Hearts On Fire (The Santiago Trilogy Book 3) Read online

He almost sounds jubilant about it. Who are you? The man I loved never had this much spite in his face or such malice in his eyes. He hates me far more than I hate him.

  “He’s a king not a prince,” I mutter.

  “Does your king know you’re here?” I can tell he’s mocking me now.

  “If he did you’d be dead already.”

  He snorts. “Making threats like a true criminal. I’m so proud of how you turned out, Evie.”

  “Right back at you, Dad,” I say, losing my temper again. “I’ve always wanted a sick corrupt DEA Agent to look up to. Why did you even want to meet tonight? It’s clear our relationship is dead.”

  “I wanted to see if you’d be reckless enough to come. The same way you were reckless enough to leave your fingerprints all over the gun you used to shoot Emilio Santiago. It took more than a few bribes to make all that go away for you.”

  Every internal warning system is urging me to get up and run. I can’t seem to find my feet, though. Truth is, I want to stay and cause him as much pain as he’s causing me but I can't seem to penetrate his animosity.

  “So I should have stopped to wipe them down?” I shake my head at him in disbelief. “Forgive me for not playing by the murderer’s handbook. I’d just shot and killed someone. I wasn’t really thinking straight.”

  A cold, triumphant smile creeps across his face and I find myself believing in every bad thing Petrov told me about him. The man from my memories is nothing but a myth and a lie.

  “Were you playing at being a nice guy the whole time?” I say shakily. “Or was there any part of you that ever gave a damn about me?”

  “I did what they told me to, I thought what they told me to feel. They were in complete control when it came to you, not me. That’s the way it’s always been, ever since you were a little girl.”

  The ground crumbles beneath me. I can't seem to get enough air in my lungs. “Who told you that? What are you talking about?”

  White room.

  Red light.

  Him

  He leans across the table until his face is inches from my own, his breath as putrid as he is. “I made my choice too, Evie. Twenty years ago, and now it’s time to walk away for good. I’m done. So fucking done. I wish I could say I was sorry for doing this to you, but I’m not. You made your bed the moment you lay down in Santiago’s. I will never forgive you for that, and neither will Mom.” I watch in stunned silence as he unzips his jacket to show me the wire he’s wearing underneath it before his eyes swivel left.

  There’s movement behind me and I tense, expecting to feel a bullet or something worse smashing into my body but nothing happens. He exits the booth to make way for another, but my new dinner date is not who I was expecting at all.

  “Miss Miller,” comes a clipped voice, “or should that be Mrs Santiago these days.”

  My jaw drops as FBI Special Agent Roman Peters, slides into the booth opposite me, his jade eyes glinting with victory as he tosses his badge next to my untouched milkshake.

  Dante and Joseph were right not to trust this man. “Does your father know you’re here?” I say tightly.

  “My father?” He shoots me a confused smile. “I’m afraid you must be mixing me up with someone else, Mrs Santiago. My father died thirty years ago.”

  This catches me off-guard. “But Andrei Petrov…”

  “Andrei Petrov? Who, the Russian shipping magnate?” He delivers a hearty laugh at my expense and there’s a ripple of male amusement from behind me. “If he was my father, I doubt I’d be an FBI Agent. I’d be sunning myself on a private yacht in the middle of the Riviera, surely?”

  What. The. Fuck.

  “Natasha.” I choke on her name. “You had a sister called–”

  “This is all very entertaining, Mrs Santiago, but I’m afraid I can't sit around indulging your imagination.” His sharp, handsome face grows serious. “We’ve had your father under our protection for weeks. Ever since he allegedly went missing. Thanks to his actions tonight, we finally have enough evidence to convict you.”

  “But he was in Amsterdam. He’s back working for Sevastien!” I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.

  “Your father is a very resourceful man Eve, and an excellent undercover operative. He wasn’t lying about that, I can assure you. He managed to worm his way back into Sevastien’s affections with the promise of the ultimate prize.”

  “Me,” I say dully.

  Agent Peters laughs. “You flatter yourself. You were never the number one target but you make the perfect bait.”

  “Dante,” I whisper.

  “Correct. Now we have you, it won't be long until he comes crawling straight to us.”

  “So my father was double-crossing Sevastien for the FBI?” There are so many shifting villains now: Sevastien, Peters, my father… Is Petrov one of them too? Wasn’t Dante meant to meet with him tomorrow? Is he walking into a trap?

  “Only after we picked him up,” he says. “He was still a scumbag before that.”

  “What did you mean when you said you had evidence?” I whisper.

  He smiles pleasantly at me and pulls out a pair of handcuffs from his jacket pocket. He slams them down on the table next to everything else and clears his throat. “Eve Santiago…”

  “Y-yes?”

  “You have the right to remain silent.”

  No.

  “If you do say anything, what you say can be used against you in a court of law.”

  No.

  “You have the right to consult with a lawyer and have that lawyer present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you if you so desire, although I don't think that’s going to be too much of a problem considering who you’re married to, do you?” Agent Peters rises to his feet and motions for me to do the same. “Time to go, Eve.”

  I stay rooted to the spot. “What are you arresting me for?”

  He betrayed me. My father betrayed me in the only place left that meant something to us. I can’t breathe through the pain.

  “I’ve been waiting a long time for this…”

  “Tell me, Agent Peters. What the hell am I supposed to have done?”

  “Are you going to stand up willingly, or will I be adding a charge of ‘resisting arrest’ as well?”

  “Tell me!” I scream, banging my fist down on the table.

  He shoots me another smile that goes right through me like an icy wind. “We’re arresting you for the murder of Emilio Santiago, Eve. But you knew that already… You’ve just admitted it on an FBI wire.”

  33

  Dante

  “What do you mean you lost her?” My voice is like stone, like a bullet with his name carved all over it.

  Reece sucks in a breath. He knows he’s a dead man. If he had any sense he wouldn’t bother coming back to the hotel suite this side of never. “She gave me the slip in the drugstore. Made some kid knock over a rack of sunglasses and bolted. It was premeditated, jefe. She knew what she was doing.”

  That sounds like my wife, as smart as she is beautiful. What the hell is she up to?

  “Find her.” I hang up before I get his answer.

  “What’s going on?” Rick appears in the entrance to the suite’s living area, swinging a tumbler of neat whisky between two fingers.

  “Eve’s gone.” Well, aren’t those the worst words I’ve ever spoken?

  Rick looks unimpressed. “That must be the quickest marriage ever. Has she taken my phone with her?”

  “Why would she take your phone?” I’m on my feet and pacing. Rick’s the worst person to have around when I’m like an avalanche sliding out of control. I don't want smirks or wisecracks. I’m craving a cool head to advise and keep me the fuck in line before I do something rash. I’ve never needed Joseph by my side more than I do right now but he’s on the other side of the world, with his priorities so far out of whack I’m not even on the list anymore.

  “One of my cells went missing in that café in Kenya. I pu
t it down on the table next to her and two minutes later it was gone. I hate to admit it Dante, but she’s not a natural criminal.”

  She’s not a criminal. She’s my fucking life. Nothing about this is making sense to me. Nothing makes sense without her.

  Within ten minutes I have most of Miami’s underworld out looking for my wife. Within twenty, there’s still no word. I’m slowly going out of mind and I’m halfway down a bottle of Bourbon already, but absolution isn’t forthcoming and the only thing I can taste is bad premonition.

  An hour later my cell rings.

  “Eve?” I thunder, with the sound of my heart matching my tone.

  “I’m afraid not,” comes a gruff voice.

  “I don't have time for your shit right now, Petrov…”

  “Because your wife is missing?” he concludes brusquely.

  That gets my attention right away. “Is this your doing? It would be a poor move on your part if it was. You know what I’ll do to your family. You know what I’m capable of. I’ll start with the prodigal son’s tongue and finish with my knife in your throat.”

  “Your charm offensive still needs distinct improvement, Dante. Come to my house right away.” He sounds distracted. Worried. “I flew in to Florida a day early for reasons I’ll explain later.”

  “What kind of fool do you take me for? I’m not walking into your trap.”

  “There’s no trap, I can assure you, and I’m growing tired of this rhetoric. Why don’t you throw caution to the wind for once and trust me?”

  “Fuck you, Petrov. There are only two people I trust in this world and you’re not one of them.”

  “You’ll come if you want your wife back, and you’ll come alone. No snipers on the roofs, no Grayson lurking in your shadow. I’ll expect you within the hour.

  Petrov greets me on the front steps of his white mansion with a large Bourbon in his hand. He thrusts it in my direction as I explode from the car in a fury.

  “You can take your peace offering and shove it up your ass,” I snarl, but I take it without thanks as he leads me inside. Only a shit-load of alcohol and resolve is holding me together, and I need all I can get of both.

  We’re barely over the threshold before I’m downing the drink, chucking the empty glass at the wall and holding my gun to the back of his pewter head. My actions have a ricochet effect as his men scramble to do the same. Within seconds I have ten trigger fingers pointing in my direction.

  “Put your guns down, gentlemen,” says the Russian with a weary sigh, holding up his hands, not even bothering to turn around. We’re standing in a cavernous lobby and every word and movement is bouncing off the white floor tiles and coming back at us, twice as loud. “That means you too, Dante.”

  “Not until you tell me where she is.”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that, I’m afraid.”

  I press my steel into the back of his head to the chorus of ten safeties clicking off. “You open your mouth. I listen. What’s so complicated about that?”

  “I thought I told you to put your gun down?” He walks over to the drinks tray on the side table with my muzzle still trained on him and pours us both another drink. “She was arrested an hour ago. I tried to stop it but I couldn’t.”

  I freeze, my composure slipping. I expected Sevastien’s filthy hands all over her disappearance, but not this. I would have been less surprised if he’d just announced that every man I’d ever put six feet under had decided to rise up from the ground. How did I not see this coming? I calculate risk for a fucking living. When did I get so slack?

  “Arrested by whom?”

  “The FBI.” He hands me my drink and I see the anger written all over his face. There's no hint of culpability, though. This turn of events has caught him on the hop as well.

  “Your fucking son,” I breathe, as my monster roars back into life. “All those reassurances in Amsterdam, Petrov. You swore he wasn’t the leak.”

  “And I stand by that assertion, even now. Roman was growing impatient with our lack of progress. He was tired of the near misses. Unbeknownst to me, he cut a deal with Eve’s father, offering him immunity if Myers found a way back into Sevastien’s organization. But even with an insider, Sevastien kept eluding him. Roman was growing desperate, and tonight he took it a step too far. Against my strongest wishes, he made the decision to arrest your wife to use as bait. The lure of having you under his control may have proved somewhat of a factor too.”

  “So you were manipulating a puppet from the side-lines and the puppet just sliced through his strings,” I muse darkly. “Call him and tell him to let her go, or else he’s a dead man walking.”

  Petrov shakes his head. “I tried. He believes that this is our last chance to bring Sevastien out into the open. He knows he’s planning a terrorist hit as well now, and despite what you think of my son, he doesn’t condone the mass slaughter of Americans.”

  “She’s pregnant with my child Petrov, so try again. If anything happens to her or that baby…” I leave my threat hanging there for a moment. “You have contacts all over the place. I want her out of that jail cell within the next thirty minutes.” The man who never begs for anything other than his wife’s ass is close to bending the knee for you.

  “It’s not as simple as that. She went to meet with her father and incriminated herself on a wire.” Petrov’s words echo around my head like a bullet trapped in a metal box. “She freely admitted that she murdered Emilio Santiago to a roomful of Agents. That kind of thing doesn’t just go away.”

  “She what?” I lower my gun in shock. I set my angel free to fly in the darkness but I never taught her the rules.

  “Leave us,” shouts Petrov to his men.

  I wait until everyone has left the lobby before continuing. “How is he planning to use her as bait when she’s stuck behind bars?”

  Petrov shakes his head. “He won’t tell me.”

  “Put me in a room with him and I’ll make him."

  “Come with me.”

  I follow him into a library next door where the stench of old leather and first editions is as ripe as my fear for Eve. I can feel the four walls closing in on me. Nothing matters anymore except breaking my own little bird free. Not my bloodlust, nor Sevastien’s head on a spike. I refuse to see her meeting her father as a betrayal. I’m not going to act like the same self-destructing asshole I was two weeks ago. She had her reasons for doing what she did, and we’ll explore them once she’s back in my arms.

  “Beggars and liars.” My voice cuts through the tension. Petrov stops and turns. “On the dockside last week… I heard you and Eve talking. What does it mean?”

  “It was one of my mother’s sayings,” he says crisply, taking a seat at his desk and motioning for me to do the same. “She believed that the world was composed of beggars and liars. Eve was questioning which one I thought best suited my character.”

  “How did Eve respond?”

  “To be honest, I never asked her the question. I did ask how far she’d be willing to travel into the darkness for you though, Dante.”

  “And?” My voice is rough with emotion, my face is too I expect. I can't be bothered to conceal it anymore. My mask shattered the second I stepped into this library.

  “All the way. And she did, didn’t she? She fell all the way into your darkness to bring you back to her light. She killed for you and now she’s facing the consequences of her actions. Innocents always get tangled up in that gilded net. Men like you and me slip through the cracks and never answer for our crimes.” He steeples his hands to consider me for a moment. “Shall I pose the question back to you? Exactly how far are you willing to travel into her light to save her?”

  I’ve spent my whole life making the wrong choices. Maybe it’s time to make the right ones for a change. For Eve. For us. For our baby.

  “Call your son again,” I say rising to my feet, my mind made up. “Tell him I want to make a counter deal. If he wants bait, he can use me instead.”
/>   If Petrov is shocked by my offer of self-sacrifice, he doesn’t show it. He slowly picks up the receiver on his desk and then freezes, his eyes drawn to something behind me. I watch them widen before his head is disappearing in a mist of crimson as the bullet to his skull propels him backward into the wall. His lifeless body slumps sideways in his chair, eyes fixed on a point that will never bring him focus anymore. He's a broken puppet master now.

  I turn so fast my chair hits the dust behind me, my gun aiming in the direction at whoever just took the top of Andrei Petrov’s head off. I never see the next chapter coming, though.

  Petrov’s brother, Sevastien, emerges from the shadows to the tune of his own slow clapping, his hands crashing together to accentuate each fucking sound, and for the first time tonight I find myself with steel pressed up against the back of my head.

  “What a noble gesture you’re about to make, Señor Santiago,” he says peering over the desk and wincing in distaste at the mess he’s just made of his brother. “The great criminal mind handing himself into the authorities in exchange for the woman he loves. How far the mighty have fallen…”

  I’ve seen hundreds of images of Sevastien before but the reality always carries a certain element of surprise. He’s taller than Andrei, with the same inscrutable jade eyes and thin bone-structure that sits a little too close to the surface. Meanwhile my monster is throwing himself at the bars of his cage as my gun is wrestled from my hand. This is the man who killed my daughter...

  “Choice words coming from a family fuck-up,” I say mildly, thinking fast. I’m completely unprepared. No men. No back up. I came here with nothing but blind faith and hope, and now I’m as open and vulnerable as I was in that fucking Taliban jail cell eighteen years ago.

  “Oh, don’t let me stop you,” he says expansively, standing aside to gesture at the phone. “I’d be delighted to play witness to you crashing down to your knees.”

  There’s a snort of laughter from my left and my eyes find the frigid blues of Petrov’s former bodyguard, Viktor.

  “So you’re the leak,” I murmur. “The old man was telling the truth, after all.”