Blurred Red Lines
A Carrera Cartel Novel
Cora Kenborn
Edited by
Mitzi Pummer Carroll
Twisted Publishing
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
ALSO BY CORA KENBORN
Copyright © 2017 by Twisted Publishing
e-book Edition
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Editing by Mitzi Pummer Carroll
Cover Design by Bite Me Graphic Design
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Created with Vellum
Have you ever wondered how completely different your life would’ve turned out if that one moment that changed it had never happened? Everything you thought was wrong, and everyone you loved had lied. To those whose lives have been changed in an instant, this is for you.
Prologue
EDEN
There’s a fine line between love and hate.
I’d heard that cliché all my life thrown around by half-interested adults who gave few fucks about either one. The idiom du jour served to placate me enough to remove my adolescent angst from blocking Monday night football and return to my room, where I belonged.
It wasn’t until my heart blackened to a charred void that I understood the true meaning of the phrase. I found it amazing how much that fine line thickened while sweat dripped from the brow of someone I loved as I aimed a gun at his heart.
“Eden, you don’t know what you’re doing.”
His image blurred although my hand held steady. “Yours is the betrayal I never saw coming…congratulations.” In my head the words sounded cold, despite the wetness that trailed from the corners of my eyes. Crawling to my feet, I paced the small space in front of him before I realized I’d uprooted from my spot. Keeping my breathing shallow, I focused on inhaling only when necessary. The run-down house reeked of dank mildew and death.
The number of deaths that would be added to the stench remained to be seen.
“I never wanted to hurt you,” he implored, begging me to recall what we’d meant to each other. When I vacantly stared at him, he licked his lips and attempted to reach me on another level. “After all we’ve been through, it ends like this?”
“You’ve left me no choice.”
“There’s always a choice.”
Hatred burned my eyes, incinerating the man reflected in them. “Fuck you.”
His sigh turned into a cough, rattling his chest. A knowing smile curved his lips. “There’s my feisty girl.”
I waved the gun in the air—a stupid move on all accounts, but his play on my emotions ripped at my soul. “I’m not anything of yours. You sold me out. You made me believe we were on the same side.” Tears rolled harder, ignoring my commands to stop and pissed me off further. “The whole time you had an end game, you son of a bitch!”
One step. Two steps. Three steps.
If I pulled the trigger now, it’d be point-blank range. I couldn’t claim self-defense. True, it hadn’t been his hand that’d pushed me off the step and sent me careening down a flight of stairs. But, in the end, it was his actions that brought me here.
And I wasn’t the one looking down the barrel of a Colt 1911 .38 Super.
All this time I’d believed him. All this time I’d trusted him. In the end, I’d been a fool because all this time I’d been used.
“Eden,” he pleaded, searching for a shred of the affection we’d shared. “I love you.”
There’s a fine line between love and hate.
Watching him grovel for his life, I suddenly understood the meaning behind the phrase. When I loved a person, I saw them through rose-colored glasses. Everything was perfect…until it wasn’t. I walked the line until I got knocked off and opened my eyes to the person I’d been blind to. My heart became torn…desperate to recapture the first untainted moments where the line was straight and steady. Before I knew it, hate filled the space where the love vacated, and my heart battled with my head.
Like an addict who promised one more hit would be the last, I knew it was a lie but told it anyway. I knew I couldn’t stop. The cycle always repeated and I hurt myself until there was nothing left but hate for both of us.
Unless the cycle ends.
I thought the events of the past week had hardened me to violence, so it surprised me when my chin quivered. Vengeance took my salvation, but apparently, a conscience still resided somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind. Maybe that was the one thing he hadn’t killed. Maybe that was the last shred of humanity I could hold onto as I burned in hell for the path I'd walked.
I would’ve done anything for him. He’d held me in his arms and promised to protect me.
I didn’t bother to stop the lone tear as it rolled across my nose and fell onto my bottom lip, pausing briefly before tumbling down my chin. “I love you too,” I whispered as I unloaded the gun, my mask slipping as he stumbled.
It’s funny how sometimes the people you’d give your life for are the ones who take it.
Chapter One
VAL
The chair creaked as I leaned forward to reach for the small glass, while seated in my office at my desk. It pissed me off, and I made a mental note to have Mateo replace it tomorrow. To most people, a creaking chair was a minor annoyance. At the very least, it wasn’t worth the destruction of an eight-hundred-dollar piece of fur
niture. However, in my line of work, the creak of a chair could mean the difference between life and death. The slightest sound determined whether my head rested on my pillow at the end of the night or splattered in pieces against the wall.
Silence was golden. There were no exceptions.
Wrapping my fingers around the stem of the short tequila glass, I sat back, controlling my temper as the hinges from the chair protested. I held the glass up to eye level, ensuring it remained at room temperature.
Without so much as a knock, the door flew open and bounced against the wall behind it with a crash.
“Cálmete!” I ordered to my first lieutenant, lifting an eyebrow. “You don’t knock anymore?”
“Sorry, boss.” Mateo lowered his gaze in respect. “May I come in?”
I waved my wrist, indicating my disinterest. “You already are, aren’t you?”
He gave a quick nod and closed the door behind him. “We have a situation…”
“Do you know how old I was when my father gave me my first stem of tequila, Mateo?”
A deep line etched in his forehead. “Boss?”
A sigh escaped my lips. “I asked you a question.”
He clutched a paper in his hands and shook his head. “I don’t know, boss…fifteen, maybe sixteen?”
A smile pulled at the corners of my mouth. “Nine.”
His only answer was an immediate widening of his eyes. Not that I didn’t expect it. I enjoyed a little shock value from time to time.
I lifted the stem between us and swirled the liquid against the sides of the glass. “Do you see how it sticks to the walls? That’s called a string of pearls. It means it’s good shit. My father taught me how to tell the difference as a boy. Now, most men would just shoot this and be done.” I narrowed a stare at him. “What would you do, Mateo?”
His face flicked from the glass to my face, I assumed trying find the correct answer hiding somewhere between the two. Unexpectedly, his gaze shot across the room to the side table where the bottle of Patron Gran Burdeos Anejo sat, half empty.
“I’d drink it in small sips, boss, letting it touch every part of my tongue before swallowing.”
My tug of a smile extended farther. “And why would that be, lieutenant?”
“Because it’s expensive shit, sir. When tequila is three-thousand-five hundred pesos per shot, you don’t drink it…you experience it.” He stood straighter, radiating the strength of a man confident he’d proven his worth.
“Muy bien!” I laughed, raising the stem and taking a sip. Setting it down, I clapped my palm down on the wooden desk. “What do you need?”
Mateo shook his head slightly and glanced at the paper in his hands. “There’s been a situation, but we’ve contained it. I just wanted to inform you.”
Situations were never good. If I had to be informed of their existence, it made them worse.
“Shipments or ranks?” I asked, studying his young face.
“Ranks.” He lowered his head. “Another task force. This one slipped by us. They infiltrated through the lower ranks and pinched a lieutenant.”
A red haze shifted across my vision. Task forces were as commonplace as waking up and taking a piss. By now, we’d learned every trick the DEA agents threw at us. It was always the same song and dance set to a different beat. Each time a hotshot agent rose to power, thinking they were the second coming, we’d knock them back down. It soon became my favorite game. Hearing that one slipped by my guarded lines fueled my anger.
“How the fuck did someone just slip by? Do you know what this could do to us?” My hands clenched and swept across the desk, sending the bottle and glass crashing to the floor. “Idiotas!”
Mateo flinched as glass shattered at his feet. To his credit, he made no attempt to move from his spot. “It was pussy, sir.”
I paused my tirade. “I’m sorry, did you say ‘pussy’?”
His chin dipped as his blunt fingers stroked the sparse hairs of his goatee. A momentary break in his armor exposed the nervousness on his face. “The DEA sent a female agent, sir.”
“A female DEA agent got to one of our lieutenants…and now we’re fucked?” I arched my brow, not quite believing the words.
Mateo smirked. “Not as much as she was, sir.”
If the situation didn’t screw us nine ways till Sunday, I would’ve laughed. But nothing about a betrayal in a cartel’s ranks warranted humor. “What do they have?”
“Our informant on the inside says three months of wiretapping. They’re moving tomorrow.”
Without thinking, I ran my hand through my hair, dislodging it from the carefully combed back style my father favored. I cursed as unruly strands dusted over my forehead. “Who?”
Mateo hesitated. “Nando.”
My shoulders hunched as a dagger lodged deep in my back. Nando Fuentes sat next to me as we crossed the border six years ago. He’d been with me from the beginning, and to find out he’d sold my soul for his own tested my control.
“What has he told them?”
“According to our informant, just details about upcoming shipments.” Mateo shifted the paper from hand to hand. “No names or chain of command, but…”
“But?”
He steeled his expression, holding my stare. “He’s flipping.”
Regaining my composure, I pressed my fingers together for a moment before reaching into my pocket for my phone. Hitting a coded button, I dialed the last number I wanted to call. It annoyed me to need a favor from anyone—especially him.
After several rings, he answered with a smirk in his voice. “Carrera, what a pleasant surprise.”
I gripped the edges of my desk to calm myself and tempered my voice. “Harcourt, we have a slight situation.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
I paused a moment to stop a knee-jerk reaction I’d regret. “How’s the bid for the district attorney nomination coming?”
“Steady,” he answered cautiously. “DA Garrison is all but out the door. Favorability polls are looking up.”
“Good.” I knew I’d hit him where it counted and went in for the kill. “As I said, there’s been a situation. My lieutenant tells me it’s with one of my men and a DEA agent. Is it a bluff or has he already made a deal?”
“It’s not a bluff,” he said after a long pause. “He hasn’t talked yet, but they’re coming for him tomorrow.”
“I need a glitch in the paperwork to stall them.”
A slow sigh preceded a hush in his voice. “Damn it, Carrera, this isn’t the time to be sticking my hands in evidence.”
He should have thought of that before he stuck his hands in cartel business to get access to Houston’s first Latino mayor for career advancement. Having Houston’s first Latino mayor’s ear came in handy.
“Think long and hard, Harcourt. It’d be a shame for someone to be tipped off about a few grams in your car. No one would elect a junkie DA.”
“Asshole,” he growled. “You wouldn’t. Besides, how do you know I’m not recording this whole conversation?”
“Because you’re not a suicidal moron. You think an assistant district attorney scares me, Harcourt?” I leaned back in the noisy chair. “I’ve poured men like you down drains with nothing left but a bad smell. You want to take the risk? It’s been a while since I’ve made soup.”
Silence between us had a smile breaking across my face. The soup talk always clinched the win in an argument with Americans. They wanted to believe it was an urban legend but didn’t want to take the risk to find out.
“Fine,” he mumbled, clearly irritated. “Name?”
“Nando Fuentes. And hurry; I don’t like to wait.” I disconnected the line before he could respond. I’d learned the tactic from my father. Always end a conversation with the last word—by whatever means necessary.
I turned to Mateo. “Take care of him.”
A slow blink indicated his acknowledgement of Nando’s fate. “Fifty-five-gallon drum? The acid will leave no
trace within three hours.”
Hell, no. I wanted a trace. Pieces of Nando were going to trace all over the goddamn place for his betrayal.
“No,” I replied calmly. “I want a message sent. Make it look like a murder-suicide. You know the policía around here. They’ll claim that’s what it was whether they believe it or not.”
Mateo tilted his head. “Suicide?”
A wicked grin spread across my face. “He’s been fucking some puta who’s snorted more of our profits than he’s moved. I’m sure his wife won’t mind.”
“Muy bien,” he nodded, accepting his task without argument.
After what was left of Nando was bagged and tagged, I’d have to reevaluate Mateo’s place in my hierarchy. Although he and I hadn’t known each other very long, he’d proved his loyalty repeatedly.
I briefly glanced at the destruction of my desk, now residing in chaos on the floor. “If that’s all...”
Mateo shifted his weight and cleared his throat. “There’s one more thing.”
I sighed. “Make it quick.”
He finally glanced at the paper he held in his hands and scratched his head. “One of our new dealers, Isabella, informed us that a repeat buyer in Maplewood has put four grams of our shipment up his nose. He’s in for about ten g’s and missed the last two drops. Do you want us to torch his place?”
I remained silent for a moment, processing the information. Normally, morons who snorted their paychecks meant very little to me. That’s why I had a crew. But with Nando disrupting the trust in my organization, I needed to send a message to our associates that we weren’t to be fucked with on any level.
“What would my father do?” I countered.
Mateo’s face paled. “He’d have them beheaded and mounted on a stick in the family’s yard.”
“True,” I said, the images I’d seen as a boy in Mexico giving me pause. “However, that’s hardly our style.” Shifting in my seat, the damn chair creaked, eliciting an involuntary clenching of my jaw. “But the debt makes us look weak, so it can’t go unpunished.”
Blurred Red Lines: A Carrera Cartel Novel Page 1