by Logan Fox
“But I should have—” Cora began, spinning to face Bailey.
“Javier had threatened her before,” Bailey said in a monotone. “Over the years, I guess I became her confidant. He’d already given her two strikes during their marriage. Once, for having a miscarriage, which he claimed had been intentional.”
Cora’s skin grew cold at Bailey’s emotionless retelling. She sat back in her chair, her fingertips touching her lips as he went on.
“The second…” Bailey paused and swallowed hard enough she could see his Adam’s apple moving. “That was for refusing to fuck him. She’d been sick—flu, I think—but that never bothered the prick. That was when she arranged for Sylvia, his first mistress. A year later, when she turned forty, she introduced him to Ana.”
Cora felt bile rising in her throat. “Why didn’t she—?”
“It was dangerous for us to text. Javier kept a close watch on her cellphone, even to the calls she made. Sometimes, we had to meet each other in person, very last minute.” Bailey washed his hands over his face. “We’d find a place where we could talk—usually somewhere in Phoenix on my day off—and sometimes she wouldn’t have had time to put make up on. She often had bruises on her.”
“She should have left him,” Cora said, her voice shaking. “She had money, didn’t she? Why—”
“Because of Neo,” Bailey said quietly. “That was always her answer. She couldn’t leave Neo with Javier, because then he’d take his anger out on her son.”
The aquarium’s bubbling filter filled the silence after Bailey’s voice faded.
“Now, aren’t you so glad you killed that piece of shit?” Lars murmured.
Cora’s glanced up at the ceiling, nibbling at the inside of her lip. “Yes.” She looked down at Bailey. “But I should have done it sooner. Before he—”
A hand grasped her, and she cut off to look at Finn. “Enough,” he rasped. “It’s time to look forward, not back.”
“But—”
“This guy,” Bailey said, drawing her eyes. “You remember what he looks like?”
“A little,” she lied.
His face had been branded onto her memory. Each night, it grew more vivid and detailed. The faint scar beside his mouth. The set of his eyes. Long, untidy hair she wanted to run through her fingers.
“Brown eyes. Black hair.” She gestured at her own face. “Squarish jaw.”
“Sounds dreamy,” Lars murmured, just loud enough for her to hear.
She pointedly didn’t look his away, because if he was wearing one of his omniscient grins, she would break down and confess every dirty, filthy thought she’d had.
And that would shatter them, she knew it. They’d call her a slut, and they would be right.
“Why?” she asked, trying to force her voice out as evenly as possible.
“We should try and figure out who he is.”
“What are you thinking?” Finn asked. “Rival cartel?”
Bailey pressed his mouth into a line, shaking his head from side to side.
“The law?” Lars asked, cupping his hands behind his head and stretching in his chair. It looked about to topple over, but he didn’t seem to have a problem keeping his balance on the two back legs.
“Maybe.” Bailey looked up at her. “He didn’t say or do anything else?”
She shook her head. The fact that he’d been sketching was completely irrelevant – he could have been sketching anything.
She had no proof it was her.
“Try and remember more details. In the meantime, I’ll see if I can get hold of my guy.”
“Your guy?” Lars asked.
Bailey turned to look at Lars, hesitating before saying, “He knows someone in the DEA’s office.”
“You know a guy that knows a guy in the DEA?” Lars cocked a pale eyebrow at him. “My, my, my, aren’t you full of surprises?”
Bailey blushed.
He actually blushed.
Cora’s lips squirmed into a smile. She could remember almost everything of that hedonistic afternoon they’d spent in Javier’s room right before the wedding. Bailey taking instruction from Lars had been such an unexpected—and fucking hot—surprise. Was that what Bailey was thinking about?
And then her cheeks burned, because her insides were writhing at the memory of Bailey going down on her, lapping her with tongue as—
“Head in the game, people,” Finn said. “Who’s this connection?”
Cora cleared her throat, giving Finn a quick, guilty glance before focusing on Bailey again with a purposeful frown.
“Does it matter?” Bailey asked, sitting back and crossing his hands over his chest.
“Oh, this is gonna be good.” Lars’s chair thumped back onto all four legs as he rested an elbow on the table and his chin in his hand.
Bailey looked up at the ceiling as if in silent prayer, and raised his hands. “Look, my family’s always had ties with them. It doesn’t mean anything.”
Lars clapped his hands together and let out a laugh. “Fuck, it keeps getting better.”
“Shut it, Lars,” Finn said.
Lars sat back in his chair, giving Finn a wide smile and a mock salute before turning back to Bailey.
“Bailey?” Cora asked, sitting forward in her chair.
“It’s no big deal,” Bailey said. Then, carefully, he added, “I know a guy in the Irish mafia. And he knows someone in the DEA’s office. Someone they’ve paid to look the other way, I guess.”
“The mafia?” Cora said, her voice at least three octaves higher than usual. Finn let out a rough snort, and Lars cackled like a witch before Cora thumped a fist on the table to quieten them down.
“The mafia?” she said again, when Bailey still hadn’t said anything.
“I said it’s not a big deal.”
“Do they know—?” Cora pointed her fingers between her and Bailey. “Me, us, the cartel?”
“No!” Bailey sat forward in a rush, holding out a hand to her across the table. “Cora, no. Why…I would never—”
“You’ve been branded a turncoat, Bailey,” Lars said, mirth still evident in his voice. “Gonna take a while for the stink to rub off.”
Bailey’s mouth went into a line, and he pointed a fist at Lars before facing Cora again. “I never—”
“Answer the question,” Finn said.
The quietness of his voice made her turn to him. He wore no expression, but his jaw bunched.
“I’m sure they’re aware of you,” Bailey said carefully. “I mean, Javier would sometimes supply them with heroin, and they have eyes and ears everywhere.”
“But are you one of them?” Lars asked with a sigh. “Seriously, just answer the fucking question.”
“No.” Bailey shook his head. “No. I haven’t been in contact with them for like three—maybe four— years.”
“Did you tell them anything about the cartel back then?” Cora asked. As hard as she tried, her voice was still unsteady.
Lars was right—she knew Bailey would never hurt her, but he had been spying on her family. How could she blindly trust him without proving himself to her? Maybe she was going with her heart, instead of her head.
“They’ve never been interested in you.”
“In me?”
“The cartel, I mean. They deal coke. Massive volumes of it. El Calacas was done with coke over a decade ago.”
“Just heroin now,” Finn said.
Cora’s skin broke out in goose bumps. She knew how he felt about the drug—especially since his sister was an addict. But, just like her apparently unlimited supply of lust, selling heroin came with the territory.
God, she felt like such an asshole.
“Okay,” Cora said, very fucking eager to change the subject. “So, they don’t care about us, which is great. You say you can find out if this guy was DEA?”
“Yeah,” Bailey said, nodding. “But if he’s not, then he could be FBI.”
“FBI,” Cora repeated slowly.
&nbs
p; “’Cos what you’re doing is kinda illegal?” Lars quipped unhelpfully beside her.
She glared at him, and pointed a trembling finger his way. “Enough,” she said.
Lars’s eyelids drooped, and he gave her a serpentine smile. “Your wish is my command, La Sombra.”
A tingle spread through her at how he caressed those words with his tongue. She tilted her chin up, and forced herself to look at Bailey. “Contact your guy and find out who’s been sniffing around my cartel.”
She looked at Lars. “You, get rid of that lion.” She waved a hand. “Set it free or something.”
Lars cocked his eyebrow at her. “Like…in the grounds?”
“Send it back to Africa!” she snapped. “Or…wherever lions go back to. I don’t want it in a cage.”
“They’re usually put down, once they’ve tasted human flesh,” Finn cut in.
She glared at him. “Then let’s keep that fact to ourselves. I won’t let it suffer because of Javier.”
Finn shrugged, and gave Lars a long, unreadable look.
“Why me?” Lars asked sulkily.
“Because I said so.”
Lars rolled his eyes. “Fine. But I’ll have you know, boss, tonight…?” He leaned across the table, and ran a finger down her arm. “I’ll be lashing you to the bed.”
He rose, followed a second later by Finn.
Bailey watched them head for the door, and then turned to her. “Cora, can we talk?”
The men froze in their steps. Bailey glanced to the side, but didn’t turn his head. “Alone,” he added in a murmur.
“Buddy, you obviously don’t realize how this—” Lars began, taking a step back to him.
“Yes,” Cora cut in, lifting a hand to Lars.
There was something in Bailey’s eyes. Darkness, regret. She had no idea why he wanted to speak to her alone, but if it was to confess something, then he deserved to do it in private.
When she looked up at Finn and Lars, they were both waiting, as if expecting her to change her mind.
“I’ll see you two later,” she said, giving them a warm smile. “Be safe.”
4
A little psycho
The echo of his shoes was as rhythmic as his heart beat and Zachary West lost himself in the sound. Around him, the tunnel connecting his two plots became a haze of clay, studded with the occasional glow of a bare light bulb.
The construction had almost been complete, merely cosmetic. Putting cages around the light bulbs, for instance. Laying flooring over the dirt. There was already drainage and air circulation in place; for his purposes, the tunnel was functional.
It was a conduit built for one purpose, and one purpose only—to bring enough cocaine into the United States to make it snow like Christmas morning.
As soon as he had established his supply chain, his world would be right again. The floor under his feet would no longer tilt like the deck of a ship in rough seas.
He didn’t need the tunnel to be pretty.
Life wasn’t pretty. This bare passage with its gritty floor was proof enough of that.
His final few steps up the ramp didn’t echo. He emerged into the cool night air, hands clasped behind his back as he tipped his head up and drew a long breath through his nose.
The air smelled delicious this side of the border—fresh and unspoilt. The first stars of the night poked through the satin sheet of twilight, and the Rio Grande gurgled somewhere in the distance behind him.
Maybe it smelled different here because there wasn’t a hint of char in the air.
It was quiet on this side of the river. Deathly so.
Perhaps, by the time he’d returned to his farm, the screams would have died down.
A bird sang out, and he took it as a signal to return home.
There was much for him to do, now that there was no longer anyone to help him.
5
Because
“Another drink?” Sylvia asked, nudging Neo with her toe. Throwing her a glare, He jerked his foot away before shrugging.
“Are you going to be like this the whole night?”
He glared at her, but all that did was to make her raise an eyebrow in his direction. “You weren’t there,” he said.
“Put Cora in her place,” Sylvia said, waving an indolent hand. “Then you’ll be smiling again.”
He jerked his shoulders, trying to settle into something approaching a comfortable position. The villa’s jacuzzi should have been relaxing with its water jets, but it kept reminding him of the night Javier had forced him to marry Cora. How he’d had to jam that ring onto her finger. The way she’d stiffened when he’d kissed her.
You wouldn’t think a slut like her would turn away any man’s lips.
He knew what she did with those men; he’d overheard the staff he played soccer with. Their wives gossiped to each other about the state of the beds they had to clean.
It disgusted him, but what the hell could he do about it? His own wife bedded three men—at the same time—and he was powerless to stop her.
“Here.” Sylvia twisted around, her breasts straining in the small, white bikini she wore.
Neo washed his gaze over her body as she busied herself. She was a few years older than him—had been more than a decade younger than his father—but her body was as toned and slender as a model’s.
His father’s mistress had become a surprising ally. When the dust and ash had settled after the wedding, she’d come knocking on his door. He thought she was there to ask permission to leave, but instead, she asked if he wanted company for the night.
He’d been too broken to reject her, and too depressed to fuck her. And she seemed to know it; she’d given him a massage and watched a movie with him until they’d both fallen asleep. Last night, she hadn’t been in his room, and he thought he’d never see her again. But an hour ago, she’d knocked on his door and dragged him up to the jacuzzi to ‘get rid of his stress’, which she claimed radiated from him like cheap cologne.
Turned out, she’d disappeared earlier to find some coke.
She twisted back to him, a small mirror balanced on her palm, two lines of cremita already etched onto its surface.
“Take it,” she said in her brusque—if husky—voice.
He hesitated, but not for long. Hot ice shot through his nasal passages as he snorted up one line, then the other. He rubbed his thumb along the mirror’s surface, gathering up the cocaine dust that had settled there.
His gums went numb when he massaged his thumb over them.
Sylvia cut two lines for herself, and faced him again with a slender finger delicately patting her nose.
Stretching out one of her long legs, she ran the side of her foot up his calf. “So, what will you do, Don Neo?”
His brain sparkled like the sky on New Year’s Eve. A thousand answers spilled into his mind, each harsher than the last.
He could ignore Cora, hand her over to a rival cartel, fuck her and force her to carry his child, feed her to his father’s lion.
But all he said was, “Why do I have to do anything?”
Sylvia threw back her head and laughed. The sound was as brash as she was. “I was with Havie—” Sylvia’s nickname for his father “—for five years.” She let this sink in as she studied him, and he shifted when the intensity of her gaze only became stronger.
“So?” he snapped, sniffing and swallowing hard to get rid of the bitter taste going down the back of his throat. “Now you’re an expert or something?”
She gave him a knowing smile. “Or something…” Her foot ran down the inside of his calf, and then up the other leg.
“You tell me then,” Neo said, thumbing his nose. “Tell me what I should do, if you know so fucking much.”
She tilted her head to the side and spread her arms along the rim of the jacuzzi. Her foot brushed his knee and then crept along his inner thigh.
“Your dealers are waiting for product,” she said. “And they’re not patient men. Especiall
y the Irish.”
“You know them?”
“I’ve met them all. Seen them all. Havie even lent me to some of them a few times.” She shrugged. “They’ll want their shipments, and soon.”
“Then we should call them. Tell them we don’t have anything. It’s the truth.”
“Not we…” Sylvia said, her foot sliding over his dick. “Her.”
Neo’s cock twitched at the touch, and he shifted in the jacuzzi’s roiling water. “Cora?”
“She won’t know what to do if they come asking,” Sylvia said, massaging him with the ball of her foot as she spoke. “She’ll crack like an egg.”
“How do I get them to contact her? They’ve only ever dealt with Javier.”
“I know someone who can help.” Sylvia’s eyes glittered. “One of Javier’s business partners.”
Neo’s eyes fluttered as Sylvia’s foot glided over his stiffening dick.
“And he can help?”
She retracted her foot, leaving him with a rock-hard dick and a sudden urge to stick it in something.
“I’d bet money on it,” she said with another secretive grin.
Neo nodded, realized he was chewing the inside of his cheek, and tried to stop. A wave of energy crashed through him. He rose from the jacuzzi, grabbing Sylvia on the way and hauling her up with him. Their wet bodies slapped together as he ground his dick against her belly. “What if it comes back to me?”
“It won’t,” Sylvia said, grabbing his ass and forcing him harder against her. She gazed up at him with big eyes, and ran her tongue along her lips as he watched. “Because…?”
She left the word dangling as his dick throbbed between them. He scanned her face, gaze darting over her perfectly sculpted features. She could have been a model. Fuck maybe she had been, before Gabriella had found her.
Just the silent mention of his mother’s name brought with it a flash of venomous rage.
Sylvia gasped when he grabbed the back of her neck and wrenched her away so he could stare at her body.
“No, she won’t suspect, will she?” he said through his teeth. “Because I’m giving her exactly what she wants.”