Page 104 of Everything We Found

Thomas grunted. “Here I thought I was the villain.”

“Shut up, Tom.” James looked at him like he’d lost his mind. But if Thomas could keep Fernando talking, maybe James could find an opening. Maybe Claire could come back to herself and wouldn’t slow James down too much when they saw a chance to run.

“You should listen to your brother,” Salvador told him and Thomas rolled his eyes, burying his fear behind defiance.

Salvador shot Thomas in the thigh, ripping a deep-throated scream from him. Salvador laughed maniacally. Thomas collapsed, landing on a knee, pain lancing through him at the impact. His palms hit the dirt hard, holding him up. James muttered continuously, his face turned into their mother’s hair.

Thomas gritted his teeth in absolute agony and forced out a breath of air. Then another and another, until his focus returned. Barely.

He lifted his face and the cool tip of a gun pressed to his forehead. It was almost a relief, the cold metal against his burning skin. The knowledge that it would all be over soon.

“Let them go,” he heard himself say. “Kill me, just me. I’m the one you want.”

“Thomas!” James shouted in anguish. “Fucking sandstorm!!!”

“Take Mom and get out of here.”

Salvador laughed as if that was really an option for them. “Touching.”

“Tell Nadia I love her.” His voice was surprisingly steady despite everything. “Tell her I’m sorry.”

“No!” James shouted. “Don’t shoot him. Let him go. We did nothing to you. It wasn’t us. It was Phil. He gave up your location, and you got your revenge on us when you murdered him. Just let us go.”

Thomas stared down the man who held the gun to his head. Cesar’s eyes frosted over, turning colder than an Arctic storm.

“Tell me why. Why us?” What made the Hidalgos so hostile toward the Donatos compared to any of the other businesses the cartel had laundered through? Thomas needed to know his death wasn’t going to be senseless. That he wasn’t just a name on their list. That his life really wasn’t worthless.

“Your papa. He tipped your FBI. Brought the whole operation down.” Cesar’s brow twitched. “Eres solo otra mancha que limpiar.”

You’re just another stain to clean up.

“Tom!” James yelled.

“No. No!No!” Claire sobbed. From the corner of his eye he saw her trying to get to him, but James held her firmly around the waist. “My boy.”

A hot wind swept over him, caressing his face. He shivered, imagining Nadia’s fingers in a gentle slide down his cheeks. The brush of her lips over his. Her voice full of love as she spoke his name. His eyes closed and he swayed where he knelt, thinking only of her. What he felt for her, what he yearned for her. It warmed him as the cold moved in. Somewhere in the back of his mind he registered that his life was slipping away.

“Tom!Thomas!”

James sounded further away.

Good. He was leaving. He’d take their mother to safety. They’d live. Natalya would comfort him. The boys would heal him. Claire would recover with time and love them. Nadia… Nadia would survive this too. She was stronger than any of them.

His only prayer was they would find peace without him.

Fighting the darkness, he forced his eyes open one last time and stared straight into Cesar’s ruthless black eyes. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have seen him jolt or the red stain expanding from the center of his chest. He would have missed his eyes widen in shock, or Fernando’s glance up at the sky before shouting, “¡Corran!” then racing for the plane that was powering up its engines.

“Get down!” James shouted.

Something big hit Thomas hard, forcing him to the ground. Head twisted to the right, he stared into James’s terrified eyes, their mother bundled in his arm on the other side of him. They lay prone on the gritty runway, James’s hand hard on his back. As if Thomas had the strength to get back up.

“Stay with me, Tom.” The demand, shattered with heavy emotion, stumbled from James. “Don’t you dare die.”

Bullets flew above them, pinging into metal, shattering glass, ricocheting off propellers.

“He’s bleeding out,” James ordered through clenched teeth. “Hurry, hurry,hurry!”

Who was he yelling at?