Stone Cold

by Kristi Belcamino

  Not the man who stayed out of the public’s eye as much as possible.

  At the same time, he was a criminal who was perpetuating the spread of drugs that ruined millions of lives.

  Apparently, he had entire police departments in his employ and his own private SWAT teams. He’d had no qualms about shooting down a DEA helicopter that had ventured near one of his operations the year before. And he was known for executing his enemies or those who betrayed him and leaving their bodies hanging in the jungle to rot.

  One Mexican online magazine showed a large picture of three dead men dangling high up in the jungle’s canopy after they’d tried to interfere in El Jefe’s business.

  He was not a nice man.

  A tremor of unease ran through me.

  I looked up and glanced around Dante’s cozy house. I was in the living room, which spanned the length of the house and overlooked miles of rolling hills dotted with vineyards. Besides workers harvesting grapes, the only time Dante saw anyone in the fields below was when a small group toured the winery and adjacent vineyards. Dante’s windows were slightly tinted so that even if someone had binoculars, they wouldn’t be able to see inside. In the far distance, lights flickered across the miles marking downtown Calistoga.

  The only way someone could be watching me was if they were on foot, deep in the vineyards below, and yet I still felt a chill race down my spine.

  This ruthless killer I’d been reading about was Rosalie’s father.

  And he was coming for her.

  11

  Nico was working out in his private gym when his phone dinged.

  Anthony.

  “We found them. At a house in Calistoga.”

  Nico didn’t answer right away. He wiped his brow with a towel and stared at his own reflection in the gym’s mirrored wall. His face was red. But his shirtless chest looked like that of a man twenty years younger. He didn’t work out for vanity’s sake, though. He did so to remain strong and fit and healthy for as long as he could.

  That was another reason he was extraordinarily disciplined about his alcohol and tobacco use. The cigar the other night was a rarity. He allowed himself to smoke and drink, but in moderation.

  Drugs were not even an option. They never had been.

  When Nico’s first boss in the cartel had held a gun to his head and told him to snort cocaine to prove his loyalty, it had only taken the scrappy young Guatemalan one swift move and a flick of the wrist to disable the man. Five seconds later, he was standing over the boss with one boot pressing down on the man’s chest, holding a gun pointed at the man’s head.

  “How’s this for loyalty?” he’d asked.

  He hadn’t wanted to, but with all the other eyes in the house on him, he knew he had to pull the trigger. He didn’t even bother wiping the blood spatter off of himself. He wiped his fingerprints off the gun with his shirt tail, dropped it on the ground, and went to the table to continue playing the card game he’d been engaged in when the cartel soldiers had barged in.

  “You have ice in your blood,” his cousin had said.

  He’d shrugged. It had been his first kill. Nobody else knew that. He’d felt a little nauseous and struggled to hold his cards steady.

  Sitting with hooded eyes playing poker, he’d analyzed how the killing had made him feel. Not good. After he’d played two more hands, he’d come to one conclusion: murder was distasteful.

  He hadn’t felt numb. He’d felt ill. And to be honest, he felt a little afraid. The consequences of his actions might be deadly.

  But as soon as he’d refused to snort the cocaine, his fate had been sealed. He would either kill or be killed. But he was a survivor. After humiliating the man by refusing to follow orders, it was a clear choice: he had to kill him then or the man would come back and kill him later.

  It was the way of the streets.

  That innate understanding was what would save him from poverty. It was what had allowed him to ascend to the highest level of the cartel.

  Now, as an adult who was possibly the most powerful man in his country, his killer instinct lay right below the surface of his polished, sophisticated veneer.

  Standing and wiping the sweat off his chest, he realized he was lonely and restless.

  He’d accomplished everything he’d ever wanted to and with an ease that astounded everyone except him. He was bored with the trappings that would entertain most men: drugs, alcohol, sex, fast cars, big houses, and so on.

  While he enjoyed the company of the zookeeper, in reality, their relationship lacked fire. The sex was adequate, but he knew he could go a year without seeing her and not even realize it. She didn’t haunt his thoughts the way Sylvia had. When he first saw Sylvia modeling Parisian clothing in a magazine, he had barely been able to sleep until his cousin had tracked her down.

  He flew to Paris to woo her, and after just one date where he’d behaved like a perfect gentleman, he’d known he could not die in peace until he’d made her his wife. Except for the one night back in Guatemala where he’d reunited with a childhood love, he’d worshipped Sylvia and honored her. He would never call the night regrettable. But he did acknowledge it was a mistake. He could never regret it, though, because it had made him a father.

  As he stepped into the shower adjacent to his gym, he thought about all this and only wished he hadn’t hurt Sylvia with his actions that long ago night.

  Even though she’d claimed to forgive him, she obviously hadn’t, or she would never have kept Rosalie a secret from him.

  His anger at her betrayal was tempered by this harsh reality.

  But he would let it go.

  As he toweled off from his shower, his phone dinged again. Another text. This time just a question mark.

  “Same as before. Bring me the child without killing the woman who cares for her.”

  He hit send.

  Even though he knew people feared him too much to disobey his orders, he wondered whether the men who worked for him could manage to do the job without anyone dying.

  Well, it was out of his hands.

  12

  To keep from falling asleep, I periodically stood and crept around Dante’s house, checking the locks on doors and windows and peeking in on Rosalie’s sleeping form. Django lifted his head and wagged his tail in greeting but remained at the foot of her bed, on guard. Good. She was in an interior room with no windows, so that felt at least a little bit safe to me.

  In the kitchen, I made an espresso and downed it, carrying a second one around during my patrol. My Glock 43 was stuck in my back waistband, and I had a dagger strapped to my calf.

  I was sleepy but felt good. In fact, I’d never felt stronger or more competent in my life. The days of ceaselessly smoking weed and getting shit-faced were long gone.

  Even though I felt relatively safe at Dante’s, I needed to make sure nobody had followed us.

  It was easy to figure out how they’d found us at our loft. Sylvia had confessed her lie to El Jefe before her suicide. It had never been a secret that I was raising a child from Guatemala. The lie was that Rosalie was dead and this child was somebody else’s. Not El Jefe’s flesh and blood.

  However, the sticking point for me was that he’d sent an old woman to retrieve the girl. From what I knew about the cartel, they shot to kill and asked questions later.

  Maybe that had been round one—attempt to bring Rosalie home peacefully. At first. Maybe the stakes were now raised.

  As I patrolled the house, I looked for other weapons. When I saw that there was only a set of overpriced knives in my chef friend’s kitchen, I went into the hall and retrieved my own bag of weapons.

  I’d have to remember to put them all away in the morning once Rosalie was awake, but I decided to plant a weapon at every possible entry point. In the laundry room leading to the attached garage, I stuck a sawed-off shotgun in a hamper of dirty laundry.

  At the side door leading to the yard and pool, I tucked an extra cinquedea dagger behind a framed picture
of Dante and his mother. I put a Ruger LC9 inside a cut crystal bowl on a doily on the same sideboard near a hook for Dante’s car keys.

  In the hallway leading to the front door, I tucked my AR-15 inside a huge leafy potted plant.

  I was pleasantly surprised to find that the house was easier to defend than I might have imagined. The bedrooms were all interior rooms—except for Dante’s which soared straight up to make a second story. Like the huge walls of windows facing the rear of the house, someone would have to levitate to gain entry that way. There was a skylight in the great room that led from the kitchen to the living room, but if anybody came crashing through that, I’d have time to shoot them before they regained their footing.

  Feeling as if I’d done all I could, I plopped back down on the couch, put my Glock on the cushion beside me, and got back onto my laptop. I was tempted to watch TV, but the sound might distract me from someone trying to break in.

  I surfed the web to see if the news had reported on my aunt lately. Eva was also known as the Queen of Spades. She was known as an Italian Robin Hood trying to stop corrupt Mafia families in Italy who refused to cease their sex trafficking. Her exploits occasionally made international news. When I didn’t see anything on her, I went back to hunting for information on El Jefe’s past.

  I still found nothing that went back very far. I did find a picture of him and his wife at their St. Tropez wedding, but again, his face was in shadows. The man had been very careful over the years to make sure nobody had a decent picture of him. He was no dummy.

  I had to admit that part of the reason I wanted to see what he looked like was to see if my beautiful girl had any of his features. Her dark skin, black flashing eyes, thick black eyelashes, and pretty lips were stunning. Strangers sometimes stopped us in the street to comment on her beauty and ask if she was a child model or actress.

  She always grew angry at the question.

  “I am going to be a scientist. Not a model.”

  I tried to instill a lack of prejudice and snobbery and told her that there was nothing wrong with modeling. But of course, I also told her of the dangers and the pressure to stay thin and so on.

  I could have that type of conversation with Rosalie since she was such a bright kid. She would listen carefully and consider what I said and always come to her own conclusion.

  “That’s fine for someone else. But I don’t care about being rich. I want to make a difference in the world. Find a cure. Help sick people. Do something that matters.”

  Damn, girl. While my heart swelled with pride, I also couldn’t help but wonder if this all stemmed from the atrocities she’d seen in her young life.

  Young people around her had died from preventable diseases in her Guatemalan town. Others had been murdered over drug deals. Some died just because they disagreed with a person with a gun.

  I hadn’t realized I’d drifted off until a slightly muffled thud sent me off the couch to a standing position with my Glock clutched in both hands. I froze, listening for what had woken me. I watched as the front door handle turned. At the same time, I heard the slightest sound of movement to my right, from behind the door leading to the garage. Someone was at the front door. And someone was in the garage.

  I stood between both, uncertain which way to go.

  13

  Because I wanted the AR-15, I decided to head toward the front door first. I’d taken two steps in that direction when the front door splintered open in a burst of gunfire. At the same time, Dante flew out of his room and raced into Rosalie’s. Her door slammed behind him but not before I got a glimpse of a shotgun in his arms.

  He wasn’t a fighter. But I knew he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot anyone who came through that bedroom door. Near the front door, I scooped up the AR-15 from the potted plant and began firing toward the door. At the same time, I heard muffled gunfire from the kitchen. After several bursts to ensure I’d scared anyone away from entering that way, I raced back to the kitchen in time to see a man step through the splintered remains of the door there and raise the muzzle of a shotgun toward me. I dropped to the ground and rolled around the corner just as he fired. Plaster fragments from the corner of the wall between us rained down on my head.

  Doing an Army crawl, I peered around the corner, using a small end table against the wall as cover. I could see legs through the opening at the bottom of the table. I lifted the AR-15 and fired, aiming for the knees. The figure dropped instantly, firing off another round that went into the ceiling and sent another rain of debris down on the floor. As soon as I saw the man hit the floor, I squeezed off a round at his head. I was still lying down when I saw another figure step through the shattered remains of the door to the garage. Still partially hidden by the end table, I decided that the last trick worked so well, I’d try it again. I aimed for the dude’s knees. He fell to the ground in a heap. Blood was spurting in a frenzied arc onto the wall of the kitchen. I’d struck a femoral artery. I put a bullet in his face to make sure he wouldn’t be coming after me from behind. I backed up around the corner, heart pounding, adrenaline spiked to an all-time high. I sat there, shaking uncontrollably and staring at the door leading to Rosalie’s room.

  Dante knew not to make a sound, and I’m sure he’d instructed Rosalie to do the same.

  He knew to wait for me to tell him it was safe. He also knew that if he waited a long time and it was quiet and he hadn’t heard from me, that it had gone south.

  The roar of the guns had temporarily deafened me to any sound except the ringing of my ears. I waited, eyes darting in each direction and straining to hear, but when the ringing stopped and I hadn’t been attacked again, I stood.

  I set the AR-15 down on the end table. I had to go get Rosalie and Dante, and we had to get the hell out of there before they sent more people. That was the only thought I had in my head: Get them, and get the fuck out.

  I’d stepped out of the cover of the wall toward the bedroom when I heard a sound that made me freeze. Someone else was in the house.

  Out of my peripheral vision, I saw the older woman standing there, both arms extended as she pointed a serious-looking gun at me.

  “You are only alive because El Jefe has ordered it so,” she said.

  That made me pause. I turned my head to fully face her.

  “But if I have to kill you, I will tell him it was unavoidable. You’ve made that easier for me by killing Manuel and Lenny. It is justification enough to take your life.”

  “Then why don’t you do it?”

  “Because believe it or not, I agree with El Jefe that your death would further traumatize the girl. She is all I care about. Not you,” she said and spit on the kitchen floor.

  So, El Jefe was worried about traumatizing Rosalie? He should’ve fucking thought about that before he sent his goon squad into Dante’s house.

  “Where is she?” the woman said.

  I stared at her. She was fucking crazy if she thought I was going to answer.

  “I don’t want to waste time searching the house. Call the girl out now.”

  Instead of answering, I glared at her. I prayed that Django wouldn’t bark or do anything to indicate where they were hiding.

  Before I could react, she’d sprinted toward me and raised her arm to hit me in the head with her gun. I was able to raise my arm to fend her off, and the blow smashed down on my forearm instead, nearly sending me to my knees. Skinny bitch was stronger than she seemed.

  As I crouched in pain, I reached down and grasped the dagger strapped to my thigh. I kept it pressed against my leg, keeping my body angled so it was out of view.

  As I rose, I caught a blur of silver and black as she swung the butt of the gun. It struck me across the face. The blow spun me and sent me reeling. My teeth stung, and I tasted the metallic sweetness of blood in my mouth. I used the momentum of my spin to come back around with the dagger raised in my right hand. I whirled and slipped the dagger’s blade into the base of her neck near her hairline. She crumpled immediately. I
stood, panting, and wiped away a stream of blood dribbling from my mouth. I saw the gun near her right hand. I kicked it, and it skittered across the kitchen floor. She still didn’t move.

  I was afraid to leave her there to rise like Freddy Fucking Krueger to kill me. But I also was too wary to reach down to check her pulse. I could imagine her plunging some hidden knife into my eye if I got close enough.

  I kicked her. Nothing. I shoved her over with my foot. Her head flopped loosely from side to side. Her wide eyes stared at nothing. I nudged her again, softer this time. Her head lolled to one side. A trail of blood dribbled from her mouth, and I finally decided she was truly dead.

  I barely made it to the kitchen trash can before I vomited until I dry heaved. I heard a scuffling sound in the bedroom and Django whining.

  “Give me a minute,” I called through my spittle.

  I wiped my face and headed toward the bedroom door.

  “Dante?”

  “Gia?”

  “We need to leave,” I said. “But Rosalie needs to be blindfolded or something.”

  “Okay.”

  Panic swelled in my gut. I looked around at the bloody massacre around me.

  “We need to go now!” I screamed, but the door remained locked under my palm.

  “Just moving stuff I used to blockade the door.” Dante’s voice was shaky.

  He opened the door. A bed mattress and frame was upended, and furniture was helter-skelter. Rosalie stood before me in her nightie with Dante’s black T-shirt tied around her face. He was bare chested, wearing only pajama pants. His eyes widened in horror as he saw the scene behind me.

  “Your poor house. I’m so damn sorry,” I said.

  He closed his eyes for a second and then exhaled.

  “Let’s go.”

  We raced to the garage with Django at our heels. The garage door was wide open. We put Rosalie into the backseat of my Jeep.