Mia had four more drinks as the night wore on. Eduardo was attempting to get her drunk so as to make it easier to seduce her. He need not have bothered, Mia had every intention of going with him to his room in the motor court across the street.
The number of bar patrons had doubled by the time Mia stood up from the table and pretended to weave unsteadily. She was a regular drinker of tequila, and the weak wine she drank affected her not at all. Eduardo shared a laugh with his companions as they winked at him, sensing he was on the verge of another conquest.
Mia let Eduardo lead her from the bar with his arm around her waist as she continued to feign unsteadiness.
“I want to lie down,” Mia said in a sleepy voice.
“We’ll go to my room. It’s right across the street.”
“Good,” Mia said.
Once they were inside his motel room, Eduardo took Mia in his arms and kissed her. Mia let him. After all, he was a handsome man and she might as well enjoy herself.
Before things got out of hand, she ended the embrace and twirled about.
“Put some music on, Eduardo. I like doing it to music.”
“I have no radio.”
“The TV then, they play music on some channels now.”
Eduardo found a channel that played old rock music. Mia turned up the volume, then moved over to lie atop the bed. Her dress, which was short to begin with, rode up to reveal her shapely thighs along with the white lace panties she wore.
As Eduardo joined her on the bed, he grew tense, and appeared to be listening.
“Was that screaming?”
“All I heard was the music,” Mia said, and as she spoke, she placed a hand on Eduardo’s crotch.
That placed his full attention back on her and he hurried to shed his shirt, as he was in the process of doing that, Mia’s hand slipped inside her purse.
The screams Eduardo had heard came from the bar he had just left. Mia’s father, Fernando Ortiz had entered the bar with a silenced pistol at his side and used it to kill Eduardo’s two friends, one of whom managed to free his gun, but the man died before he could fire it.
Fernando had been certain he could kill two armed men at once, but he thought that facing off against three was foolhardy. Mia, who often worked with her father as a distraction or a spy, lured Eduardo away to help her papa.
Chaos erupted in the bar after the shooting and two of the women present released screams. As the fleeing patrons rushed from the scene of fresh death, Fernando ran with them. He had to get across the street to the motel where he had seen Mia enter a room with the tallest of the three men.
His daughter had blossomed into a beautiful woman. Mia made quite the lure when needed, but he never placed her in a position of danger, although he had trained her to be able to take care of herself.
Fernando was rushing toward the room with the intention of raising a boot to kick in the door when Mia stepped outside.
“Let’s go, Papa.”
“But… the third man.”
Mia opened her purse to show her father the small gun lying within, as she did so, Fernando could detect by smell that it had been recently fired.
“I handled him myself,” Mia said.
She had gone six steps before realizing her father was still standing by the door.
“Come on, Papa. We have to go.”
Fernando laughed. “You truly are a she-wolf, Mia.”
“Of course, Papa. I am your daughter.”
Feeling in a mood to celebrate, Fernando took Mia to dinner at one of her favorite restaurants along La Calle Primera en Ensenada. The place was an overpriced tourist trap, but Mia loved their food.
Fernando told his daughter that he was giving her half of his fee because she had done half of the work. He predicted that as they moved forward as a team they would become as feared and respected as anyone, and that they would reap huge rewards.
“There are young women your age slaving away in shops and factories for a pittance. That is because they don’t have your heart and intelligence. You will be rich someday, Mia, and you will never be anyone’s victim.”
“I owe what I am to you, Papa. You raised me to be strong and never treated me as weak because I was a girl.”
Fernando raised his glass in salute.
“I couldn’t be prouder of you if you were a son. I love you, Mia. You are my greatest joy.”
Mia grinned at her father, but the grin became a look of horror as Fernando’s chest erupted in spurts of blood. He had been shot twice in the chest by a young man who was advancing on their table while blasting away. Mia dived to the floor, then remembered that her gun was in her purse, which was hanging off her chair by its strap.
As the shooter grew nearer, Mia got a good look at him. He was young, perhaps twenty-five, and there was a heart-shaped birthmark on his neck below his left ear.
Fernando was slumped in his seat and wheezing blood when the man placed the gun to his head and pulled the trigger.
“Noooo!” Mia screamed, as her father’s blood and brains showered her with gore.
The man took aim at her, his eyes full of hatred, and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened, as his gun had jammed. The young man let out a shout of frustration, turned, and followed the panicked diners from the restaurant. Before he cleared the doorway, Mia had grabbed her purse from the chair and removed her gun.
She was only able to get off one quick shot. It missed her target, but it did blow apart a large window above the man’s head, causing shards of glass to rain down on him. As the assassin exited the restaurant, he did so while howling in pain. He had been cut well by the glass.
Mia crawled over to her father’s body and wept deep tears of sorrow.
When the police arrived at the restaurant, Mia wasn’t there. She was out on the hunt for the man who had murdered her father.
She found him at the third hospital she visited. He was getting stitches for the cut the glass had opened up on his cheek.
Mia remained unseen and returned to her car, where she waited. When the man left the hospital, she followed him to a new home that sat among other new houses in a development in the hills. Mia parked in the driveway of a home with darkened windows and stared at the lair of her father’s assassin.
Then, she waited, knowing that the hour before dawn was the best time to strike.
Fernando’s killer was named Ralphio Garcia. When Ralphio was twelve, Fernando killed his father on orders from Jose Graboro.
Ralphio’s father had been attempting to muscle in on a business owned by Graboro, and after ignoring a warning, he was put down by Fernando as a lesson to others.
Ralphio had witnessed the killing through a window, but he had been spared by Fernando because of his young age. Ralphio’s hatred had festered over the years, when it became all-consuming, he tracked down Fernando and killed him in revenge.
Mia learned all this after breaking into the home at 4:19 a.m.
Ralphio had confessed his motivation while Mia held a gun to his head. When he was finished, Mia pelted his skull with the weapon until he lay senseless and bleeding.
Afterward, she had moved about the home silently, while bringing death to all she crossed with the blade of a sharp knife. This included Ralphio’s mother, his younger sister and brother, and his aged grandmother.
When Ralphio regained consciousness, through blurry eyes he beheld his dead family, whom Mia had dragged into his bedroom.
“You did this,” she told Ralphio. “My father spared you and it cost him his life. I have shown no such mercy, and I never will.”
Ralphio released an anguished cry and lunged at Mia. She shot him twice, then watched him die. Her father’s prediction came true in the following years, as Mia became both feared and respected among members of the cartel. Like Blue Steele, Mia Ortiz followed in her father’s footsteps.
Chapter 56
Juan Graboro moaned loudly again, and this time he sat up and opened his eyes. Grabo
ro was in his fifties with thinning hair and a paunch, but he was feared by hundreds of younger men who did his bidding.
Graboro had his start as a soldier in the Mercoto cartel, which also spawned the late cartel leader Alonso Alvarado. Juan Graboro was every bit as ruthless as Alvarado, but more discriminating about when and where to use such force.
Known as a crafty survivor, Graboro had bolstered his reputation by being prepared for the raid on his compound with a counter-assault from the sea. I only prayed that his plan failed and that I would soon be released from the safe room by members of the task force.
As his mind cleared, Graboro became aware of Mia and me. Seeing that we were in a stand-off, he sought to tip things in Mia’s favor.
The gun Mia had fired at me while I was chasing her through the house was in a holster on her left hip, with the grip facing outward. Graboro reached for it and I shouted a warning.
“Touch that gun and I’ll kill you!”
“Then Mia will blast you with her shotgun,” Graboro said.
I shifted the shotgun a little to my left in preparation of pulling the trigger. If I got lucky, my round would disable or kill both Graboro and Mia. However, being in such close quarters, the shotgun pellets wouldn’t have the distance they needed to spread out. I would still fire rather than face-off against two guns.
“It’s empty!” Mia shouted. “My gun is empty, Juan.”
Graboro froze with his hand hovering above the gun. He eased himself back until he was sitting up straight again.
“Who is this bitch, Mia?”
“Her name is Blue Steele and she is a federal agent.”
Graboro reached up a hand to touch the lump on his forehead.
“When my men open that door, Agent Steele, I will let them take turns with you.”
I spoke to him while keeping my eyes on Mia.
“When the other agents arrive, I’ll mention your threat. Perhaps they’ll lock you in a cell with a man who will rape you.”
Graboro made a sound of disgust.
“I wouldn’t see the inside of a cell in any case. I know too much about the people in power. They will see that I remain free.”
“No, you’ll be questioned about all those powerful people, and you’ll tell what you know, otherwise you’ll be released to take your chances.”
“What chances?”
“Think about it, Graboro. A huge task force raids your villa, loses many of its members, then arrests you. If you were to go free after all that your friends would be certain you cut a deal.”
I flicked my eyes up to take in his face and saw that Graboro was frowning.
“It does not matter,” he said. “My men will kill the other agents and release me from this room. Then you will die, but only after much suffering.”
Graboro stood and moved toward a white cabinet in a corner that was on Mia’s left.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“There is aspirin in this cabinet, along with bottled water. My head is throbbing. I need something for the pain.”
After opening the cabinet slowly to show me that it contained what he said it did, Graboro spun a top off a bottle of water. He drank some along with pills he’d released from a foil packet.
“Are you thirsty, Mia?”
“I’m good, Juan,” Mia said.
I was thirsty, but apparently my discomfort was of no concern to Graboro, as he didn’t offer me water.
After drinking from the bottle, Graboro moved his hand up as if he were about to sit the water on a shelf inside the cabinet. Instead, he reached past the cabinet and shut off the recessed lights in the ceiling, plunging the room into blackness.
Chapter 57
“Shoot her, Mia! Kill her!” Graboro shouted after dousing the lights.
When the room went dark I fell to my right and stretched out atop the floor. Bits of the wall above me rained down as an ear-splitting roar filled the room. I rolled toward Mia and Graboro, knowing that I must have been illuminated in the flash of light caused by the shotgun’s discharge.
The same brief light gave me Mia’s position as well, she had also dived to her right, but I didn’t dare fire with the one shell I had left unless I could be certain of hitting what I aimed at.
The only illumination in the room came from the tiny green bulb embedded in an overhead smoke detector. It was next to useless at lighting the room.
I remembered the night-vision monocular Connors had given me before I leapt over the wall, then realized I no longer had it. I had dropped it when the dogs attacked, then forgotten it after seeing that Connors had been wounded.
Despite the advantage the device would have given me inside the dark room, it might have been for the best that I’d left it behind. I was unfamiliar with the monocular. If it made any sound while being activated, Mia would have zeroed in on it and blasted away.
Someone stepped on my right elbow and I assumed it was Graboro, since Mia had been on the other side of me. I winced from the pain his foot caused me, but I refrained from reacting with a moan. Using the shotgun’s barrel, I hit Graboro somewhere on his body. It must have been a tender spot because he let out a yelp.
A second blast from the shotgun lit up the small room once more, and a ricocheting pellet stung me on the calf. It also did some unintended damage. Graboro let out a scream, then groaned loudly. I scrambled to my feet and moved again before Mia could take another shot. When I realized the wall was behind me, I felt around and found the switch.
The room erupted with light that made me squint. When I located Mia, I saw that she was looking away. She had changed position, but was still seated across from me, with the door to her immediate left. As I centered my shotgun on her, she did the same, and we were once again in a stand-off.
The instigator of the one-sided firefight, Juan Graboro, had come out on the losing end of things. Mia’s second shot had done great damage to him. He lay in an opposite corner, clutching his left side, while gritting his teeth.
Mia let out a string of curses as her dark eyes bored into me.
“Why did you not fire your weapon?”
“I didn’t want to get hit by ricocheting pellets.”
A devious little grin formed on Mia’s mouth.
“Your weapon is empty, isn’t it?”
“No.”
“You lie. It is empty, and you have been bluffing.”
“If you’re so sure of that, put your shotgun down. If my gun is empty, then you’ll have nothing to worry about.”
Mia barked out a laugh.
“You would be fun to play poker with, Blue Steele, and I still believe your gun is empty.”
“It’s not empty.”
“Perhaps.”
“Help me, Mia,” Graboro said in a weak voice. A glance toward him revealed that he was lying on his back in his own blood.
“I can do nothing, Juan, not until our people open the door.”
“Doctor… I need a doctor.”
“Soon, Juan.”
“Open… the… door.”
“I can’t, Juan. If I turned my back on this federal witch, she would shoot me.”
“Empty,” Graboro said, in a voice that was nearly a sigh.
“Her shotgun might be empty, but I can’t be sure.”
Graboro was silent as the blood surrounding him spread into a wider pool of red.
Mia and I stared across at each other wordlessly, as the minutes ticked by with the weight of hours.
Chapter 58
There was no clock inside the safe room, so I had no way to know how long we’d been locked inside.
Instead, I measured the time by the weight of the shotgun. Its actual weight was about five pounds, but it had come to seem as heavy as an anvil.
My grip on it had grown slick, while the finger inside the trigger housing was completely numb. Then there were the shooting pains in my arms that came and went. I would have loved to set the thing down for even a moment, but I didn’t dare.
Sitting on the concrete floor was doing me no favors either, while my back ached at the base of my spine. My ankle, which I had hurt while landing after my leap over the wall, was still sore but appeared normal and free of swelling.
There was also the cut above my left eye. The cut had sealed itself. However, the dried blood on the side of my face itched. I could not scratch it. If I removed a hand from the rifle I wouldn’t be able to brace the stock if I needed to fire it.
Mia, who had seemed so cool and collected earlier, seemed to be suffering as well. She grimaced often as various pains in her hands, wrists, and arms vexed her. I could sympathize with her plight. We were in the same boat.
As for Juan Graboro, he was hanging in there. The ex-street soldier let out the occasional moan that let us know he was alive.
I really didn’t care if he lived or not, but Connors said Graboro was a wealth of information. It would be a shame to lose that potential knowledge after so many lost their lives in the cause to take the man into custody.
Noises came from above again. This time in the form of loud voices. Although we could hear them, we couldn’t make out their words.
After a period of quiet, sound came from outside the door. Someone was finally coming to investigate the safe room.
I stared across at Mia and saw her looking back at me with an unreadable expression. Beeps emanated from the door, indicating that a code was being fed into the keypad.
Mia sat to the left of the door, while I was across from it. Whoever entered would see her first.
Both of us held our breath as the magnetic door locks released, and as the door began to open, Mia made a disastrous error. Curiosity got the better of her and she turned her head to look at the man entering the safe room.
The instant she took her eyes from me I fired.
Blue Steele Box Sets 2 Page 24