Read Online Claim Me by Anna Zaires - Free Book Online

going to kill them?”
    “Yes,” Esguerra answers with no hesitation. “I will.”
    Nora doesn’t say anything, and I remember my promise to her friend. “I think Rosa should be here for this,” I say. “She’ll want to see justice served.”
    Esguerra looks at his wife, and she nods.
    “Bring her here,” Esguerra says, and despite the grimness of the situation, I feel a twinge of amusement as I walk back to the plane.
    Esguerra’s delicate little wife has acclimated to our world quite well.
    When I get to the plane, Rosa steps out to meet me, her face pale. “Lucas, are they—”
    “Yes, come.” Carefully taking her arm, I lead her out of the hangar. As we step outside, I see that Patrick Sullivan has passed out on the ground, but his son is still conscious and pleading for his life.
    I glance at Rosa, and I’m pleased to see that her cheeks have regained some color. Approaching Sean Sullivan, she stares down at him for a couple of seconds before looking up at me and Esguerra.
    “May I?” she asks, holding out her hand, and I smile coldly as I hand her my rifle. Rosa’s hands are steady as she aims at her attacker.
    “Do it,” Esguerra says, and she pulls the trigger. Sean Sullivan’s face explodes, blood and bits of brain matter flying everywhere, but Rosa doesn’t flinch or look away.
    Before the sound of her shot fades, Esguerra steps toward unconscious Patrick Sullivan and releases a round of bullets into the older man’s chest.
    “We’re done here,” Esguerra says, turning away from the dead body, and the four of us return to the plane.

II

The Lead

16
    L ucas

    I spend the week after our return from Chicago dealing with the aftermath of the trip and recuperating from my injuries. According to Goldberg, our estate doctor, I have cracked ribs and a few first-degree burns on my back and arms—injuries that are beyond minor in light of the battle we survived.
    “You’re one lucky son of a bitch,” Diego says when I finally sit down with him and Eduardo to catch up on the Yulia situation. “All those guys…”
    “Yeah.” My teeth ache from clenching my jaw all day long. The faces of our dead men haunt me, just like those of the guards who died in the plane crash. Over the past couple of months, we’ve lost more than seventy of our people, and the mood on the compound is grim, to say the least.
    Between organizing funerals, finding new recruits, and cleaning up the mess in Chicago, I’ve been running on nothing but adrenaline fumes.
    “I hope you made the fuckers pay,” Eduardo says, his voice vibrating with fury. “If I’d been there—”
    “You’d be dead just like the others,” I say wearily. I’m in no mood to indulge the young guard’s bluster; my burns are mostly healed at this point, but my ribs hurt with every movement. “Tell me what you’ve learned thus far. Did you figure out if anyone had contact with my prisoner prior to the escape?”
    Diego and Eduardo exchange an odd look. Then Diego says, “Yes, but I don’t think it’s her.”
    I frown. “Her?”
    “Rosa Martinez, the maid from the main house,” Eduardo says hesitantly. “She… Well, the drone footage showed her coming to your house a couple of times during those two weeks.”
    “Oh, yeah.” I chuckle humorlessly. “She had some kind of strange curiosity about Yulia.” I’m not about to tell the guards about Rosa’s possible crush on me. The girl seems to be past that now, and I don’t think she’d appreciate the others knowing about her feelings.
    She’s been through enough.
    “Oh, good. I’m glad you know about that.” Diego blows out a relieved breath. “We figured it’s unlikely to be her, but I wanted to let you know just in case. She’s the only one who came by your house on Tuesday, so…” He shrugs.
    “Wait, Tuesday? As in, the day before we left?” I’d warned Rosa away long before that, and I thought she’d listened. “She came to my house on Tuesday?”
    “That’s