“Excuse me?” My gaze snapped from the box back to his face.
“I can’t,” he repeated, his chin trembling. “I’ve lost everything. The only thing I have left is my life. If I do what you’re asking, they’ll kill me.”
“They’ll kill you anyway.” He had to know that. Drug cartels never let debts walk. Even I knew Elliot Lachey had gotten himself in over his head with the Carreras. My hands fisted by my side. His cooperation wasn’t an option. I wouldn’t leave here without the answer I came to get.
My attempt at intimidation fell short. Lachey’s upper lip twisted in a wistful snarl as he laughed without humor. “You stand there with your suit and tie and pretty boy blond hair and lecture me on what the fucking Mexicans will do to me?” He threw his head back and held his stomach with a loud roar. “Worry about yourself, son. You’re more in bed with them than I am. If you’re at my house, freaking out with sweat rolling down your forehead like that, they must have something on you too.”
I schooled my emotions. He knew his words hit home, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing it on my face. “So, you’ve made your decision then?”
A low snort fell from his closed mouth, and his eyelids half closed as he looked away. “You tell the district attorney’s office to kiss my ass. I’ve never seen these pictures you say you have, so I’m not even sure they exist. If they want the goods on Carrera, they can get it themselves. I’ll take my chances in jail.”
Fury filled my chest as fear hid close behind it. Everything inside me screamed to tell him what was coming for him tonight, but because ears were on me, I kept silent.
Tucking my morals behind a steel expression, I approached him and whispered low in his ear. “You just made a fatal mistake.” Saying nothing more, I turned to leave the room.
My casual tone broke his confident attitude as he grabbed my arm. “Stay away from my daughter, Harcourt.”
Shaking him off, I glanced over my shoulder one last time. “Screw you.”
With Elliot Lachey’s fate sealed, I slammed the door.
* * *
I’d barely pulled my gray BMW into my designated parking space at the courthouse when my phone rang. I didn’t have to glance down at it to know who was calling. Timing was everything, and I’d been expecting a shrill ring to break through the silence the whole ride back.
Forcing myself to answer, I leaned back in the seat and hit the green button on my phone. “Harcourt.”
“Didn’t go well, I hear.”
With the heavy accent and dangerous lilt in his voice, the man on the other end was unmistakable. Wrapping my fingers around my chin, I squeezed in frustration. “You have me bugged. I tried, but I can’t force the man. If he wants to die in jail, so be it.”
“You know what’s at stake, yes?”
“I can’t forget.” The picture he’d sent of his men inside of her bedroom had given me more sleepless nights than I could count. My stomach churned as I recalled the video of them going through her panty drawer and holding them up to their dirty faces. Taking long inhales, they’d licked the lace and smiled into the camera.
“The deal was, you get us a mole into Carrera’s camp, and we leave that sweet pussy alone. You’ve failed.”
Panic gripped me as light swam before my eyes. “Don’t fucking touch her!”
The low growl of a laugh fueled my hatred. “She looks good enough to eat, Harcourt.” He made a throaty moan that had my fingers gripping the steering wheel.
“I’ll kill you.”
“No, you won’t,” he sneered, breathing heavily over the line.
“Give me more time.” I focused on the people walking in front of the parking lot, returning from their lunch breaks, laughing carefree as if my world wasn’t crashing down around me. “I can change his mind.”
“No need. It’s time for plan B.”
“There’s a plan B?”
He laughed again, and the sound grated on my last frayed nerve. “Thanks to your call with Carrera, Mr. Lachey will change his mind about helping you after tonight.”
“What are you going to do?” I demanded to know. The man was crazy. He made Valentin Carrera look like the Pope.
“Don’t worry,” he warned, his voice low. “Carrera has it all set up. We just have to stick our hands in and shake it around a little.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Your junkie is getting a lesson he’ll never forget. When it’s done, I’ll call. You make sure the police arrest Carrera and make the evidence stick. My men on the inside will do the rest.”
“Wait, arrested for what?”
“Premeditated murder.”
“Where does that leave—” A dial tone hit my ear before I could finish. Pulling the phone away, I stared at it, praying to a god that seemed to have left the city to keep her safe.
Because if I tried to, we’d both be dead.
Chapter Six
Eden
“Sweet cheeks, I’ve been dry for hours. How about shaking that ass over here and wetting me down?”
Wiping down the distressed wooden bar, my fingers tightened around the wet rag as I scrubbed harder at the hardened glob of salsa. “I heard you the first three times you said it, Frankie,” I said, releasing the sigh I’d been holding. “The answer is still no. You’re cut off.”
“Aw, c’mon baby,” he slurred as the empty glass tumbled from his hand. “You’re not my mother.”
I picked at what remained of the salsa with my fingernail. “No, I’m not.” Reaching behind me, I smacked his outstretched arm with the soggy rag. “I’m also not your wife, so unless you want me to make a really unpleasant call to her, keep your hands to yourself.”
Frankie raised his hands in surrender. Holding his palms up for inspection, he leaned on the shoulder of his drinking buddy, his eyes half-lidded. “I don’t know why, they’re the only ones in town that haven’t been up Cherry’s skirt.”
His words circled my ears and detonated into a hundred pieces of truth, but I willed the emotion back down to the place I kept it locked away. No man would bring me to tears again–in public or in private. Especially some drunk asshole who couldn’t find his limit if he tripped over it.
Squaring my shoulders, I dropped the rag across the sink divider and reached for my cell phone to call him a cab. I’d just rattled off the address to the cab company when Frankie’s hand swatted at my ass.
“Hey, I go when I want to go, sweet cheeks.” He laughed low under his breath. “Unless you want to ride me home.”
Ignoring them, I balanced the phone between my ear and shoulder, rolling my eyes as Frankie and his cohort snickered and high-fived each other. He wasn’t the first drunk asshole to try to manhandle me near closing time. He wouldn’t be the last.
“Pídele disculpas a la, señorita.”
My chin instinctively turned toward the coffee-liquer voice sending shivers down my spine in the otherwise sweltering cantina. Without the pressure of my jaw holding it in place, the phone tumbled from my shoulder and clattered against the counter.
My ears heard his foreign words, but my eyes commanded a stronghold over my common sense, gawking like I’d never seen a man before.
But I had. I’d seen him once at the bar and a few more times occupying one of the bar tables served eagerly by one of the revolving door of underage morons Emilio employed. He was impossible to forget and played a starring role in a few of my more descriptive fantasies. Of course, my creative mind replaced whoever I happened to be screwing with my Mr. Danger on more occasions than I cared to admit.
Now, as we came face-to-face again, he looked even more dangerous than I remembered. He stood confidently, wearing black suit pants that hugged him in all the right places and a white button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I gawked shamelessly at him as if he’d walked in stark naked. I had a feeling he’d discarded his suit jacket and tie before entering the bar, and I couldn’t decide if I was appreciative or a little bummed.
On one hand, the casual look displayed his muscular tattooed arms, but the idea of that man in a suit did things to me I wasn’t proud of.
I stared, fascinated at the intricate designs on his forearms, while inky, black hair tousled around his bronzed forehead as if worried hands had disrupted a carefully prearranged style. A beard, slightly heavier than a five ‘o clock shadow, stretched from temple to temple and filled in across defined cheeks, circling the fullest lips I’d ever seen.
He still looked like pure danger.
Tightened chocolate eyes lasered across the bar at Frankie and his friend, the golden flakes around his pupils speaking loudly in the silence.
“Excuse me, Pedro?” Frankie mocked, cupping one hand to his ear and hooking his other thumb between himself and his friend. “See, this is America. We don’t speak your dirty-ass language here.”
“Frankie!” I chastised, shocked at his blatant ignorance. However, Danger simply lifted a hand, effectively silencing me.
“Then let me say it in the language of the American asshole,” he said, his tone an even keel. “Apologize to the lady.”
Frankie snorted. “To Cherry? Are you shitting me?” He raised his finger as if he were about to make a point before swaying on the barstool. “I’m not apologizing for trying to get a piece of what everyone else in this town has tasted, Pedro.”
My face flamed. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. Normally I didn’t give two shits what people said about me, for the simple fact that most of it was usually true. But for some reason, the idea that Danger thought I walked around fucking until my knees gave out bothered me.
He pursed his lips, softly offering a tsk of his tongue as he slipped out of his chair. My eyes tracked every move as he stalked with the cunning of a panther and the eye of a wolf. Danger placed both palms on the bar and leaned into Frankie, whispering so low, when I strained to eavesdrop, I couldn’t even catch a mumble.
As he spoke quietly in his ear, Frankie’s lips uncurled, his face paled, and beads of sweat broke out across his greasy forehead. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve sworn he’d pissed himself too.
Frankie mopped his brow, wiping the back of his hand on his shirt. “I’m…I’m sorry, Cherry. I meant no disrespect.”
I tapped my index finger against my lips to keep from laughing. “It’s okay, Frankie. The cab is outside. Just go home and don’t be a dick to your wife, all right?”
Nodding, he grabbed his friend’s arm. Together, they moved with speed I’d rarely seen out of those two fat fucks and slammed the door behind them. With the town drunks out of my hair, I turned to thank my dark knight, only to be met with a vast space of nothing.
Jesus, again? What the hell was with this guy?
Vowing to take the sting out of his rejection with a call to Brody after work, I concentrated on refilling drinks and restacking chip baskets. With only a few stragglers left in the cantina, my eyes roamed to the small flat-screen mounted in the corner. When rows of caution tape caught my eye, I grabbed the remote and turned up the sound as a pretty brunette anchor recounted the grisly details of what appeared to be the latest in a string of murder-suicides.
“The Houston PD say a woman who killed her boyfriend and then herself late last night also had plans to murder his wife, according to a note she left next to their bodies. Luckily, the wife of the slain man wasn't in their Robindell home when the killer showed up with a gun. The investigation into the fatal shootings is ongoing, but prosecutors say it appears to be a jealousy driven murder-suicide. Allegedly, the woman, Daniella Morales, started an argument at thirty-four-year old Nando Fuentes’s apartment around six o’clock pm yesterday evening, only to return around midnight, shooting Fuentes in the chest, and herself in the head.”
“Damn.” Lowering the volume, I shook my head along with a lady at the end of the bar with long dark hair sipping a highball of whiskey. I grabbed the rag and wiped down the bar again as I turned around. “That shit is happening too often, don’t you—Jesus Christ!” I jumped back, a scream lodged in my throat as chocolate eyes singed every piece of exposed skin, swooping down to devour what was left.
He folded his hands confidently onto the bar. “We meet again.”
“Do you always make a habit of sneaking up behind girls in bars?” I pressed my hand over my racing heart. “I thought you left.”
His lip quirked. “Your problem is taken care of. Those idiotas won’t be bothering you again.”
I placed a fresh napkin in front of him and snorted. “Those idiotas are harmless, especially Frankie. He’s all talk, and I could probably kick his ass blindfolded.” I noticed him still staring, and I couldn’t shake the feeling I was being tested. “But thanks,” I added quickly. “You saved me a chipped nail.”
We stared at each other in silence, his hypnotic eyes seeming to bend me to his will. I hadn’t been rendered speechless in four years, much less dazed by the mere presence of a man. It unsettled me in a way that made me edgy.
Forcing a break in the intensity, I concentrated on restocking the freshly-washed margarita glasses from the bin to the overhead slider. “So, what’ll it be?”
The same smile that played on his lips earlier curled into a devilish grin. “Añejo tequila. Straight shot, in a stem—”
My head snapped up. “Stem glass, not a highball, room temp, and if it hasn’t aged at least three years, shove it up the owner’s ass, right?”
“Precisamente,” he laughed, throwing his head back, baring his perfectly straight teeth. “A man should watch out for a woman who forgets nothing.”
I poured his drink and set it in front of him. “A man should watch out for me, period.” I watched him swirl the liquid, then take a sip, as if it would be disrespectful to the drink to shoot it. “I remember you,” I confessed, tilting my head to the side. “You’re very specific about your hooch.”
He took another sip, licking an escaped drop of tequila from his plump lip. “A man in my position needs to be very selective about many things, señorita.”
Suddenly it wasn’t just my face that flushed. Every crevice in my body seemed to burst into flames. A very illogical, depraved part of my brain wanted to vault over the bar and straddle him while he licked the rest of the tequila off my chest.
What the hell is wrong with me?
Taking a breathable step backward, I put some space between us and nodded as the pretty woman with long hair smiled and left for the night. “Well, does that selectivity finally include your name?” I asked with a smirk. “I mean, if you’re going protect my honor and all, shouldn’t I thank you properly?”
I’d just broken my cardinal rule of not asking names for the second time with the same man. This guy worked some serious voodoo magic on me.
He glanced around the empty bar, studying me a moment before extending a bronzed arm and answering. “Val.”
Fine. So, I knew his name. That didn’t mean he had to know mine.
“Cherry,” I replied, shaking his hand.
Fuck.
In an unexpected move, he tugged my hand closer and kissed the tips of my knuckles. “Ah, Cereza. Perfect. El color del fuego y pasión.”
I had no clue what the hell that meant, but my panties were begging to find out.
I must’ve looked confused because he chuckled again. “Your name, Cereza. It’s the color of fire and passion. It suits you.”
“Long time, no speak, big tipper.” I kept my gaze lowered, busying myself with mindless side work. Fear refused to allow direct eye contact. I’d fought for almost a year to regain the upper hand when it came to men. I’d be damned if I’d give it up now.
“You really don’t forget anything, do you?” he mused, folding his hands together on the bar.
My mouth opened to tell him he could find out for himself after my shift ended when the chime on the door jingled, and my stomach dropped to my toes. Snatching my hand from his hold, I smoothed it over my pinned hair and cursed the plain cut off jean shorts and black tank uni
form. The look screamed anything but refined. It screamed ‘chip slinging bar bitch.’
“We’re closing in twenty minutes, Davis.” I kept my voice calm and civil, even though every instinct implored me to slam a wine glass against the bar and hold the jagged edge against his mouse dick.
“The sign still says open, Edie, and you always did make a mean margarita.” Giggling ensued beside him, and I gripped the edge of the bar to keep my hands away from the glasses. “Chelsea had a craving for one after the movie and just wouldn’t settle down until I gave in.”
Chelsea craved a lot of shit you had no business giving her, you cheating fuckwad.
Val’s face hardened as I glanced at him over my shoulder. “Excuse me, I need to deal with some unfinished business.” I gave him a weak smile, and his chin dipped in acknowledgement. It was the only sign he gave that he’d heard me as his focus returned to his tequila.
So much for a night of casual sex and dirty Spanish.
Turning to face Davis, his annoying All-American hero good looks focused on my ex-best friend, and I wanted to throw up the chips I’d eaten. Chelsea had obviously been killing what brain cells were left in that vapid hole inside her skull by frying her skin into shoe leather at her mother’s tanning salon. She sported a nice shade of Oompa Loompa from her peroxide blond hair down to her aerobicized ass. By the way her clothes hung, I’d wager a guess she’d been eating a steady diet of chia seeds and air lately. Of course, being with Davis, that was a given. Davis had a strict no chub policy. During our three years together, I chewed diet pills like they were Pez.
“One drink, you guys. Then I have to close up.” The day couldn’t possibly end any worse.
“I’ll have a Bud Light in the bottle, not a glass,” Davis instructed, as if I couldn’t recite his order by heart. “And what kind of margarita do you want, baby?”
Chelsea giggled again, flipping her bleached hair over her shoulder. “Edie, can you make a sugar-free, skinny margarita made with just lime juice, no sweet and sour and no salt?”
Carrera Cartel: The Collection Page 5