“Yes. We have at least seven guards dead, along with two live-ins. The number may be higher. Some of the men Guerrero sent out may have returned.”
She sucked in a breath. So many lives. At least three of them from outside the cartel. He exhaled. “How did this guy go from the bunkhouse to the main house without getting noticed? That doesn’t make sense.”
“He made it into the house?”
“Our bugs picked up a lot of movement before the explosion, but nothing to indicate who was moving around.”
Moni sank onto the bed. She’d learned long ago that Kris looked at things from every angle, making sure everything fit before drawing conclusions.
“Something happened with one of the women.”
Moni pulled up her knees. “What do you mean? I thought only Lourdes and Maria lived in the house, and they weren’t cartel.” Dr. Treviño hadn’t mentioned anyone else. But then he’d never tell her if Guerrero brought home women to sleep with.
Her gaze shot to him. If they had the house bugged, he knew about Susana. Kris’s penetrating look made her insides shrink into a tiny knot. Lord, he knew who the woman was, and why she was there. Moni cringed inwardly. He also knew Andres had been coming from her own bedroom… Why couldn’t the ground open up and swallow her right about now?
Kris’s face didn’t give anything away. “One of them found something. The other one was adamant she tell someone.”
“Wh-What did she find?”
“We don’t know. When Damian set up the devices, he was aiming to catch Guerrero talking, not the help. We only got a snippet of their conversation.”
Damian. She bit her lip. She’d had a moment of doubt when Simon talked about the body being found. Should she ask? Somehow voicing a doubt seemed so disloyal. If the cover story was put out, she heard what she was supposed to.
Andres couldn’t be mixed up in the murders…could he? She didn’t want him to be, but he’d talked about getting rid of them, a few at a time. Now, with the fire, Guerrero had left, and he had the ranch back. And a family of his own he hadn’t mentioned. What about the times his vocabulary slipped and he forgot to act like the cowboy he claimed to be? He was the owner’s son. Why hide his education? She sighed. He was a puzzle she’d never get to unravel. She swallowed the guilt, the tears, and the pain. It was time to move on.
“How is Damian?” she asked in a hollow voice.
“He’s coming along. Doing PT and giving his therapist a hard time.” He shook his head in disgust.
The nagging splinter of concern fell away. The rumors about Damian’s death were nothing more than a cover story to keep him safe. Good enough for even her to have wondered. Her heart constricted in her hollowed-out chest. “Let’s head to the kitchen,” she said, eager to escape his all-seeing eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
She managed a smile as she led them across the apartment. “I’m free to go back to Monterrey.” She gave an exaggerated sigh. “Finally.”
“Monterrey, huh?” It wasn’t until now that she realized she hadn’t thought about this move as going home. “I thought you were hell-bent on coming here. Now that Guerrero’s gone you could set pretty good roots.”
After everything, she couldn’t imagine staying here. Not after Andres. She waved her hand around to encompass the town. “This place is decades behind the rest of the world. I’m practically a walking scandal just because I live alone. Can you imagine?” She went to the fridge for two soft drinks, setting them on the table. “Besides, it was only temporary, until I heard from Dr. Chavez.”
Kris took a seat and popped off the lids on the glass bottles. “And?”
“He called this morning. The job is mine if I want it…but if…I leave, they won’t have adequate medical care nearby.” Her nerves stretched thin. She hadn’t thought this through. Coming to the kitchen meant sitting down face-to-face with Kris. “I don’t know if Dr. Treviño will be available anytime soon. Guerrero is in a bad way, and he may end up more cloistered than before. And really, could you see anyone jumping for joy to set up practice here?”
Kris nodded, giving her a pensive look before his features hardened. “So Andres has nothing to do with whatever’s tearing you up?”
Even though she’d expected the topic, his question was still a slap in the face. Exhaustion, stress, and pain threatened to crumble her façade. She folded her arms across her stomach. Kris interrogated people for a living. Hiding anything from him would be impossible. “I’m not ready for that question yet,” she managed to whisper.
“Fair enough.” He drank from the bottle then inhaled, letting his shoulders settle. “When you’re ready, you know I’ll be here.”
Tears pooled in her eyes. “I just need a little time.” She sniffed, grabbing a napkin from the holder at the table.
“Then we’re back to Chavez. What are you going to tell him?”
“Lord, I don’t know.” For so long her focus had been to work with Monterrey’s new ambulatory group. They supported the emergency rooms at several hospitals, taking the surplus head count, mostly victims of cartel violence.
If she could save one little boy from what Kris had suffered… She could still remember his shattered expression when her parents brought him home. He and his parents had been caught in the crossfire of a cartel execution. His mother—her aunt—had shielded him, keeping him alive.
“How about you take my reservation in Monterrey, so you can think this out?” He reached into his pocket, returning with a keycard. “Now that I know you’re safe I can get home before my wife knows I’m in Mexico without her.”
She laughed into the napkin. “Awww, is my big, bad, gun-toting cousin scared of his petite little wife?”
“I’m cautiously concerned,” he grumbled. She fell back laughing and wiped her nose.
“How is Tessa?”
A smile spread along his lips, and his face softened, transforming him into a younger self. “Pregnant.” She pressed steepled hands on either side of her nose as her eyes welled up all over again. “Yep, you’re going to be an aunt.”
She smiled through the tears. Both would finally have the family they’d missed out on. Any baby Tessa and Kris made was sure to be beautiful. Red-haired little girl? Blue-eyed little boy?
Nothing could make her happier… So why did she still hurt so badly?
The last of the sun’s rays cast long shadows from generations of gravestones surrounding him. Hat in hand, Andres stared down at the narrow bundles wrapped in his best sheets. Green, Maria’s favorite color. At least he’d send her off in something she would have surrounded herself with in life.
He dragged in a breath, running a sooty sleeve across his brow. How long had he stood there, unable to say a final good-bye to the women he’d grown up with?
Maria constantly tried to feed him because “a man needed good food to grow.” When he’d gone off to school, he’d missed her cooking the most. Not that he’d ever admit such a thing to his mother, who was sure he’d miss the family.
Mom had hired Lourdes to clean and do laundry when he was about ten. She’d started giving Maria a hand in the kitchen which usually led to them bickering. Sometimes to the extent where Maria would chase her out of the kitchen with a big metal spoon in hand.
Lourdes’s laughter echoed in his memory, pulling at his lips. The woman had a knack for finding out all his secrets. Her first week she’d dug up the magazine stash he’d kept hidden from Mom for years—and she’d never let him forget it, though she’d never ratted him out.
His smile faded. They didn’t deserve to die like this. Had they suffered? If God was merciful, they hadn’t felt a thing. His chest tightened. After the fire burned itself out he’d carried enough buckets of water from the river to drown any embers in his path. He’d cut through a hill of damp rubble until he’d found the women’s charred remains, still on their mattresses. As far as he could tell they’d died in their sleep.
Had Guerrero double-crossed someone? Pissed o
ff the wrong guy? The person doing this, or sending someone, had a lot of anger against Guerrero. Why else go after his daughter in such a brutal manner? The killer had targeted Guerrero and his people. Lourdes and Maria were collateral damage. If they’d been out to get everyone, they would have burned all the buildings. His place included.
Rayo snorted from his spot under a nearby tree. In the distance, a dust cloud stretched along the main road. Andres adjusted his hat then jammed the shovel into the dirt he’d unearthed. “They won’t come close enough to notice I didn’t brush your coat today.” The horse turned, slapping his tail around in annoyance. “If they did, I’m sure they’d understand.”
Vehicles had been driving along the road for hours. But even the most curious didn’t venture past the fence line. The driver in the beat-up gray Chevy would be no different. Andres watched him out of the corner of his eye. The truck slowed to a crawl as he passed the turnoff. Just long enough for the dust to funnel around him, then he sped up.
He shot Rayo an exhausted look. “Told ya.” Much as he wanted to ignore the thought of the last car to pull into the drive, he couldn’t. “Damn woman.” She’d headed straight for the ranch, knowing the place was on fire. “Not a lick of sense,” he muttered. He still couldn’t figure out if he’d been pissed at her or annoyed that she’d put herself in danger. Regardless, physical labor had a way of purging the pissiness straight out of a guy.
She’d been in true ice princess mode, but she’d looked pale, and her eyes were big and worried—over him? But why? She’d had her fling with the hired help. Now she could go back to the oversized hulk of a man and pretend what they had together never happened. It didn’t matter that she’d cut through all the bullshit he’d surrounded himself in or that she’d understood the life he’d chosen, and for a few hours he’d hoped for something more, even if she hadn’t.
When he’d gotten back to the ranch, everything was eerily still. He’d taken in the destruction, afraid something happened while he was away. But no, everyone just cleared out. Probably figuring if Guerrero was gone, they’d be free to leave, too. He couldn’t blame them. No one would want to live with a terrorist lurking in the night.
With no one else left, and no law to speak of, he’d cleared the bodies alone. The fire went on for hours, until there was nothing left to burn. A lump rose in his throat, cutting off his breath. Lord, the smell of burned flesh would stay with him forever.
He’d gathered what he could find of the night guards’ remains while waiting for the fire to die down. Later, he’d figure out where to bury the men in the bunkhouse. But there was no way in hell he’d put Guerrero’s men in the family cemetery alongside his grandfather. Maybe he’d go up into the mountains and find a cave with a deep chasm. He stabbed the dirt with particular aggression, knowing, despite his venting, he’d give them a decent burial even without the benefit of a priest’s blessing.
Sweat rolled down his temples in fat drops. He ran the crook of his arm across his face and kept going, unwilling to stop even for some much-needed water.
His eyes burned, and his back hurt, but he’d see the women buried before nightfall. Tomorrow he’d track down the priest and have him come out to say a few words so their souls could rest in peace.
Chapter Twelve
“You make damn good coffee.”
Andres let the screen door slam behind him, cursing himself for not taking the gun Alex had left him. A mountain of a man sat at the table, a cup in his massive hand. The same hand that had been clamped around Andres’s throat yesterday.
“Glad you like it.” It wasn’t hard to figure out what the guy wanted with him, but he’d sure like to know how he’d gotten in his house without the dogs barking a warning.
Granite features studied him for a second before he pushed away from the table. Andres stiffened, wondering how much of a beating he was going to endure from the guy towering over him by a good foot or so. And whether or not he could get some hits in. “I’m Angel. You may have heard of me through Damian.” The giant stretched out a hand. “Or Monica,” he added with a hint of a smile.
Andres stuck out his hand slowly. Caution warred with a strong desire to wipe the smile off his face with a well-placed fist. As he studied him, he recognized the jealousy streaking through him, though he’d never felt such a vicious clawing at his gut before.
“Sorry to show up unannounced, but with both of them gone, I had nobody to bring me by.”
“How’s Damian do—” The statement sank in, freezing his words. She was gone? Without even… He shut his mouth. The question about Damian lost to the unexpected news. Of course she was gone—why would she stay? His gaze searched Angel’s face, thinking back to the smile her name had produced.
“—wanted to come by and check on you.” Andres snapped back, realizing he’d missed part of what the guy said.
“I’m alive.” He pushed past the agony carving out a piece of his chest and tried to focus on the here and now. “Which is more than I can say for most of the people who’d been living here.”
“I wanted to ask you a couple questions about what happened.”
Angel headed to the coffeepot with the cup he’d grabbed earlier. “I’d hoped you’d have some insight on what happened. We can’t figure out who’s on the hunt, but it seems pretty obvious the cartel is the sole target. At the moment, none of our intel from the other groups has anything on Guerrero or his location.”
“I only set trackers in the trucks they used pretty much every day.” Andres glanced at Angel. “There wasn’t one in the truck they ended up taking when they left.”
Angel stared into his coffee. “Luck of the devil. Nobody ever sees them coming or going.”
“Nobody saw the ghost, either, yet he killed over a dozen people within days.” Andres reached for a coffee cup, his back protesting after the abuse he’d taken yesterday.
“Yeah, one of those was mine.” Angel’s face went hard.
Andres swore under his breath. “I didn’t know. I took them up the mountain, buried them as best I could.”
Angel exhaled. “Nobody will come looking for him.” Andres couldn’t imagine being so alone. Even when he’d been away he’d known his mother worried about him. “He’d cut ties with everyone when he signed up. Working on the inside had become his life.”
As he reached for the pot to pour himself a cup, he saw Angel’s phone. The screen showed a picture of him with Monica, both in formals. She was tucked into his side, joy evident in every beautiful feature. Andres tightened his grip on the handle, forcing himself not to snap it in half.
“You okay?” Angel tilted the cup back, watching him over the rim.
“Yeah,” Andres croaked out. Angel had no right to reach past the wall of animosity he’d set firmly between them. He’d gotten the girl and walked away the winner. Andres sucked it up. No need for the bastard to know how much it hurt inside to admit that, even just to himself.
Seconds ticked by. Why didn’t he get on with it? Why was he so damn cordial after finding his woman with another man?
Angel settled against the counter, and Andres could feel the weight of his gaze on him. “You asked about Damian. I figured you’d ask about Monica, too.”
Smug bastard. “He left here hurt.”
“So did she.”
His head snapped back at the calm words. “What happened? Is she okay?”
Calculating eyes stared back at him. Despite his calm appearance, Angel had a lot going on inside. Maybe he should be worried, but right now getting an answer about Monica was more important.
“She was all broken up, and I intend to find out why.”
Andres glared at him, incredulous. “Maybe that’s something you should take up with her. As far as I knew, she was single. We had a thing, and now it’s done. You told me yourself she left, so if you want details, you need to get them from her.”
Andres defiantly held Angel’s gaze. No matter what Monica had done, he wasn’t going to tell anyone w
hat had happened with her. Those memories were his alone. If Angel wanted to beat the story outta him he was more than welcome to try. I know I can’t win, you prick, but I can damn sure leave a mark or two you’ll have to explain when you get home.
“I’m not sure she should settle for a man who won’t fight for her.”
What? Andres’s lip curled. The son of a bitch had no idea… Clenching his fists, he took a step when Angel held up his hand.
“We’re blood relatives, Moni and I.”
Andres stopped and rocked back on his heels. For once, the guy didn’t look like he was etched out of stone.
“She’s my cousin by birth, and my sister by circumstance.”
Well, that was nowhere near what he’d expected. The band around his chest gave way a little.
“Thank you for looking out for her.” Angel’s tone lowered, as if he wasn’t used to the expression.
“Yeah, I did a fuckin’ great job, huh? You sure didn’t have any problem sneaking up on me.”
“I figure you’re allowed to fuck up once.” The unspoken consequence hung in the air between them.
“If you’re her blood, why the hell would you send her out here with all the shit going on?”
Angel scoffed. “I didn’t send her out here. That damn mule-headed female does whatever the she sets her mind to.” He shrugged. “I made full use of the opportunity and kept eyes on her as best I could.” He went back to his coffee. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way, what are your intentions here?”
Fuck. Until thirty seconds ago he didn’t know intentions were an option. “I shoulda found a way to talk to her. Explained—” He didn’t even know what he’d be apologizing for. He could think of a few ways he’d fucked up, but the scene in her apartment wasn’t one of them.
He glanced over at Angel. “Why the big secret about you two? Why didn’t she just tell me straight out?”
Angel sized him up and seemed to come to a decision. Carefully putting the cup down, he crossed his arms over his chest. “The cartel has a bounty on me. No matter what her feelings are for you, she would never say or do anything that might lead them to me.” He quirked an eyebrow at Andres. “It’s an admirable trait that I greatly appreciate.”
Secrets and Seduction (Dangerous Desires) Page 15