Page 44 of Gilded

LUKA

“ S he’s giving up,” I tell Jairo at the Sandpiper guest house while I pace in front of the fire in the living room.

“Whose fault is that, asshole?” Jairo says, his focus on his laptop.

I don’t care if she hates me or not. It’s not going to keep me from getting her away from these fuckers.

I’ve been over all the obvious ideas again and again, searching for a way to make it work without risking lives. But Jairo keeps shutting me down with valid issues.

Then a new idea hits me. “What if we kill everyone but Tarik? Then torture him until he talks? I’ve never been big on torture, but I bet Diallo would be good at it.”

Jairo says something that doesn’t penetrate my panicked haze.

“It has potential, but I think poisoning is still the best option,” I say, circling back to one of my previous ideas. “It would give us more time. With them both sick, they’d be forced to give me the reins short-term. We just need those fucking locations.”

I study the carpet as I pace. “We don’t have anything on hand to poison them with now, but Xavi or Malachi could pick something up tonight. One of them could go in as a server at the reception. Add it to their food. Make sure it goes to them and no one else.”

“ Luka .”

Anger spikes through me, and I spin. “ What? ”

Jairo’s looking at his laptop. I hurry to the sofa and sit beside him. “What’s she doing?”

“Looking at floor plans to Saint Patrick’s and googling the surrounding streets.”

My mind darts back to her conversation with Hudson. “Mark Hudson was married there. She asked where the bride waits before the wedding. He said there’s a bathroom in the back of the church that’s used as a dressing and staging area.”

Jairo turns his computer toward me, where a floor plan of the church takes up the screen.

I point to the bathroom located in the narthex of the church. “There.”

We both just stare at it, searching for the significance, if any.

“Unhelpful,” Jairo says before clicking over to the software that tracks the other links she’s visited. “You think she’d try to run? She’s too smart to think she’d get anywhere in that wedding dress, let alone get past security.”

Frustration burns a hole in my chest. “I don’t know why she thinks she can escape just because she’s not on an island.

I told her that it won’t be any easier to get away from Zeiger there than it is here.

Told her his security would be just as tight as her father’s.

I also told her he’d beat her to near death when he finds out… ”

My brain takes a sharp turn.

When I look at Jairo, he’s already looking at me.

“She may not be able to run,” Jairo says, “but she could be?—”

“Kidnapped.” I push to my feet. “Fuck, why didn’t I think of that sooner? Zeiger would spend every free second searching for her. Tarik would turn to me to temporarily fill in…”

I tamp down the excitement, searching for the flaws in that plan. “We need to know what kind of security he’s got set up for the wedding. There will be a lot of important people there, and some of them will also have their own security.”

“Focused on their principal, not Malia.”

“True.”

The room goes quiet as Jairo and I turn over all the facets of a mission to kidnap Malia before the wedding. This is something we know. This is something we’ve done hundreds of times and in far more dangerous situations.

Jairo nods and smiles. “Yeah. This is viable.”