The Kiss after Midnight (The Midnight Trilogy) (31 page)

Tobias took small steps out, noticing two more men standing beside the bed. One was tall and had thinning dark hair, and the other was a narrow-faced middle-aged man. He was afraid they had killed Annabel. Judging by the slight accent he detected in the one-eyed man’s voice, he guessed they were part of the Dominguez crew but couldn’t be sure whether they were Antonio’s or Juan’s men. The more immediate question in his mind was how they had found them.

“Who are you guys?” Tobias asked.

The middle-aged man stepped toward him. “Come on now, Tobias. You must know who we are. You’ve been watching recordings of us.”

Tobias swallowed with a dry throat and moved slowly toward the bathroom. The man holding the shotgun stood and extended it. “Uh-uh. That’s not a good idea, unless you want your brains all over the carpet.”

Tobias stopped in his tracks and glanced toward the main door. “What have you done with Annabel?”

She emerged from the other room, guided by the hand of another middle-aged man, this one with a gray ponytail. Juan.

“Hi, Tobias,” Juan said. “So we finally meet.” He looked him up and down. “I’m not sure I approve of the haircut.” He laughed. “I see you recognize me, though, which is a good thing, because you know just what I’ll do to you if you lie to me.” He walked toward Tobias and extended his right hand. Tobias stared at it without moving.

“Come on now, Toby. It is okay to call you Toby, right?”

Tobias was filled with rage. He thought only of the fact that the man who had probably sanctioned his grandfather’s murder stood right in front of him. He looked the
gobernador
squarely in the face.

“You do know it’s rude not to shake a guest’s hand,” Juan said. “It shows disrespect, and where I come from, I have only one way to deal with disrespect.”

Yeah, I know everything, you fucking piece of shit.
Tobias shook Juan’s hand and looked at Annabel. “You okay?”

She nodded, probably too enthusiastically, he thought.

“What do you want?” he asked Juan.

Juan looked at the man with the shotgun and the other two men before bursting out in a fit of laughter, the rest quickly joining in. “He wants to know what we want,” the
gobernador
said. He abruptly stopped laughing and pulled out a Smith & Wesson and pressed the barrel against Tobias’ temple. “How about I just kill you right now, huh? What the fuck do you mean, ‘What do I want?’ You’ve got something that doesn’t belong to you and I want it back.”

Tobias swallowed and glanced at Annabel, who remained quiet as the narrow-faced man pointed a nine-millimeter at her.

“Don’t look at her,” Juan said. “She can’t get you out of this. You have only two options: give me the recording or die in this hotel room. Personally, I’d rather go on a beach, probably on my ninetieth birthday, listening to Julio Iglesias. But I don’t know about you.”

You’ll kill me anyway, you bastard, just like you killed my grandfather.
“I ... I don’t have it,” Tobias said.

Juan pressed the gun deeper into his temple and cocked it. “You better speak again, but this time talk carefully.”

Tobias trembled, and Annabel looked at him without showing any emotion. “I swear I don’t have it,” he said, “but it’s somewhere safe.”

Juan half-laughed, uncocked his gun and put it into his pocket. “Let me guess. It’s linked to some special program that will automatically detect when your pulse stops and then send it to the FBI or the police.”

Tobias wiped sweat from his forehead. “Don’t you think that if I wanted to give it to the police, they’d have it already?”

Juan looked at the man who held a gun to Annabel, and he nodded. The
gobernador
turned back to Tobias and took a step back. “Okay, I’ll give you that. You could have gone to the police by now, but you obviously haven’t. Why? Did my nephew put you up to this to blackmail me?”

What?! He thinks Antonio made the recording? What the fuck is going on?
Tobias looked at Annabel again, almost looking for a steer on how to answer the barrage of questions. “I don’t ... I... I’ve never met Antonio before.”

Juan stood right in front of Tobias. “But you’ve got a recording of me?”

Tobias nodded.

“What’s on it?”

“You know.”

“But I want you to tell me. What exactly did you see on it?”

“It ... It shows you shooting someone.”

“Who?”

“Con—Connor Murray, the Wall Street guy.”

Juan smiled. “Good. At least we’re getting somewhere. Now tell me where you got the recording from.”

“Penélope dropped it at my friend’s place by mistake, I think.”

Juan shot a sharp look at the middle-aged man holding Annabel hostage and turned back to Tobias. “So Penélope was the one with the recording. Did she say how she got it?”

He didn’t know Penélope was definitely the one who had it. Maybe it’s not even him who killed her. Think, Tobias, think.
He shook his head.

“It must have been your nephew, boss,” the man with the shotgun said.

Juan nodded, staring intently at Tobias before pulling a jagged blade from his pocket. “Now you’re gonna tell me where that recording is or I’ll make you and your pretty girlfriend suffer.”

Tobias bit his bottom lip, his hands trembling uncontrollably. “I gave it to someone to look after.”

“Who?”

“A good friend of mine. He took the recording to Canada. He won’t do anything with it as long as I’m safe.”

Juan looked at the narrow-faced man again, who nodded. “Fuck,” the
gobernador
shouted. “He pulled his gun out and cocked it again. Well, that’s not good news for you, Tobias. You’re no good to me now.” He extended the gun and put his finger on the trigger.

“Wait,” Tobias shouted. “Wait, wait. That recording will go with me to the grave. You have my word on that. I’ll never give you up, even if it means going to jail.”

Juan looked at the other three men, dumbfounded, and laughed. “And why would you do these nice things for me?”

“Cause you’ll help me leave the country and get a new identity.”

Juan laughed again, this time much harder. “I don’t know what this hotel puts in their showers, but you’re in dreamland, my friend. Why the fuck will I help you disappear?”

“Because I’ll pay you $50 million.”

Juan’s eyes widened. He walked past Tobias and exchanged glances with his men before stopping in the center of the room. “Say that again.”

“I’ll give you $50 million.”

“Yeah, I heard you, but I didn’t believe you. Where the fuck are you going to get that from?”

I’ve got to play it. I have no other cards left.
“I’m the heir to Albert Eichelberger’s empire.” He paused to study Juan, who looked at him with his mouth half-open.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not. He was my grandfather. Check him out. He just died and left his estate to me. I’ve got an appointment to collect my money at the bank tomorrow. I can wire it to any bank account you want.”

“You’re Albert Eichelberger’s grandson. The Albert Eichelberger?”

Tobias nodded firmly.

“Then why do you have an American name?”

“He was my mother’s dad. My real name is Siegfried Eichelberger. I changed it to get away from him. I wasn’t interested in his money, but when your life takes turns like mine has, you become like anyone else in my situation would be, desperate.”

Juan walked back and forth, a scowl on his face, before looking at the tall man in the corner of the room. “Check it out, Nino.”

The dark-haired man opened a small carrier bag and pulled out a computer tablet. He pressed a number of buttons while silence filled the room. “Shit,” he said. He walked toward Juan and turned the tablet toward the
gobernador
, who looked at it for a few seconds before turning to Tobias.

“You’re not fucking kidding,” Juan exclaimed. “The picture on the Internet is you. All this time we’ve been after you, we were thinking you were just another punk, but you were Albert Eichelberger’s grandson. Quite a man your grandfather was. Powerful, too. You should have just introduced yourself. We could have worked this out.”

“Yeah right. So you would kill me like you did him?”

Juan’s face tightened, and he moved closer to Tobias. “You think I had your grandfather killed?”

Tobias met the
gobernador
’s glare with his own. “You telling me you didn’t?”

Juan placed his gun by his side and clenched his left fist. “Listen to me, boy. Albert was a friend, a true friend of mine, and I’ll happily put a bullet in the head of whoever killed him.”

This is trippy. He sounds so convincing.
“But so was Connor Murray, and you still killed him.”

Juan took a few steps back and raised his voice. “Murray was a pig. He was about to start singing about all of us. If I didn’t put him down, someone else would have, maybe even your grandfather. I didn’t kill Albert, son. You have to know that.”

Tobias nodded.

“But know this: Being his grandkid doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference. We have unfinished business, and I don’t like loose ends.”

“As I said earlier, help me disappear and the fifty million is yours. You’ll never hear from me again.”

Juan scratched his head, worry creeping into his eyes. “Of course, you know that by taking Albert’s money from you, it’s similar to an act of war. You see, Albert and I had a lot of mutual friends, and he made us all quite a bit of money. My taking of his cash without involving some of my associates won’t exactly go down well.”

“You don’t have to be involved,” Tobias said. “Annabel and I will go in and I’ll get you your money. I can transfer it where you tell me to.”

“And why would you do that for me after I came in here trying to kill you?”

Tobias moved closer to him. The man wielding the shotgun raised it, but Juan motioned for him to relax. Tobias stood in front of the
gobernador
and spoke firmly. “I’ve never cared about my grandfather’s money. If I didn’t need it, I’d burn every last cent. I need you because I know if anyone can make someone disappear, you can. Right now, the only thing that matters is living somewhere in peace. I’ve had enough of running.”

“Then why are you trying to stiff me, kid? You shouldn’t have told me who you were. I know your grandfather left you much more than fifty million. His fortune is nearly 2 billion.”

“But if you know my grandfather like you say, you know nothing’s easy with him. Fifty million is all I can take right now. I have to wait until my fortieth birthday to claim the rest.”

Juan scratched his head again. “How do I know you’re not lying to me?”

“What have I got to gain by lying to you? You’ll just kill me if you find out.”

“But you know I can’t enter the bank.”

“I didn’t know that five minutes ago when I first told you about the money. I’m telling you, I’m not lying.”

Juan walked toward the middle-aged man with the gun and they went into the other room. When they returned a minute later, Juan said, “Right, I’ll give you your new identity. Where I’ll send you, you’ll be the invisible man. Hell, the police could eat at your house with no idea who you really are, but this is how it’s going to go.” He cleared his throat. “You’ll make your appointment tomorrow. We’ll be your ride there, but you’ll go into the bank alone. The girl stays with us.”

“Then you might as well kill me now.”

Juan frowned and moved toward him. “Excuse me?”

“I’ve given you my terms, which I think are fair. I’m not going to sell her out to save my own ass. I’ll get you your money, but she has to come with me.”

“Then what’s stopping both of you from running?”

“The fear of knowing that you’ll always be on my back. By giving you your money, I’ll have your word that none of your people will come looking for us. And you’ll have my word that the recording will never find its way into the police’s or the FBI’s hands.”

Juan nodded. “You’re a businessman, that I can say, but are you willing to risk this whole thing for her?”

“Absolutely. If you don’t agree, we have no deal.”

Juan walked up to Annabel, who was still expressionless. “Annabel, Annabel. How long has it been, three years?”

The woman looked at Tobias and then back at Juan. “Something like that, yeah.”

Juan laughed. “It’s funny, but I always said to Jorge that you were a conniving one, definitely one to watch, and here you are, helping this young man you hardly even know.” He moved his face to within inches of hers. “Tell me, what will you do when he gets that money? I wonder.” He walked toward Tobias. “I’ll tell you something about women, my friend. You never know what they’re thinking. Are you sure you can trust her with that kind of money?”

“The trust between Annabel and I is none of your business. Do we have a deal or not?”

Juan shrugged. “I guess we do.” He walked toward the main door. “But just so you know, if you fuck me, I’ll kill you so slow, parts of you will be dead while you’re still breathing.” The
gobernador
smiled. “You might as well make yourselves comfortable. We have an early start tomorrow.”

He opened the door and signaled the two men beside Annabel to follow. “Pablo will stay here tonight, so be good.” He smiled and walked out behind the other two. Tobias walked toward Annabel, never taking his eyes off the man with the gun.

“You did real good,” Annabel whispered. “That was such good thinking.”

“I only lied to win someone’s trust. I’ll do much more than that to get us out of this mess.”

“Thanks for sticking up for me. You could’ve just saved yourself.”

“But I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.” Tobias held both her cheeks and kissed her. “I love you, Annabel. How many other ways have I got to spell it out for you?”

She giggled happily and planted kisses on his lips. “I love you, too.”

“That’s enough,” Pablo hissed. “There’ll be none of that crap tonight.” He picked up the hotel menu from the bedside table. “Now, how about we get some room service?”

Jorge called Eduardo’s phone for the fourth time that evening. He had lost count of how many times he’d tried during the day. In the driver’s seat beside him, Rodrigo had hardly spoken for the thirty minutes they had been driving.