Chapter 209 The Mercenary Hit List
"Tell me you are breathing," I said to the dead static on the secure line.
"I am breathing," Tristan answered. "But the men Julian sent are not."
"Alexander?" I asked. I pressed my fingers to my temples. My pulse hammered against my skin.
"He took a graze to the shoulder. Diego is patching him up," Tristan said. "We secured the perimeter. We are moving to the extraction point in ten minutes."
"You walked into an ambush," I stated.
"They waited for us in the canopy," Tristan confirmed. "They bypassed the outer alarms. They possessed military-grade optics. Suppressed weapons. They pinned us down in a ravine half a mile from the safehouse."
I closed my eyes. The image of my husband trapped in the crossfire ripped the air from my lungs. I sent him there.
"But you beat them," I said.
"Diego flanked their sniper. Alexander laid down covering fire. We dismantled them." Tristan paused. The rustle of heavy foliage came through the speaker. "I checked the bodies, Mina."
A dark shift in his tone caught my attention.
"Julian sent a private extraction team," I said. "He wanted Alexander alive to testify against you in federal court. Thomas Whitmore confirmed it. Julian wants to be the savior."
"Thomas was wrong," Tristan replied. "Or Julian lied to his father. These men did not carry zip ties. They did not carry federal warrants. They carried fragmentation grenades and hollow-point ammunition."
The chill settled deep in my bones. "You do not use hollow points to capture a witness."
"You use them to guarantee a kill," Tristan finished. "I pulled a satellite comms unit off the squad leader. I cracked the encrypted orders on the screen. It was a hit list. Not an extraction roster. A hit list."
He stopped talking. He took a ragged breath. The sound shattered my heart. The warlord was invincible, but the man underneath the armor was bleeding.
"Whose names were on the list, Tristan?" I asked. My voice turned to steel. I needed to know the shape of the monster hunting us.
"Alexander," Tristan said. "My name. Your name. And Elias."
"Julian is not fighting a corporate war," Tristan stated. The sheer, unadulterated hatred in his voice vibrated through the speaker. "He does not care about the Serrano Trust. The lawsuit is a distraction. The public scandal is a smokescreen. He is executing a systematic assassination of the Johnston family. He wants to take the empire from our corpses."
I stared at the blinking green light on the console.
"He sent a strike team to the school this morning," I confessed.
"What?" The single word cracked like a whip. The static flared. "You told me you wired them money! You told me they left!"
"They left," I promised. "I bought them off. I pulled Elias out of the library. He is asleep down the hall. We locked down the penthouse. We are safe."
"I should be there." The agony in his voice tore at my chest. "I left you alone. I left you exposed to a murderer."
"You went to save your brother," I reminded him. "If you stayed, Alexander would be dead right now. Julian would cross the first name off his list. You did the right thing."
"I almost lost you."
"Talk to me," Tristan pleaded. The gunfire and the blood faded from his end of the line. He sought an anchor. "Mina, please. Just talk to me. I need your voice. Get me out of this mud."
"The penthouse is quiet," I told him. My voice dropped to a gentle, soothing rhythm. "It is raining outside. The drops are hitting the glass. I made a pot of coffee an hour ago. The smell is filling the kitchen."
"What are you wearing?" he asked. The rough gravel returned, but it held a desperate sweetness.
"Your gray shirt," I admitted. "The one you left on the chair. It smells like your cologne."
I heard him exhale. A long, shuddering release of tension.
"I miss you," Tristan said. "I miss the way you look at me when you think I am not paying attention. I miss you."
"You have to come home to hear them," I replied. The tears burned my eyes. I let one fall. It tracked down my cheek, hot and undeniable. "You promised me twenty-four hours. The clock is ticking."
"Diego has the chopper fueled at the border," Tristan assured me. "Alexander is on his feet. We are walking out of this green hell right now. I am coming back to you."
"I am holding you to that."
"Mina," he said. The warlord crept back into his tone. "Lock the steel doors. Trust no one. Julian knows his hit squad in Colombia failed. He knows the men at the school took a bribe. He will panic. A panicked animal is dangerous."
"I know," I said.
"I love you."
"I love you," I echoed.
The line went dead.
I stood up from the leather chair. I walked out of the war room and down the long hallway. The two armed guards stood at attention outside the nursery. I nodded to them and pushed the door open.
The blue star nightlight cast a soft glow over the room. Elias slept in the center of the mattress. His chest rose and fell in a steady, peaceful rhythm.
I leaned down and kissed Elias's dark hair.
"Sleep, baby," I whispered. "Mommy has work to do."
I reached for a simple, black dress. I pulled my phone from my pocket. I dialed Ricardo.
"Mina?" Ricardo answered. He sounded exhausted. He spent the entire night managing the stock market fallout.
"Did Arthur Vance schedule the emergency press conference?" I asked.
"Yes," Ricardo confirmed. "Ten o'clock this morning. The main atrium of the headquarters. Every major financial network will broadcast it live. Julian Whitmore confirmed his attendance. He thinks you are handing him the keys."
"I am handing him a rope," I stated.
"Are you sure about this strategy?" Ricardo asked. The hesitation in his voice proved his loyalty. He hated watching me surrender. "Stepping down gives him the power."
"I am not stepping down to surrender," I corrected him. I pulled the black dress off the hanger. "I am stepping down to remove my restraints. The Chairman must obey the board. The Chairman must answer to the SEC. Minerva Hayes answers to no one."