Their Cartel Princess: The Complete Series: A Dark Reverse Harem Box Set Page 30

  Finn squeezed his eyes shut with his fingers.

  “Jesus, this thing’s dead,” Lars shifted his weight.

  “I told you—”

  “Think I brought you out here in the fucking snow for that?” Lars turned to face him. “Tell me what’s going on, Milo. With you. With this chick. Everything.”

  Finn glanced up, and Lars followed his gaze. They were under the bedroom window, but it was closed against the cold. The lamp cast very little light, but enough that it was obvious Cora wasn’t close to the window.

  “She’s cartel. Capo’s daughter.”

  Lars lowered his cup, mouth slowly falling open. “Fuck,” he said, with emphasis.

  “Exactly.”

  “And this Texas thing?”

  “Supposed to take her to her uncle. Or, her father’s business partner.”

  “Creepy,” Lars muttered, taking a sip of his coffee and shivering theatrically when a gust of wind blew snow over him. “Hurry, it’s fucking cold out here.”

  Finn shrugged inside his parka, glancing back at the generator as he strode away. Movement caught his eyes. He looked up, catching the tail-end of a shadow before it disappeared from behind the bedroom window’s glass. “Which I would have done. Couldn’t get a hold of her father.”

  “Me neither. Think something’s happened to him?”

  Finn laced his hands together, urging his gloves tight around his fingers. “He was at a funeral in Sinaloa. There was a shoot-out.”

  “Jesus,” Lars muttered. “He still alive?”

  “Don’t know.” Finn shrugged. “Now I don’t know if I should take her to Texas, or wait to hear from her father.”

  “Which might never happen, if he’s six feet under.” Finn glanced back as Lars drained the last of his coffee. “So what’s putting up your back about Texas? I mean, I trust whatever weird fucking sixth sense you have going on, but—”

  “Her bodyguard told me not to trust the man.”

  Lars snorted. “He have proof?”

  “I don’t know. I had to shoot him.”

  Lars moved his head to the side and lifted a hand to his face. “Jesus, Milo—”

  “Client’s orders.”

  “The fuck?”

  “Then there was a hit on the exact route I’d been told to take. Didn’t think it was bullshit after that.”

  “Thinking there was an informant?”

  “Yeah. My thoughts—the bodyguard.”

  “But why’d he rat himself out like that? You make him beg for his life or something?”

  Finn shook his head. “He didn’t beg. He was more concerned with her.”

  “Seems to be happening a lot, people being overly concerned with this chick.”

  He ignored the comment. “Soon as I can make contact with her father—”

  “Milo, just take her to fucking Texas. That’s the contract. If her daddy said she’s to be shipped off to cowboy land, then you take her there. We take her there. End of the fucking story. Everyone lives happily ever after. ‘Cept for her, ‘cos she’s cartel and shit. Probably zero happy endings in store for her.”

  Finn spun to him, and Lars drew up short. The torch light cast a bright glow on the snow below them, and reflected back into Lars’s eyes, making them look more white than green.

  “What the fuck’s your problem?” Finn whispered.

  Lars gave a small shrug. “Strange…I was gonna ask you the same thing.”

  9

  Pretty boy

  “Don Zachary’s busy,” came Ailin’s gruff Irish twang from behind the partially closed bathroom door. Zachary paused, the hand holding his straight razor barely touching his throat. His nondescript face peered back at him—brown eyes the color of mud, sandy brown hair swept back from a forehead marred by faint frown lines. He was pushing thirty-eight, and life had tried to etch those years deep into his flesh. But he’d always been too healthy for his own good—his face was that of a thirty-five-year-old’s, perhaps a few years younger.

  “Please, Señor Ailin, I have news—”

  “Then ya tell me. I’ll pass it on verbatim like, yeah?”

  “I—I will speak only to—”

  “Let him in,” Zachary called out, sliding the razor up his throat and flicking the foam from its blade. “I’m almost done.”

  From the faint grumble Ailin gave, he wasn’t happy about letting the boy in. But he knew better than to challenge an order Zachary gave. There was still a scar on his cheek from the first and only time he’d insisted Zachary had been wrong.

  The bathroom door opened. Angel appeared in the mirror, head turning until he saw Zachary standing by the basin. His eyes dropped to the floor, and a faint blush bloomed on his coffee-colored cheeks.

  “Perdón, señor, I—I didn’t—”

  “It’s Don Zachary, boy.” Zachary slid the straight razor up his throat, watching the young man’s reflection. “Not Señor.”

  “Perdóname, Se—Don Zachary.”

  Was it because he only wore a towel that the young man seemed so flustered? Or was it the sight of the distorted, marbled flesh that covered the left of his body?

  “What did you come here to tell me?”

  Angel’s eyes flashed up, flickered on Zachary’s scars, and struggled eventually to the reflection of his eyes. “I—I think I find him, Don Zachary.”

  “And who is it that you think you found?” he asked quietly, scraping the last stripe of shaving foam from his neck.

  Angel shifted his feet, and dropped his gaze again when Zachary turned to face the young man. Patting at his face and throat with a damp towel, he leaned idly against the basin as he waited for Angel to find his voice again.

  When his men had dragged Angel and his brother, Marco, from the Rio Grande like a pair of drowning rats, they’d been defiant, angry, scared. He’d offered them work in the cartel, and both had accepted. Marco without hesitation, Angel with the wary reluctance of a man who’d already lived three people’s worth of hellish lives in his twenty-odd years on earth.

  Both excelled as halcones—the cartel’s eyes and ears. Cautiously watching from the shadows came naturally to them. He hadn’t asked after their pasts, but they had to have been living on the streets for several years before scratching together enough pesos to pay a coyote to take them over the border.

  “Señor Martin,” Angel said.

  “Spit it out, boy.” As much as he enjoyed the young man’s presence—he had an exceptional beauty to him, both he and his brother—he had a busy day ahead of him.

  Angel’s eyes flickered up at the sound of his voice, but then darted to the floor again. “A truck, this…this Land Rover?” Angel glanced up and, this time, held Zachary’s gaze. His eyes were so dark there was no telling where his pupils ended and his irises began. Paired with thick, black lashes and dark brows, the young man’s gaze could become fairly intense. Somehow, the world hadn’t yet trampled his youthful exuberance.

  “You followed it?” Zachary took a bottle of aftershave from the rack beside the basin mirror.

  “A week. It comes back same place, every day.”

  “And that place is?”

  “Dirt road by fence.” Angel’s eyes glowed. “Gringos and Mexicans. Lots of cars, black windows.”

  The boys must have gotten close if he and Marco been able to note so much detail. A dangerous thing to do, especially when they’d been sent to scout out a possible route used by Javier Martin’s men. One that might lead to the massive lot somewhere in the western part of Texas where Martin was said to be operating from.

  Angel and Marco had happened upon one of El Calacas Vivo’s men, celebrating in a local pub in El Paso. The more alcohol that had flowed past his lips, the looser they’d became. Soon, everyone knew he was one of Martin’s sicarios—recently promoted—and that he’d be swimming in women and cash in mere weeks.

  It hadn’t been happenstance that Angel and Marco had been in that bar. They’d been hanging out in seedy pubs close to the bo
rder for the past two weeks, convinced that they’d pick up the trace of rival cartel members that sometimes used bars for their business transactions. There were rumors some of those bars were even money laundering outfits for ECV or Sinaloa.

  The brothers were expendable—all his men were—so Zachary had given them the go ahead. Of course, there was always the chance they’d try to run. But they were broke, illegal, and their strong accents and wide-eyed stares gave them away. They’d be picked up by border patrol within the week, something he made sure the other men they spent time with would constantly remind them of.

  For how long the threats would keep them close, he couldn’t tell. Perhaps they’d become loyal cartel members, rising in rank until, one day, Angel and Marco would replace Ailin and Rodrigo as his lieutenants—tasked with keeping him safe and taking care of some of his more delicate transactions.

  The smell of mint and cedarwood drenched the air as he smoothed his aftershave over his cheeks.

  “Have you seen Martin yet? One of his sicarios?”

  Angel shook his head and dropped his gaze again. “But we return today. We will—”

  “No.” Zachary stepped closer and lay a hand on Angel’s shoulder. The young man was still dusty; no doubt from whatever position he and Marco had been in the dirt, possibly out of sight behind scrub. “You will stay here.”

  “Por favor, Sen—Don Zachary.” Angel’s eyes flashed up to him. “Another day and—”

  “You fought with one of my men.”

  Angel tensed under his hand. The young man inflated his chest, but didn’t deny the fact.

  “I cannot abide infighting. Not now, not ever.”

  Angel twisted out from under his hand. “Pendejo insult me.”

  Zachary couldn’t keep the faint smile from his mouth. “I don’t consider the term ‘pretty boy’ an insult.”

  “Is for me.” Angel’s eyes sparked. In their depths, roiled a loathing so deep and dark that it made the hair on Zachary’s nape stand up.

  “But you are a pretty boy.” He surged forward, grabbed the young man’s throat, and slammed him into the wall.

  Angel’s hands came up, but then he dropped them to his side, stiff, as if he was forcing his own muscles to obey him. There was hardly any distance between them now, and that air smelled of dust and cedarwood.

  “My men can call you whatever they want.”

  “I may not defend my honor?” Angel whispered furiously. He glared up at Zachary. Angel was short for his age, growth no doubt stunted from years of poverty. But he was thin and stringy as a weed.

  Zachary gave a small squeeze, but Angel’s only reaction was to shift his feet, evenly distributing his weight. Preparing himself. Not to fight, but to stay upright.

  He leaned closer, until he could feel Angel’s breath on his mouth. When he spoke again, the boy flinched under his fingers. “I propose a different release for the pain and humiliation you have suffered. Something that will benefit both of us.”

  Confusion flickered in Angel’s eyes. The young man swallowed nervously, and Zachary could feel every contraction of his throat muscles as he did.

  He stepped back, ran a hand over Angel’s chest to smooth his disheveled shirt, and swept his gaze over the dusty, torn clothes.

  “But first, get yourself cleaned up.”

  Angel pushed away from the wall, and lifted trembling hands to the buttons on his shirt. He stopped when Zachary lifted a hand.

  “You won’t see your brother again until you’ve mastered your emotions.”

  If Angel had returned from his scouting, then so had Marco. And he’d already informed his men to seize this man’s brother as soon as they came back on the property. Not because he didn’t trust them out there by themselves, but because he had a feeling he had better uses for their talents.

  Angel’s face solidified. “Por favor, Don—”

  “Marco is safe.” Zachary spoke the words slowly, carefully. “He will remain safe, as long as you are useful to me.”

  Another flash of confusion from the boy.

  “If you please me, then Marco has nothing to fear.”

  Angel dropped his head. His shoulders slumped. “Sí,” he murmured as he undid his buttons and shrugged off his shirt. But before it hit the floor, Zachary had left the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

  Ailin straightened, regarding Zachary warily. He always did, and it was something Zachary would never take for granted. Even after serving under him for almost ten years, Ailin knew to expect the unexpected from his master.

  “Give him clean clothes. Boots and a belt.”

  “Breakfast?” Ailin asked as Zachary discarded his towel and began to dress in the clothes laid out on his bed. Saraphina—one of three serving maids he hired at the ranch—took it upon herself to lay out a new outfit for him every day. He couldn’t seem to stop her doing it, much to his chagrin.

  “No.” Zachary glanced at Ailin over his shoulder and gave him a cold smile. “Let’s not overestimate the boy’s stomach for violence just yet.”

  10

  Lo prometo, Papá

  Cora had her back to the door when Finn came upstairs.

  “Hungry?” he asked in that rough voice of his.

  “No.”

  His footsteps paused. “You sure?” He came closer, boots thumping on the wooden floors, and paused a few feet away from the bed. Something clinked as he set it down on the nightstand. “Are you fine?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sure? Lars didn’t hurt you—?”

  Cora sat up in a rush, yanking the blankets to her chest before they could fall away. “I said I’m fine.”

  Finn cocked his head at her, studying her silently for so long she began to squirm under his gaze. “He has to know, Cora.”

  “It’s not something you go around announcing—”

  “Cora.” Finn’s voice was a barely audible rumble. “We can trust Lars.”

  When she’d overheard Finn telling Lars about her father, her heart started beating a thousand miles an hour.

  Despite what they might think, she knew her father was still alive. And not just in a naive say-it-ain’t-so kind of way. If her father died, a part of her would die too. And she would feel that as vividly as a knife to the heart.

  “Trust is something I don’t have a lot of.”

  Finn’s eyes were narrow blue slits, his mouth a matching razor-thin line. “Me neither,” he said. “So believe me when I say Lars is one of the good guys.”

  She swallowed. “Maybe. Maybe not. You never really know, do you?”

  Finn came closer and grabbed her arms, turning her to face him as he sank down on the edge of the bed. “If there’s something you’re not telling me…”

  Shrugging, she looked away from his interrogatory glare.

  “A few months ago—” She broke off, blinking back urgent tears. “A few months ago, Papá came home in the middle of the night. He’d been out to a meeting.” She began toying with the edge of the sheet, dropping her eyes. “I wasn’t supposed to be up, but all the commotion woke me. Bailey’d forgotten to lock my door when he went downstairs, and I followed him.”

  “And?” Finn’s voice was still rough. Still interrogatory.

  “Papá’d been shot.” She drew a breath, but it was tainted with the memory of blood. The taste of it in the air, filling her nose, marring the pristine carpets in their manor. “His sicarios laid him on the dining room table and had one of the staff come look at him.”

  “Hospitals report bullet wounds to the cops,” Finn said quietly.

  “So no hospitals,” she agreed with a nod. “But we had a nurse on staff. She took out the bullets. Stitched him up.”

  She expected Finn to prompt her again, but silence stretched thick and elastic between them for long moments.

  “The next day, Papá sent for me.”

  She’d never forget how frail her father looked that day. Skin as thin as tissue paper, and just as pale. Eyes bloodshot. The smel
l of antiseptic thick in the air.

  “He had me sit next to him, and then he took out this file. It was full of photos and pieces of paper.”

  God, how his hands had been trembling when he’d held out the first photo.

  “’Casimiro Vásquez’, he told me,” she whispered. “’Head of the Pishtaco cartel’. He went through that whole file, showing me photo after photo. Telling me who the men were. A few women too. Capos. Lugartenientes. A few high-level sicarios. He showed me all of them. And then made me go through all those photos again. Say back their names, which cartel they belonged to, what they did.”

  “So you’d know if you ever saw them,” Finn said.

  “No.” She laughed, and cut off the sound. “So I’d know who captured me. Because, according to Papá, that would be inevitable.”

  She closed her eyes, trying to will away the image of her father’s face creased with concern, tears gathering at the corner of his dark eyes.

  “He told me everything. About our cartel. What he did. What Tío did. Which territories we cover in the US.”

  “Why?”

  She peered at Finn, and he tipped his hands up before closing them into fists.

  “Why did he wait so long?”

  “He never wanted me to be part of the cartel.” Her voice dipped. “He thought he could protect me until the day he retired. He thought I’d never even know what he did.”

  “So what changed?”

  “Two bullet wounds.”

  She’d watched the nurse take those flattened slugs from her father. One from his gut, one from his chest. There was so much blood, it had dripped down from the table to the floor. There’d been blood in the grouting for a week before the maids got it all out.

  “He know who shot him?”

  “It was one of his own men. I didn’t know him—he was a halcon, I think. But he worked as a spy for a rival cartel.”

  “Which one?”

  “Don’t know. Papá didn’t know either. Could have been any of them. But he said, ‘If he couldn’t even protect himself, he didn’t stand a chance keeping me from it.’”