by Bethany-Kris
Maybe he should have.
Brrrraaaaaappp.
Cross hit the floor as glass shattered. Hot coffee went flying as the carafe exploded. Bullets embedded into the cupboards above his head.
Repeated, fast pops from an automatic assault rifle kept ripping through the now broken windows at the front of his home. He kept low, and moved to a safe spot while the bullets kept coming. Hidden behind the kitchen island.
It had a special feature on the backside—a one-inch thick piece of metal that covered the entire back of the island, but was beneath the wood where it couldn’t be seen.
Another round of bullets ripped through the kitchen, and cold March air blew in right behind it. Cross really wished he had been in the living room where he had a fucking AK hidden up under the couch.
Then, all at once, the firing stopped.
A cupboard door fell down.
Tires screeched.
Cross didn’t move a fucking inch. He trusted nothing, not even his instinct to get up and run. Moving from his one safe position might mean his death. Silence echoed minutes after the bullets stopped coming. He could plainly hear people outside his house, the voices of his neighbors filtering in.
Then, a car, and another familiar pair of voices.
His mother and sister.
“Oh, my God!”
“Cross. Cross!”
He forced himself up off the floor, and headed for the front of the house. Even the windows of the front door had been blown out in the attack.
Catherine was not going to be happy about this.
Cross opened the front door to find his mother and sister parked in the driveway, and standing beside Emma’s black Mercedes. They looked as though they had just gotten out of their car.
Instantly, his mother burst into tears at the sight of him standing there. Camilla—the first time she had been back to New York since shortly before Christmas—let out a shaky breath before she too started crying.
“I’m okay,” he said.
They didn’t look like they believed him.
Really, he didn’t trust himself in that moment.
Something on the front door caught his eye because it flapped in the wind. He ripped the piece of paper off the door, and turned it around to see the image printed on the backside.
Black and white.
Dated and timestamped.
His wife and daughter.
In Mexico, by the looks of the ice-cream sign behind them written in Spanish.
Fuck.
“I don’t like this, reginella.”
Catherine set Cece’s plate of French toast sticks down in front of her on the tray. Cece’s tiny hands reached for the napkin, and flicked it open. Carefully, like her mother and father taught her to do, she tucked the napkin into the collar of her purple dress, and smoothed it down her front.
All by herself.
Sweet as could be.
Catherine bent down and kissed her daughter on the cheek. Cece preened like an angel.
“Good job, Cece.”
“Like big girls, Ma.”
“That’s right. Just like big girls do.”
“Did you hear what I said?” Miguel asked.
“I’ve heard it the last twenty times you’ve said it,” Catherine replied.
She never turned away from Cece as she addressed her right hand man, and friend. She showed Cece how to dip her sticks into the maple syrup.
“And if we bite it really quick, we won’t get sticky,” she said.
Cece made a face. “Okays.”
Her girl didn’t sound so sure.
Cece wasn’t big on messes.
“Catherine.”
“In a second, Miguel.”
Once Catherine was satisfied Cece was going to eat the French toast sticks despite the stickiness of the syrup, she turned to face her friend. Catherine nodded to the doorway, and Miguel headed in that direction without as much as a word.
Cece stayed behind, watching her cartoons from her spot on the bed, and eating breakfast. Catherine didn’t miss how her daughter’s eyes still followed her, though.
In the main room, Catherine opted to stand instead of sitting on the old couch. It needed an upgrade, frankly.
Much like the carpets.
And the drapes.
The three-star Mexican hotel they had registered into was nothing to scoff at, but it was still a little downgraded for Catherine’s tastes. She wasn’t a snob; she simply was accustomed to working out of nicer venues.
She wasn’t about to complain.
This would do just fine for the short time they were actually going to be in Mexico. Then, she would be at her Four Seasons hotel in California for a while. After all, she still had those other issues to deal with.
“Get it out,” Catherine said as she closed the bedroom door behind her.
Miguel scrubbed a hand down his jaw. “I just think it’s a bad idea for you to go to this meeting alone, reginella.”
Catherine nodded. “Thank you for your concern, but you know I don’t have a choice at the moment, Miguel.”
“I know you could ask for the meeting to be a little more to your benefit.”
“How, by asking the contact to get it scheduled later? I already don’t have time as it is. I need to get this done, and get cocaine moving into New York as soon as I can. Should I demand they allow me to bring an army of guards with me? All that will do is tell them I don’t trust them.”
“You shouldn’t trust them. They’re cartel, and we don’t even know them.”
“Giuseppe Bianchi is cartel, too. Just because he wears nice suits, lives in a big house, and owns his own jet doesn’t make what he does any better, Miguel.”
“I’m just saying—”
“Miguel, they do business with a lot of families. Chicago included. They supply to more organizations in America and Canada than Giuseppe does. What does that tell you?”
He scowled, and glanced away.
Catherine opted to answer for him. “It tells us that they do good business. They have good product. They make good exchanges. So they have rules they want us to follow for this meeting, and some of them are a little sketchy, who fucking cares? Jesus Christ, Cosa Nostra has sketchy rules, but nobody is refusing to work with them on the low.”
“You’re missing the point.”
“I’m not.” She came closer to Miguel, and patted his cheek with her palm. “I know you’re worried about me going alone.”
“Very worried. I’m your handler.”
“Not anymore,” Catherine reminded him. “Now, you’re my second in command.”
“It’s still my job to have your back, reginella. How can I do that when you won’t allow me to?”
Catherine tipped her head in the direction of the closed bedroom door. “You are looking after something far more important to me, Miguel. You have her back. That’s what I need. The rest is business—I can handle business.”
“You’re too much like your mother for your own good.”
“Everyone tells me that. I don’t see it.”
“Seriously?”
Catherine laughed. “No, I’m aware of just how similar I am to my mom. We’re like peas in a very small pod.”
Miguel nodded. “You can take a phone and weapon, right?”
“That’s what they said.”
“I still don’t trust them. The one that contacted you didn’t even give you his name, or the name of the person you would be meeting.”
Nope.
Just a location, a time, and vehicle to expect. Catherine had also been told that she was not to question the driver or man accompanying him. Once the meeting was done, she would be delivered back to the restaurant she had been told to wait in front of.
Layers, she thought.
These were likely more layers keeping whoever the boss was safe from outsiders. The Gomez cartel seemed damned determined to keep the identity of their leader a secret. Frankly, Catherine didn’t give a shit at this poi
nt.
She didn’t even have to meet the boss.
She just needed a supplier.
“Let me handle business. You handle Cece.”
Miguel rolled his eyes upward. “A glorified babysitter.”
“You love that kid. You’re her Miggy.”
“Shut up, reginella. Don’t tell people things like that. They’ll think I’ve gone soft or some nonsense.”
Catherine laughed in response. “You? Never.”
“And don’t you forget it.”
“Please don’t worry about me,” she said after moment. “I already have enough of that coming from my husband, despite how much he tries to hide it.”
“He has a right to be concerned.”
“So he does, but he doesn’t see me verbalizing my concerns over his dangerous business. I don’t cause him anxiety with my constant worries. I let him handle his shit because I trust that he knows what he’s doing.”
Miguel frowned. “Mmm.”
“He offers me the same respect. We’re good that way. He does want me to call him after the meeting to let him know how it went.”
“Understandable.”
Catherine folded her arms over her chest. “Yes, but regardless how this meeting goes, I won’t fill him in on the finer details until I get back home. Then, he and I can talk face to face about it, and not over the phone. Then, if bad shit did happen that he needs to know, he will not need to worry about me getting home after he hears the news.”
“Is that an order for me, too?”
“I know Cross asks you details on my business sometimes.”
“Never with bad intent,” Miguel pointed out.
“I know that, too.”
“Ma, sticky! Oh, Gods, sticky!”
“Just a second, Cece,” Catherine called to her daughter, desperately trying not to laugh.
Cece’s disgusted shriek was then accompanied by a loud, “Oh noes, my dress!”
She could hear the horror in the kid’s voice.
Catherine rolled her eyes upward. “She’s a kid. Why can’t she just be a normal kid sometimes?”
“Because she’s not normal,” Miguel said, already heading for the bedroom. “She’s wonderful.”
Yep.
Miggy to the rescue.
Again.
Catherine eyed the black SUV that pulled alongside the street, and slowed to a stop in front of the restaurant where she stood waiting. The model was what she had been told to expect. All the windows were tinted far too dark to see inside.
Slowly, the back window rolled down. Inside, a man sat waiting in the back seat.
“Catherine Donati?”
His Mexican Spanish accent colored his words.
“Yes,” Catherine replied.
“I’m to take you to the compound.”
Catherine raised a brow at that statement—she hadn’t been told anything about a compound. She had a mind to ask where exactly this compound was, but quickly remembered the rules she had been given.
No asking questions.
Nodding once, Catherine stepped up to the vehicle as the man opened the door. His russet gaze looked her black dress over, but he quickly averted his gaze as she stepped inside the car. The moment the door was closed, the SUV lurched forward.
Catherine eyed the assault rifle resting in the front seat. Behind her and the man who had done the talking, another man sat with a similar rifle firmly in his grasp.
She kept her gaze drifting between the man beside her, and the roads ahead of them. As it was, she was not very familiar with Mexico. It was not a popular vacation spot for her, and little of her business was done here.
After all, the cartel controlled the country.
All business was done through them, on their time, with their permission, and to their commission. That was how a cartel worked.
“You must have questions,” the man beside her said.
He was younger than Catherine expected—probably early twenties, or there about. His black hair was slicked back like he had been running his fingers through it. His white teeth flashed in his smile, and it contrasted against his tawny skin tone. He was quite handsome with his strong features, yet his smile made him seem almost … boyish.
A bit young, she thought, to be delivering someone to his boss.
Unless, of course, this young man was very close to his boss.
Who was to say?
“I do have questions,” Catherine finally replied.
“Yet, you’ve not asked any.”
“I was told not to.”
“Ah, I see. Smart woman.”
Catherine shrugged, and peered back out the window. “I have only one goal in this, and that is finding myself a new supplier. I’m not interested in semantics, problems, or anything that might cause issues.”
“Then you will not mind this?”
She looked back to him.
He held a black hood in his hands.
“Understand, we take great care to ensure the safety of our organization. Everything is carefully protected, but especially the boss and the compound. You have a very good chance of getting what you want from this meeting, Catherine, but you will enter and leave our premises without having ever known where you were. You will never know—no one ever does.”
She appreciated his honesty.
The hood was still a bit daunting.
Catherine sighed. “Well …”
He raised a brow.
“At least let me know your name?” Catherine asked with a dry laugh.
“José.”
Catherine nodded, and reached for the hood. “All right. Give it over, José.”
Catherine blinked at the bright sunlight blinding her vision as the hood was slowly tugged off her head. José stood in front of her, but he wore no smile like he had in the vehicle earlier. Now, his seriousness was back, and he held an assault rifle in his hands.
Behind him, Catherine surveyed the quaint two-level home with a wraparound porch. It would be a nice place, she thought, if not for the guards at each corner dressed in camo gear with guns in their hands. All of them watched her, but otherwise, didn’t move a muscle.
It was quite unnerving.
“Welcome to the compound,” José said.
Catherine looked over her shoulder to see a dusty road, dry land, and a few scattered trees. The heat soaked through her black dress, and she was starting to regret the choice of color as the sun beat down. A mile back, she thought she could see buildings of some sort. Hangars, maybe? One or two, for sure. Further east, she could see warehouses. Fences blocked fields, and in one, horses grazed as their tails flicked away flies.
It was calmer than she expected.
You know, barring the men with guns.
“Don’t ask where you are,” José told her.
Catherine waved a hand. “No worries. I was actually thinking it’s quite beautiful and quiet here. I like that.”
“Associates and buyers usually do.” Then, he pointed to the house. “You will have your meet in the kitchen. The boss will be waiting.”
“I just go in?”
“Go in.”
Okay, then.
Catherine climbed the three stairs leading up to the wraparound porch. One of the guards opened the front door for her, and then closed it once she was inside the home. For the most part, the home was very … homey.
Family pictures. Children’s toys in the corner of the living room. Artwork hung on the walls, and decorations making the place feel warm.
Again, not what she had expected …
But to be honest, she hadn’t known what to expect to begin with. Who was she to say this wasn’t normal? If she had a client come into her home, or one of her girls for that matter, they would find the same thing.
“Catherine Donati, right?”
Catherine turned to face a man standing in the entryway of a large kitchen. Something cooking smelled like spices and meat—heavenly, really.
“That would be me
.”
Turning, the tall, older man waved a hand for her to enter. “Come, have a seat.”
Her gaze narrowed momentarily at the man.
He had not offered his hand to shake.
He had been standing, and waiting, for her.
“Could I ask your name?” Catherine asked as she took a seat at the table.
The man smiled, and lines etched around his mouth and eyes. It was an easy smile, she thought. Not the smile of a man she assumed would be running a major cartel controlling most of South America.
“Samuel.”
Samuel had already taken his seat before Catherine had even sat down in hers.
Everything about the scene just felt … off.
She couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was that was putting her on edge, but it was something. Catherine was not one to ignore her instincts.
“So I finally meet the boss,” Catherine said with a false smile.
Samuel offered a raised brow, and said, “Business, yes?”
That’s when she knew.
This man was not the boss.
He was too easy-going, too beta to a boss’s alpha. No boss would be standing and waiting for someone in their own home. No boss would not at least offer their hand to test the waters of respect between an associate or buyer at their first meeting. Bosses had an aura about them—a certain attitude, behavior, and way.
Catherine knew this because she was one.
Because she lived with a boss.
Because two bosses had raised her.
Her entire family was made up of leaders, and this man was not one of them.
“Samuel,” Catherine said quietly, “please don’t take offense to me saying this, but I came here to speak with someone who I assumed would be able to give me, and the Three Families in New York, a supply of cocaine. I was told outside that the boss would be waiting inside for me here. You are not that person.”
The man smiled faintly, and his gaze darted over her shoulder.
Catherine dared not turn around to see what he had looked at.
Apparently, she didn’t need to.
“You’re right, Catherine, he certainly isn’t. Brother, would you mind stepping out?”