Maybe she wasn’t so stupid after all.
“Bad day?” I pushed the tequila to the side, holding a perfect smile while nodding toward the discarded tie.
Brody didn’t bother to look up, still gripping the hell out of his mug. “Something like that.”
“Want to talk about it?” I urged, placing a hand across his forearm. My bold move captured his attention, snapping his eyes toward our connection.
Take the bait.
Whatever fire had lit in his eyes quickly extinguished. Turning away, he stared blankly across the bar before lifting the mug to his mouth. “Not particularly.”
Okay, time to change tactics. “Well, then, can I buy you a drink?”
“I own the bar, sweetheart.”
I’d learned patience. I was stellar at waiting my turn. But I’d also learned that leading a horse to water wouldn’t make him drink.
Unless you shoved his face in it.
“I get it.” Shifting toward him, I leaned my elbow onto the bar and dialed up the sarcasm to an eleven. “I’m just a stranger. What do I know, right? But you’ve got a chip on your shoulder the size of Texas. You obviously need to unload. If not me, there’s got to be someone you can talk to.”
Silence.
“Girlfriend?”
Silence.
I assumed that particular brand of quiet dismissal worked on bar blondie, but unfortunately for him, petulance was my specialty.
“Boyfriend?”
“The fuck? I’m not—” His widened eyes slowly narrowed as he took in the smirk plastered across my face. Rolling a heated gaze over me, he held up his palm. “Lady, if I need to unload, this does the job just fine.”
Stop thinking of that hand. Focus. Stick to the plan.
“I’m told family is always there for you if you need them,” I offered, clearing my throat.
The corners of Brody’s mouth curled up in a cold smile. “Hard to do when they’re dead.”
“All of them?”
He shrugged, and I held back a smile as his fingers swiped a cocktail napkin back and forth beside his beer. He wanted to react. How could he not? The tension in the air was so thick, it could’ve choked us both.
“Might as well be,” he bit out finally, sending the cocktail napkin skidding across the bar. “Family is just a bullshit lie anyway.”
“Well, look at that—something we can agree on.”
Glancing over his shoulder, Brody arched an eyebrow and gave me a slow appraisal. “You ask a lot of questions, you know that?”
“Sorry, force of habit in my line of work.”
He let out a low chuckle and took another drink, a dangerous mix of intrigue and irritation flickering in his eyes. “Since you obviously can’t take a hint, I’ll bite. What do you do?”
A wide smile parted my lips. “I guess you could say I’m an international trade specialist.”
“Sounds vague.”
“Mm-hmm,” I agreed, taking another small but lethal sip from my glass. Although I somewhat enjoyed our banter, I’d grown bored with small talk. Propping my elbow on the bar, I rested my chin in my hand and leaned in. “So, is this what you do since getting fired from the district attorney’s office, Brody?”
Twisting around, he slammed his glass onto the wood, his disinterest shifting to suspicion. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”
“No, but I know you. Your Harcourt family scandal made national news, and your face is hardly forgettable, Brody.” I had no purpose in saying his name twice, other than watching the instability flicker behind his eyes. He didn’t anticipate being confronted with the fall of Houston’s own version of Camelot. Maybe he thought his mask was just that good, but dark-rimmed eyes and nervous twitches betrayed even the most well-crafted façade. It was obvious he’d been balancing on the edge of a breakdown for some time now.
“My last name doesn’t define me.”
“Well said.”
“It seems you have me at a disadvantage,” he accused, eyeing me cautiously. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours. You plan on telling me?”
I cocked my head. “That depends.”
“On what?”
“Well, my last name didn’t define me either, so I got myself a brand new one. Thanks to you, of course.”
That was the moment the pieces fell into place and the puzzle clicked. Beads of sweat traced the seam of his upper lip as he stopped looking at me and finally saw me.
“No, it can’t be.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, where are my manners?” Sliding off the stool, I stood barely a breath away and extended my hand. “My name’s Adriana.” I waited until all the color drained from his face before driving in the final nail. “Adriana Carrera.”
Chapter Six
Brody
All I could do was stare at her outstretched hand as if it had fangs just waiting to sink into an exposed vein and inject tainted venom filled with retribution and penance.
It couldn’t be.
But it was.
Adriana fucking Carrera.
Speak of the devil, and she walks in your bar.
I remembered seeing the blurry college photos of her Leo managed to scrounge up when I first contacted him, but the woman in front of me looked completely different. Her hair was shorter, and the way she was dressed made it damn hard for a man to look her in the eye.
Back then, I had no idea the shitstorm I was about to unleash.
After the dust settled, Val sent men looking for her, but no one could find her. Not a damn thing. That’s what made her so dangerous. It was hard to fight an invisible enemy.
But here she stood, dressed in a tight pencil-thin black skirt, a white blouse a few sizes too small, and the highest fuck-me-heels I’d ever seen, claiming to be the missing heiress to the Carrera empire.
I didn’t have to know what Marisol—or Adriana—or whatever the hell she wanted to be called, looked like to realize my past had caught up with me. Paybacks were a bitch.
And so was the woman standing in front of me.
Curling my lip at her offered hand, I turned my back to her. “You’ve got a lot of fucking nerve showing your face here.”
I felt Adriana’s eyes boring into me as I drained the piss warm beer left in my mug. I knew she still had her arm extended, seething as she waited for me to kiss her ass, so instead, I lifted an eyebrow and waved the glass at bar bitch. Like the dutiful half-wit she was, my employee raced around the bar like her ass was on fire, sorting through chilled glasses until she found the perfect one then busied herself at the tap.
“Neat trick, Pavlov.” Adriana’s sultry voice trailed over my shoulder. “You might want to think about spaying her, so she’ll stop humping your leg.”
As much shit as she’d caused, an unwelcome smile still tugged at the corners of my mouth as bar bitch shot Adriana a glare, muttering a slew of curses as my beer overflowed onto her shoes. Wiping the sides down, she slammed the mug in front of me and stomped off to the corner, huffing as she tapped away on her ever-present phone.
Lifting the new mug, I took a slow drink and shot her a look out of the corner of my eye. She glared back, with eyes identical to my boss’s. A dark chocolate color with gold flecks that burned like fire when he was pissed.
Kind of like she was now.
“Something wrong?”
“How anyone didn’t realize you were a damn Carrera before I blew the whistle is beyond me,” I muttered around another huge drink. “You have the same condescending stare as your brother.”
“I thought you two were friends.”
“Respect doesn’t make us friends, princesa.”
“Yes, well, the eyes are the window to the soul.” Tilting her chin, she held my gaze. “But the heart is the doorway to sin.”
Tou-fucking-ché.
I raised my glass in a toast. “I’ll drink to that.”
“It appears you’ll drink to anything these days.”
I held her stare while taking my time drinking
long and slow just to piss her off. From the way her lips pursed tighter than an asshole, I succeeded. Adriana stood there as if waiting for me to offer the seat she just vacated and invite her to join me. If she thought I still subscribed to that kind of chivalrous bullshit, she had a lot to learn. I didn’t give a shit if she stood there until her fucking legs fell off.
Normally, I would’ve egged her on, but she’d come to me for a reason, and I was tired of dancing around the seventeen-million-dollar elephant in the room. “So, you want your revenge. Is that what stealing my shipments and this pathetic reorganization attempt is about?”
I could feel the anger rolling off her in waves, but that didn’t stop her from jerking out the stool beside me and sitting down. “Not very skilled in small talk, are you?”
“I’m getting bored, Miss Carrera. You want to cut to the chase?” I lifted the mug to my mouth again, glancing out of the corner of my eye to find an angry flush rushing up that sexy, slim neck. Thankfully, my cheeks were full of beer and unable to give in to the smirk begging to break free.
She groaned, digging her palm into her forehead. “Would you stop talking and listen? I didn’t steal anything, and I’m not reorganizing shit. I’m being set up.”
“Right.”
“You’re burning the wrong person at the stake.”
“And you’re fucking with the wrong Carrera,” I growled, leaning forward. “I’m not stupid. Shipments go missing, the Muñoz Cartel is involved, your name is given as the leader, and now here you are.”
“Your point?”
“If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then guess what sweetheart? It’s not a fucking chicken.”
Adriana rolled her eyes. “Who wouldn’t want revenge,” she admitted, some of the bite leaving her voice. “You ruined my life. Why would you do that? What was so goddamn important about me that you had to do that?”
I stared at her, momentarily taken aback by her sudden and unexpected burst of vulnerability.
Nothing.
Not a damn thing was important about her.
It had to do with a different woman. One who’d already chosen another man, but who I still couldn’t seem to let go. I did it to protect my ex-girlfriend.
Okay, that was a lie.
I wanted to prove a point. I wanted her to open her eyes and see that the man who had her heart lived in a savage world. A world where men slaughtered entire families and brainwashed children. If she had left everything she knew to be with him, it would’ve been the biggest mistake of her life.
Eden would’ve been nothing but a pawn.
Disposable collateral.
Just like one-year-old Adriana Carrera had been.
But I said none of that. Instead, I shrug like the asshole I’d become. “It wasn’t personal. I’m a lawyer. It was my job to pick out the pieces of a puzzle that don’t fit. It made no sense why your body was never found. Esteban Muñoz threw your birth mother and aunt away like trash. He would’ve done the same to Val if he hadn’t gotten away. But you? Not a trace of your blood or DNA was found at the crime scene. It didn’t add up.”
“It wasn’t personal?” She threw her head back and laughed so loudly the few patrons left in the bar turned a curious eye our way.
Gritting her teeth, she leaned in close enough that a sweet and spicy scent drifted past my nose, leaving a hint of licorice in its wake. A scent so complex and unique, I involuntarily tilted my head to chase it before it faded.
“Let me tell you how personal this is, Brody.” Ripping the button off the cuff of her blouse, she jerked her sleeve up her arm and held it up between us, instantly breaking the spell I was under.
I blinked twice before the jagged and distorted light pink line came into focus. It ran across her wrist, marring what was otherwise perfectly flawless bronze skin. My heart seized as flashes of my sister ran through my head.
“This is where I almost bled to death from the cut of a knife,” she hissed. “This?” Moving her finger from her arm, she trailed it just above the dip in her collarbone. “This is where they tried to slit my throat and missed. So, don’t you sit there and tell me it wasn’t personal.”
“They?”
A cold smile crawled across her lips. “Muñoz sicarios. My soldiers. My own familia. It seems upon hearing that the man who I believed to be my father was actually a sadistic fuck who murdered my birth mother and raised me to hate the Carreras as some sort of demented vendetta didn’t sit well with them.” She gave her free arm a dismissive wave. “Something about the only good Carrera blood is spilled Carrera blood.”
“So, is that what you want? Blood for blood? You want to see me suffer to make your pain lessen?”
“You’d deserve it. However, for now, we have more pressing matters to discuss.”
I lifted my mug again, trying hard to ignore her labored breaths and the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest. “We have nothing to discuss. You don’t have a throne anymore, princesa.”
“You’re right,” she admitted, rolling her sleeve back down. The cuff flapped at her wrist, and judging by her disinterest, she was either unaware that she’d destroyed the button or didn’t give a shit. “But thanks to you, I do have a name, and you’re going to help me claim it.”
I damn near choked on my beer. “What?”
“I know the name of the man reorganizing the Muñoz Cartel.”
“Right,” I mocked, drawing out the word. “Because the cartel trying to kill you also gives you insider info. Nice try.”
She tossed me a look somewhere between annoyance and disappointment. “Brody, you know as well as I do that true power lies in the hand that holds the truth, and effective strategy lies in knowing when to keep your trump card close and when to tip your hand.”
“Then why tip to me?”
“We have a mutual enemy and tearing the Muñoz Cartel down before it rises makes more sense than wasting time doing this.” She waved a hand between us. “Don’t you think?”
“Give me the name, and I’ll warn Val.”
“No. Take me to Mexico City. I’ll talk to Val myself, or I don’t talk at all.”
That was it. This bitch had lost her goddamn mind. Even if my damn dick didn’t know the difference between a blow job and a whack job.
“Are you insane?”
She squared her chin, unbothered by my insult. “Because of you, I have nothing. Nowhere to go. No one who gives a shit if I live or die, and now another asshole is trying to take me down. You owe me this chance.”
Shit.
Anyone else would throw her out on her ass. Regardless of what that birth certificate said that Leo dug up, she was raised Muñoz. She might have Carrera in her blood, but the woman had Muñoz in her soul. But as much as I tried to numb that sliver of my conscience that stubbornly refused to die, I couldn’t. And right now, it stood on my shoulder yelling in my ear that she was right. I owed her. Not revealing her true identity; whether she wanted to see it or not—that was for the best.
But I owed her for the torture she obviously endured.
A familiar ache seared across my chest, and I pressed my palm against my shirt, willing it to subside. Of course, it didn’t. It never did. That was penance for you.
Moving my hand up, I scrubbed it over my face and sighed. “Look, Val knows about you. He’s been looking for you. He wants to know you.”
I didn’t know what I expected. Shock? Gratitude? A blush, maybe? I sure as hell didn’t anticipate the loud snort she gave me. “I highly doubt the same goes for his blushing bride. Let’s not forget I was responsible for arranging the hit on her brother.”
“Is that why you want me there too? To control Eden?”
“Well, you two once had a thing, correct? You can be my buffer.”
I didn’t bother responding to that. It was none of her damn business.
“Why would I even consider this?” I gritted out through clenched teeth. “Val is my boss. You think I want to get caught up in
his shit?”
“You owe me.”
Same three words, only this time my conscience flipped a middle finger and sat the fuck down. Anger took the floor, and it was like slipping into a well-worn pair of socks.
“I don’t owe you shit.”
“You. Owe. Me. Everything.” Her voice dropped to an almost-demonic growl, her lips caressing each word as she punctuated them with dramatic pauses.
God, what the hell was it about this woman that scorched my blood and sent it rushing to parts of me that shouldn’t be reacting to her? Was it my addiction to danger that made me want her? The thrill of the forbidden? Because bad blood or not, Valentin Carrera would skewer my balls if I laid a finger on his sister.
“I’m sorry, princesa.” I winked. “I’m busy tomorrow. I have to see a man about a thing.”
Silence permeated the cantina as we glared at each other. Neither of us spoke as we waited for the other to give in first. The joke was on her. Until my visit with Leo Pinellas tomorrow, I had nowhere to be and nothing to do. I could sit here and play her little pissing match all day.
I gave her intel on Val’s interest in her. That’s as far as I went. If she wanted more, she could walk her happy ass across the border and ask him for it herself.
I smirked.
Adriana scowled.
I leaned against the bar.
Adriana crossed her arms across her chest.
I tapped my fingers on my glass.
Adriana tapped her toe on the tile.
I scanned my eyes down her legs, and the color of her face turned to lava. Just as she opened her mouth, a crash and the sound of shattering glass turned both our heads toward the bar.
Bar bitch stood on her toes with her palms held high in the air, her mouth rounded in a tight “O”. She stared down at the floor, and when I lifted myself over the bar, I saw why. Two bottles of Val’s most prized tequila lay shattered on the floor, the contents now rolling under the anti-slip mat.
“Well don’t just stand there!” I yelled. “Get a mop, for Christ’s sake!”
“I-I’m sorry,” she stammered, bending down and picking up random pieces of glass, slicing her hands to hell and back.
Drawn Blue Lines: A Carrera Cartel Novel Page 5