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

by Logan Fox

  Finn closed the door again. When he came around the side of the Jeep, Peter’s head swiveled to follow him.

  “Recognize the number?” Finn asked, turning the display to face Peter.

  Hansen shook his head.

  Finn handed the phone to Lars. “Can you get the voicemails off there?”

  “I can try,” Lars said.

  “Pin’s four-four-three-three,” Peter said, craning past Finn to look at Lars. “Wasn’t too difficult to get it out of him.”

  “Him?” Lars asked, glancing to the back of the car.

  Ana screamed. Finn spun around, but she was already tumbling away from the back of the Jeep. She must have gone to peek in the back window.

  Curiosity kills the cat, his beast purred.

  “I’m guessing that’s a corpse she’s on about?” Lars asked dryly of Peter.

  “Who was he?” Finn asked.

  “Zachary West’s man,” Peter said.

  Even the crickets chose that moment to go silent. Or, perhaps Ana’s scream had made them wary to start up their chirping again.

  “Zachary West?” Lars repeated quietly, as he went around to the back of the Jeep. He peered through the back window, cupping his hands to the glass to ward off the moon’s reflection. “This is Zachary West’s man?”

  “Was,” Peter said. Then he turned to Finn. “We’re losing her.”

  The words were meant for his ears alone. He studied Peter for a few seconds and then narrowed his eyes. “Lars, listen to those voice mails.”

  “Will do,” Lars said, stepping away from the car as he held the cellphone to his ear.

  Finn stepped right up to the open driver’s side door, leaning his upper arm against the top of the car as he bent forward.

  “What’s your connection with Zachary?” Finn asked in a low voice.

  Peter’s eyes flickered over his face before he answered. “I’m DEA. He’s a drug dealer. What do you think my connection is?”

  “Why’d you come here tonight?” Finn asked.

  “Wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Two new capos, and all that.” Peter glanced at Lars, who was still a few feet away listening to the phone’s voice messages. “Plus, the leader of a rival cartel was planning to show up. Why wouldn’t I be here?”

  Finn couldn’t argue with the logic, but he knew Peter was holding something back. The fact that he’d killed the guy in the trunk instead of handing him in for questioning…

  “Who do I phone in the DEA to confirm who you really are?” Finn asked, leaning closer still to Peter.

  He expected the man to move back, but instead he sat forward a little so their faces were less than an inch apart.

  “Fredericks. He’s Special Agent in Charge.” Peter’s gaze shifted to Finn’s mouth before snapping up to his eyes again. “And it’s Price. Kane Price.”

  “This Fredericks guy can vouch for you?”

  A strange light entered Kane’s eyes. “You betcha,” he said in a voice that was too cheery, too fake, too damn everything.

  “Milo!”

  Finn drew back, studying Kane for a long moment before turning to Lars. “What?”

  “So…” Lars said, holding the cellphone up and wriggling. “Fun fact: Neo thinks Zachary West owes him a big ‘ole heap of money.”

  Finn frowned, aware there was more to come and annoyed that Lars was dragging this out for dramatic purposes. But before he could open his mouth to prompt him to continue, Lars said, “’Cos see, it turns out, he’s gone and sold Cora to the one and only El Lobo.”

  Kane watched the lithe form of Lars walk closer. The man moved with arrogant grace. When he’d first seen him as a doorman, he’d taught it was all just machismo…but he acted that way around the bulky Milo Finn too.

  And Milo, he was coming to realize, was something of an enigma. For one, Kane rarely felt anything except loathing for men like him; strapping guys that lived and breathed their own egos. But Milo didn’t use his bulk to intimidate; that seemed too easy. Instead, he pretended to be a dumb fuck, and then sat and worked out all the pieces while you were wondering how long it would take you to wear through your ropes and break free.

  There was no reason to keep lying. If this dynamic trio went ahead and called Fredericks, gave them his badge number—

  Fredericks would lie.

  He was a sick sonofabitch sometimes. He’d lie to these guys, tell them he’d never heard of a Kane Price. If they gave him the badge number, he’d tell them it was a fake.

  That was the stand-up guy Fredericks was. Because Kane had been suspended. He wasn’t supposed to be bringing down cartels all by his lonesome.

  He was making the department look bad.

  And Fredericks was nearing retirement. He didn’t want to rock the boat.

  “He sold her,” Milo repeated, the words coming slowly out his mouth like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  Why did he act so surprised? Cartels were renowned for the shit they pulled. If Cora was still alive, she probably wished she wasn’t.

  “That’s not all. Seems he’s headed over to ‘Duncan’s Place’ to get his money.” Lars put the phrase in air quotes. “Sounds pissed that El Lobo’s been dodging his calls.”

  “So he calls Zachary’s lieutenant instead?”

  Lars shrugged. “Hey, the guy wants his money. Can you blame him?”

  Milo snarled at Lars, but the guy took it in his stride.

  Sharp green eyes focused on Kane a second before the lanky man ambled up to him. “This Duncan?” Lars asked, stabbing a thumb toward the trunk.

  Kane nodded.

  “How’d you find him?”

  Again, the urge to lie was strong. These men were part of a cartel. Granted, they could cause friction and that would make his job easier, but it irked him to have to hand out information he’d spent months ferreting out through honest-to-God police work.

  He drew a deep breath. “I’ve been monitoring him for almost a month.”

  “You tapped his phone?” Milo asked, coming up behind Lars.

  “Look,” Kane said, holding up his hands as if in surrender. “We’ll have all the time in the fucking world for this kind of shit once we’ve found the girl. Can we prioritize for a sec?”

  Two pairs of eyes attempted to bore holes in his retinas.

  “Jerk off’s right,” Lars muttered. “Let’s get a move on.”

  “But what about Neo?” The third member of their crew caught Lars on the shoulder, turning him partly around. “We can’t let him get away.”

  “No one gives a shit about him, Bailey,” Lars snapped.

  “And look where that got us,” Bailey said, narrowing his eyes at Lars.

  Seemed this Bailey had a bone to pick with Neo Martin, something that could work to Kane’s advantage. Trying to overpower three men? Tricky. But if he upped his odds…

  “If it’s Zachary that has Eleodora,” Kane burst out, “then Neo might know where he’s taken her.”

  “But we already know where she is!” Milo pointed at the laptop. “Why the hell aren’t we going yet?”

  “Because they could be anywhere in Mexico by now,” Lars said, crossing his arms over his chest and looking at Milo as if he’d suddenly made this whole thing personal. “How the hell—”

  “I know where Duncan’s place is,” Kane said, speaking over Lars.

  Silence filtered down for a second before all three men looked at him. He shrugged and gave them a self-deprecating smile. “That house has tons of intel inside. Stuff on Zachary, stuff on the cartel. And if Martin is there, looking for his cash…”

  “Then we might be able to find out where Zachary’s taken Cora,” Lars finished, nodding his head.

  “Is it close?” Milo asked, his eyes moving to the laptop behind Kane.

  He swung around, retrieving the computer and locating the safehouse on the satellite map. Then he pivoted the computer on his lap and pointed it out.

  “Christ,” Lars muttered. “They�
��re literally fifty miles in different directions.”

  “As the crow flies,” Kane agreed in a murmur. “But there’re four of us.”

  “Five!” The young woman who’d been hanging around them since they’d left the hotel stepped closer, wobbling on her high heels. “Don’t forget about me.”

  Kane raked his gaze over her; he doubted he’d forget about her in a hurry. She was more his tastes than the somewhat diminutive Eleodora Rivera anyway.

  Except for her eyes. Her eyes were pretty enough, but they weren’t the burnished gold of Eleodora’s.

  And he doubted this woman tasted so sweet. So inexperienced. So…ripe for the picking.

  Kane swallowed hard, forced his focus away from the pretty blond, and made a quick study of the three men.

  Milo stared expressionlessly at the laptop’s screen. Lars was shaking his head, eyes darting as if he was trying to calculate the best route between the two.

  Bailey, on the other hand, stared only at one spot.

  Duncan’s safehouse.

  “Tell you what,” Kane said, pointing out the tracker’s last location. “We’ll split up. Two of us can go to the safehouse, the other two—”

  “Three!” chimed in the blond, making Kane grit his teeth.

  “Forget it,” Milo said, stepping back. “It could be a dead end. We’re going to where Cora was—”

  “That could be a dead end!” Bailey cut in. “I say we go to this safehouse and see what—”

  “Guys. Guys!” Lars stepped between the two men, a hand on either’s chest. “Enough.”

  It was a strangely intimate touch, and one that neither man seemed to flinch away from.

  Another interesting nugget that Kane squirreled away to think on later.

  “There are four of us,” Kane said again, utter calm in his voice.

  “Like we’ll trust you to—” Lars began, but Kane held up a hand.

  “I want to find her just as much as you do.” He injected as much emotion into his words as he could muster. It must have done the trick; the three men shared a glance before facing him again.

  “Fine,” Milo said, and then stepped forward in a rush. “But you’re coming with me so I can keep an eye on you.”

  He couldn’t have planned it better himself. Kane gave a tight smile, and hurriedly moved over the seat so Milo could take the wheel of his Jeep.

  Bailey and Lars shared a look. “Shotgun,” Lars said, and then beckoned at Kane. “Turn that screen here so I can get the address.” He used a smart phone to take a picture of the GPS co-ordinates of the safehouse, and then showed the screen to Bailey. “Know where we’re going?”

  Bailey looked at the phone, and then up at Kane. He frowned, and then nodded. “Yeah, I can get there.”

  “You let us know soon as you find something,” Lars said.

  Milo gave a curt nod and the two men walked away.

  The blond stood for a moment, and then darted forward to open the Jeep’s back door.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Milo snapped, pressing the button that locked all the Jeep’s doors.

  “Finn, please,” Ana breathed, coming up to his window. “I can help. I can—”

  “Get over here, Peaches!” Lars yelled. “We got more than enough space.”

  The blond gave Milo a last imploring look, but the man ignored her as he put the car into gear and pulled off at speed.

  Dust obliterated her a second later.

  32

  Martyr no more

  It took them just over an hour to get to the safehouse. They’d have gotten there sooner, but he’d had kept to the speed limit so they wouldn’t end up getting a speeding ticket.

  The irony wasn’t lost on Bailey. He was involved—and that word alone carried more than the usual significance—with one of the largest cartel’s in the world. A speeding ticket should have been on the bottom of the list of things he should be worried about.

  Maybe it was hypocritical of him, thinking he could somehow offset his crimes by being a more responsible driver.

  Bailey pushed that ill thought from his mind, and concentrated on finding an inconspicuous parking spot for the SUV. Nine o clock at night, the neighborhood wasn’t exactly pumping; a few houses still had some of their lights on, and the road was quiet but not deserted.

  He was about to park across the safehouse—more than enough parking there—when a slash of yellow caught his eye.

  “That police tape?” he asked, craning to look past Lars.

  “Looks like it.” Lars shrugged. “You passed it, man.”

  “Don’t want to park right outside.”

  “Why? You think ole Duncan’s going to resurrect himself and walk all the way over here just to yell boo?”

  That had been the kind of banter he’d been subjected to the whole trip already. Lars was in such a foul mood that even Ana couldn’t seem to cheer him up. She eventually just kept quiet, staring out the window and trying to wipe tears from her eyes without any of them seeing.

  Well, he’d seen. And he wished he could feel sorry for the woman, but she’d been just as responsible as him for losing Cora.

  When he’d asked her where she’d disappeared to, Ana had given some slippery answer about recognizing an old friend and going to speak to them. She claimed she’d been gone less than a minute.

  Bullshit.

  Bailey parked under the groaning boughs of a tree that had probably been here decades before any of the houses in this street. The closest street lamp was dead too, ensuring their SUV remained hidden in shadows.

  Lars opened his door and then Ana’s, holding hers open as she jumped out. They both began crossing the street, Lars pausing when Bailey didn’t follow right behind.

  “Hey, you coming?” Lars asked.

  “Be there in a bit,” Bailey said.

  Down the street, a man had come out of his house with a trash bag. Bailey jogged toward him, hearing a muttered, “Whatever,” from Lars before he was out of earshot.

  The man was on his way back to his house when Bailey caught up to him. “Evening. Sorry to bug you.”

  “Hey?” The man turned, frowning hard at Bailey and then glancing around as if wondering if there was a gang creeping up on him.

  Was it his tattoos that the man didn’t like, or was this just a really dodgy neighborhood?

  The police tape might have been a clue.

  “Couldn’t help but notice,” Bailey said, pointing out a fluttering strand of police tape. The man lived next door—if anyone knew what had happened, it would be him. “What happened?”

  “What, at number nine?” Number Seven hesitated and then came back down his porch steps, limping slightly.

  Probably gout, judging from the red veins on his nose and the unfocused eyes.

  “Homicide,” Seven said, nodding. “Found a girl in those there bushes.” He pointed with a trembling finger to an impressive prickly pear peeking over the wall separating nine from seven.

  “Shit.” Bailey lifted his eyebrows. “They found who done it?”

  “Don’t know,” Seven said with a shrug. “But I hope they do. That was some nasty shit. Gone and hacked her up like a side of beef.” Seven looked like he was going to spit, and then changed his mind. “’N-ways.” Seven gave him a wave and headed back to his house. “Gotta get out of the cold.”

  And back to his warm bottle of booze, no doubt. Bailey watched him go, and then turned back to nine.

  He’d forgotten to ask if the girl had lived there, or if she’d just been dumped there.

  Bailey crossed the street, making sure no one else was out to see him slip around the back of the Duncan’s house.

  The back door was ajar, and he went inside, easily tracking Lars through the noise the man made as he tossed out drawers. One of those drawers almost hit Bailey on the head when he rounded a corner.

  “Fuck it, Lars!” Bailey ducked and slammed his back into the wall. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

  �
��With me?” Lars yelled, and then winced violently. He put fingers to his temples, glaring at Bailey for a second before going back to rummaging through a drawer.

  Most of the desk’s contents were strewn on the floor—papers and files and a few thumb drives.

  “How are we going to find anything—?”

  Lars cut him off with a bark of a laugh. “There’s nothing to find.” Lars snatched a brochure off the desk. “Unless you’re interested in vacationing somewhere off the Gulf of Mexico, of course. Best rates. Free fucking wi-fi.”

  “Hey, relax,” Bailey said, coming up behind Lars and laying a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s just work through this systematically.”

  “Did you guys hear that?” Ana asked, walking past their doorway. Where she had been was anyone’s guess, but at least she wasn’t ransacking the place and possibly burying anything useful in a sea of travel brochures.

  Duncan was obviously long overdue for a vacation.

  Bailey stooped to pick up a pamphlet advertising a bi-plane offering specialized tours. He dropped it again, grimacing when Lars upended the last drawer onto the pile in the middle of the small study.

  “We’ll never find anything like this,” Bailey said, working his way around Lars. “Did you check the computer?”

  “Password,” was all Lars said.

  Maybe it was the drugs making him so damn irritable. Bailey’s head pounded, but at least he was keeping his fucking cool. Lars was obviously pissed off at something—or someone—and was taking it out on Duncan’s study.

  Bailey glanced around the room. Sometimes, people left their passwords in plain sight. Duncan hadn’t been that careless.

  He clicked the mouse, and was greeted with a login. When he clicked on ‘hint’, four asterisks popped up.

  “Hey, what was the pin number for Duncan’s phone?”

  “Two double digits,” Lars muttered. “Three and two. Three and four. Something like that.”

  Bailey tried 4433. The log in screen vanished, replaced with a Windows desktop so cluttered, he grimaced at the screen.

  “Hey, I got—”

  Ana’s scream cut him off.