch, though she felt like dropping it. Disappointing this man who was like a father to her had never been easy. She had never compromised the cause of Latino human rights. She’d fought tirelessly over the years to see village children clothed, fed, and educated. She’d braved the jungles to take medical supplies to obscure mountain clinics. She’d fought their battles for them. She had bled for them. Lost Souls was not only a front to lure daemons but a profitable business that sponsored many children and their families in Central and South America. To even insinuate she had set aside the cause for her own purposes was insulting. “I do not forget the cause. It is because of my love for the cause that I broke protocol.”

“You never break protocol!” he hissed, leaning forward. “
Never
, under any circumstances, discuss our business with
anyone
outside of Los Cuatro!”

“Señor, please. He did most of the talking about Los Cuatro. My only contribution was that you would not be agreeable to their terms.”

“In that you were correct. What do they know?”

“Who you are, your connections, your mission statement. All superficial information. I can assure you, I did not enlighten them on any level.”

“You enlightened them on many levels. That you have knowledge of me, that you work with me—but more important, or should I say damning, by not denying our interest in the uranium, you confirmed it, which is an automatic red flag not only to the US government but to Interpol! With our interest exposed, we will be recast from benevolent crusader for Latino human rights to a Watchdog-list organization trolling for nuclear weapons!” He stood so suddenly, he knocked the chair over.

Never had she seen his temper so openly displayed. Until that moment, she had not realized the full scope of the damage she had caused the organization she believed in. “I trust him not to allow this information to go any further than where it is,” Selena defended herself.

Señor adjusted his cuff links, set the chair upright, and sat back down. On the surface, he appeared to have composed himself. Her heightened senses read a different story. His heart pumped blood double time. A thin sheen of perspiration glossed his face. The scent of his pungent anger made her eyes water. He looked directly at her. “Does this
operative
know of your past and what I did for you?”

“He knows of my past. He has not indicated he knows of our personal connection.”

“Who is this man?”

Selena hesitated a millisecond before she answered. “His name is Nikko Cruz.”

Señor’s eyes flickered. “And what agency does he work for?”

“I don’t know, but I do know his handler’s name is Mr. Black. He was uncompromising, Señor, but genuine in his intent.”

“So, this Mr. Cruz from your past shows up at the base of the Tian Shan in Kyrgyzstan to hijack a stolen cask of enriched uranium but fails, then approaches you in Miami and tells you that he works for a covert government agency headed by a man named Mr. Black, who insists they want the uranium cask so that
they
can, for the greater good of mankind, store it safely on US soil. Is that correct?”

When he put it like that, she felt like a fool. But she stood by her belief that Nikko was on the up-and-up. “Yes.”

Señor stood, this time slowly, placed his hands behind his back, and looked sternly down at her. “You are my top agent. Shrewd, deadly, exact. Your unintentional outing of Los Cuatro aside, do you know how gullible this preposterous story makes you appear, Selena? Have you learned nothing in the last eight years?”

“Trust no one.” As she said the words, she asked herself how she could trust a man who had no room in his life for her. A man for whom she had sacrificed all and who threw it back in her face. A man, she grudgingly admitted, who was not perfect, but a man who loved his daughter. Would die for her, and kill for her. In that, at least, she trusted him.

“This man is playing upon your emotions to get what he wants from you. In this case, the cask.”

Selena shook her head.
No
.

“What lies has he told you to gain your trust?” Señor’s eyes narrowed. “Did he seduce the information from you?” Heat rose in her cheeks. “Ah, I see that he did. You are a beautiful, lonely woman, Selena. Ripe for romance, and the pillow talk that follows.”

She was not a complete fool. She knew from the very beginning Nikko had wanted one thing from her: the cask. He’d told her so. But when she’d resisted, she saw now, he had resorted to down and dirty tactics. Using their attraction and their past to get what he wanted. And with her eyes wide open, she’d been sucked in by him.

Her heart swelled with emotion all over again. She was gullible and naïve because, despite his manipulations, she loved him. And despite his lies, she knew somewhere in his angry, double-dealing heart he still had feelings for her. But not enough to make a life with her. It would be easy to double-cross him, but ultimately that would hurt Marisol, and she would not do that to the only good thing in her life. The girl deserved her father in her life, even the small part he would carve out for her. And because of Marisol and Selena’s belief in Nikko’s motives for the cask, despite how he’d manipulated her for the information, Selena would stand by her agreement to help him.

“Trust no one, yet you expose us to the world and are willing to hand over deadly enriched uranium to this man because he beguiled you?”

She could admit that. “Perhaps, but that doesn’t negate the fact that I believe his intentions are as noble as ours. And if he and his people are willing to shell out the cash and do the heavy lifting to get the damn thing, why not let them? Doing so takes Los Cuatro off the international cops’ radar.”

“Because, unlike you, I do not know this man or his handler or their
intentions
. What I am certain of are mine! My intentions will not be compromised for any reason, under any circumstances. As for your thinking our not bidding for the cask will change anything, you are a fool. The die has been cast—we cannot retract the fact that we are or were in the market for the makings of a nuclear bomb!”

He shook his head. “We have nothing to lose now. The players are in place, the strategies set, and the moneys collected. On behalf of Los Cuatro, I will make the securing bid, and then we will take possession of the cask.” He pulled a cigar from his inside jacket pocket, snipped the end off with his custom cutter, and lit it. The aromatic smoke filled the air. He took a deep puff and looked at her as he exhaled. “There will be no more discussion on the matter.”

Selena nodded. The conversation was what she’d thought it would be. “One word of caution from Mr. Black, should you refuse to step aside.” He turned a sharp glare on her that sent shivers down her spine. “He said to tell you that should you refuse his offer, your operations here in the States will be compromised.”

He took another puff of the cigar, tilted his head back, and smiled as he exhaled. “As the Americans are fond of saying, tell him for me, Selena, to bring it on.”

For the first time since she had been introduced to the consummate gentleman and world leader, Selena doubted
el patrón
’s judgment and his motives. Why not ask for proof that Nikko’s agency was legit and leave it at that? She did not understand Señor’s reasoning. “I’ll relay the message.”

He turned full on her. “My disappointment in your poor judgment knows no bounds, Selena. After all we have been through, to come to this.”

Selena had always been respectful, never questioning Señor’s reasons. She understood that sometimes the means to the end were not pretty, but necessary. It was her mantra when it came to daemon hunting and her relationship with Joran; but for Señor to question her intelligence, in effect calling her
estúpida
, pushed her to the edge. “Come to what? An impasse? Am I expected to follow blindly? To not think for myself? Not to think what would be better for Los Cuatro? I feel the same could be said of you and your judgment call on this. You are the supreme leader, mentor, benefactor, and oh-so-wise and benevolent head of Los Cuatro. What you are being now is stubborn and shortsighted, refusing for reasons beyond me to see the bigger picture. Why deplete Los Cuatro’s accounts and go to the time, trouble, and added expense and most likely loss of life to secure the cask when the American government will do it for us?”

“
Trust
is the issue.”

“Then speak to Cruz and Mr. Black yourself. I would venture to say the remaining three of the four who make up Los Cuatro’s quorum would have a different opinion once they understood the gravity of this situation.”

“Do you challenge me?” he demanded, his cheeks shaking with his anger.

“I challenge you to look at this proposition with different eyes. We have until midnight tomorrow night to gather intel on Mr. Cruz and his handler, Mr. Black. I suggest we get on it, and, sir, with all due respect, if they prove to be legit, which I am sure they are, then I say we stand back.”

He squashed out the aromatic cigar on her custom Parnian desk. His handsome features morphed into something violent and ugly. Selena leaned back, unsure of his next move. “I will not be dictated to. There will be
no
deviations from the original plan.” He schooled his features back to normal as he strode to the door and opened it. He turned and said, “I love you as if you were my daughter, Selena. Do not give me a reason to feel otherwise.”

Then he was gone. Stunned by Señor’s radical change in personality, Selena sat silent for long minutes in her office, trying to come to terms with how she felt. Gradually she realized that she didn’t give a rat’s ass whether Nikko got the cask or Señor. Either one would do right by it, so why jockey for position? What she cared about was getting her hands on Vetis’s heart, then going after her father. Because what mattered was her endgame. Once Paymon was ashes in the wind, she was taking Marisol and starting over. No more Miami, no more Los Cuatro, no more immortals. She was going to be Betty Crocker and Donna Reed rolled into one. She had enough money stashed to live comfortably for ten lifetimes.

Let Nikko and his Mr. Black fight with Señor over the cask. Regardless of who ended up with it, it would be safely stored.