Their Cartel Princess: The Complete Series: A Dark Reverse Harem Box Set Read online

  He came back wearing a scowl, and slid onto his motorbike. “Jefe laugh. Say he want to meet this idiot.” With a sneer, the man revved the bike’s engine. “Follow me.”

  With that, he floored the motorcycle and sped up the street.

  “Jesus,” Lars muttered as he raced for the SUV. Finn followed at a slower pace, Cora a step behind him.

  “Finn,” she called out quietly.

  “What?” He could do nothing about the snap in his voice.

  “You should just have let me go.”

  “You’ll recognize Javier?”

  “Yes,” she said quietly.

  “Then I’ll let you go when he’s standing in front of me. No sooner.”

  They walked in silence until the SUV was a foot in front of them. Finn moved to open the door for her, and then paused. Ahead, Javier’s man waited at the intersection for them, helmet turned to them as if impatient for them to follow.

  “If we get there,” Finn said, brushing a stray strand of hair from Cora’s cheek with his knuckle, “And something doesn’t feel right…”

  She stared up at him, her honey colored eyes touched with sadness. “Nothing’s ever felt right.” She touched his hand, and then opened it so he cupped her face. “Not until you showed me the North Star.”

  Forty minutes into the drive, Cora had seen enough dry grass and sand to last her seven lifetimes. The radio station Lars had selected played rock music circa 1980. He seemed to enjoy it; his long, tapered fingers drummed along with precision to every song.

  “We’re in the middle of nowhere,” Cora said, sliding forward between the two front seats. Finn didn’t turn from his study of the fields they passed, and Lars gave her a brief, disinterested look in the rearview mirror.

  “Best place to hole up if you’re a dealer.”

  “Capo,” she said quietly. “He’s not a drug dealer.”

  “Really. He’s never sold drugs to anyone?”

  “It’s not like that at.”

  Lars rolled his eyes at her in the mirror. Finn didn’t seem interested in weighing in.

  “So you don’t know this falcon we’re following?” Lars asked.

  Cora’s lips turned up a smile. “You mean halcon.”

  “Falcon,” Lars repeated slowly, as if she’d suffered brain damage.

  “Halcon. It means ‘falcon’.”

  “Sorry, my Mexican’s a little rusty,” Lars said dryly.

  “Spanish.”

  “That too.”

  “We speak Spanish, not Mexican, you racist pendejo.”

  “Really?” Lars said, sounding genuinely surprised until she caught the sarcastic gleam in his green eyes. “You learn something new every day.”

  Finn let out a low snort of a laugh, and gave Lars a sidelong look. “Didn’t you date a Latino girl a while ago?”

  Lars shrugged and ran a pale hand through his white-blond hair. He wore it long—long enough that when he was done mussing it up, it hung over his eyebrows. “Yeah…we didn’t do much talking.”

  Cora fell back in her seat with a rueful laugh. Honestly, she would have been terrified to be driven so far out by a complete stranger.

  Which was strange, because she’d been on the run with Finn for hundreds of miles.

  “So halcon is like some kind of rank?” Lars asked.

  “They’re lookouts, I guess. They’re on the street, mostly, finding out stuff.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “Don’t know,” Cora said, giving Lars a long look in the mirror that he failed to see. “Don’t care.”

  “Don’t you think you should? Isn’t that a job requirement?”

  “A job—?” she cut off and sat forward again. “Look, I don’t know what Finn told you, but I’m not involved in the cartel. My father was and that’s all.”

  “Was?” Lars asked, and this time he did look at her. She didn’t like the considering light in his eyes. “Because he’s dead, or he got out?”

  “Lars,” Finn said quietly.

  Cora clenched her jaw. “He’s not dead.”

  “All we know is that he was captured,” Lars said. “What’s the likelihood he’s still—”

  “He’s not dead because I’d know!” Cora yelled. “Okay?”

  Lars’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Like, telepathically?”

  “Yes. Or something. I would know.” She sat back, wrapping her hand around her necklace, warming it in her palm. “I would know.”

  Lars let out a low whistle, and guided the car to the side of the road. “You got yourself a winner here, Milo. I gotta piss. Take over for the next stretch, will you?”

  Without waiting for Finn’s reply, Lars got out and ambled off into the field beside the road.

  Cora glared after him until the man stopped and began fumbling with his jeans, facing away from the car. When she turned back, Finn was watching her.

  “Just ignore him,” Finn said. “He likes to get people riled up.”

  “I’m not riled up.” Although the tightness in her voice called her out on her lie. “Which one of you carried me to bed last night?”

  Finn shrugged. “Does it matter?”

  She opened her mouth to tell him that it did, but then he was getting out of the car and she would have had to shout it to him. And she’d already shouted once today. She had to get a grip.

  Finn had been the motorcycle for close on thirty minutes when they had to turn down a dirt road. Grass had grown between the two ruts that made allowance for only one car at a time.

  She studied him in the mirror while he stared straight ahead. Wearing only a t-shirt, the scar across his throat was highly visible—a white line against his tanned flesh.

  “How did you survive?” she asked. “That cut looks deep.”

  Lars answered before Finn could say a word.

  “Milo’s got a lot of blood in him,” Lars said. He leaned across and made a rasping sound in the back of this throat as he dragged the nail of his thumb over Finn’s scar. “Live feed, beaming straight to some fucking military HQ. That was after negotiations had broken down, of course.”

  Finn flinched. He could have moved his head back or shrugged away Lars’s touch.

  He didn’t.

  As unexpected as the touch had been, Finn didn’t seem to mind it.

  Cora’s gaze flashed between the two men. Had they—?

  “There’s something up ahead,” Finn said quietly, cutting through her vague thought.

  Their SUV slowed.

  Cora sat forward, not caring that she brushed Lars’s arm as she grabbed a hold of the seats to keep herself in place.

  Ahead, a dark SUV was parked in the middle of the dirt road. As they drew closer, Cora could make out the slim, short silhouette of a man leaning against the truck’s hood. He wore a sombrero and, from the plume of smoke that would cloud in front of him every few seconds, looked to be smoking a cigarette. He didn’t turn to them when Finn brought their vehicle to a halt a few seconds later, finishing his cigarette and grinding it out thoroughly beneath the heel of a cowboy boot before sauntering toward them.

  Finn turned off the ignition, but kept his hand on the key. “Who the fuck’s this guy?”

  “Don’t like this,” Lars said quietly.

  The man riding the motorcycle climbed off. He approached the man in the sombrero with caution.

  “Is that Javier?” Finn asked, glancing back at her.

  “I don’t think so,” Cora said, ducking her head to try and see underneath the hat’s brim. But they were parked too far away—all she could see was a smudgy shadow. “I need to get closer.”

  She slid out of the car. “Tio?” she called.

  She heard both the passenger door and driver’s door of their SUV open. Boots crunching on dirt as Lars and Finn both got out.

  “Is that you?” she asked in Spanish, craning forward to see under his sombrero.

  The man stopped and tipped up his hat with a finger. He was about ten years old
er than either Lars or Finn, maybe in his late thirties. He had a sun darkened face and too many lines on his forehead, as if he frowned a lot, but his mouth had just as deep creases on either side, as if for every frown there was a smile in return. The heat seemed to have no effect on him; he wore a jacket and an easy-going smile.

  “Get back here!” came Finn’s furious yell. “We don’t know—”

  Cora stiffened. “You’re not—”

  Then there was too much movement, all at once. Crowded together like someone scrubbing through the timeline of a video to get to the good bit.

  The man in the sombrero drew a pistol from the inside of his jacket. He fired two shots in rapid succession. Cora yelled as she wrestled her Taurus free from her belt. It felt too heavy, too clumsy in her fingers. Like it was suddenly double the size and weight that had it been when she’d picked it up earlier.

  Lars dropped and rolled to the side, while Finn darted back at a speed that belied his size and took cover behind the hood of the SUV. Both had their guns out and aimed before she’d even gotten her Taurus pointed in the right direction.

  The halcon crumpled to his knees, touched a hand to his chest, and then fell face first in the dust.

  “Cora, down!”

  But she had her gun drawn now. She threw Finn a confused, almost indignant look. And then realized neither him or Lars were shooting because she was standing right in front of the man.

  She flung herself to the side. The air knocked out of her as she landed on her shoulder and hip. Dust puffed up around her, the smell of it filling her nose and landing in a grainy film over her mouth. She tried to aim the Taurus, but the man in the sombrero sidled to the side, pistol in one hand like a cowboy, aimed at Finn.

  He took a shot at Finn, maybe realized he didn’t have a chance of hitting the sliver of him visible behind the SUV’s hood, and instead turned to Lars.

  Who lay exposed on the dirt road, nothing but a meager shield of scrubby grass between him the man’s bullets.

  Cora fired. She missed.

  The man gave her a surprised look, as if he hadn’t been expecting her to have a weapon. But then he grinned.

  A cold shudder tore through her. Something—the hand of Santa Muerte, intuition, something—told her to look at the black SUV. It had tinted windows. All the door were closed. But then she focused down, down, down.

  And could see the six pairs of boots on the other side of the truck.

  An ambush. That’s why the SUV had been parked at a slight angle. None of them had seen the three men hunkered behind it, waiting. Waiting to see if there would be a scuffle, and ready to jump out and defend their sombrero-wearing partner if it came to it.

  She aimed her Taurus toward the SUV and shot at the back driver’s-side window. The glass shattered. No scream of pain. So she shot again.

  Did the other two think she was crazy, or had they realized what she’d seen? The reason for her not even bothering with the man in the sombrero?

  She gritted her teeth. Forced her hand to steady, and aimed through the gap under the car, to one of those unmoving boots. This time, when she squeezed the trigger, she didn’t miss.

  A howl of pain. Seconds later, the shape of a body, a man writhing in pain, appeared behind the car. Hands helped him up, but by then she was training on where she thought their heads would be if they didn’t keep them down.

  They didn’t.

  When she shot again, she heard an angry yell. She’d hit someone, or someone was pissed she’d just downed his buddy. And then a man stormed around the back of the SUV, coming in plain sight of her but still shielded from Finn and Lars.

  He had a revolver in his hands. And its muzzle gaped at her like a chink in a mausoleum’s door.

  26

  Skull and roses

  Finn’s jaw was so tight, his teeth creaked against each other. How many men hid behind that black SUV?

  He gave up trying to get a clear shot of Mr. Sombrero, and instead maneuvered around the back of their rented SUV. He was loathe to let Cora out of his sight but after she’d flung herself to the ground, there’d been precious little of her to see, anyway.

  When he came around the back, he had a better view of the sombrero.

  He took aim, bracing himself against the SUV so he could get a steady hand leaning as he was.

  Before he could squeeze off a round, the sound of an approaching vehicle drew his attention. He stiffened, but his moment’s distraction had given Mr. Sombrero enough time to spot him and move out of his line of sight.

  Lars shot off a round, and Mr. Sombrero fell. Cora fired toward the back of the black SUV, and then scrambled to her feet as she shot off another round. The shot went wild of course, and a man appeared from behind the SUV, face set in a rictus snarl and seemingly oblivious to anyone else.

  Finn took him in the side of the head.

  He collapsed, but another man stepped out from behind the SUV and shot at Cora. She was scrambling away, so the shot didn’t land, but she was going in the wrong fucking direction.

  Because she was leading them away from him and Lars.

  He wanted to scream at her that she was a fucking idiot. That they could easily deal with this situation…but not if he lost sight of her.

  For several heart-wrenching seconds, nothing happened. All he could hear was the sound of Cora’s slowly fading footsteps as she ran helter-skelter through the brush.

  No sounds of pursuit. Because they were taking aim? No, he doubted they had orders to kill her. They would want her alive.

  Finn glanced to the side. Lars was on his feet, his weapon aimed to the back of the black SUV where all the dead bodies had been piling up.

  Cora came walking back, gun aimed to the back of the black SUV. So there was still someone there. Someone waiting. Were they injured? Unarmed? Why hadn’t they shot at her yet?

  “Why the fuck isn’t she shooting?” Lars hissed at Finn. He stalked slowly closer to Finn without taking his aim away from the back of the black SUV.

  “Fuck knows,” Finn muttered. He knew a handful of Spanish phrases, but none of what Cora was spouting.

  “Por favor,” Cora called out. “Ande despacio lejos del coche. Tire su arma.” She came to stand a few feet from Lars.

  A man—another Mexican from his dark skin and eyes—surged around the truck. He wasn’t armed, but he ducked and lifted a stray gun from the ground. Aimed it straight at Cora, and then stopped.

  Three pistols gaped at him. Cora’s, Lars’s, his. The man hesitated, and then did a double-take at Cora.

  “Señorita Rivera!” The man dropped his gun, hoisting his hands in surrender. Then he looked at Lars and Finn. “You bring Eleodora!”

  Lars must have nodded, because the man broke into a relieved smile. “I Miguel. Sicario. I come take Eleodora.”

  “Yeah? That’s convenient,” Lars muttered.

  “¿Que?” The man frowned, looking at Cora with pleading eyes.

  “¿Por qué deberíamos confiar en usted?” Cora said, making no sense to Finn.

  The man shrugged. “Yo trabajo para El Guapo.”

  “He says he works for Javier,” Cora said, glancing at Finn.

  “Tell him to prove it,” Finn said.

  “¡Pruébalo!” Cora yelled.

  Miguel shrugged again, and then slowly lowered one of his hands and lifted the sleeve of his sweat-stained shirt. Cora started toward him, but Lars barked out, “Stay back,” and hurried forward. She stepped aside, giving him a frown.

  Lars inspected the man’s arm. “It’s a tattoo. Skull and roses. Says ‘san-ger por san-ger’ on it. That mean something to you?” He looked at Cora over his shoulder.

  “Blood for blood,” Cora murmured. “It’s El Calacas Vivo’s creed.”

  “El Calacas Vivo!” Miguel agreed happily. “Si, si. Sangre por sangre. These men—” Miguel indicated the dead bodies “—They find me here. Tie up. Say they wait for Eleodora and take her to El Lobo.”

  “Who’s El Lobo
?” Lars asked.

  Cora gave her head a small shake. “Don’t know.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “Let him take me to Javier.”

  “Si, si. We go to El Guapo,” Miguel said.

  Cora shoved her Taurus in the small of her back, briefly exposing a strip of skin. Finn glanced at Lars, and then back at Miguel.

  “We’re coming with you.”

  “No, señor,” Miguel said. “No strangers. Don Javier’s house a secret.”

  “I don’t even think my father’s been there,” Cora said, but with an expression that made it clear she wasn’t sure she wanted to be there either.

  “I told you I’m not letting you out of my sight until you’re in front of your uncle,” Finn said to Cora.

  “Milo, we’ve done our bit. Our contract—” Lars began, but Finn cut him off.

  “Fuck the contract. My mission is, and always has been, to make sure Cora is safe. I’m not handing her off to some guy whose only proof that he’s on her side is some ink.”

  “It’s a fucking tattoo,” Lars said, but he didn’t argue past that.

  Cora watched their exchange without expression, and then went to the black SUV and got in the back, giving Finn a long, considering look before closing the door behind her. Finn began dragging the bodies off the road and hiding them behind a low, grass-covered rise. Seconds later, Lars joined him to clear the road.

  Lars gave him a wary glance as he climbed into their rental with Miguel in the back.

  “I wonder what her uncle’s going to think when you refuse to leave?” Lars mused, leaning out the window and shading his eyes as he stared at Finn. “Think he’ll let you move in too?”

  Finn snorted, but didn’t dignify Lar’s question with a response. Lars pulled away, leaving him in a cloud of dust as he walked to the black SUV and climbed in.

  The door slammed behind him, and he tightened his hands around the steering wheel until they creaked. Cora gave him a quick glance before turning to look out the window.

  He didn’t care what any of them thought. This incident just proved she wouldn’t be safe until she was inside her uncle’s compound. And fuck them if it was supposed to be a secret; he knew all about secrets and how to keep them.