by Julie Leto
She hadn’t thought there was space to move up the crates, but with Frankie’s help, she hoisted herself out of the line of fire. The crates on top, slightly smaller than those on the base, allowed her a two-foot ledge to hide on. Before Marisela threw herself flat on the space between the two crates, the three gang bangers rushed to where their boy lay bleeding from a wound to his shoulder. With one glance at their injured buddy, three arms raised to fire.
Marisela twisted so she could fire blind, but one of the men yelled, “¡Alto!” stopping the violence before it began.
“Frankie? Frankie Vega? What the hell you doing here? Why’d you shoot Leo?”
Marisela willed herself completely still, lifting her face only enough to see the top of the three men’s heads and a distorted, diagonal view of the action below. Frankie hadn’t run with these boys for years. They had no loyalty to him and they outgunned him three to one.
“The maricón came at me, gun drawn. I didn’t even know who he fucking was. He’s lucky I only popped him in the shoulder.”
Judging by the guy’s groaning, Marisela was fairly sure Frankie was right. Men on the verge of dying tended to stay relatively quiet.
“Why you here anyway?” José asked. “Where’d you come from?”
“I was looking for someone.”
“That bitch, Morales? She grabbed Nestor, ¿comprendes? He told us he had a line on paying her back for his stint in Starke, man, then he disappeared. Thursday night. We haven’t seen him since. We think that puta got him locked up again and we gonna make her pay.”
She heard Frankie sniff, as if the man’s plea meant nothing to him one way or another.
“She ain’t here.”
“We followed her here, man!” a different guy objected. On the ground, Miguelito groaned. “We saw her.”
“She’s gone,” Frankie said, emotionless.
Marisela heard someone cock a hammer on a gun. She hoped it was Frankie. God, she hoped it was Frankie.
“You let her go?”
“Put that away, hombre. I have no argument with you,” Frankie said, his voice level and strong. “I didn’t let her do anything. I’m here on business—my business. Not yours. Not hers. She left. End of story.”
“She go on that fancy boat?”
“Yo no sé. But I don’t think you want to follow her though, do you?”
From her perch, Marisela peered through a break in the tower of crates across from her and saw a large, luxury yacht tied to the dock, sparkling white with regal blue stripes slashing across the hull. She couldn’t judge the full breadth of the vessel from this vantage point, but she could see what the gangbangers on the ground apparently could as well—a dozen men standing along the railing on several decks, armed with fierce looking automatic rifles.
About fucking time the cavalry showed up.
She rolled onto her back and waited while Rocha’s boys gathered their injured men. Before they left, she heard Frankie speak to them, but she was too far away to hear his message. After they were gone, she braced herself against the burning pain in her bicep and lowered herself to the ground, straight into Frankie’s waiting arms.
“You got shot.”
She pushed away from his hot, musky scent and bone-melting tone. The last place she wanted to be right now was in Frankie’s powerful embrace. He might have saved her life just a few minutes ago, but he could easily change his mind and pay her back for her trick the other night.
“Just grazed me,” she said.
“We’ll see.”
“Did you follow me, too, or was I only oblivious to one car trailing me?”
Frankie’s subtle grin lessened the shooting pain in her arm. “You’ll grow eyes behind your head soon enough.”
“I used to have them,” she spat, knowing she’d been so wrapped up in finding the marina that she’d left herself open to attack. She’d screwed up once. She wouldn’t do it again.
“What did you tell them?” she asked.
“I told them you were gone.”
“No, what did you tell them before they left?”
Frankie gestured toward the opening between the crates and Marisela had no choice but to follow. “They could hurt my family,” she explained.
“They won’t.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I told them Rocha was dead and that the crazy bastard deserved to die for double-crossing his boss, who happens to be the man who owns this yacht. I also told them that if one Morales family member so much as got a paper cut, I’d hunt all five of them down and slice their throats.”
She nodded. Yeah, that ought to do it. Frankie never did beat around the bush.
“Gracias, “ she said, then marched to a stop even as Frankie headed toward the gangplank that led up to the deck of the largest boat Marisela had ever seen, short of the cruise ships that docked in the Port of Tampa. “Wait a minute. How do you know what happened with Rocha?”
Frankie, juggling the guns he’d retrieved from the gang members, cursed and then threw all four weapons into the bay. Marisela had the fifth and followed suit, watching as the black snub-nosed sank to the bottom of the grayish, murky water.
“Cheap pieces of shit,” Frankie said.
Marisela grabbed his wrist. “How did you know?”
He yanked away from her. “Damn, Marisela… haven’t you figured it all out yet? You’re supposed to be smart.”
“Humor me,” she snapped. She was in too much pain to think.
He rolled his eyes, stepped directly into her personal space and despite her squeal of protest, lifted her into his arms.
“I know because I’m the one who gave your name to Ian Blake. Welcome to Titan International, Marisela. I’m your new partner.”
* * *
The armed sailors had disappeared by the time Frankie took one step on board. A good thing, since Frankie doubted Marisela would stay sedately in his arms if she knew other people were watching. He didn’t doubt the woman couldn’t board a frickin’ multi-million dollar yacht without finding trouble. But he had no one to blame but himself for her presence. He’d given Ian Blake Marisela’s name, even touted her quick-thinking and determined nature as a perfect combination for the job in Puerto Rico. If he’d kept his mouth shut, Marisela would not have killed Nestor Rocha, not yet anyway, and she definitely wouldn’t have been shot.
Luckily for him, she didn’t speak again until he’d squeezed them through the narrow door into his stateroom.
“You’re shitting me, right?”
He laid her on the bed, then retrieved the first aid kit from the bathroom. He laid the kit on the bed beside Marisela and selected the surgical scissors first.
“Shitting you about what?” he asked.
She yanked her arm away, paying the price for her quick movement with a hiss of pain. “Cutting my jacket. Do you know how hard it is to find the perfect denim jacket? Bolero-style? In a size eight?”
He grabbed her sleeve and pulled, attempting to jab the sharp edge into the material so he could cut the denim away. “Check eBay next time.”
“Fuck you,” she snapped, scrambling to her feet and darting halfway across the room.
Coño. He really didn’t have the patience for her attitude right now. If Frankie didn’t gain control of the situation—and Marisela—quickly, all bets would be off when Ian Blake slid back into the picture. She was mad—and there was no negotiating with her when she was pissed off.
“You don’t really want to go there with me, Marisela,” Frankie warned, “Not now.”
She wavered, despite her balanced stance. If the rusty stain on her jacket was a true indication, she’d lost a lot of blood. And seeing him again likely hadn’t helped. Goddammit. Maybe if she passed out, he could dress her wound without dealing with any lip.
“I want to know what the hell is going on,” she insisted.
“I’m trying to stop your bleeding. Two minutes ago, I was hoping to take care of you before you faint
ed, but now I’m thinking a little unconsciousness would be a good thing.”
“Why? So you can cop a feel?”
At this, Frankie laughed. “Yeah, Marisela. That’s it. Entertain yourself with that thought if the fantasy makes you feel important, but verdad, I’ve never stayed in such a nice room before. I’d rather you not bleed all over my carpet.”
Furious, she took a step forward and nearly lost her footing. He caught her and helped her to the corner of the bed. She shook her head, but he knew the action wouldn’t clear the fog from her brain as much as a good wound dressing and a belt of tequila.
“Why were you meeting me? Where is Blake?” she managed, forcing out the words while she stretched and gingerly unfolded herself out of her jacket.
“Blake’s around. I told him I wanted to talk to you first. Before you boarded and heard him out.”
“He told me not to talk to you.”
“Yeah, well, after his goons picked me up, there was a change in plans.”
She winced and hissed while he wiped away the blood, but otherwise contained her agony. He examined the wound as she balled the denim in her lap. It wasn’t the worst gunshot he’d ever seen, but pain was pain. The bullet had torn a gulley through her skin, luckily leaving the muscle and bone unscathed. Too wide to stitch, she’d just earned herself another scar. Still, she’d recover relatively quickly, a good thing in their current circumstances.
He fished a square of cotton and gauze out of the kit, then doused the sterile pad with antiseptic.
“This might sting.”
“It already stings.”
He applied the sopping square to her arm. If not for the fact that he held her down with his other hand, she would have leaped right off the bed.
“Shit, Frankie!”
“I warned you.”
“I ain’t never been shot before.”
“All those years with las Reinas and this is your first bullet?”
“It’s an experience I tried to avoid.”
“Smart thinking,” he quipped.
“You think? Then why’d you get me into this?”
Her voice was barely a whisper, but her question punched through his chest and wrapped cold fingers around his heart. Did he really want to drag Marisela back into such a dangerous life? Did he have a choice?
No. Not any longer. From the minute she stepped foot on the deck of Blake’s boat, the choice became entirely hers. “You’re right for the job.”
“Tell me more about this kid I’m supposed to rescue.”
He shrugged. “Not my place. Blake will fill you in on the details.”
“Can you at least tell me why you thought I was so right for this work that I’ve had to face down killers for the second time since Thursday? How do you know Blake anyway?”
“From prison.”
“Blake was in prison?”
He didn’t like the way her voice sounded so disbelieving. “Blake and Titan contract with the DEA, FBI, and CIA. They’re a private investigation firm, but they’re also independent contractors, so to speak.”
“Mercenaries?”
“Nothing so skanky. They contract out their agents to do some of the dirty work the government can’t. I was working a sting for the DEA when Titan sent operatives into the prison. They were my backup. I met Blake when he came in to check on his men.”
Frankie gingerly lifted the saturated gauze and tossed it into a nearby garbage can. He applied a new strip, then directed her free hand to apply pressure while he fished out the rest of the supplies.
“I don’t understand,” Marisela said. “You were working with the DEA? You mean, you only went to prison to work undercover for the feds?”
Laughter burst from his gut. “Not by a long shot. I was one of the few guilty men in prison, vidita. Grand theft, assault, attempted murder. I did them all.”
“Because of the gang,” she said, attempting to rationalize, though why, he didn’t have a clue.
Frankie had come to terms a long time ago with the fact that he didn’t play by any rules except his own. He had no idea why he’d so easily gravitated away from the straight and narrow path his hardworking parents had charted for him, but he had no one to blame but himself. And he certainly hadn’t gone to work for the feds out of any sense of good. Or more asinine, out of guilt. He’d worked for the feds because it beat staring at four walls twenty-three hours out of a day and provided a nice income for luxuries like cigarettes and deodorant.
“In the hole,” Frankie explained, “the DEA sought me out, promised me a shorter stint if I helped bring down some asshole Columbian kingpin. I didn’t have anything better to do, so I helped them out. They liked my work, so they started moving me from lockup to lockup, never keeping me in any joint long enough to get shanked or ratted out.”
“You didn’t mind being a snitch?”
“What the hell did I care? They never asked me for shit on my own boys. I was working the system.”
And after you got out?”
Frankie couldn’t miss the expectation in her eyes. He glanced aside, hating the way one look from her reminded him of all the things he should say to her about his past, but couldn’t.
“After I got out, I worked on the docks in Miami and kept my ears open. I did some more work with Titan when some Swedish smuggler set up shop in South Beach. After a while, I got bored, so I came home for a while, hoping to explore my options.”
“By getting back in with los Toros and dealing drugs?”
“Don’t fool yourself, Marisela. Los Toros were my boys. I called the shots, but I didn’t want to be responsible for nobody else no more. I’d given up enough for the gang.”
“Including me.”
She didn’t allow a wounded sound into her voice, but Frankie saw a glimmer of pain in her eyes that didn’t stem from her injury.
“I had to do what I had to do, Marisela. You got out of the gang because you were tired of the life. Back then, I fed off the power, the violence.”
Marisela glanced aside and inhaled sharply, handling her emotions with more control than he thought her capable. Or maybe, she just didn’t give a shit anymore. “What do you feed off now?”
He grabbed surgical tape and more gauze and finished the last steps of dressing her wound. “The money. One more job and I can tell Ian Blake to stick his fancy organization up his ass. I’ll be my own boss again. I’ll answer to no one but me.”
Voicing his dream out loud, even with spite searing his words, injected him with a euphoria more powerful than any drug he’d ever tried. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been truly in charge of more than what he had for dinner. For whatever naive reason, he’d thought his release from jail a few years ago would change his life, but the freedom had been just an illusion. He’d remained under the thumb of the DEA and NTSB, or whichever agency decided they needed him, addicted to the money they paid outside the joint—and the thrill. At first. But not anymore.
“Once you break with Titan, what are you going to do with all that free time?”
He shrugged. Beyond telling Blake to fuck himself, Frankie had no clue. “Haven’t decided. What about you? You gonna work for Blake?”
“I don’t know.”
Frankie frowned. Once she heard the details of the mission, she’d likely break something in her haste to sign up. Marisela might be a ball-breaker, but she was still a woman.
“You’re here because of me,” he reminded her, wanting to make sure things were on the up and up. Not that she deserved the truth after what she’d pulled the other night, but after hearing the whole story from his mother and knowing everyone who loved him had been convinced he was jumping bail, thanks to Blake, he’d actually found Marisela’s technique damn clever. “I’ll stick around long enough to make sure you can still leave if you want to.”
“Aren’t you already signed on?”
Frankie growled. “Blake doesn’t own me.”
“Did you introduce him to Nestor Rocha?”
Frankie cursed. “Even I’m not that stupid. Everyone with ears knows that Rocha hated your guts. No, when I pulled a disappearing act on Blake, he decided he wanted you anyway. He knew I’d been in los Toros, figured whoever knew me knew you, so he found the gang. Nestor jumped at the chance to help him out.”
“So he could kill me.”
“After he raped you,” Frankie reminded her.
Marisela half-grinned. “He should be so lucky. Now, he’s dead. Is Blake why you were going to jump your bail?”
With a bitter laugh, he tossed the medical supplies back into the case and squeezed the clasps shut. “I wasn’t going to abandon my parents, Marisela. You should have known that.”
“I haven’t seen you in ten years, Frankie. The last time we spoke, family loyalty wasn’t exactly on the top of your list. I did what I had to.”
Yes, she had. He had no doubt who’d leaked the news to his parents that Frankie was going to skip town. Ian Blake’s power wasn’t as far-reaching as he liked people to believe, but he could be a highly effective, manipulative pain in the ass when millions of dollars were on the line. The first minute Frankie had shown reluctance in accepting Blake’s offer, the wheels had been set in motion. Blake and his operatives had set out to prove to Frankie that if he didn’t pony up on their deal, he’d land right back in jail, courtesy of drugs planted in his car. Just as easily, Blake had retained the hotshot lawyer who wrangled his release in less than five minutes. For now Frankie was in—no matter what he told Marisela.
“After the pendejada with Rocha, you still want to hear what Blake has to say?”
Marisela narrowed her eyes, clearly trying to pick up a clue from his expression, which he was careful to keep guarded. She had to make this decision for herself. His opinion of Marisela’s potential effectiveness as a partner had not changed. With her on his side, they could complete this mission and he could milk Blake for the last cash injection he needed to kiss this life goodbye forever. She was smart and fast, and wouldn’t screw him over unless he screwed her over first.