Page 58 of Chris

“Chris here,” he murmured into the phone, going back to the window.

The voice on the other end of the call was not who he expected, and it put him on edge. “Chris, it’s Andino.”

“Why?”

“Excuse me?”

“Why are you calling me?”

Andino chuckled. “For an update to give to my wife, who asks about her missing friend nonstop, that’s why. Good enough answer for you, or no?”

Well …

Chris sighed. “You shouldn’t be calling me, it’s risky. You have no idea what I am doing here at any given time, and I usually have someone nearby. What if they saw the name on the phone, or heard me say your name? The Lòpez family are aware Valeria was with your new wife before they grabbed her again, and you want to play that kind of game?”

“I don’t want to, no, but your father didn’t have news. He thought a call to you—”

“Don’t do this again.”

Andino cleared his throat. “All right, noted. What can you tell me if you’re able I mean? Do you have a plan to get the woman and her child out of there?”

“It’s complicated.”

“How so?”

“She’s incredibly isolated away from the public,” Chris said, “for fucking starters. Their compound in the middle of nowhere—yeah, that’s where he keeps her. And when she may leave, he has a small army to keep her in line. She’s not treated well here, but she keeps up a good façade. As of now, she knows why I am here, but I don’t think she trusts me yet, which is a problem.”

“Hmm.”

“What was that noise for?”

“Sounds like you should figure out a way to make her trust you, doesn’t it?”

“Thanks for the memo. Let me jot it down.”

Andino grunted. “You and your twin … you are both a lot alike, yes?”

“We are twins. Identical in many ways.”

In fact, he and his twin were different, too. The most obvious being the way they lived their lives, things they enjoyed, and what they wanted for their future. On the surface, to people who didn’t know them well—like Andino—the twins seemed more similar than opposite. All people saw first were the things that made Chris and Corrado the same, but they missed the more important bits.

The shit that made them unique.

“And what does my twin have to do with this?” Chris asked.

“I find him as equally bothersome as you.”

“Sounds like an issue you should handle, no?”

Andino made another one of those annoyed noises. “Back to Valeria, and her daughter, if you wouldn’t mind. I suspect you don’t have all day to chat.”

Right.

“The situation here is not as easy as I hoped it would be, and I don’t have a clear path forward yet. When I do, however, you will be one of the first ones I tell. Also, have you considered what comes after?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Jorge Lòpez came after her once when she ran, Andino,” Chris intoned, wanting the man to hear every single word, “and chances are, when we get her out of here this time, he will hunt her down again. For as horribly as he seems to treat her, he’s obsessed with keeping her at all costs. What then, huh?”