Page 49 of Secrets Beneath the Waves

“So you have no idea where she is. You shut down the operation.” Ramon paused, his stuttering thoughts picking up steam. “Now, you’ve got me with you. Why’s that? It’s not like you see a guy like me as a threat.”

Unless…

“You want Zeyla to come to you.”

“She’ll come toyou.”

“You’re counting on it, aren’t you?” Ramon leaned his head back against the seat, because it felt far too heavy to keep holding it up. This guy wanted a confrontation with Zeyla, so he’d taken Ramon, assuming she’d come to get him. Which presumed—perhaps falsely—that she was alive and able-bodied enough to do that.

She’d fallen down that cliff, and when he looked, she’d appeared dead. She was probably getting medical care right now—which was what he should be doing.

“She isn’t coming.” Ramon couldn’t see any way that she would be here.

He was in the car, and he felt like he was barely here. All he had the strength to do was close his eyes and try to sigh out some of the pain in his left side from his broken arm and the swollen thigh that guy had kicked. Some confidential informant that guy was. What a joke.

Ramon wanted another go with the guy, maybe in a dark alley somewhere when Ramon was back to full speed.

Things would end differently this time.

“She’ll come. I know her far better than I know you, which is why I took measures to ensure she would be here.”

Ramon glanced over at the guy. “She’s never met you. You don’t know her.”

“She onlythinkswe’ve never met.”

Ramon didn’t like the sound of that at all.

The car slowed. Ramon glanced out the front windshield and saw an SUV parked across a four-way stop. The road was empty except for them and the car waiting for them. There was nowhere to hide in the fields around the intersection. A run-down house on one corner didn’t look like it had been occupied in decades. Even the trees were bare and sad.

“Friends of yours?” They surely weren’t driving up to an ambush Schnell knew was coming. Ramon couldn’t see how Zeyla might be well enough to show up here, given everything.

“Other way around, Mr. Santiago.”

The car stopped.

Out the front window, he spotted a guy in tactical clothing. The man climbed out of the front seat and opened the rear door. He dragged Zeyla out by the elbow.

“Didn’t I say she’d be here?” Schnell waited for his driver to open the rear door, and then he climbed out.

Ramon tried the handle on his side, but it was locked. He couldn’t get out unless he went the same way the general had gone. When the door started to close, Ramon dove over there and wedged himself in the door. He shoved against it and forced his way out but put the wrong leg down first.

It gave out, and he collapsed onto the ground.

“Ramon!”

The sound of Zeyla screaming his name rang through his head. He planted his good hand on the ground and tried to get up.

Someone grabbed his elbow and hauled him to his feet. The driver’s face swam in front of him. The guy said nothing. He just dragged Ramon to the front of the SUV.

General Schnell walked ahead of them, toward the man holding on to Zeyla.

She glared at the Count of Shadows, a graze on her forehead and dried blood in her hair. But she was alive. “Let him go!”

“Whether I do that or not,” the general said, “is entirely up to you.”

She didn’t look at Ramon, or struggle, but he could see the conflict in her eyes. The look of defeat in the face of impossible odds.

The general said, “He goes free. If you come with me.”