Page 67 of Seal of Honor
The itinerary, Audrey realized. Gabe was trying to pin down Bryson’s plans for that day, trying to figure out who he had dealings with and who might want him out of the picture.
She sat forward. “Do you know why Brys planned to go to Barranquilla before meeting you?”
Mena gave her an indulgent smile that said he thought a woman didn’t belong in this conversation. Yes, well, to borrow a phrase from Gabe’s book, fuck him. Woman or not, she deserved to hear all the details.
“It was not for me,” Mena finally answered when she didn’t back down, his smile straining a little around the edges. “Perhaps he had other business to attend to there. Bryson was a busy man, and as long as his other activities did not interfere with mine, I saw no need to monitor him.”
Uh-huh. Somehow, Audrey doubted that. And it didn’t escape her notice that Mena kept referring to her brother in the past tense. “You said you know where he is. Did you kill him?”
Mena sent an aggravated look toward Gabe. “Really, Bristow, you should muzzle your wife until she learns some tact.”
Outrage burned through Audrey. She opened her mouth to give him a piece and a half of her mind, but Gabe squeezed her thigh hard. She closed her mouth and looked over at him. His expression was dark and shuttered as he leaned toward Mena.
“She’s far more diplomatic than I am. Now answer her question. Where is Bryson?”
Mena’s jaw slid to one side. Then he motioned to Liam with a flick of the wrist.
Gabe tensed up beside her, readying for who knows what, but Liam simply laid a map out on the table and went back to skulking in the corner like a good little minion.
“I don’t have an exact location,” Mena said and poked a finger at the map. “But I think he might be here.”
Heart hammering, Audrey stood to get a better look at the street map of Bogotá. Mena’s finger rested on a house in a well-to-do part of the city barely a mile from Bryson’s apartment.
Gabe also stood and leaned over the map. “What makes you think he’s there? And why haven’t you gone in after him if you want him back so badly?”
Both good questions. Audrey had a feeling he smelled a trap. In fact, even her untrained nose caught a whiff of one.
Mena lifted a negligent shoulder. “Politics, mostly. I do want Bryson back because, despite what you and your government think of me, I’m not a monster without friends. I consider him a good friend, and I want him safe again. I also want his captors punished for making me lose hundreds of thousands of dollars a day by taking him from me.
“However,” he continued, “I have a rather tenuous relationship with the EPC’s generals. If I send men in after Bryson, and the EPC is involved, the damage to that relationship could be irreparable, thus making me lose more money.”
Gabe’s eyes narrowed. “If you’re so worried about your relationship with the EPC, why send Liam and his men in to destroy Cocodrilo’s camp?”
“I did no such thing.”
“So where exactly do you think he found us?”
Mena stared at Gabe for a long moment, then turned that lethal gaze to Liam, a vein bulging in his temple. “Is this true? Did you attack Cocodrilo against my specific orders to leave him alone?”
“I did what I had to do,” Liam said. “He killed four of my men in that shootout on the highway. He was not going to get away with that.”
Mena’s face darkened, the jovial veneer giving way to an icy stare that would give anyone chills. “Do you have any idea what you have done? You may have sparked a war.”
“We’re already at war,” Liam retorted, his jaw set stubbornly.
The room filled with a deafening silence, heavy with tension and simmering anger.
Audrey clutched at Gabe’s arm, her heart pounding like a drum in her chest. This had the potential to escalate into a bloodbath.
“Gabe,” she whispered nervously.
“Stay behind me,” he murmured, his gaze flicking back and forth between the two men. His muscles were tense under her grip, ready to spring into action at the first hint of danger.
“No, we’re not,” Mena hissed, pushing back from the table with such force that it screeched against the marble floor. His attention never left Liam as he got to his feet. “I said leave Cocodrilo alone. That was a direct order, and you... you just like to play at being a soldier, don’t you?”
Liam bared his teeth in a feral grin. “I am a soldier. And soldiers don’t back down from a fight.”
“You are nothing but a disobedient dog!”
