Zeno: #8 (Luna Lodge) (3 page)

“Anita help tomorrow,” he said, struggling to get the words out. “You get to gate, I let out.”

Ava nodded. She already had a plan to get out of the room. The vent she stored her bag in went to the office. She could fit. It was going to be tight, but luckily the place was old, and everything was built much larger than it might have been in a more modern building.

She hadn’t tested out if she’d be able to get to her paperwork in his desk, but she knew it was there. It was a moment where she would just have to hope things went according to plan.

A chuckle bubbled out of her. According to plan. It seemed like some sort of sick joke. Nothing since being with Antonio had gone according to plan. He had seemed so different when they had been on that week-long cruise together. She’d bumped into him the first night at dinner, and he had been so charming. They wined and dined that first night. It had been perfect.

The rest of the trip they sipped drinks in the sun, just spending comfortable time together. Or so it had seemed.

Maybe she just wanted to remember it that way. Even now she still wanted to see their time together with a rose-colored filter. In truth, she had spent a lot of time sunning by herself. She would wake up to find him shouting on the phone and would get upset at the anger she heard there. It frightened her.

Afterward he would apologize and say something about language barriers. Then all would be forgotten. Then there were the few odd times she’d woken up alone in his room. He’d come back an hour or two later.

Ava frowned. He’d likely been stepping out on her the whole time, and she’d been so blind to his charm she hadn’t even realized it.

Well, not anymore. She wasn’t staying here under his thumb just waiting for the day he would get tired of her and deal with her accordingly.

Tomorrow was the day.

Chapter Three

Zeno suffered through nearly thirteen hours on a small plane and then four more hours on an even smaller plane. He stretched his poor cramped muscles. He wasn’t made to stuff himself into such a tiny place for that long. At least it was a private plane. They had been lucky to secure charters for both flights, which had made their travel out of the country easier than the last time.

He squinted through the sunglasses he had been forced to wear in order to hide himself better. His hybrid amber eyes would have raised too many questions.

He snorted quietly as he watched the smaller people from the area scurry past him. Somehow he didn’t think he was doing nearly as good a job fitting in as they had hoped. It was a good thing he had waited outside the hotel while Apollo and Val checked them into their rooms. No telling what sort of trouble he might cause if he were inside. Apollo stood out enough as is.

He watched as the two stepped out from the lobby.

“Maybe we should get—” Apollo said.

“Food,” Zeno cut in. “We need to get food.”

As if to emphasize the point, his stomach growled loudly. Protein bars didn’t do shit to fill a stomach, and by the time they had landed the first time, there was nowhere to eat. It was early morning by his original time, which meant they had arrived mid-morning. Perfect time to still get breakfast.

Apollo rolled his eyes.

“I think we should get things inside before we start looking for something to eat.”

Zeno frowned. It was easy for him to say. Apollo had known they were going to rush off and had likely had more than cereal as his last meal. He opened his mouth to say as much when Val stepped between them.

“How about we get the stuff to the rooms and meet you somewhere?”

He pointed to the place he’d been eying since they were dropped off. He could smell the place as they drove by and was certain that it had to be as good as it smelled. Pork, onions, peppers. His mouth watered.

“Over there,” he said curtly.

Apollo frowned down at his little woman. “Why do we—”

Val leaned toward him and smiled sweetly. “You’ll want to come upstairs.”

Zeno’s face heated at the implication. He grunted and walked quickly away. There was no way he wanted to know what they were going to do. The last thing he needed was to have sex on the brain. It was bad enough as it was without having that sort of shit shoved in his face.

Besides, hunger came first and that was something he could actually deal with.

* * *

The small hole-in-the-wall restaurant did not disappoint. The inside of the place was nothing special. Paintings hung from the walls and someone had tried their hand at a mural of the surrounding mountain. The deep reddish earth tones ended at the white and purple caps of the mountain in the painting.

The place wasn’t dirty, but it was clear that the building had been around for some time, and he wouldn’t be surprised to find it still standing in a hundred years.

It was luck that the place had been empty. It had also been luck that the waiter seemed uninterested in having any sort of conversation. The last thing he needed was someone to chat him up.

Instead, he had been left alone with his food, and that was exactly how he liked it.

Each mouthful of the food he shoveled in only got better. He had no idea what he’d ordered, but it had come in sandwich form and seemed to be some sort of fish with eggs. It was delicious and that was all that mattered.

He set down the other half of his sandwich and took a drink of the sour, fruity beverage the waiter had set down. The warm heat from the alcohol made him flush but not enough to actually get him drunk. A man his size would have to drink more than a few to even get a real buzz. Still, the drink had great flavor with the meal, and that’s all that really mattered to him.

The bell above the door jingled as it swung wide. Apollo and Val walked in. The woman’s cheeks remained flushed from whatever they had been doing.

Apollo sat down across from him and sniffed the drink in front of Zeno.

“Think that’s wise?” Apollo asked and raised a brow.

Zeno picked up the glass and finished it off. He set it down with a loud thud. “We all have to have a little release.”

Apollo held up his palms in surrender. Val ignored the two of them and signaled for the waiter to come back over.

She pointed over to Zeno’s plate and cup. “We’ll each have one.”

He raised his hand. “I’ll have one more as well.”

The man nodded and moved quickly away. Likely having two large men in his place set the smaller man on edge. Couldn’t really blame him for that.

“Hungry?” Val leaned back and snorted.

His hunger starting to fade, he smiled for the first time.

“Gotta keep up my strength,” he said and flexed the muscles on his arm.

Val gave a loud laugh. “Yeah, or you turn into a grumpy baby.”

Before he could respond, Apollo spoke. “Have you asked around about Antonio?”

Zeno shook his head. His first thought had been to fill his stomach, but finding out about the girl had to come into play.

“I don’t like the idea of you going in there blind,” Apollo said and turned to Val. “Maybe we should stall for a day on the comms setup and go as backup.”

Val looked across to Zeno and then back to Apollo. “If we stall, we may not be able to get the location pinpointed in time.”

“I can handle this,” Zeno said with ease. “She’s likely just having too much fun to send a message to her sister. I’ll go and make a little house call. Nothing major. Then we get on with the real work.”

Apollo stared hard at him for a moment before speaking. “And what if there’s more to all this?”

Zeno sighed. He doubted that was the case. Ava seemed like a flake with the taking off with some man she hardly knew and only sending a postcard or two to her sister.

“I’ll deal with it,” he said. “We all have a job to do. You need to get the comms set up so we don’t lose the lead. This might be our only chance to actually catch some of these Group fucks, and we can’t put that in jeopardy for anyone.”

The waiter came back with three plates and three mugs of the sour drink. Zeno quickly shoved the rest of his sandwich into his mouth before the new plate was set in front of him.

Val smiled up at the waiter, a young man who seemed to only be okay making eye contact with her. Maybe the fact that both Zeno and Apollo were wearing their shades freaked him out.

“My friend is planning on visiting a friend while in town,” Val said. “She’s staying with Antonio Díaz.” She smiled at the man. “Would you happen to know him?”

The man started speaking quickly in an unfamiliar language. His hand darted across his chest in the shape of the cross before he raced back into the kitchen.

Val frowned.

“That was…weird,” she said.

More than weird. The man had been terrified when she mentioned Díaz. Suddenly Zeno’s confidence dropped. Maybe he needed to bring his A game to deal with this Díaz character. He pushed the untouched second drink away.

“He knows something,” Apollo said and looked to the doorway the man had raced to. “Maybe we should go question him.”

Val shook her head. “He was terrified,” she said and swallowed hard as if she were trying to keep her own fear at bay. “There’s no way we can get anything out of him, and there’s no reason to try and force it from him.”

“We can’t just leave it at that,” Apollo said. “We need to know what sort of man Díaz is.”

“He’s a monster.”

The quiet accented voice came from the doorway to the kitchen. The man who stepped out was older. He had deep lines on his face from years of hard work but didn’t look like life had beat him down. More that he’d given the good fight and won. His skin was tanned like most of the people they’d seen in town. He had a dark mustache and thinning hair at the top of his head.

“My name is Luís,” he said. “Why have you come to my restaurant?”

He walked over to their table. His dark brown eyes shifted between Apollo and Zeno.

Val broke the silence.

“We just came for a good meal,” she said. “We were in the area and promised to look up a friend’s sister who was staying with Antonio Díaz.”

The man stared at her for a moment before his face softened.

“If she is with Díaz, she has fallen in with the wrong crowd.”

Val nodded. “We were worried as much. She doesn’t seem to have good taste in men.”

His gaze flicked over to Zeno and then Apollo, likely wondering if Val had poor taste in men as well. Zeno resisted the urge to smirk.

“Why do you call him a monster?” Apollo asked. His voice was quiet, as if he were trying to not frighten Luís like he had the other man.

“You’ll find few who don’t know his name and even fewer who don’t fear him. His cruelty is known by all. And if your friend is still there, it has likely been just as hard on her.”

Zeno’s muscles twitch at the thought of the pretty woman in harm’s way. Irritation washed through him. He’d been so certain she was flighty and enjoying a vacation, not the prisoner of some depraved fucker.

Luís backed up a little, likely sensing how tense Zeno had become.

“I suggest you finish your meal quickly before you bring his wrath down on us,” he said and backed away. “We want no trouble with Díaz.”

When Luís was nearly to the door he paused and looked over his shoulder.

“You will be known by the company you keep,” he said, staring pointedly at Zeno. A shudder ran down his spine as he watched the old man disappear behind the door.

“What do you think that meant?” Val asked.

Zeno huffed loudly. “I think it’s clear that he sees us as trouble. Let’s just get out of here. We’ve got shit to do.”

He took a large bite of his sandwich, but it didn’t have nearly the flavor it did before. The sobering reality of the situation killed his joy. Now it was clear just how important his job might be and why Titus had insisted it was him. If Díaz started a battle, he was one of the few that could shut it down.

Chapter Four

Ava hurried down the hall after Piero. She’d been more than a little surprised when he’d come to tell her she had a visitor. Her heart hammered in her throat at the thought of her sweet sister there to save her. The last thing she wanted was to put Paige in any sort of danger.

She passed by Piero on her way to the room. “Tonight,” she whispered.

He gave a small nod before closing the door behind him.

Relief flooded over her as she rounded the corner to the veranda and found a large man in sunglasses waiting for her in a chair. There was no sign of Paige. Antonio wouldn’t be able to collect both sisters after all.

As quickly as the relief arrived, irritation replaced it. She knew one of Antonio’s men had let him know she had a visitor. She was so close to escaping. He’d just left for the day. She was ready to make her move, but the new arrival might have messed up all her careful planning.

The man stood from the chair he was in, and she nearly gasped. Large didn’t even describe him. Huge was better. Never in her life had she met a man this size. Sure, she’d seen a few on the beach or on TV, but it was totally different having someone like that standing in front of her in all their massive glory.

“Can I help you?” she said, the words fumbling out of her mouth.

The man looked down at her. His short sandy blond hair moved slightly from the cool breeze. She stared hard up at him, almost willing him to take off his sunglasses so she could fully take him in. He was certainly something. Size aside, there was no question in her mind that he was attractive. His strong square jaw tilted to the side as if he were taking her in and trying to guess her thoughts.

Her gaze slid down his body. The blue t-shirt he wore stretched over the thick muscles in his arms. She watched as they flexed a few times before realizing he was squeezing his hands tightly.

The breeze swept again through the patio, bringing the scent of his sandalwood soap to her. The rich notes swayed her body forward. She wanted to smell it up close.