Chapter 57: Undercover Arrival

Rayén

I got to six.

Lautaro had my wrist in a grip that would leave marks, and we were running toward the cars with the ticking behind us, and all I could think was that my mother had always counted out loud when she tucked me in. One, two, three, and I had to be asleep by ten.

At seven, Carlos was already behind the wheel of the second car with the engine running. He hadn't run. He hadn't even gotten out.

At ten, the warehouse didn't explode.

It screamed. A shriek of feedback tore out of the open door, so loud the windows of the neighboring buildings buzzed. Then, under it, my mother's voice, recorded and tinny, laughing the same low laugh from the radio. Then a pop, a flash of white, and a cloud of black powder rolled across the floor and out into the street.

No fire. No blast. Just a joke, delivered with perfect timing.

I stood bent over on the pavement with my hands on my knees, shaking. Lautaro was still holding me. He didn't seem to know it.

"She wanted us to know she could have," he said. His voice was flat. "She wanted us to run."

"And Carlos?" I lifted my head and looked at the second car. "Why didn't he move?"

Carlos had the grace to look sick when we walked up. "I heard the ticking and I froze, patrón. I've been in four wars and I froze." He gripped the wheel. "Forgive me."

Lautaro studied him for a long moment. I watched him weigh it, the loyalty of eleven years against the sound a man makes when he lies badly. Then he opened the driver's door himself.

"Slide over. I'm driving."

Nobody spoke on the way up the hill. My ears were still ringing.

The phone buzzed in Lautaro's pocket just past the first switchback. Millaray's voice came through the speaker, breathless.

"I went back through the handshake. I was wrong, or I was meant to be wrong. The warehouse was a mirror. The real relay is two kilometers south, inside Terminal Pacífico Sur."

"That's a private terminal," Lautaro said.

"It's owned by a holding group out of Zurich. Brandt-Lund Capital. They do land leases, cargo, and, tonight, an investor reception." I heard keys clicking. "Black tie, invitation only, five hundred guests. Every shipping family on the coast will be there. And so will whoever's using that relay."

I closed my eyes. "We can't walk in as ourselves."

"No," Millaray said. "But I can get you invitations. A couple. Venture capital, Buenos Aires money, just landed from Mendoza and in love with the port. Here's the part you won't like."

"Tell me," Lautaro said.

"You'll have to look married."

Silence filled the car. Lautaro stared at the road. I stared at the window, and a heat crept up my neck that had nothing to do with the sun.

"We are married," I said finally, dry.

"On paper," Millaray said, kindly, and hung up.

The suite Millaray booked overlooked the bay, and it had one bed. Of course it did. I stood in the doorway with a garment bag over my arm and watched Lautaro hang up his own tuxedo without a word, his back to me, shoulders stiff.

"I'll take the chair," he said.

"You'll take nothing. You've been shot twice this month." I walked past him and set the bag on the mattress. "Don't be noble. I'm too tired to argue about it."

He turned. His shirt was open at the throat, and there was a bruise purpling along his collarbone where the pavement had met him. I looked at it longer than I should have.

"Rayén."

"Hmm?"

"What you said in the car. Did you love us. About your mother." He stopped. Started again. "Do you want her to say yes?"

The question went in under my ribs and found the soft place. I sat down on the edge of the bed and the silk bag crumpled beside me.

"If she says yes," I said slowly, "then I have to hate someone who loved me. And if she says no, then everything I remember was a lie, and I don't know which is worse." My eyes stung. "I used to think nothing could be worse than losing Conco. And now I'm standing here, and I'm losing her, too, and she's not even dead."

He crossed the room and knelt in front of me. He didn't touch me. He just stayed there, level with my eyes, close enough that I could count the gold flecks in his irises.

"You're not losing anyone tonight," he said. "Not on my watch."

"That's a promise you can't keep."

"Then I'll keep it badly. For as long as I can."

I laughed. It cracked in the middle. He smiled, the first real one I'd seen from him in days, and something inside my chest rolled over like a stone that had been sitting too long in the same place.

"Get dressed," I whispered. "Mr. Ibarra."

"Yes, wife."

The dress was midnight blue silk, backless, cut so low it was nearly a dare. I held it against myself in the bathroom mirror and tried to remember how to breathe.

"Rayén?" Lautaro's voice came through the door. "I can't do the cufflink."

I opened the door. He stood there in black tie with his sleeve held out, and the second he looked up he forgot the cufflink completely. His eyes traveled over me once, slowly, as if he'd been starving and wasn't allowed to eat. His throat moved.

"Turn around," he said, hoarse. "Please. I need to see if the zipper is..."

I turned. His fingers brushed the small of my back, and every nerve in my body lit like a struck match. He was only checking the seam. He didn't pull it. He didn't look away from it either.

"Done," he breathed, and I felt the word against my shoulder blade.

I found my voice somewhere. "Your cufflink."

He held out his wrist. I fastened it with hands that wouldn't stop trembling, and neither of us said anything at all.

Terminal Pacífico Sur blazed against the black water like a ship made of glass. A string quartet played under chandeliers hung from shipping cranes. Waiters carried champagne through a crowd that smelled of money and sea salt.

Lautaro's arm lay at my waist, easy, possessive. A perfect husband. Beneath the fabric I could feel him counting exits.

"Smile," he murmured, lips at my ear. "You've just been handed everything you ever wanted. Act like it."

I smiled. And then I felt it, the sensation of being watched, a cool line drawn down my spine. I scanned the room and found nothing but strangers.

"Señor Ibarra. Señora."

A man had appeared at our elbow, silver-haired, impeccable, smiling with every tooth. He took my hand and bowed over it. His forearm slipped from his cuff, and across the pale skin ran a long white scar.

My blood stopped.

"I am Mathis Brandt," he said warmly, "your host. And I'm delighted you could come, because our guest of honor has been asking about you all evening."

"Guest of honor?" Lautaro said, perfectly steady. I felt his fingers dig into my waist.

Brandt's smile widened. His gaze slid to me, patient and knowing.

"A very dear woman. She says," he lowered his voice, "that you have her eyes, Rayén."

He knew my name.

And across the ballroom, beneath the glittering chandeliers, a woman in white lifted a champagne glass in my direction and began to walk toward me with one heel dragging slightly on the marble floor.