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Kodra gave Dupont a conciliatory smile. “I want Vera to have a big ring, a nice wedding. You understand.”
“Better than you think,” Dupont said. “I’d give you some good advice, but you won’t take it.”
Kodra laughed in a knowing way. “She has the long legs, you know. Hard to think with those wrapped around a man.”
“I could hook you up with a source for the ring. High quality, low prices.”
“That would be good.” Kodra paused. “But what about the job? A honeymoon in Paris won’t be cheap.”
Gabriel almost dropped his phone as the words sucked him back into the tent, where he lay naked on the cot and heard the hallway door open and that same voice—more muffled but identical—speak the random phrase Paris isn’t cheap. Then silence until the padlock on the zipper opened with a click. The slider separated the metal teeth with a whine, and the masked figure entered his prison with a tray of food.
White-hot fury flared behind Gabriel’s eyes. Now he could say with certainty that Kodra had abducted him, handed him over to a surgeon for mutilation, starved him and denied him medical care for twenty-four hours, and kept him a prisoner for fifteen days. Gabriel shook with rage and a desire to wrap his fingers around Kodra’s neck and feel the man fight for the oxygen Gabriel wouldn’t allow him to breathe. He wanted to press his fingers against the straining tendons, to feel him struggle against the unrelenting pressure against his throat, to see the fear in the man’s eyes as he understood that Gabriel would not let go until his heart stopped, and then Gabriel would drop him in a heap like so much garbage on the floor of the restaurant.
Dupont made an angry gesture. “Maybe I’ll have something for you. Maybe not, after the way you screwed up the last time. I’ll make the call. Don’t contact me again, or it will be the last time you do.”
The Frenchman shoved his chair back and stalked out of the dining room with his goons, allowing Gabriel only a brief glimpse of his face beneath silver hair. It didn’t matter since no one had ever removed their mask.
Gabriel slowly and deliberately turned his head to look straight at the table where Kodra sat, scowling into his wine. Gabriel wanted to stare directly into the eyes of his kidnapper, even though Mikel would berate him for it.
Kodra took a drink from his wineglass and put it down before he looked up. Gabriel waited until Kodra noticed him and returned the glare. Then Gabriel pocketed his phone and sauntered back to Quinn at the fish counter. He wanted Kodra to wonder who Gabriel was and whether he needed to worry about him. Let his supposed sense of self-preservation keep him awake at night as a feeling of imminent danger nagged at him.
He waited while Quinn paid for her fish before he bent to murmur in her ear, “I remember Kodra. Not Dupont.”
The sugary scent of her shampoo filled his nostrils. He wanted to rip off her jeans, lay her across one of the Formica tabletops, and bury himself inside her to release all the anger and fear.
She nodded and handed him the parcels of fish crammed into a plastic bag. “Let’s get out of here,” she said, grabbing his hand and pulling him out the door.
Quinn blinked as her eyes adjusted to the sunlight outside the dimly lit fish store. What she saw made her swear under her breath.
Dupont was halfway into the back seat of a black SUV parked right in front of them, while one of his goons held the door for him. Raul was approaching with an elderly man leaning on his arm. The old guy was hunched and unsteady on his feet. He wore a rumpled and stained suit jacket and a battered hat with a wide brim. If she didn’t know it had to be Mikel, she wouldn’t have believed it. Her boss was good.
Raul wore a baseball cap, sunglasses, and a cheap windbreaker and bent solicitously toward his supposed grandfather, speaking in fluent Portuguese. But it wasn’t enough. He still carried himself with that inbred confidence and authority that screamed royalty to Quinn.
Dupont’s other bodyguard was watching the pair with narrowed eyes.
Gabriel, who exuded the same royal air, was only ten feet away from his cousin and directly in Dupont’s line of sight.
Dupont hadn’t gotten to his position as a major crime boss by being unobservant.
“What is it?” Gabriel asked in a low voice.
“Spill the fish on the ground and kneel to pick them up,” Quinn murmured. “Keep your face down.”
He let go of one handle of the bag so the paper-wrapped parcels cascaded onto the sidewalk.
“Fuck!” He dropped to his knee to scrabble at the parcels.
Quinn channeled a particularly colorful inmate from her prison days and let out a string of obscenities at a pitch and volume that could break glass. She even smacked Gabriel against the side of his head…carefully.
“Help the lady with her fish, Bernard, so she’ll shut the fuck up.” Dupont’s voice jerked her gaze up to see the Frenchman staring directly at her, his flat dark eyes gleaming with intelligence and malevolence. A shiver ran down her spine like a trickle of ice water. If Dupont was the kidnapper, he would have killed Gabriel without a moment’s hesitation if the ransom hadn’t been paid. Quinn shut down that terrifying train of thought.
The goon by the car door made a face but bent to help Gabriel shove the fish back in the plastic bag.
“Thanks,” Quinn said, giving the thug a sassy smile. “Maybe you could carry my fish instead of my klutz of a boyfriend.”
“Hey!” Gabriel protested from his crouch on the ground, where he was now fiddling with the laces on his sneaker. “The handle broke.”
The goon ignored both of them and closed Dupont’s car door.
