Crazed: A Blood Money Novel (18 page)

“Happy, Toby. I’m happy.” Her fingers sifted through his hair, petting him in soothing strokes. “Terrified, but happy.”

Just when he thought he could not possibly love her more. He gripped her hips and tilted his head back to stare into her heart-shaped face. “Don’t think I’m not scared, too. But...are we ready for this?”

“Ah, Toby. Remember who we are.” Her smile positively glowed as she fisted the hand in his hair, the tug on his scalp a gentle admonishment. “So long as you’re with me,
ready
doesn’t begin to describe us.”

Chapter Fifteen

Casey had a bad, bad, very
fucking
bad feeling about this.

It was Thursday night—nearly a week since Adam had been taken, one day since Casey had last laid eyes on him...one arduous day since he’d been buried deep inside Ilda, halfway down the path to forgetting his name and saying good-goddamn-bye to the entire reason he’d come to Colombia in the first place. Casey stood along the wall of the hacienda’s spacious formal dining room, his skin crawling with foreboding as he watched Pipe and his brigadiers share a splendid supper with the entire inner sanctum of the Orras cartel.

Pipe, his brigadiers, their mortal enemies, and Ilda.

Under normal circumstances, Casey would never have been permitted to attend such a function, surprise though it was. But hours earlier, Pipe had called and demanded Casey not only show up, but that he stand off to the side in the room, closer to Ilda than any of the other guards.

For a moment, Casey had wondered if this was some sort of punishment or a malicious, taunting test. Put the object of his most fervent desire in front of him and tell him he could only look but never touch. Then his brain clicked back on, and he was able to read between the lines.

He was there to protect Ilda. If something went wrong—and how could something
not
go wrong in this situation—Pipe knew Casey would throw himself in front of a bullet for her, when any other brigadier would lunge to shield Pipe. Somehow, Casey had become Pipe’s best bet for keeping Ilda alive in a volatile situation, the only person the drug lord trusted to put her safety first.

Except Casey didn’t understand why Ilda was here to begin with, not when all of his senses were pulling an Ackbar, screaming,
It’s a trap!

For the past hour, he’d stood silently off to the side, unable to keep his gaze locked on any one thing—not even Ilda. She was so beautiful, his stomach hurt. Hair twisted into an intricately looped coil pinned tight to the back of her head, she looked elegant and surprisingly serene, at least on the surface. Her black silk jumpsuit flowed over her curves, leaving her shoulders enticingly bare, with only a hint of cleavage in the halter’s modest V-neck. Beneath the long table—a table reminiscent of some medieval English lord’s—her feet tapped nervously in their red stiletto heels, the candy-apple shade a match to her lush, painted lips.

Pipe’s engagement ring glittered on her finger, making a mockery of everything Casey knew in his heart to be true. Of what he believed, deep down, Ilda knew, as well. Hell, she’d told him as much—right before he came inside her.

But this dinner was odd. Uncomfortable. Wrong. Casey feared it had more to do with his presence on the hacienda grounds than any of them realized. There was every possibility that Pipe had already tied Adam to Arlo, Arlo to Casey, and Casey to Adam. Every minute spent here, holding tight to his cover, put everyone he loved in jeopardy.

Tomorrow night couldn’t come soon enough.

The staff moved inconspicuously in and around those seated at the table, removing dinner plates, refilling wineglasses and placing delicate dessert dishes in front of everyone. Conversation dwindled to the occasional low murmur, and eventually Pipe cleared his throat. “The tension in this room, my friends...perhaps I ought to tell you why I called for this détente?”

Laughter greeted his charming grin, Pipe falling immediately into the role he often played so well—that of the genial businessman who’d risen to great heights in the global power game. “Ciro, have you shared our story with them?”

Ciro Orras, the grandfatherly kingpin of the Orras cartel, a spry eighty if he was a day, exhaled deeply, the sigh of a man settling in for a long and no doubt exaggerated tale. “Once upon a time, I was a much younger man.”

Pipe laughed as though genuinely amused. As though he wasn’t staring down the individual responsible for his first fiancée’s death. “If that’s where you’re starting, we’ll never get to the end.” Leaning his elbows on the table, he took in the interested gazes of the various cartel members. “Some of you may know, some of you may not, but back when I was merely a youthful venture capitalist, it was Ciro Orras who recruited me to play financier for the People’s Army.”

The People’s Army, otherwise known as FARC. When Casey had first been sent undercover, it was because the CIA wanted to know how best to destabilize the money flow that kept FARC alive. But while inside the Marin cartel, it had become apparent to Casey that a majority of the cocaine trade coming into the United States via the coastal ports was not from multiple Colombian and Venezuelan sources, as had been believed, but originating from lands and facilities owned solely by one Felipe Marin Donado. That information, provided by Casey to his agency, went a long way toward changing how the DEA and Interpol viewed Pipe’s activities.

The Orras cartel, on the other hand, focused primarily on money laundering—or had, until four years ago, when Pipe had decided he wanted the majority share of that pie, as well. He’d poached Ciro Orras’s business, cartel business, and after a particularly lucrative coup, Ciro had decided to strike back.

“He taught me everything I needed to know to grow into the force I am now,” Pipe continued. “One to be reckoned with, wouldn’t you say?” There was a murmur of agreement. “I wouldn’t be the man I am today without Ciro’s guidance...though perhaps he’d prefer if I didn’t credit him quite so much.”

Ciro chuckled good-naturedly and waved him off, leaving Casey to wonder if he’d stepped into some alternate reality, where old grievances were not merely forgotten but perhaps had never existed at all. Too bad Casey couldn’t shake the sticky feeling in his gut.

“One value Ciro instilled in me, above all others, was to cherish one’s family.” Pipe turned to Ilda with a faint smile, the gleam in his dark eyes calculating...and cruel. “At this moment in time, I can say I am the luckiest of men, with this beautiful woman who will soon be my wife and our young daughter sleeping upstairs.”

The reminder of Arlo’s vulnerability, one floor above his head, set Casey’s teeth clenching. This was an impossible situation, his need to protect stretching him like taffy, until he’d hardened in this mutated form where he could no longer bend. He wanted to take Ilda from here, Arlo too, and Adam from the stables. He wanted to be home, surrounded by his family, with no danger looming on the horizon.

“But four years ago, I could not see past my grief. The love of my life, Théa Almeida, had been taken from me in an act of senseless violence.” Pipe shook his head. “How far I’ve come. How far we all have come.”

“It
was
senseless,” Ciro admitted hoarsely, settling a paternal hand on Pipe’s forearm, his expression regretful. “And I have wanted for years to say how sorry I am that the situation...escalated, as it did. The intent was never for your Théa to die, merely a scare, to send a message to you.”

Pipe appeared to believe that about as much as Casey did—which was to say, not at all. Théa and her driver had been stopped on their way home from the rehearsal dinner, three vehicles belonging to Orras brigadiers barricading them in. Moments later, Théa had been dragged from the car, forced to kneel on the ground and shot in the head alongside her driver. The Orras blue colors were draped over their faces, an undeniable message.

Casey caught Ilda dabbing at her eyes with her napkin, and new rage threatened. Why had Pipe insisted she attend this madness? For a man who claimed to love her, Pipe sure seemed perfectly fine with causing her pain. Casey, on the other hand, felt boxed in, pressed from the inside out to soothe her obvious grief. He remembered Théa, though he hadn’t known her well, but she’d been more than Ilda’s sister and singing partner—she’d been her best friend.

That sort of loss didn’t leave a body in four short years.

“Regardless, it’s time for peace, wouldn’t you agree?” Pipe pushed back from his chair and stood, lifting his wineglass for a toast. “Ciro, old friend, the roots of your empire dig deep, while the branches of mine reach toward the sky. There is a part of me that wishes to suggest we join forces.”

Ciro’s weathered face creased as he smiled. “
Niño
, you don’t know how this pleases me.” He lifted his own glass, and the others began to follow suit.

“I said a part of me.” Pipe’s answering smile was a sharp, feral thing. “But the rest of me struggles to see past the pain we’ve inflicted on one another throughout the years. So much pain, Ciro. Can you remember it, imagine it?”

Soberly, Ciro nodded. “I can. I can.”

But Pipe shook his head, and from the corner of Casey’s eye, he saw Manuel slip from the room, disappearing like a wraith. “I’m not so sure. But I do believe I’ve landed upon a solution to end our feud.” When Ciro gave Pipe an encouraging nod, he continued. “Recently, I’ve come into an unexpected windfall. Something better than money, of course, since neither of us needs more of that.”

Tentative chuckles rumbled around the table, but Casey felt his stomach sink.

“So, no, this windfall wasn’t monetary, but a blessing nonetheless. And tonight, as we sit here together in the spirit of reconciliation, we’re going to witness the power of this blessing.” Pipe crossed himself...just as a terribly familiar high-pitched whistling hit Casey’s ears.

The missiles. The missiles Casey had brought in exchange for making inroads with Pipe and the Marin cartel. The missiles not yet on the market, even for the US government, because Gillian had sent them to Chicago for beta testing in the empty fields of southern Illinois. The missiles that aimed for those who carried the same DNA as that of the individual whose strand had been sampled and input into the launcher’s targeting system.

Vicente, the snitch. Locked—and stitched—up in the barracks, he’d no doubt unwillingly donated his blood several times over, and as Pipe had shared, the ex-brigadier’s grandmother was Ciro Orras’s sister.

In the distance, a boom echoed.

Pipe smiled. “Ah. The blessing.”

What have I done?
Casey fought the urge to be sick where he stood as the implications of what he and his family had permitted to happen overwhelmed him. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t pulled the proverbial trigger—they had knowingly, willingly handed a known criminal waging a very public territorial war the means to end that war.

The first time Faraday weapons were in the possession of an entity other than the US government, and this was what happened. Entire families, destroyed. Children, the elderly—generations of men and women who’d always lived on the other side of the city, most of them content in their day-to-day lives, wiped out.

All because Casey had wanted to play the hero and bring his little brother home.

Until this moment, he’d thought there was nothing he wouldn’t do to protect his family, no line he wouldn’t cross. Hell, Tobias had murdered Russian arms dealer Karlin Kedrov for what the evil man had done to their younger sister, Beth, and Casey had proven on more than one occasion that he refused to back down from a threat, especially against his loved ones.

But this...this was genocide. No six degrees of separation, nothing but the knowledge that he—and he alone—had given a villain the means by which to commit it.

When Adam found out, his softhearted brother was never going to speak to him again. Casey didn’t doubt that Adam would rather have stayed locked up for eternity, or perhaps even die, than to know that, in an effort to save him, hundreds of innocents had lost their lives.

Ilda had called him selfish the other day. Good God, she didn’t even know the half of it. Selfishness, ego, the arrogance that had made their family business what it was...it had led them to this point, this moment, when Casey was forced to silently reckon with truths he’d never anticipated battling all while remaining absolutely still, not able to break his cover in a room filled with two dozen of his enemies.

Not able to do a thing except accept that he was, perhaps, as heinous a man as Pipe. As Ilda had said, at least Pipe had never pretended to be something he wasn’t—a good man. But until this second in time, Casey had believed himself to be better than that. Better than the Pipes and the Ciros and the Karlins of the world.

As cell phones belonging to the Orras men around the table began to ring, Casey knew he was not better at all. Never had been. Never would be.

“Your loved ones are calling,” Pipe said calmly, as though the shrill, panicky ringing didn’t set his teeth on edge one bit. “You should answer.”

Some men scrambled for their phones, others warily reaching into their pockets. One by one, they answered, and tinny screams filled the room. A spill of Spanish so hoarse and so fast, so broken, that Casey, for all his fluency, couldn’t catch more than a third of what was being said.

Fire
.

Explosion
.

Blood. So much blood.

Everyone’s gone,
abuelo.
Everyone...

Lifting his wineglass to his lips, Pipe sipped, utterly detached from the gasping cries, both from those victims on the phone and from the pale-faced Orras men looking to one another in desperation. “That,” Pipe murmured as he set down his glass with a careful clink, “is the sound of your bloodline dying out.”

Casey glanced to Ilda, his body ready to move, but she had turned to stone. Cold, gray stone, her lips parted and her fists clenched tight in her lap. She stared at Pipe with the same horror as the already-grieving Orras members, appearing as though she might pass out at any moment.
Breathe
, Casey begged her silently.
Breathe, baby, and I’ll get you out of here
.

Suddenly, she sucked in a harsh breath, color flooding her pale cheeks, and she whipped around in her seat to spear Casey with a panicked glance, brown eyes so dilated as to appear black.

She reached for him.

He tensed.

And Pipe laid a quelling hand on her shoulder.

Ciro turned tear-dampened eyes filled with helpless rage to where Pipe stood calmly at the head of the table. “Have you no mercy, Felipe?”