Page 75 of Seal of Honor
“Not that.” Marcus sounded completely insulted. “I don’t care if they’re gay. More power to ’em. I meant that kid can’t be legal. Or if he is, then he’s just barely. The guy’s what, at least forty? That is disgusting.”
Quinn focused his night vision goggles on the hot tub again and winced. Things had progressed into BDSM territory. Yeah, it was disgusting and disturbing, but with the brutal way the kid was acting, he was obviously in control of the relationship. And that was the way the older man liked it.
Where in hell were the kid’s parents?
“Man,” Marcus muttered. “I can’t sit here and watch this. I’m gonna sneak around front, see what I can see.”
“Careful,” Quinn warned. He couldn’t watch what was happening in the Jacuzzi either, so he scanned over the upper floors of the house. The lights were out, and he didn’t see any movement inside. Had to wonder if there was a basement. Gabe sounded very sure when he said Bryson Van Amee might be at this address.
“Incoming,” Jean-Luc said. Stationed by the front gate as a lookout, he rattled off the details of the approaching vehicle. “Red four-door Mercedes convertible. Bogotá license plate, mike-xray-uniform-two-niner-eight. One occupant.”
“Copy that,” Quinn replied. “Visual on his face?”
“Negative. The top’s up—wait. He’s opening the door. All right. Got visual confirmation. The driver is Jacinto Rivera. Repeat, I have visual confirmation on Jacinto Rivera, and he is armed.”
Excellent. A thrill chased through Quinn’s blood. Finally, they were getting somewhere. “Hold your positions. Let’s see where he goes.”
* * *
Jacinto Rivera shoved through the front door of his cousin’s house, cursing. That stupid negotiator Giancarelli was jerking him around by the cojones, claiming they needed more time to secure funds. What bullshit. The funds sat right in Bryson Van Amee’s bank account, ripe for the taking. He knew. He’d seen the bank statements.
They also wanted more proof of life or they were calling the whole deal off.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, Rorro, the perverted little fuck, had been wandering about the city doing God knows what to God knows who instead of watching Van Amee. Anyone could have strolled right in last night and plucked their golden goose out from under their noses.
Jacinto cursed and stalked through the house. First thing, he crossed to the basement door and flipped on the light. The ripe odors of shit and urine and unwashed man assaulted his nose as he descended three steps. Van Amee sat up from the cot in his tattered, bloody business suit and blinked owlishly at the light. Several days’ worth of beard covered his jaw, and his black and purple left eye had swollen shut. He looked and smelled more like a street bum than the owner of a multi-million dollar empire.
“Water,” he whispered through cracked lips. “Agua. Por favor.”
“What did you want to name your son if he was a girl?” Jacinto asked in Spanish and then again in English.
Van Amee blinked his one good eye. “Please. I need water.”
“Answer the question.”
“I—I—don’t know. Which son?”
“Ashton.”
“I—God, I can’t remember. It was… something Susan. After my mother. Uh, Adelaide. Addie Susan.” He winced. “Please, I need something to drink.”
Jacinto shook his head and went back upstairs to the kitchen. Trusting his cousin to help with this had been a stupid idea from the start, but he couldn’t have asked his brother Angel without involving the EPC, and the plan was only to make it look like the EPC was involved. They took enough people hostage that sliding one more under their belt shouldn’t raise suspicion.
Or so Claudia said.
She said if they made it look like their brother’s doing, nobody would cast them a sideways glance. He wasn’t sure about that, because if Angel found out they were setting up him and the EPC, kin or not, he’d kill them both and lose not a wink of sleep over it. Angel Rivera was one scary pirobo, and Jacinto wanted nothing more than to be free of him.
Soon.
Once they got the ransom money, he could go somewhere Angel would never find him. Hollywood, maybe. He’d live the good life with women and booze and drugs. Maybe act in a movie or two. All he needed was his cut of Van Amee’s ransom.
Jacinto found a bottle of water in the fridge, crossed to the basement door, tossed it down, and heard a scramble of limbs. Like a rat. That was all Van Amee was. A wealthy, well-dressed rat, who didn’t need even half the money he had. But even rats had to drink, and it’d do no good if he died of thirst before they got their money.
Jacinto shut and locked the door and, hearing sounds on the back patio, headed that way. He had to talk to Rorro, though he really didn’t care to see the little pervert going at it with his flavor of the day.
And wasn’t it interesting that this flavor was a replica of Jacinto’s uncle, Rorro’s not-so-dearly departed father? No wonder the kid was being especially brutal tonight. Jacinto could hear the flesh on flesh action from the kitchen and waited outside the solarium doors until the sounds faded into heavy breathing. Then there was a gasp, a gurgle, and it was over.
Jacinto stepped into the room and tried his hardest to keep his eyes off the battered man hanging limply over the side of the Jacuzzi. Blood dripped from his throat onto the tiled patio. Rorro sat in the bubbling water, smoking a joint and looking very satisfied with himself. The knife he’d used to slit the man’s throat lay near his elbow on the edge of the tub.
