The Mercenary: The Savage Seven. Katherine Garbera

had to go back and dispose of Thomas’s body.

      Ray didn’t panic because that wasn’t the type of man he was. Instead he sat back in his chair and listed the options in his head. Perhaps getting Olivia out of the picture would be the best option. If she were dead, then he wouldn’t have to worry about her going to the authorities. To be honest, he wasn’t sure what the authorities could do to him. The Onyx Diamond Group policed their own property and their own disputes.

      But the diamond consortium would be angry that governments were involved in their business and they might come down hard on him.

      His office phone rang and he answered it impatiently. “Lambert here.”

      “Mr. Ray, it’s Burati. Ms. Olivia left the desk in your home office open when she left. I believe she took everything in there.”

      Fuck. “Thank you, Burati. Did you follow her?”

      “Yes, Mr. Ray. I am in the car now. She seems to be headed toward the airport in Jo’burg.”

      Olivia had just helped make his mind up as to her fate. “Don’t let her get on a plane. I want her out of the picture,” Ray said.

      “What do you mean, Mr. Ray?”

      “I mean that she shouldn’t talk to anyone, do you understand me? She’s in danger. I had some trouble at the mine today and if she should run into the men who tried to kill me…”

      There was silence on the line and Ray wondered if the guard understood what he wanted.

      “Yes, sir, Mr. Ray.”

      “Good. Bring me everything she has on her.”

      “Yes, Mr. Ray,” Burati said. “I will talk to you after I find her.”

      “Very well,” Ray said. “No mistakes, Burati. I want this matter settled as soon as possible.”

      “It will be, Mr. Ray.”

      Ray disconnected the call. He didn’t dwell on what Burati was going to do. He couldn’t. He’d liked Olivia, otherwise he wouldn’t have asked her to marry him. And he had enjoyed living with her. She hadn’t been the sexiest woman he’d ever dated, but she had been one of the nicest.

      He had a moment of silence thinking of what their life might have been. He would miss her, but she knew too much to live and he knew that she’d never keep quiet.

      If he’d learned anything from the past month of living with her it was that she had a strong sense of right and wrong and the gray areas of real life didn’t make sense to her.

      He blamed her parents for sheltering her. As a matter of fact, it was their fault she was going to die. If they’d raised their daughter to see that there was more to the world than a cut-and-dried right and wrong, she probably wouldn’t have panicked and ran.

      He had a meeting in ten minutes and realized he’d sweated through his dress shirt. Dammit. He took off his shirt and realized he had dirt and dried blood on it.

      Where was his head? He went into his private washroom and washed his hands and face. He sprayed on his cologne and then redressed. All the while he watched himself in the mirror.

      He made damned sure that the man looking back at him was cool and calm. The Managing Director of Mining Operations wasn’t a man who could be scared or not in control.

      Ray had worked his way up the hard way and it took balls to operate a shadow mine under the watchful eye of the diamond consortium and not get caught. Ray had done that for the last few years with no hiccups until one of his workers had gotten greedy. But Thomas was dead now, and soon Olivia would be out of the way as well.

      He walked out of the washroom confident of himself. And when he pulled his suit jacket on he realized that this morning was in the past, Olivia was in the past, and all he could do was move on.

      And he would. That was what Ray Lambert did. Getting married had seemed like the next step in his plan to make himself into the successful man he’d always wanted to be, but a woman was more complicated. And Ray was revising his opinion on wives.

      Mistresses were easier to control and not as needy. That was one thing he hadn’t liked about Olivia. She had clung to him, expecting him to be her social network here.

      And the sex hadn’t been that great. In fact, since she’d moved here a few months ago, she hadn’t been able to feel comfortable having sex with him.

      She said she didn’t feel safe with the barbed-wire fence around their neighborhood and the guards sleeping down the hall. He bet she really felt unsafe now that she was out there on her own.

      It’d be so much easier for him if she broke down in one of the central Jo’burg neighborhoods. A random act of violence would be a nice neat way to tie up the problem.

      Chapter Six

      AUGUST 1, JOHANNESBURG INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

      Olivia drove into the parking garage at the Johannesburg International Airport. She’d gotten nervous once she’d entered the city limits of Jo’burg and had called Anna. She just felt safer when she was on the phone with the other woman.

      “We are sending two men to meet you in Johannesburg. Where are you?” Anna said.

      “I’m at the airport.”

      “Good. Now get inside and go to the bar. Kirk and Laz are on their way. But their flight won’t land for another hour. I want you in the public with lots of people around you,” Anna said.

      “I still don’t know why I just didn’t drive to the embassy.”

      “Would you feel safe there? I don’t have any contacts at the embassy and neither does Jack. But if you would feel safer, then go there.”

      Olivia had no idea where she’d feel safer. She started to cry, just thinking about everything. “I have no idea. I’m scared, Anna.”

      “I know. I am scared for you. I wish I was there with you.”

      “Me, too,” Olivia said. She took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. “Okay, I’m going into the airport.”

      “Good. I’ll stay on the phone with you until the guys get there.”

      “For an hour? That’s asking a lot of our friendship.”

      “No, it’s not,” Anna said.

      Olivia grabbed her Louis Vuitton duffel bag and her purse and got out of her car. The parking garage was well lit but almost deserted at this time of the day. She locked her car and then walked quickly toward the airport concourse. She had no ticket. Where was she going to go? She had said D.C., but she really wanted…she wanted to find a safe place where she could just hide out for a long while.

      “I don’t have a ticket,” Olivia said.

      “That’s fine. Just get inside. Find the armed airport guards and stay near them. If you see someone suspicious, go to the armed guards. I’m accessing the Johannesburg International Airport security cameras, so I’ll be watching you, too.”

      “You can do that?” Olivia asked.

      “Of course. I’m a whiz with computers.”

      Anna had always been a bit of a computer geek when they’d been at school. In fact she’d changed Olivia’s grade in algebra by hacking into the school’s computer network. “I forgot.”

      “You’ve got a lot on your mind today. I see you now,” Anna said.

      “Oh no. I changed my shoes and they don’t go with this outfit.”

      Anna started laughing and Olivia realized how silly she must have sounded. “Well, normally, I would never wear running shoes with a suit like this.”

      “I know. You still look stunning.”

      “Sure