Page 78 of Lash

Solomon reenters. "Punishment for letting us get away, I guess."

"That must be what the shooting was after we left—Mercado sent men to make sure we were finished off," I said, "and when they discovered we were gone, they took Stjepan instead.”

Sol just nods. "No sign of Inez. We’ve searched the whole barn."

Kane pokes his head in. "Lorenzo took Sax, Chance, and Si back to the house to look there. But I think we were played. He took her—probably waited somewhere he could see us within walkie range and left a few sacrificial lambs to make it convincing."

Solomon rubs his face. "Goddammit. Godfuckingdammit."

"I knew this was too easy," I snarl. "Lorenzo will be fit to be tied."

"Let's go help them search that big ass house, just in case," Kane says.

I nod, exiting the room. Tatiana surges past Scarlett and slams into me.

"Why?" She sobs against my chest. "I don't understand. Why?"

"He allowed us to get away. Mercado does not tolerate failure." I let out a sigh, stroking her hair. "I am so sorry, my love. I am sorry. He did not deserve to die."

"Not like this," she murmurs. "Not like this."

"We have to go, Tati. We can't stay here. Mercado's men might return."

She shakes her head. "We cannot leave him here, Nico. We can't."

"We cannot bring him all the way back to Zagreb, either. It is simply impossible."

Despite my words, I lower Stjepan from the hook, unchain him, and put him over my shoulder. He is not a light man, but I am strong, and it is for my Tatiana, so I do it without complaint.

Sniffling quietly the whole way, Tatiana accompanies me to the main house, where Lorenzo is waiting near an idling Suburban with a murderous expression on his face.

One by one, everyone else files out of the house, morose, pissed off, and defeated.

Solomon is the last one out, carrying a small tablet.

When Silas saw me coming with Stjepan on my shoulder, he went back inside and came out with a flat sheet and some bungee cords; he places the flat sheet on the ground and helps me wrap Stjepan in it, securing the sheet around his cold and stiffening body, and we place it in the back of the Suburban.

Once this is done, Solomon hands me the tablet without a word. Tatiana moves to stand beside me, her lovely face tear-tracked and sorrowful. I click the button on the top right end of the device and it comes to life without a passcode; an upward swipe opens it to a video. When I press play, the blur on the screen resolves into Rafael moving into the frame.

"Welcome, friends," he says with a winning grin. His English is absolutely flawless—if I didn't know better, he could be a third-generation Colombian-American, raised speaking Englishas a first language. "By now, since you are viewing this recording, you have discovered that you are not as smart as you thought. In fact, you have the lovely Sophia, whom I believe you know as Inez—" he reaches off-screen and jerks Inez into view, "to thank for the fact that you are still alive. I could have had you all killed at any time, but I am only interested in one thing, and Inez, my lovely and loyal wife, values your lives, so she gave me what I want."

I pause the video, sighing as I curse under my breath in Romani.

Lorenzo spits in the gravel at his feet, cursing floridly and extensively in Spanish, English, and Portuguese. "Fuck," he snarls, in English, after pausing for breath. "She gave him up."

"Her son?" Scarlett asks. "I can't believe she would do that, even for us."

Lorenzo shakes his head. "I don't know. I do not know. I would not think so either, not after everything she did to see him safe from Rafael. But you are her responsibility, and she takes that very seriously."

"Something's off, though," Solomon says. "Keep watching."

I tap the screen to play it again.

Inez is in awful shape—her face is bruised, bloody, and swollen, with cut lips, black eyes, a visibly broken nose, and a vicious gash to her left cheekbone. The camera pulls back and it becomes clear they did more than just hit her—she's been tortured. Lorenzo collapses to his knees in the gravel, keening a guttural cry like a trapped panther. He rockets to his feet and moves to smash his fist into the side of the suburban, but Chance dodges in front of Lorenzo and takes the blow to the gut. Lorenzo shouts something unintelligible in Portuguese, shoving at Chance, who barely moves.

"You need your hands to save your woman,” Chance murmurs. “Need to hit something, hit me. I can take it."

Lorenzo shakes his head, the fight leaching out of him—he collapses again, this time bonelessly, and Chance catches him.