The Naughty Nine: Where Danger and Passion Collide

by Nina Bruhns

  She shook her head, rubbing her hand over her mouth as if she needed to ease the vibrations of their kisses. No matter how this played out, Frankie knew she hadn’t faked her desire. No way, no how.

  “This one was personal,” she said.

  She whipped out her tiny cell phone, punched in a few numbers, then spoke in Spanish to the person on the other end of the line.

  Yes, I found him. No, you won’t lose your house. Yes, he’s home. In the apartment. No, I need a few minutes.

  “A few minutes for what?” he demanded.

  She flipped the phone shut and shoved it in her back pocket. She took a single step toward him, still well out of reach, and her face changed. While her cheeks and lips were still red and swollen, her eyes cooled. No more volcanic fire, spouting from deep within. Now, she was all business.

  “I bought you some time, okay?”

  “Time? For what?”

  She shook her head and turned to the door, her fingers dancing over the knob as if she was reluctant to leave. “Time to power down.”

  ¡Coño! Enough was enough. Frankie raged against the handcuffs; the old, rusty headboard couldn’t hold him for long.

  The minute his traitorous ex finally tore open the door, he shouted her name. “I’m going to get you for this.”

  She had the decency to turn and face him, though he had to stretch to meet her icy gaze. For an instant, he thought he spied regret in her eyes, but before he could speak and milk her remorse into release, she smirked, gave him a subtle salute in true las Reinas style, then disappeared into the night.

  Dirty Little Secrets: Chapter Three

  Out of habit more than necessity, Marisela killed the engine and doused the lights on her fourth-hand Toyota Corolla she’d left in the parking lot of Club Electric, allowing the car to silently roll to a stop in front of her parents’ house. For the entire walk back to the club and the drive home, she’d shoved down the residual lust coursing through her and froze out her regrets.

  But staring at the darkened windows of the small but neat home, knowing her mother would likely meet her in the hallway, sleepy-eyed and curious about the turn of the night’s events, Marisela’s body vibrated. She shifted in her seat, uncomfortable, and despite her orgasm, unfulfilled. Frankie hadn’t forgotten how to touch her, how to prime her, how to lure her to the ledge, even when her good sense shouted for her to run in the other direction. They could have made love all night. She could have turned him over to his parents at dawn. She could have owned a memory of her and Frankie as adults, instead of idealized remembrances of a lovestruck girl and her macho novio.

  Could have—but now, never would. She figured she’d better face the undeniable truth.

  She leaned her elbows on the steering wheel and cradled her head in her hands. What the hell had she been thinking, going after Frankie like that in the first place? She could have just lured him outside the club, cuffed him inside the car, and delivered him to his mother safe, sound and unaroused. But no, she had to play with fire. Tempt fate. Entice her own supercharged libido with the man she’d said no to only once—right before he chose his homeboys over her and walked away.

  Okay, enough of that. She removed the key from the ignition, jolted out of the car, closed the door quietly and jogged to the trunk. Adhering to the house rule against bringing a firearm into the house, she traded her 9 mm for her purse, detached the clip and engaged the lock, then stuffed the gun into a secret compartment she’d created beneath a rip in the upholstery. She secured the car with a press of a button. The car might be old, but back when Marisela had had a steady job, she’d splurged on LoJack. She managed to keep up the monthly payments by relocating to the spare room in her parents’ house for the second time since she’d turned eighteen. The first time she came back, it was after leaving the house run by the gang her parents hated. And this time, when she’d given Alberto no choice but to fire her when she lost her license to carry—and therefore, lost her great two bedroom, three roommate apartment only a bridge away from the beach.

  She couldn’t believe how she’d screwed up what could have been a bright future, but her pink slip had caused her parents to dedicate a whole litany of novenas thanking God for His intervention. They’d hated her working with criminals, even if they didn’t know the full extent of her job. Just being near the jail was too dangerous, too violent.

  Too damned exciting.

  God, she missed it. The adrenaline. The strategy. The money.

  With that thought to propel her, Marisela took off her shoes and tiptoed up the driveway. The house was dark and quiet, her father’s car parked silent and cold beneath the carport. She had no desire to disturb the peace. If she was lucky, she could sneak to her room and take advantage of the “purple-headed passion” vibrator Lia had given her for her birthday. That ought to shake the last of the pent-up tension our of her body

  As if.

  Marisela entered through the door from the driveway, sneaking into the kitchen with practiced stealth. She didn’t need either of the two sources of light—the timer over the oven and the moonlight from the window—to make her way inside. She could traverse this house blindfolded. Or at least, blind drunk. She’d pulled that off more than once.

  Wiping her feet on the kitchen rug, Marisela attempted to remove all the moisture from her skin. The house was carpeted, but like any good Latina woman, her mother had hard plastic runners protecting the light-colored shag from dirt. Moist feet tended to make a sucking noise even Marisela didn’t have the grace to mask.

  The same sucking noise she heard just before she rounded the corner.

  A gun barrel glinted, flashed beside Marisela’s cheek. With a burst of fear, Marisela grabbed the gun and yanked forward, slamming the man attached to the weapon into the plaster arch of the doorway. When the attacker sprung back with a grunt, she kicked out his knee, knocking him to the floor. She stomped his wrist, heel first and hard, dislodging the gun from his grasp. With a swipe of her foot, the weapon skidded beneath the couch. Marisela jumped back, her fists in front of her, her weight balanced, her ears trained for any sign that someone else was in the house.

  She heard nothing. No one. Not even her parents. Bottomless dread threatened to drown her as she reached for the phone. But a hand shot out of the darkness, snaring her wrist. Pain sliced up her arm as a finger squeezed between her muscle and bone. The handset clattered to the floor, the plastic casing shattered, as her captor stepped out of the shadows.

  “No, no, Marisela. No cops, chiquita. And now, no witness.”

  Light flashed. A deafening pop rent the air, followed instantly by an anguished scream from the guy on the floor. Then silence.

  The man who’d captured her arm spun her around, and jabbed the barrel of his gun into her stomach. The warm steel was as deadly and unpredictable as the man who held her captive. The man who knew her name.

  She forced stillness into every muscle of her body.

  “Ooh, honey,” the man purred. He rubbed the barrel up her body, sliding the gun against the undersides of her breasts, then pressed his face into her neck and inhaled through his mask, which Marisela saw was nothing more than panty hose. “You smell like you’ve just been fucked.”

  He must have been confident that she wouldn’t move with the gun still squashed against her chest, because he released her wrist and used that hand to grab between her legs.

  “Are you still wet with his come, puta, or did you clean yourself up before coming home to your mamacita?”

  Ignoring him, she focused on what she needed. Information. A break. A chance to turn the tide. Who was he? He knew her name. He knew her. His voice sounded only half-familiar, muted by the nylon stretched across his lips. Whoever he was, he’d just killed his partner, or at least, silenced him. Had he done the same to her parents? Were they dead in their chintz and floral bedroom, their blood spilled on her mother’s new mauve carpet simply because they’d invited their risk-taking, violent daughter back under their roof
?

  “Who are you?”

  He abandoned his grinding grip on her crotch to grab her backside, squeezing her hard, but not enough to hurt. If he thought manhandling her would humiliate her into submission…Marisela pushed the acerbic thought aside. She forced herself to whimper and sent a shimmy through her body so that she shook in his grasp. Let him think I’m afraid. Let him think I’m terrified enough to do whatever he wants.

  “Someone who’s wanted to fuck your ass for a long time.”

  He pushed her back, slamming her against the kitchen table while he worked the buckle of his jeans. The edge of the table had jammed into the sensitive small of her back and she grunted, using the pain as an excuse to turn, half-crouched, flinging her-hair over her eyes so he couldn’t see her face. He still had the gun aimed at her, but his grip had loosened. He wasn’t going to shoot her. Yet. He was going to rape her first.

  Or die trying.

  He was sloppy, overconfident. Just like a man.

  Through the curtain of her hair, she sighted him. Still bent low and whimpering for effect, she stamped his instep and butted her head hard against his stomach. She used his surprise and her full weight to smash him into the counter. She rose fast, smacking the back of her skull against his chin.

  Light exploded behind her eyes, but she latched onto his gun hand, twisting his wrist upward until she heard the snap of bone.

  His shriek echoed in her ear, adding another layer of pain to her aching body. She scrambled, retrieved his lost weapon and retreated, her back to the refrigerator, the gun aimed at her attacker. She took an instant to register the model of the gun. Cheap piece of shit. Six rounds. One spent on his partner. Two on her parents? God, no. But either way, she had at least three bullets left to put him down if he made one more move. If it had been fully loaded to begin with.

  Clutching his broken wrist to his stomach, the intruder had dropped to his knees. “You fucking cunt!”

  She bit back the urge to pump bullet number four into his thigh. Since she didn’t know who else was in the house, every round had to count.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “Fuck you, bitch,” he grunted.

  She needed to remove his mask. She needed to get the hell out of the house. But she couldn’t leave until she knew her parents were safe. Maybe they were tied up, guarded by a third man, alive until the intruders had what they wanted. Only this attack wasn’t a robbery. She could see, the light from the DVD player blinking in the living room. The television hadn’t been touched and though her father owned a business, he kept no cash in the house.

  So many possibilities, she couldn’t discount any. But until she knew her family was safe, she wouldn’t abandon them.

  She pulled back the hammer on the gun, unnecessary on the semiautomatic weapon. Still, the sound was hugely influential in getting jerks to talk.

  “Take off your mask, or I’ll do it for you. After I shoot you.”

  Her fingers throbbed as she clutched the gun and her heart slammed against her chest. She broadened her stance, her vision swimming with colors and shapes that, thanks to the smack on her skull, didn’t really exist. Maybe she should just shoot him and take her chances that no one else would show.

  He pulled off the mask and looked her straight in the eyes, his gold teeth gleaming between lips permanently split thanks to a knife slash he’d earned in prison. Nestor Rocha. A three-strike junkie she’d once picked up for jumping bail, a creep who pushed his wares on the whores that walked Nebraska Avenue, when he wasn’t beating them to a bloody pulp.

  “Recognize me, puta?” he said, the shakiness of his voice nearly covered by his bravado.

  “Yeah, from my nightmares, Rocha.”

  She buoyed her gun hand. If she had to make this shot, she wouldn’t miss. Rocha was a killer and she had no doubt he’d like to prove his evil right here, right now.

  “What do you want?”

  “I told you. I want to feel my cojones slapping against your culo, bitch.”

  One-track mind. What a pendejo.

  “Sorry to disappoint you, Rocha. Who’s your dead pal?”

  He shook his head and Marisela watched his uninjured arm drop limply to his side. For a weapon. Fuck.

  She shifted right and pulled the trigger. The sound of her bullet hitting his chest popped at the same moment he fired his hidden gun into the refrigerator. When his body fell, limp on the linoleum, the gun he had strapped to his ankle dropped from his hand and spun across the floor.

  She grabbed the gun and tucked it in her pocket. She leaped over him, then over his partner in the hall, a demented game of hopscotch. She ran down the hall and kicked open her parents’ bedroom door.

  Empty. The bed was still made. She glanced at the clock. It was nearly three in the morning, where in the hell were her parents? Even for weddings and quinces, they didn’t stay up beyond midnight.

  Suddenly sensing a presence behind her, Marisela dived across the bed, tucked into a roll that knocked the lamp off the end table, but landed her out of the line of fire. She hated to shoot blind. What if her parents had come home? What if neighbors had heard the gunshots and had come to investigate?

  “Who’s there?”

  “Don’t fire, Ms. Morales. We’re not here to hurt you.”

  “Could’ve fooled me.”

  She glanced to her side. The window was far to her right. No way could anyone sneak up behind her again. She didn’t dare look over the mattress, so she quietly flattened herself to the floor, attempting to peek beneath the bed. True to her mother’s form, not even a dust bunny hampered her view. She could see two polished shoes in the doorway. One foot lifted to step forward.

  “Unless you want your toes blown off, you’ll back up. Slowly,” she said.

  In the distance, sirens sounded. Not unusual for this part of town, but not typical, either. Her neighborhood had no code of silence for criminal activity. They might not have loads of money, but the residents looked out for their own.

  “Hear that? You’d best beat it,” she warned. “I’d hate to have to explain three dead bodies in my house.”

  “I’m sure you would. I’m also sure you don’t want to try and explain five.”

  Marisela had no head for math, but this guy sounded different. Calm. Educated. Maybe even a hint of an accent lilting the clear threat against her parents.

  She came up from behind the bed, her gun pointed at his chest. He held out his hands, showing that any weapon he had was at least safely tucked away. For now.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Max.”

  She stood, certain that though this man looked perfectly harmless, he was likely nothing of the sort.

  “Great to meet you, Max,” she said, forcing the fear out of her voice. “Where are my parents?”

  “Safe. For the moment.”

  Marisela swallowed, her vision swimming again. God, if he hurt them…She blinked the fog away.

  “Prove it,” she demanded.

  He turned his palm, produced a card and tossed it on the bed. Her father’s driver’s license.

  “That doesn’t prove anything. You could have lifted his wallet.”

  “True. It also doesn’t prove that if I do have him that he, and your mother, are alive and well. You have no choice but to believe me and take a chance. One that could save their lives.”

  “I could wait for the cops, let them sort out your story after they book you…for trespassing? Breaking and entering? Maybe a little attempted murder?”

  He nodded, a tentative but practiced and eerily sharp smile on his lips. “I hate to admit I’m expendable, Ms. Morales, but the truth remains. Are your parents? I don’t believe my associates can guarantee their safety if I’m arrested.”

  She swallowed hard. She could take care of herself. But her parents wouldn’t stand a chance against professionals. Especially sloppy ones.

  “What do you want?”

  “There’s someone who wants to make you
r acquaintance.”

  Inhaling loudly, Marisela filled her lungs, trying to tamp down the anger shooting through her veins. “Couldn’t this someone have just issued an invitation? Something engraved, maybe? Little R.S.V.P. action?”

  Max, nondescript in a plain, but well-fitting suit, chuckled at her sarcasm. Good. He didn’t need to know she was scared spitless. This man wasn’t some ordinary thug. His confidence at her inevitable compliance was tangible, and yet, he wasn’t cocky. He knew what she didn’t know—plus everything she did, which wasn’t much.

  In the darkness, she couldn’t judge his hair or eye color. He bounced on the balls of his feet, which combined with her blurred eyesight, made it hard to judge his height. If she had to describe him to the cops, she wouldn’t do a very good job. Probably his intention. A man like him could easily get away with murder.

  “Tonight’s operation wasn’t supposed to include homicide.”

  “You should have told that to Nestor,” Marisela snapped.

  “We did not anticipate his killing one of our agents.”

  “Nestor didn’t work for you?”

  “His assignment was temporary. Please, Ms. Morales, my employer simply wants to speak with you,” Max insisted. “He’ll explain with much more detail than I am at liberty to divulge.”

  “And why should I believe you?”

  The sirens grew louder, then seemed to fade.

  “My people have diverted the police for a few moments, long enough for us to clean up and get out. If you want your parents to remain unharmed, you’ll come with me.”

  He dropped one hand, and curled his fingers so the other beckoned her with cool politeness.

  She took a step, but he chastised her with a clucking tongue. “Leave the gun. Someone will see to its disposal.”

  Marisela had no choice, not if he really had her parents—and she could think of no other reason why they wouldn’t be tucked into their beds at three o’clock in the morning, snoring softly, oblivious to the violence that had crept into their home. She dropped the revolver on the bed and walked around slowly, slightly comforted by the feel of Rocha’s tiny .22 in her pocket. Max stepped back as she approached, giving her plenty of room to walk. So far, so good. When she turned into the hallway, she noticed the man Rocha had shot was gone.