DANTE


    Silva did note to the meeting. The old man invited me to his offices and had me waiting, first in his lobby, then in a giant empty boardroom. His people kepting to me with excuses, all of which had me that much on edge. Something was off and even Pedro wasn’t taking my calls. If the bugs were a sign, him skipping the meeting was a giant red g. It’s as if he was keeping me away from the hotel room and when that clicked, I headed straight to there.


    Our arrival is timely. Just as the elevator doors open, in we see two men with guns in both hands crushing down the door. There’s no time to think. I withdraw my gun and shoot straight ahead and so does Rob, who guns down one man as we reach them and I the other one. It takes just two bullets for them to fall, but I make sure they’re dead by putting a couple more bullets into each of their backs.


    The suite is filled with broken ss pillow feathers and blood. Rob rushes to Colin and I immediately search for Corina. I don’t want to think about her body lying in a pool of blood, mangled and bruised, but the image keeps shing in my head. And I can’t find her anywhere. Where the fuck is she?


    Relief washes over me when I see her covering her head, cowering behind the couch. “Get up,” I say to her. She’s rolled into a ball like a porcupine. When I reach out for her arm, she shrieks, hands pummeling my chest as I lift her up. “Hey, it’s me,” I say as I wrap her in a hug. I’m so d she’s alive, I wee her hits. “Calm down, it’s me.” When it finally dawns on her who she’s with, she whips herself out of my embrace. “What the fuck!” She shoves my chest.


    “Are you okay?”


    “Yes. I mean no. What just happened!”


    “You’re hurt?”


    “No!”


    My racing heart slows down to a steady beat. It’s because she’s an asset that’s why I was worried, I tell myself. Not because there was some other more personal reason. This is just business.


    “Is Colin okay?” She says.


    I turn to Rob, who’s helping Colin up. His right shirt arm is soaked red with blood. Rob leads him towards the couch andys him down. Beside me, I notice that she’s disappeared. A momentter, shees out of the bedroom holding a first aid kit. For someone who was shocked frozen only a seconds ago, she’s adept at responding to Colin.


    Immediately she kneels next to him and tears open his shirt. Blood spurts out, and she presses down on the wound to stop the bleeding. “I forgot a towel,” she says.


    Rob rushes out andes back with several. I rush over to the door to close it and check on the intruders while they take care of Colin. The two men seem dead, their bodies are pretty much lifeless. This and another vacant suite are the only rooms on this floor, ording to Rob and Colin. However, I’m sure someone below heard the gunshots and the police might be making their way soon. We best get out of here.


    Corina is tending to Colin’s wound when I get back to them. “It looks like the bullet scraped you,” she says to Colin. He mumbles something, and she smiles at him as if she understood. She finishes cleaning him up and while she’s dressing the wound, Rob gives Colin what I assume are painkillers and washes them down with brandy. When she’s done dressing the wound, she checks the rest of him, asking if there’s anywhere he’s hurt. Hearing her talk, you’d think she’s a trained professional.


    “We need to leave. Now before things go south,” I say to them.


    “I think that’s already happened,” Corina says as she continues to examine Colin.N?velD(ram)a.?rg owns this content.


    “There’s more of his peopleing. It’s a trap, and it’s closing in. We need to go.”


    She raises her head towards me. Her eyes are filled with fear. Something inside me wants tofort her. Tell her it’s okay, and no one is going to hurt her. I almost do it. But Colin, good Colin, severs that connection by struggling up and sitting in a lopsided position to say, “I think I can walk,” he says.


    “Good.”


    A few minutester, we make it out of the hotel in a hurry. I had already called the pilot and told him to get the jet ready in the morning. I was expecting this trip to be short, not as short as it became, but still. Rob rushes past the traffic while Colin sits with his weight partially leaning against Corina. I nce back at them in the car, feeling a tight pang in my chest. Corina had insisted Colin sit in the back with her, much to my chagrin, and Colin’s frank refusal, but she was persistent and we didn’t have time to argue. Colin seems to enjoy it too, the bastard. He’s leaning a little too close to her chest. It makes me want to rip his head away from her. Luckily for him, we arrive at the hangar in record time and the ne is ready when we reach it.


    I’m sure we’ll see Silva’s people waiting for us on the ne, but nope, we arrive just in time. I only rx after the ne is out of Brazilian skies.


    Colin and Rob are in their seats in the back and Corina is in the front with me. She keeps ncing back.


    “He’s a big boy. He’ll heal.”


    “Who were those people?” she asks me.


    One mind is on not telling her. She knows too much already. The other is on telling her everything. I want to offload what happened to someone, and she seems like the perfect outlet. Is that what makes her a good spy?


    “Payback.”


    “For what?”


    “Essentially? Your meddling.”


    “I didn – what exactly did I do now? The entire time I was there, I was in the hotel. I can hardly say I visited Rio.”


    “Not today.” I turn so I can face her. “Silva wasn’t happy with my giving information to one of his enemies. It was crucial info that tanked one of his biggest deals. Killing you was his revenge. At least that’s what I think. ”


    “Because I supposedly leaked this info?”


    Supposedly. I had to admire her ability to keep to her story. “Because he thought you were my girlfriend. At the very least, a piece, and killing you was a way to hurt me, I suppose. He brought me all the way to Rio to fuck with me.”


    “I – it makes little sense.”


    “Silva is impulsive. I doubt it’s something he nned. Probably came up with after my meeting with hisckey.”


    “Fuck.” She sinks back into her chair. “You shouldn’t do business with him.”


    “No shit Sherlock.”


    “Is that why you brought me with you? Did you think he would do that?”


    “What? No! If You’re going to die, it will be at my hands. Not as some revenge plot.” The shock on her face is enough to satisfy me. I’m lying to her. Well, the first part is true, not thest. But she didn’t need to know that. After a long bout of silence and long after I thought the conversation was over, she asks, “Why would he think I am your girlfriend, side piece or whatever?”


    “I told you. Hisckey told him.”


    “What if you missed one?”


    “What?”


    “A bug.”


    It doesn’t need to be said out loud, but the question swirls in my head. What if we missed a bug in the master bedroom? Our midnight spat would be more than enough to give anyone listening to the implication that we were sleeping with each other, even though it didn’t happen. Then there was Pedro. Did he detect my possession of her from me? He didn’t look like he bought my assistant’s story. Whatever the case, at least she is alive and unharmed. At least I didn’t blow that part up.