Free Unforgiven (A Cyn and Raphael Novella Book 3) by D. B. Reynolds

but I trust you can handle a locked door.”
    “Four hours,” Raphael said abruptly, clearly tired of the game. “We’ll be there.” He was reaching to disconnect when Pascal’s voice came back at him.
    “Make sure the money’s in cash. U.S. only.”
    Raphael didn’t dignify that with a response. Everyone on the plane knew this little farce had nothing to do with money.
    “You know the place?” Raphael asked Jared once he was sure the phone line was dead.
    “Vaguely. Churches aren’t exactly my thing. That one’s old, open mostly to tourists these days. There’s a new cathedral in town that does the real business. But he’s right. Late at night, the place will be deserted, and the streets will be busy enough that we won’t draw any attention driving through town.”
    Raphael nodded. “Juro, have your team set up on this side of the border. They need to hold our escape route open.”
    Juro didn’t say anything, but he didn’t look happy. And Cyn wasn’t the only one who noticed.
    Raphael smiled slightly. “We’ll take two additional guards and a second SUV, but it won’t make any difference. We all know this confrontation isn’t going to be about numbers.”
    Cyn listened to this exchange and tried to make sense of something the others clearly understood. If Raphael thought that the number of warriors at his back wouldn’t matter, then that meant he was expecting to meet a master vampire, or maybe even another vampire lord. But despite his enemy’s obvious duplicity at every turn, Raphael seemed to be expecting a stand-up fight. That seemed crazy to her. If the enemy vamp was powerful enough to meet Raphael in a one-on-one, he wouldn’t have bothered with the charade of Alexandra’s kidnapping in the first place, would he? All he would have to do is step over the boundary to Raphael’s territory and wait for him to come calling.
    But that’s not what the enemy had done. They’d gone to all this trouble because they wanted Raphael in Mexico, in Enrique’s territory, or more to the point, away from his own. They obviously thought by getting him down here , they could defeat him. But why would they think that?
    Cyn stood, drawing the attention of all three vampires. “You guys haven’t changed,” she said thoughtfully. “You still think your enemies play by your rules. But they don’t. There’s more to this than meets the eye. Alexandra’s the bait, sure. But what’s their game? When the trap springs, what’s going to happen?”
    They all gave her identical blank looks, and she was not reassured to realize that they didn’t know the answer to that question any more than she did.

Chapter Five
    DESPITE THE CHANGE in rendezvous point, they still flew into Del Rio, Texas, in order to avoid the hassle of Mexican Customs. Traveling by private jet had its advantages, but avoiding Customs wasn’t among them. Any of the vampires traveling with them were capable of influencing the mind of a human Customs official, but it wasn’t worth the effort in this case. Acuña, Mexico was a short ride over the International Bridge from Del Rio. The city still had a relatively strong tourism industry, thanks to its proximity to the U.S., but like almost every other Mexican city these days, it was increasingly plagued by the violent activities of various criminal organizations, mostly centered around drugs. This was bad for the local economy, but, as it turned out, good for a vampire meet that might very well come down to a bloody battle of its own.
    Despite that dubious benefit, however, Cyn wasn’t happy that they were meeting in Mexico. There were too many uncertainties, too many ways the encounter could go wrong that had nothing to do with vampires. It was unlikely that anyone would try to accost Raphael or any of his vampires—and even less likely that they would succeed—but she would still have preferred to be on the U.S. side of the border.
    Seeming to sense her unease, which he no doubt did,