“Let’s just do what we came here to do,” I said.
“Why so serious?” she leaned over and gave me a big kiss right on the lips.
I was pissed but surprised, and it took me a second to push her off. “What are you doing?”
“What I came here to do,” she smiled. “You. Just like Marco told me to.”
I stood up and paced around the room for a moment, needing to put distance between the two of us. “Listen, I need to know what Marco has been saying about me, about Luis, anyone. Anything at all. Talk to me.”
She shrugged and flopped her hands backward on the bed. “Oh, I don’t know. I mean last night when I got in from San Diego, he mumbled something about having solved that rubik’s cube last night while we were having sex. Sort of weird dirty talk.”
I froze in my tracks and swallowed hard. “He talked about the rubik’s cube…while you were having sex?”
Louisa shrugged, seeming pretty unphased. “Yeah. I mean he always yells out weird shit during sex, and he likes pillow talk too. I dunno. Let’s see. Anything weird…”
“Come here.” I took her by the hand, led her to the bathroom, and turned on the shower as high as the pressure would go. I didn’t disrobe and we didn’t get in. I just prayed the water was loud enough while we kept our clothes on. If Marco had found the chip, I was fucked. And not in the way that I liked Eva to fuck me. Like, royally, Marco-would-bust-out-a-gun-and-put-ten-caps-in-me fucked.
Not a pretty image.
“Listen. I don’t have time to explain everything to you right now. But we may be in some very deep shit. And I have a very bad feeling. I need you to answer me a question.” I thumbed through my rolodex of people who might be a chink in the armor, who knew Marco’s inner circle even more than I did. “Let’s see…who brought you here?”
Louisa’s cute hazel eyes looked very worried all of a sudden.
“One of Marco’s guys drove me in. Sapo, I think.”
“Did you chat with Sapo on the way here? Did he say anything at all?”
She twirled her hair with her index finger.
“Um, yeah, I think he said something about how he needed me to distract you.”
“Distract me? From what?” That could mean so many different things.
“Or trade me for something? Maybe it was someone. I don’t know what he said exactly, his accent is so thick.”
I grabbed her shoulders.
“Louisa. I need specifics. Clues. Hints. Names!”
“Um well. He kept talking about some girl and laughing. I think he said her name was Eva?”
My hair stood on end. “Did you say Eva?”
“Yeah, definitely Eva. Why?”
Well then. The jig was fucking up. I felt like I’d just had the wind knocked out of me.
I heard a loud bang and voices outside the door. That is not a knock. That is a gun.
“Holy fuck,” I growled.
I locked the door to the bathroom. It wouldn’t hold them forever, but it would at least serve the function of slowing them down.
“What are you doing? What’s going on?” she screeched. We both heard several hard blows on the door outside leading into the room. I reached the obvious conclusion: Marco knew Eva was not Alexa, he knew about the chip in the rubik’s cube, but he wanted to screw with us before he killed us.
And not just figuratively screw. Well, Eva at least.
I ripped out the towel rack and used it to shatter the bathroom window that led to the outside balcony. I jumped up into the window frame.
I might not have been Louisa’s biggest fan, but it wasn’t her fault she got mixed up in all this.
“Take my hand goddamn it, just do it.”
“I’m scared, though,” she said.
“Take it!”
She reluctantly grabbed hold of my hand and I pulled her up onto the frame of the window. Now that we were both outside, I pulled myself up onto the roof, and she followed. Or to be more accurate I pulled her up almost entirely. The girl seemed scared shitless.
Once we were on top of the roof, the sun shone down on the vast property.
“Do exactly as I say, and we might make it out of this alive,” I said.
“Okay,” she said, sniffling.
We ran across the roof and I heard Marco’s guys climb up onto the balcony, yelling in our general direction. We scrambled over to a ladder and up another level, barely out of their sight. They hadn’t seen us, but they’d find us soon undoubtedly.
We sat with our backs against the brick wall. Gunshots echoed through the air, and Louisa trembled.
“I’m scared, Corbin.”
“I know. And it’s not your fault you’re involved in all of this—it’s mine. So wait here. If they come near you, you’ve got this.” I handed her the bar from the towel rack.
“You’re not going to leave me, are you?” she asked, teary eyed.
“There’s only one way I can stop them. And it’s not by staying here.”
I popped my eyes over the roof and assessed the situation. There were three of those fuckers, they all had assault rifles, and they were headed our way. It was about a fifteen foot drop down from our level to where the thugs were coming toward us.
“Louisa, you’re a good woman. I don’t care what Marco says about you. Wait here--and I’ll be back.”
She nodded, scrunched against the roof.
Like me, she knew there was only one way out of this.
I took a twenty foot running start and jumped, aiming for their little black haired heads before they even looked up.
31
Eva
My hands were tied behind my back in a chair in Marco’s bedroom. So what if Marco knew I was named Eva? Maybe the audio just picked that up. I was hopeful.
Although this situation was looking more dire by the minute.
"I heard Corbin calling you Eva,” Marco said, speaking slowly. “So I did a little research. Turns out you work for the DEA. Imagine that."
Well, there went that idea. I’m screwed. And not in the way Corbin screws.
Marco’s phone buzzed, and he answered it. “Yes?...No!...Unacceptable!...Well FIND THEM. How hard is it to find the only tall white guy on MY OWN FUCKING PROPERTY?!”
He hung up his cell phone and dropped it with a thud on his desk. “Bunch of fucking clowns I have working for me,” he mumbled.
I sat up, arched my back and stuck out my chest. “So this is it, huh. Why don’t you just kill me and get it over with. If you’re going to kill me, might as well.”
Marco picked up the gun off his desk and stuffed it in his waistband. “I’m still deciding what to do with you, mi amor. I might just lock you up and throw you in a dungeon for a few years. DEA agent with a pretty face like yours? You’d make the ultimate bargaining piece. It’d be all over the news. You’d make a great insurance policy if they ever caught Luis.”
I stifled a shudder. Desperate times called for desperate measures. Marco had a chink in his armor, and damned if I didn’t at least try to exploit it: his Kanye West-sized ego.
“You know Marco, I always did find you…the most attractive out of everyone here. I mean between you and Corbin…it’s really no contest. You’re powerful.”
He took a few steps toward me and squatted down so we were at eye level, careful to make sure I could see his gun. “Do not bullshit a bullshitter, mi amor.”
“You think I’m bullshitting? Try me. I want you, Marco,” I said.
I saw it in his eyes. He was faltering. He stole a glance at the scoop neck I was wearing and gave the international guy ‘I’m dazed and staring at your cleavage’ look.
"I always have,” I continued. "I don’t care about the DEA. You think I would take on this mission if I thought I would come out alive? I wanted to get close to you. Corbin though—he wouldn't let me out of his sight. He’s too worried about ruining his chance to get that time off his sentence."
He pulled out his gun and ran the cold metal of the nozzl
e down my face.
“You couldn't handle me,” Marco said with a sadistic smile.
“Please, honey,” I said, my lips parting. I squinted. “I’m a freak, just like you.”
Marco’s jaw dropped, and for a few moments I actually had him speechless.
“Oh, I get it now. It makes sense. You’re not the boss. You’re not the one who gets to decide my fate. You're waiting for Luis, since he’s finally coming in this afternoon.”
He put his hands on his stomach and let out a big belly laugh. “Oh, you’re good. You’re really good. I can see why Corbin would fall in love with you.”
“…Fall in love with me?”
“Like I said, stop playing coy, Eva. The jig is up. I’ve been listening and watching you and Corbin since you got here. It’s been quite entertaining for me—like reality TV with some hot sex.”
“You mean, you’re not just going to pass me off to Luis Reyes?”
“Bitch,” he said in a low tone, his voice suddenly more menacing. “I am Luis Reyes.”
A chill ran from my head to the tip of my toes.
“I…I don’t believe you," I said.
He picked up the rubik’s cube from the desk and turned it a few more times.
"Do you know what a figurehead is?"
"Of course, it's like the president of the United States. Everyone thinks he's a big deal but he really has no control over everything."
"Exactly. Why would the most powerful man of the most powerful cartel want to be a figurehead? That's not a fun life."
"So...Luis Reyes is a figurehead? I don’t get it."
“Luis Reyes is a figment of the imagination. A brilliant fucking idea I had years ago. I wanted to keep the feds off my track, because who comes after a low level cocaine dealer when you can go after his boss, one of the biggest drug dealers on the face of the earth? So I invented Luis Reyes as the head of this organization.” He made quotes around "Luis Reyes" as he said the words.
"So the DEA has been chasing a ghost for years? Wow."
"Impressed?" he smiled brutally.
"I mean, that’s sort of brilliant. And it also really pisses me off that I didn’t figure this out. “You’re…Luis Reyes. Sort of. Shit. Why didn’t I see that!”
Marco half scowled, half smiled. “Now you're getting it. Ah! Look at that!” he spun the rubik’s cube once more and solved it. “Too bad you and Corbin couldn’t solve this puzzle as fast as I did.”
I tried to hold a seductive smile, but it was getting harder with every passing second. A feeling of regret and of courage, and of pure emotion welled up in me. "Like I said. If you're going to kill me, just get it over with. Do it. Like a man."
"Nah, I have a better idea.”
“What’s that?”
“Do you like it rough?” Marco said with a scowl.
Before I had a chance to hit him back, Marco hit me with the butt of the gun and everything went black.
32
Corbin
Two of the men turned toward me just soon enough to take a leg each to the head. Their bodies crunched as they hit the roof.
Dumb fucks. Their bodies made a nice soft landing pad and I rolled onto the roof. If they weren't dead, they were close to it.
The third man tried to point his gun at me, but I grabbed it and headbutted him before he had a chance to take aim. I picked up both of their AK-47s and took off running across the rest of the roof.
I was a little surprised Marco had his men after me and didn't kill me himself. This seemed like something that Marco would want to do personally—he always was very personal when it came to settling his debts. He always wanted to know all of the details, all of the ins and outs of the deals we would do. He was Luis Reyes' right hand man.
I got down on my belly and peered over the roof into the courtyard. The building was square shaped with an open air courtyard in the middle, typical of beautiful Mexican architecture. They really knew how to make beautiful shit here.
Eva crossed my mind. She was the epitome of an American beauty. What had she called it? "Mirish?" It was hard to smile when I knew she was in Marco’s possession. I should never have let her out of my sight. Either way, she doesn't love you, jackass. She made that crystal clear.
I was man enough to admit that I'd always been a selfish asshole, for as long as I could remember. I'd been with girls for my own benefit. It was funny, but even before I knew Eva was just using me for her little one night stand—she was the exception. I wanted to give her everything. Yeah I pictured her sexy ass in a short skirt spread against the wall, but I wanted more with her. Even in a life or death situation, I pictured she and I getting a place together, me getting an honest job, And now, even though I knew she wasn’t in love with me, I still felt that way.
I closed my eyes and shook it off. I was sweating balls and had a fucking mission that required my complete concentration. I opened my eyes and planned my attack. From my position, I could see two thugs walking around on the bottom level with AK's. If I came in their range, I was dead. On the Second level was the same thing. I felt like I was in the middle of a James Bond movie.
Think, you motherfucker.
The guy on the second floor patio was swatting flies and he wandered within striking distance. I swung down from the roof legs first and dropped right onto him, covering his mouth with my hand and wrapping my legs around his neck. He struggled for a moment until I twisted, and felt the crack of his neck as it spun. His body went limp and I broke his fall on the way down. I opened the door to the nearest room and dragged his body inside.
It took a couple of minutes to get his clothes and gear off of him, but I emerged from the room with his red shirt, jeans, sunglasses, and an AK-47 strapped across my stomach, looking just like him. Except, you know, for the fact that I was a foot taller than him, brown haired and blue eyed. And his pants were tight as hell. At a first glance though, a fellow guard might hesitate, and that would be all I’d need.
I went back outside to the balcony, meandering slowly to the other side where I saw another guy walking along the same balcony. He saw me but looked to be too focused on watching the courtyard downstairs to think I could actually be the guy that everyone was trying to kill. He kept glancing at a particular door—which I assumed would be Marco’s room. I needed to know for sure, though. I only had one chance at finding the spot where Marco, and by my logic, Eva was as well.
I racked my brain for a way to determine if Marco was in there. After a few seconds, I opted for the easiest route. In a flawless Spanish accent, I asked, "Is the boss in there?"
"Sí," he responded.
Well that was easy.
"Thank you," I said as I kneed him straight in the balls and punched him in the face so hard he went limp and hit the ground.
Damn, I still had it.
I rolled my sleeves up and knocked on the door. “Jefe,” I boomed, my accent harkening back to my days in Chula Vista when people were shocked that a white boy could speak Spanish so well. “Open the door, please. We need to talk.”
I crouched down, with good fucking reason because the next thing I knew the door was blown to bits with bullets at chest and head height. I considered returning fire, but I couldn’t expose myself.
“Go out there and see who you killed,” I heard Marco’s voice.
A man poked his head out of the hole in the door, looked down and saw me. His eyes went wide. Before he could react, I yanked him out of the door and threw him over the balcony into the courtyard.
I opened the door, yanking it off the handle since it was already destroyed. I dove inside and saw my own personal nightmare. Eva was slumped over on a chair with a huge red mark on her head. Marco pointed his gun at my head.
“It’s all over, Corbin,” he said. “In less than a minute my men will be coming through that door, you’ll be outnumbered, and I’ll have you shot. You and the bitch.” His eyes darted to Eva.
I didn’t yell or scream, as much as I wanted to. Marco’s mo
mentary lapse in attention allowed me to take a quick step toward him. I punched him dead in the face.
The first blow connected, and I knocked the gun out of his hand. He fell to the ground, grasping for his weapon, and I jumped on top of him. I held his shirt in my hand, delivering blow after blow. I was ready to pound him again, but heard a shot and looked up. Four of Marco’s henchmen stood with guns in hand, all pointed at me.
“Let go of the boss,” one of them said. “It’s over.”
With no choice, I dropped Marco’s unconscious, limp body to the ground, and stood up. My hands were sweaty and bloody along with my shirt.
“He’s alive,” one said, taking Marco’s pulse.
“Could have fooled me,” I growled.
“What do we do, take him dead or alive?”
“Marco said shoot to kill if necessary.”
I looked at the whites of the men’s eyes. As fucked up as it was, I didn’t care if they killed me. I had killed, and many would say I deserved to die. But what I couldn’t deal with was Eva going through any more pain. I could see her chest barely rising and falling in her chair.
“Let’s take the woman first,” the fourth chimed in. The other three smiled and looked toward him in agreement. Sick fucks.
“The hell you will. You're going through me first. Why don't you put the gun down and fight like men."
They looked down at Marco's bloody body I had almost destroyed in under a minute. They knew hand to hand combat with me was basically a death sentence for them.
"Let's just shoot the woman and then have our way with her," one of them said.
My blood curdled as I stood between them and Eva. "You want her? You're going to have to pry her away from my cold, lifeless fingers."
The thugs hesitated, deciding what to do.
I stood in front of her. "Well boys, go ahead, do it. Do your fucking duty you thugs."
I heard gunshots in the distance, and one of the men turned. I saw one of their bodies fall down to the ground. Another one of them turned toward me, aimed, and fired at me.
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