“Find them!” he snarled into the phone before hanging up.
Vee gave him a moment to compose himself before speaking. “I think I understand Miami. You laid low, let your people do the dirty work. Collected the rent, so to speak. Then things started going south when Reyes took out Hernandez and Casey took out the next guy. Everything fell to me. The Hernandez cut and the Montana piece of the pie. I had no idea you even existed so I kept trying to work with Domingo. But nothing I said or did could sway him to do business with a woman. When Domingo failed I turned to other sources and you lost out.”
“Significantly,” he said with a growl. “Do you have any idea how much money access to the East Coast is worth?”
Vee let out a small, humourless laugh. She knew exactly what it’d been worth. What she’d lost by her fight with the Mexicans. If she’d only known that Nicolás Garza was the man at the top, she would have gone straight to him and made the necessary arrangements between their organizations. None of this would have ever happened. Not her battle with the Mexicans, not her tarnished reputation, her loss of Miami. Her meeting with Sotza. Her marriage.
“You should’ve come to me,” she said accusingly. “When you found out what was going on, you should have come to meet with me yourself. Not hid behind your man. We could’ve avoided all this!” She shouldn’t have been so loose with her tongue, needed to remember who she was talking to. A cartel boss. But she was too angry to heed the stiffening in his shoulders and the shadow passing across his face.
“It was too late when I found out what was happening. Sotza had already arrived in Miami.”
“You could have come anyway,” she snapped, recklessly pushing on. “You could have partnered with me, pushed him back, taken what you thought should have been yours to begin with. Instead of hiding in Mexico and leaving me and Domingo to battle it out. Good job there, Nico! Your cousin lost his head while you stood back.”
He flinched. “It would have been suicide! No one goes head to head with The Butcher and survives.” He pushed her back against the wall and shoved a finger in her face. “Domingo was reckless, stupid. Don’t bother to deny it. He had a year to figure his shit out, losing his head was his payment for fucking up.”
“This is suicide!” she shot back. “What do you hope to gain by attacking Sotza in his home? You were better off fighting him on foreign soil.” He shoved a hand through his hair and glared at her. She continued, “You know I’m right. You’ve moved against Sotza. He won’t allow you to walk away. He has Desi and you know it. You better just cut and run, because this is your only chance to disappear. Once he finds us you’re dead.”
“If he so much as touches Desiree I will cut his fucking heart out.”
She saw the rage, his terrible fury over his missing second-in-command. But more importantly she saw his desperation. Desperation made people reckless. Coloured their decisions, fuelled them with emotion rather than the cold logic necessary for planning.
“She’s already dead and you know it,” Vee said coldly.
She was prepared for the hit. Loosened her body, watched his body language. He was right-handed, so when the hit came toward her she moved her head to the side, taking the clip in the ear and collapsing to her left to lessen the impact. But she needed him to think he’d gotten her hard so she dropped to the floor as though knocked unconscious.
He immediately bent over her. “Elvira…” he said, regret leaking into his voice.
She swung her knee up, catching him in the side. He lost balance, falling from his crouch onto his ass. Vee kicked out, aiming for his face. She got him hard on the cheek, knocking him back. The impact would’ve been worse if she’d been wearing shoes, but she had to work with what she had. He grabbed his face and swore. She had to scramble over top of him to reach the door. She was about to lunge out into the open when he grabbed hold of her wrap, tearing it as he dragged her back. She hit the floor hard, landing on her knees.
He was fast, faster than her. She fought, turning to aim a punch at his head. He knocked her arm aside and slapped her hard, knocking her into the wall. She collapsed onto the floor, her ears ringing and her vision fuzzy. He dragged her to the middle of the shed and straddled her. She tried to bring her hands up to defend herself, but he pinned them easily with one hand. She kicked at him, slamming her knees into his back as hard as she could. She curled her fingers and dug her nails into his hand until she felt the flesh tear and the wetness of his blood.
“Stop!” he roared and reached for his belt. He pulled a gun and pressed it against the side of her head. His eyes promised death if she kept fighting. She went limp underneath him.
“Smart chica,” he growled.
Vee fought to bring her breathing back under control, not an easy thing to do with a heavy asshole Mexican on top of her. His phone rang. He didn’t move the gun from her head. Instead he released her wrists and answered. Vee didn’t move, kept her hands above her head so he wouldn’t decide to shoot her.
“Si?” he snapped.
His entire demeanor changed as he listened. His body was rigid on top of her and fear lit his eyes. Deep, terrible fear. And not for himself. For someone else.
“I have your wife here with me. You hurt any of my people and I will – ”
Even Vee heard the woman’s scream that echoed through the phone, cut off by a gunshot. Vee knew her husband well enough to know that he didn’t bluff. If he pulled his weapon, shot it, then he had just killed someone.
Chapter Thirty-One
Shock radiated through Nico’s body knocking him back on his haunches. Vee still lay underneath him, but she was able to push herself up enough to watch him. Horror etched his features. He squeezed his eyes shut and breathed hard. When he opened them, Vee saw rage unlike anything she’d ever seen before. Nico put the phone on speaker and said in a surprisingly smooth voice that hinted at none of his anger, “You killed something that belongs to me, now you will hear your wife die.”
Vee scrambled backwards, clawing the floor until her back hit the opposite wall. Nico got to his feet and followed her, his gun trained on her head. She wanted to say something, to try reasoning with him, but she knew it was pointless. He was past the point of reason. He moved the safety back and began pulling the trigger. Vee kept her eyes open, watched as death sped toward her.
“You would risk your woman’s life like that?” Sotza said, his voice as dispassionate as Vee had ever heard it. He was not the loving husband she’d spent two days getting to know. He was the boss now. The Butcher at work.
Nico’s finger eased back, though he kept the gun on Vee. “Desi is alive?” he demanded.
“For now,” Sotza replied coolly.
“You will give her back… and any of my other people that you have?” Nico asked, no hint of the desperation that Vee could see in every line of his body.
“Once Vee is released into my care we will talk.”
“Not good enough,” Nico snarled. “You could kill them.”
“There is only your woman left. The others are dead,” Sotza said, his voice so disembodied, so cold, that Vee shivered, even though she knew they were on the same side.
“You killed four men?” Nico said incredulously.
“Five,” Sotza corrected. “John would make six, but I’m saving him for later.”
Vee could tell from Nico’s complexion that he was now alone. There were no people left to help him fight. Sotza had hunted them and cut them down. All except the bodyguard that had turned on them. He would find his justice later.
“Alright,” Nico growled, clearly frustrated at the loss of his people and the downfall of his grand plans. “You will release Desiree, give her back to me and we will leave you in peace.”
A shot echoed through the phone and the woman began screaming, agony ripping through her voice. Vee didn’t move, but Nico flinched, dropping to his knees. He couldn’t speak until Desi was able to bring herself back under control, her screams dying away.
“
I have now shattered her trigger hand,” Sotza said calmly. “A shame, I truly don’t enjoy hurting women. But she is vicious this one, went after me with my own kitchen knife. She is lucky I didn’t cut her fingers off.”
Nico went white at hearing his woman was now shot and bleeding somewhere on the island. Vee looked at Nico, catching his eye. She kept her face carefully controlled, though she was terrified. She knew Sotza was making the right moves, showing this man that he was willing to do whatever was necessary. But Sotza was pushing a very dangerous man toward a reckless edge. An edge that Vee stood on with him.
“He isn’t bluffing you,” Vee said carefully. “He will not negotiate. You’re only option if you want to save your love is to release me.” Vee purposely called the other woman his love, telling Sotza how much Desi meant to Nico. How far he would go to get her back. Vee suspected that Nico was seriously regretting his decision to put Desi in the path of the Venezuelan cartel boss.
Nico seemed to struggle between desperation and rage. He was having trouble controlling himself. “How do I know he’ll let her go?” he asked, his voice rough. “He could take you back, my only leverage, and then kill her.”
“He could,” Vee acknowledged. “But he doesn’t lie. If you ask him for an exchange, then he’ll do it. He’ll give her back, relatively unhurt.” Vee thought back to the severed heads that Sotza had sent her and shuddered. She really hoped that she was telling the truth. But so far, in her experience, Sotza had never done anything other than what he said he would do. He had told her he was taking over Miami, toppling her regime, and he had done it. He’d also told her they would marry, now she was his bride.
“Sotza,” Nico growled. “If I give you my word that you will get your wife back, then you will give me Desi? And you will let us leave the island alive?”
There was a pause and then Sotza said, “Agreed.”
Vee slumped back against the wall as Nico made the arrangements. Right before Sotza could hang up though, Nico looked at her, his dark eyes piercing and grave. He lifted his gun and shot her.
Vee screamed, unable to hold it in as burning pain sliced through her arm. She grabbed the wound with her other hand and doubled over as the pain slashed through her. It was like being lit on fire, like nothing she’d ever experienced before. Tears flowed down her cheeks.
“Vee!” Sotza snarled, finally losing his cool. “Answer me, right now. Tell me you’re alive.”
“I’m here,” she yelled through her tears. “He shot my a – ”
“Touch Desi one more time,” Nico interrupted, “and the next bullet goes through her skull.”
“You have five minutes to bring my wife to the house,” Sotza snapped and hung up.
He was still at the house, Vee thought as dizziness swept through her. Nico crouched in front of her, took her wrap where it was already torn and ripped a strip off. He shoved Vee’s hand away from her bleeding arm and wrapped the strip of fabric around the wound. He yanked the makeshift bandage tight and tied it off. She gasped as pain radiated through her arm and torso.
“My apologies, Señora. It must be tight enough to stop the bleeding. I was careful to hit the flesh part only. I missed artery and bone.”
“Thank you,” Vee said sarcastically, glaring at him through the wetness in her eyes.
He gripped her other arm and pulled her to her feet. “You will heal,” he snapped and dragged her toward the door. “Unlike Desi. She will never fully recover from a bullet to the hand.”
Vee cried out as he shoved her roughly into the jeep. The one that belonged to John. As he got into the driver’s side, she said, “Desi wouldn’t be in this position, she wouldn’t be hurt, if you hadn’t made the stupid decision to come here.”
He slammed his fist into the dashboard and then pointed his finger at Vee. “If the fucking Butcher had never gone to Miami, none of this would be happening.”
Vee took a breath as he put the jeep in gear and slammed on the gas, jolting them forward. She reached out to steady herself. “If it wasn’t Sotza, it would’ve been someone else. No, Nico, coming here, to Venezuela, was a bad idea.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he said, his voice dropping, some of the anger fading. “You were supposed to be vulnerable, both of you. I was going to take you, force him to give back my US routes and then release you as a sign of good faith. I shouldn’t have sent Desi to the house as my plan B in case he wouldn’t negotiate for you. That was my mistake. I underestimated him.”
“I don’t understand,” Vee said, confused. “What did you negotiate when we were in Mexico? I thought you two were in talks for those routes.”
He shook his head. “We negotiated nothing. Sotza told me I was to withdraw completely, to never step foot in the States again, or he would do his thing, cut off my body parts.”
She stared at him incredulously. “But why?”
“He’s an arms dealer, chica. The man hates drugs, always has.”
Vee sat back in her seat, staring out the window, her good hand pressing against the wound while bracing herself on the dashboard with her injured arm as they bounced across the jungle road. Sotza hated drugs. Something triggered in her brain, a memory perhaps. She thought maybe she’d always known that The Butcher didn’t tolerate drugs. But when the man himself showed up in her city, started a war, she’d been too busy fending him off to do her research. If she’d known about his plans, to dismantle instead of takeover a good portion of the organization she’d inherited, she might have asked more questions. Like, where was Reyes? Did he know of Sotza’s plans? Did he approve? She didn’t quite understand the relationship there. Both Reyes and Sotza were their own men. Neither worked for the other. Yet, the way she understood it, Sotza had been doing Reyes a favour by cleaning up Miami. Did Sotza have an ulterior motive for going into the US?
When they arrived at the house Nico didn’t hesitate. He pulled Vee from the jeep and strode toward the frosted glass front door. She had a vision of him shooting out the door and walking them across the broken glass. He did neither. He banged on the door with the heel of his gun. A few seconds later the door swung open. Sotza stood in the entryway, tall, strong and coldly angry. Vee had seen him angry before, but that look, especially when his eyes raked Vee from head to foot, his gaze settling on her arm, it was something else. It was feral, it was vicious. It was a death promise. Vee had always been taught that emotions made a person weak, especially expressing them to the enemy. But in this case, as she and Nico faced Sotza, she decided she was wrong. Sotza took anger to a new level. As though he promised death. Could and would deliver death. No matter what happened today with the exchange.
Sotza motioned behind him, into the kitchen. Nico dropped Vee’s arm and pushed past Sotza into the other room. Vee was a little surprised he would turn his back on such a cold-hearted predator, but she supposed he’d believed her when she told him Sotza wouldn’t lie. His need to get to Desi outweighed any fear he had for his own safety.
Vee straightened, walked to Sotza and stood at his side. He acknowledged her coolly, nodding at her, his sharp gaze on Nico as he bent over Desi, checked her over and then scooped her off the chair she’d been sitting in. She was far more worse for wear than Vee. She’d clearly gotten knocked around in her fight with Sotza. One side of her face was puffy, the eye nearly swollen shut and a trickle of blood made its way from her hairline down to her jaw. Her hand had been wrapped up with a kitchen towel and was now resting limply in her lap as she was pulled into Nico’s chest.
Nico ignored them completely as he strode past Sotza and Vee toward the door, his head bent over his woman. Sotza’s voice made him pause. “You will make it safely off this island Garza, but you won’t get far. There is no place you can hide that I will not find you.”
Nico stared back, clearly seething, wanting to respond in kind with his own threats. But his eyes strayed to Desi, the damage done by his decision to attack Sotza. “This is between you and me, Sotza. She has nothing more
to do with this anymore.”
“You attacked my wife,” Sotza replied, ice dripping from his words. He stepped in front of Vee, shielding her with his body, showing the other man that she was now protected. “You laid hands on her, you shot her. There will be no pardon… for either of you.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
The moment the door closed behind Nico and Desi, Vee collapsed, her legs folding beneath her. Sotza caught her before she hit the floor. He lifted her in his arms and carried her into the kitchen, placing her on the counter. When she tried to sit up he pushed her back down.
“Looks like you’ve lost a fair amount of blood,” he grunted examining her bandage. “I’m going to have to clean it, stitch and rewrap it. Then we need to get the fuck off this island, we have no protection. I’m certain Juan is dead. John probably killed him before taking you.” His accent was stronger than usual. From the stress of Nico’s attack and her injury, she guessed.
“Poor Juan… that sounds horrible,” Vee said faintly, referring to the stitches and rewrapping part of his statement. “Wait, how did you know it was John that grabbed me?”
“He admitted it.”
Vee could only imagine what Sotza did to the other man to induce a confession. “Still alive?” she asked as Sotza moved around the kitchen gathering what he needed to fix her arm.
“Of course,” he said coldly. “He betrayed me, betrayed my wife. He doesn’t get to die easily.”
His deep brown eyes lifted to hers, hard and uncompromising. She looked back at him steadily. “I want to be there when you teach him the price of betrayal,” she said.
“Of course.”He leaned over and kissed her lips gently. “I’ll be right back. I need some things from the other room.” She nodded while he pulled his gun from its holster and set it on the counter, next to her good hand. Smart move. Nico could come back, though she doubted he would.
Queen’s Move: Book Two of The Queens Page 19