The Perfect Stranger (LOS SANTOS Cartel Story #2)

by Melissa Jane

  It was beginning to dawn on him, and it was a beautiful sight. He staggered forward and slumped in the chair.

  “You should go, Hunter,” Nina said, her beautiful green eyes sparkling. She would be calling the Commissioner, and I could be nowhere in sight. I was still a wanted man in the States, and the FBI were not on my side.

  Soon, I was about to find out just how much they wanted me dead.

  I waited for Nina to return.

  The Commissioner and his team arrived shortly after I left, and escorted both Delacroix and Nina down to the squad cars. Delacroix was handcuffed, and Nina would be taken in for questioning. She had successfully brought down a key link in the department’s ongoing corruption battle, while at the same time proving her innocence.

  I watched her, tracing every line marking her face.

  She looked serene. Lost in the moment, eyes closed while she let the heat from the bath work its magic.

  “You look fucking beautiful when you do that.”

  She kept her eyes closed, a smile slowly spreading. When she opened them, I saw the affection she still unequivocally held for me.

  “Hi,” she barely whispered.

  Hooking my arms underneath Nina, I lifted her out of the bath. Water gushed over the floor while I carried her to the bed. She wrapped her arms around my neck and when I lowered her down, her naked body underneath mine, her legs fell to the sides.

  We were both wet from the bath water, Nina’s tanned skin glistening in the faint light. I removed my sodden clothes and watched the heavy rise and fall of her chest. Her nipples were hard, eyes glazed with desire. Moving back between her thighs, I pushed deep inside.

  She cried out, nails digging into my shoulders, spreading herself wider to accept all of me.

  “I need to be inside you, cariña,” I groaned.

  She shared my urgency, my insatiable hunger.

  She loved the way I moved inside her, and I adored the way her back perfectly arched when she climaxed.

  I knew when she wanted gentle kisses and slow thrusts, and I knew when she needed me filling her hard and completely until her cries were both out of pleasure and pain.

  There was no grudge.

  There was no resentment or spite for what I had put her through.

  What Nina showed me was unconditional love.

  What she showed me was understanding.

  Forgiveness.

  I needed to hold onto this moment. This moment where she lay exhausted in my arms, sated, the sweet perfume of her hair consuming me.

  This was the moment I wanted every night.

  But it wasn’t meant to be. My past was about to rear its ugly head.

  This was the last time I would see Nina before my world came crashing down.

  I kissed her eyelids and she roused, my fingers grazing her skin.

  “Who are you really?” she asked, voice husky.

  I kissed her nose. “Someone you can’t be around right now.”

  Her saddened gaze met mine. “And why is that?”

  “Cariña, when you do what I do for a living you have a permanent target on your head.” I kissed her lips. “I’ve put you in danger once before, and for that I will be forever sorry. But I won’t let it happen again.”

  I started to dress, holding her gaze.

  She propped herself up and watched. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

  I nodded. It was hard to explain why I needed to leave. I needed to end this finally. It was owing to them. It was either them or us.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Not far.” I didn’t want to tell. She couldn’t be involved this time. If shit went bad, it would be on me.

  “What does that even mean? Across state? International?”

  “Luis Santos, he was gone by the time I returned. I don’t want you worrying. He won’t hurt you. And after everything that went down, he will be long gone, I can assure you of that.”

  Her eyes glistened and I could sense her fear. “What are you going to do?”

  “Find him.”

  “And then what?”

  “When my business is finished and I know it’s safe, I will return. Hopefully, lead a normal life.”

  Taking a step forward, I cupped her cheeks and kissed her sweet lips.

  “I will be close, cariña. Out of sight, but close. You never need to fear anyone causing you harm.” I kissed her again. A farewell. A promise that I would try to come back.

  “You have taught me many things Nina Cross.” My forehead rested against hers. “You brought color into a world when everything seemed lost to darkness. You made me feel alive when I was surrounded by death. I’ve been won over by a young, extremely beautiful, rookie agent who never once compromised her morals.”

  Tears slipped down her face, her bottom lip quivering.

  “You were always more than just a face in the crowd, Nina.”

  “Don’t let their world consume you,” she barely managed. “You need to come back.” She kissed my lips tenderly.

  Pulling away I hooked my bag over my shoulder.

  “Wait!” she called, and I stopped on the threshold. “Tell me your real name, please.”

  I smiled.

  “Antonio. My name is Antonio.”

  The phone call came at two in the morning while I was waiting for a red-eye flight. I was heading back to Bogota, Colombia in hopes of finding my targets.

  An unknown number appeared on my cell. Accepting, I waited until whoever it was spoke.

  “Hunter?” a female voice finally sounded. It wasn’t Nina, but it had my heart pounding. “Hunter, it Ariana from Santos y Demonios club.”

  Ariana was the manager of Gabriel’s club was where Ana had worked. It was her who had told me about Ana’s beheading. They had been friends. And now, for whatever reason, she was phoning me.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked with caution. This may have been a trap.

  “I hope so,” she said. “I have something you might be interested in hearing.

  “Go on.”

  “Well, word has gotten around about what happened between you and Gabriel. About how you weren’t really a Santos.”

  “He’s alive?”

  “Yes.” Her lack of enthusiasm told me she wasn’t pleased.

  I inhaled sharply at the news. Someone must have found him on the side of the road.

  “I know where you can find them,” she offered.

  This had me searching for a quiet corner in the airport.

  “Tell me what you know.”

  “Last night, Gabriel came into the club. You fucked him up good,” she added, side tracked. “But he said he and his uncle were going away for a bit. They wanted some girls from the club to join them.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “They were joining them on Luis’s yacht. The same one he would often take Ana on. Knowing what happened to her, the girls didn’t want to go. Sometimes being the ‘favorite’ can cause more trouble than good. If you know what I mean?”

  “Did they say where they would be sailing?”

  “No, it’s always been a secret. Luis would blindfold Ana and lock her in a room until they reached their destination.”

  “Why are you telling me?”

  There was a pause and when she returned, her voice was filled with sadness. “Ana was my friend. She was a good person. And she didn’t deserve what happened to her. All of us here at the club, we all feel the same way. We may work for a murderous drug lord, but that doesn’t make us cold like him. And that’s how we feel about you.”

  I appreciated her kind words.

  “We want Gabriel and Luis Santos dead.”

  Luis Santos was the master of disappearing. He had made it this far in life simply by living off grid. My first port of call was the wharf by the distribution warehouse. The Mariner would hold a log book of who had set sail.

  When I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed it was a far cry from what it was only months ago. Th
ere was barely a soul in sight, the lonely seagulls swarming overhead having claimed the territory as their own. The distribution warehouse was empty, a large industrial padlock barred entry.

  Down by the Mariner’s office, there was a shadow of movement. Whoever it was shifted with urgency, scurrying around the small space non-the-wiser of me approaching. My Glock was in a position to shoot if I had too. Edging closer, I waited until the man turned the slightest bit more to the left before kicking the door open. He was startled by the intrusion, stumbling back until he tripped over one of the boxes he was packing.

  The Mariner was a man in his fifties, skin worse for wear after being in the sun day in and day out. He stumbled to his feet, his hands held outright as if they would protect him from a bullet.

  “Who… who are you?” He faltered, eyes wide and wary.

  “Where’s your log book.”

  His brows furrowed. “What?”

  “The log book. Where is it?”

  “You broke in with a gun just to see my log book?”

  “I won’t ask you again.”

  He moved to a packed but not sealed box with caution, one eye still on the gun pointed at his chest.

  “Where are you going in such a hurry?” I asked, glancing around the office that had been all packed away. Any later and I would have missed him.

  “Can’t be a Mariner if the wharf is empty.”

  “I was here last month. Where did everyone go?”

  “Few of us like to be around trouble.”

  Was he implying he had never helped the Santos before?

  “Pass it here,” I instructed, and he handed it over without issue.

  “What’s it exactly you’re looking for?”

  “Not what. Who?” I looked him square in the eye. “You tell me the truth, you get to walk from this alive. You don’t? You die in this office.”

  “What if I can’t?”

  “You will. What’s the name of the yacht belonging to Luis Santos?”

  “I don’t know a Luis Santos.”

  I’d been watching him carefully, and when his eyes darted to the left for the briefest micro-second, I shot him in the thigh. He fell to the ground screaming, blood oozing between his fingers clamped over the wound.

  “You lied,” I said, flat. Cold. “Let’s try this again. What is the yacht called belonging to Luis Santos?”

  “Please,” he spluttered. “I don’t know who that is.”

  Another bullet struck him in the shoulder. He fell back on impact, his body going into shock.

  “I did warn you,” I said standing over him. To the left sat a partially open box, a framed photograph sat on top of the rest of the junk. Pulling it out, I looked at the Mariner’s nuclear family.

  “Good looking family.” There was no mistaking the threatening undertone. The Mariner swallowed hard, no longer worried for himself but for his loved ones.

  He was in no state to call my bluff.

  “I just come to work every day to support my family.”

  “And you can go home to them when you give me what I need.”

  “Luis Santos doesn’t moor his yacht here,” he started. “Not the one you’re thinking of.”

  “Then what?”

  “When he’s not using it, he leaves his yacht permanently floating on the international border line. It’s always staffed with his men to stop pirates.”

  “So how does he get to it and back to shore?”

  “A smaller vessel, sometimes his chopper.”

  “When did he leave?”

  “A few… few days ago.” The Mariner was struggling, the blood loss making him weak.

  “Was Gabriel with him?”

  “Yes. He was badly hurt. They took a doctor on board also. And some young women.”

  “Why is the wharf deserted?”

  “I don’t know details. I heard some stuff. There was trouble, bad trouble. So they closed down the drug warehouse and relocated. Each and every one of those men who worked here worked for Luis Santos. He cleared it out to keep his name clear, you know what I mean? In case people come looking. The rest of us caught wind of it and decided it was best not be around in case said people did come a looking.”

  “Where on the international sea border do they go?”

  “No one knows except them. There are any number of islands he could be hiding behind. The law doesn’t exist to a man like that.”

  Luis and Gabriel Santos had found themselves their own Bermuda Triangle.

  Weeks of cruising through the North and South Pacific oceans as well as the Caribbean Sea had resulted in nothing but wasted time. Nothing that would even hint at them being in the area. His yacht, Los Santa Maria, was nowhere to be seen. My guide, Jose, navigated the islands and scoured the moorings and wharfs, asking the locals if they had been graced by their presence.

  Nothing.

  My frustration had peaked.

  My guilt over deceiving Nina was taking its toll.

  It seemed that at every turn, Luis Santos could simply vanish.

  I had wasted time. So much time.

  Now I was faced with the brutal reality.

  I had wasted over two years seeking retribution. I had compromised my beliefs. My moral judgments were beyond questionable, and I had lost everything I had worked for in my former life just to see Santos take his last breath.

  “Where to now?” Jose asked, joining me on the bow of the boat. It was a stunning day. The sun was sparkling off the water like we were floating on millions of diamonds. The breeze was warm and refreshing. And all I could think about was Nina.

  It would have been the perfect setting if she was there.

  I missed her.

  I craved her.

  I couldn’t erase her beautiful face from my mind.

  “Boss?” Jose prompted.

  In that defining moment I knew.

  “I need to go home.”

  The wind blew her long hair, and she pulled her jacket tighter around her neck fighting the arctic frost freezing the city. She moved with the elegant grace I remembered, and her beauty was still blatantly obvious to everyone but her. The last time I saw her, she had been naked beneath me. I watched as she weaved in and out of the New York crowded streets, my vantage point four floors above street level.

  She paused, making people with places to go abruptly walk around her. Her head dropped slightly before she slowly turned, wisps of dark chocolate hair caressing her delicate features. She looked for the eyes watching her. Scanning the street, her beautiful brows creased together as she came up empty, wishing for answers.

  She could feel me. I wanted to feel her.

  She was perfection. I was a man with a kill list.

  She deserved a knight. I had been her devil.

  She didn’t need someone like me in her life.

  But I couldn’t stop myself.

  She was my kryptonite.

  Nina Cross was my destruction as much I was hers.

  It was ten in the morning. The streets were recovering from peak hour traffic, and Nina had just wrapped up a meeting with other agents in a small restaurant down the street and was making her way back to the station. I was keen to get to her, to pull her into my arms and hold her close, but I was too late. A convoy of black vehicles, all of the same make except one—a van, traveling close. The driver of the second car had his window down, a heavily tattooed arm resting on the door. A cigarette dangled from his lips, his attention focused on one thing. Nina.

  I looked ahead. She glanced from side to side making a dash across the road before the green hand signal turned red. She wasn’t paying attention to what was lurking behind her. I picked up pace, dodging pedestrians who wouldn’t move or who were too distracted to see me. Nina was at least eighty yards away, too far for me to do anything. I had no guns. Still a national target, I couldn’t risk getting caught only for them to find me loaded with weapons. All I had was my knife.

  I took off at a sprint as the cars edged closer to Nin
a. A class of school kids on excursion blocked the pedestrian causing me to come to a skidding halt before navigating around them. I took the turn too close, my shoulder colliding with that of the female teacher. Her male companion yelled after, but it fell on deaf ears. Nina had disappeared from view.

  I slowed, looking frantically for her, ducking in and out of oncoming traffic.

  “Nina!” I yelled, causing those in proximity to become wary of my outburst. And then I saw her hair, blowing in the cold breeze as she emerged from the crowd of people. She was close. But the car was closer.

  “Nina!” She stopped and turned, confused, searching for whoever bellowed her name in the street.

  She took a step back ready to start her journey again. And then she caught my eye and everything around her became a blur. She smiled, but at the same time she frowned, gauging my urgency and fear.

  “Nina, run!” I yelled, knocking people out of the way to get to her.

  The black cars pulled in, cutting into the sidewalk. Vehicles around them blew their horns as they brought the line of traffic to a halt.

  “Run!”

  A gunshot blasting into the air brought everyone to their knees and scrambling for cover. Frightened screams followed causing the street to go into chaos.

  Nina ducked, ready to make a run for it, but the men were already on foot and advancing.

  “No, no, no, no! Nina!” I bellowed, struggling to be heard. I needed to reach her. The tattooed man approached from behind hooking an arm around her waist, encasing her arms, while his hand clasped over her mouth. She struggled against his grip, her legs flailing as he pulled her off the ground. The man was two and half times her size, easily carrying her across to the waiting car. He threw her in, recklessly and without a care before crawling in after her.

  I was jumping over people who had ducked for cover, but as I edged closer the vehicles reversed off the sidewalk and screeched down the street.

  I searched the road for a cab, yet the closest was a block away and stuck behind traffic at the lights. People started to slowly rise, dusting their legs off and looking nervously around at their surroundings. Two men came jogging down the other side of the street from the direction of the restaurant. They wore suits and flashed their badges at those eager to tell the story of what had happened.