His dirty fingernail flicked the name tag on my apron. “We do now.”
Confounded and more than creeped out by his plastic smile, I watched them both walk out the door and disappear before being jarred out of my thoughts by a light hand on my back.
“Assholes,” Nash explained, reading my thoughts. “They wanted to argue with me over everything. They even wanted to know what time we closed, because if it wasn’t what they wanted, they said they’d be back.” Rolling his eyes, he smiled and pushed me forward. “Get out of here. You slept through half your shift, and the local drunks will have my ass if you’re late for their shitty beer and chips.”
Balling up my apron, I sighed and logged out of the cash register. As I retrieved my purse from under the counter, something snagged on the top of the cabinet door, sending the contents flying across the carpet.
Bending down, I grabbed the strewn papers and stifled a second groan as I realized what had been shoved in my purse. Still squatting on the floor, I ran my fingers across the top of the University of Texas brochure.
“Nash,” I warned, waving the brochure in the air. He grinned and held his hands up innocently, walking toward the front of the store.
I shook my head and tossed the brochure into the trash can beside the register. Seven brochures had found their way into my purse, car, and apartment. All seven had made their way into the garbage.
Humidity smacked me in the face as I kicked the back door open with more force than necessary. Turning the ignition, my little PT Cruiser purred to life, and I backed out of the parking lot on my way to the cantina.
Nash refused to give up hope that one day I’d fall in line and enroll in college. Maybe his head filled with visions of me graduating with some fancy degree, but at twenty-five years old, I didn’t need to take Intro to Algebra with a bunch of pretentious teenage assholes to prove a point. I spent three years proving I could be what someone else wanted, and it destroyed me.
Nash had no clue he was slowly proving he could be what Dad always wanted him to be—a replica of himself.
I punched the gas out of frustration, and the car protested, lurching hard into a busy intersection.
I’d die before I’d let that happen.
Chapter Five
BRODY
Still aggravated at the morning’s turn of events, I slammed the car door and straightened my red power tie. My closet overflowed with variations of tones and patterns, but all were red. Red symbolized power, and it used to inject a jolt of confidence through my veins by just wearing it.
Now those damn red ties made me sick to look at them. The power was a façade.
My agreement with the Carreras had been made rashly with the ambition of a hungry assistant district attorney with eyes focused on a man too old and sick to run for reelection. The candidate pool had been vast, and I knew the only way to rise above the pack was to sell my soul to the devil himself.
So, I did.
Aligning myself with the Carrera Cartel was the biggest mistake of my life. Had I known what singling myself out from honest men would cost me, I’d have never made the deal. Now, with her life literally in my hands, I had no choice but to play the devil’s game.
I just hoped it’d be enough to spare myself in the process.
Exhaling a rough breath, I squared my shoulders and walked with an outward confidence toward the simple, wooden front door. Knocking again, I glanced around the perimeter, a move I’d learned from my time with Carrera.
The simple whitewashed siding of the ranch style house was blackened with weathered time and carelessness. Overgrown grass hinted at a recluse who had better things to do than lawn care, and long-dead flowers lay dark and flattened next to the porch. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think the place had been vacated long ago.
But I knew he was in there.
And he knew I was outside waiting.
The question hung immobile in the air, waiting for one of us to relent. I sure as fuck wasn’t going anywhere. Irritated, I pounded harder on the door again, raising my voice.
“Open up, Lachey. We both know why I’m here. You can talk to me, or you can wait for the Houston PD to drag you out.” Letting my anxiousness get the better of me, I counted my steps as I paced the porch. Moments dragged by before the door cracked open, and the disheveled shell of Elliot Lachey’s face appeared. To his credit, he didn’t back down under my glare.
I couldn’t decide if he was brave or stupid.
When he sniffed and rubbed his nose vigorously, I knew the answer. The base of his nostrils was caked with white residue.
He was high.
“What do you want?” he asked, wrinkling his nose at a rapid pace.
I smiled tersely and stepped over the threshold of his home. Before he could protest, I raised a hand, silencing him. “Don’t ask me questions you already know the answer to. And wipe your damn face. It’s not smart to greet the man who holds your life in his hands with cocaine all over your face.”
Lachey wiped under his nostrils and stepped backward, his black athletic pants and Texas State t-shirt a far cry from the put-together look I remembered from a few years ago.
I placed my hands on the kitchen counter, grimacing as my palms touched a sticky substance I assumed had lived there for days. The entire house looked and smelled like shit. Pulling out a handkerchief from my pocket, I wiped my hand and pinched the bridge of my nose impatiently.
“You’re pathetic.” I shook my head at him as lines of surprise wrinkled his forehead. “You get caught buying that shit and you still snort it? What kind of moron does that?”
“You don’t know anything about me, Brody,” he countered, his eyes wild and dilated from the drugs. “You don’t know what it’s like to be me. Stress is killing me.”
Opening the cookie jar on the sticky counter, I pulled out a fresh eight ball bag of cocaine and threw it at his chest. “No, this shit’s killing you.”
The old man’s eyes were vacant. “What does it matter? I have nothing left. If I’m going to jail, I might as well go high.”
“What about your kids?” Thoughts reverted to the morning and the sadness in Eden’s eyes. She kept a shell tucked around her like an emotional shield in an invisible gender war. No matter how hard I tried to break through it, she kept me at arm’s length, giving me her body but never anything more. I wondered if her determined distance had been caused by her bastard of a husband or the detachment of her father?
“He’s much better off in San Antonio where he can do his charity work.” He paused, rubbing his mouth as his eyes misted. “And Eden stopped caring a long time ago.”
I could’ve argued with him. I could’ve forced him to see what he’d done to his family and business, but I didn’t have the time or the desire. I’d come here for one reason.
“You don’t have to go to jail today, Elliot.”
His jaw clenched, and he eyed me with distrust. “Oh? Are you sending me on a vacation instead?”
I tried to hide an amused smile. “No, more like an adventure.” Refusing to waste any more time, I pulled a box from my pocket and held it up. “Know what this is?”
“I may be high, Brody, but I’m not blind.”
Smartass.
“Inside this box is a DEA grade tracker. You’re going to call your Carrera contact and make another buy with this device on you. You’re going to find out the warehouse locations and how they get their shipments through the Corpus Christi ports.”
Elliot laughed, walking away then turning back with disbelief painted across his face. “You think they’re just going to hand over that information to a buyer? Are you crazy?”
I was beyond the point of giving a damn about his life anymore. Someone more important depended on what he did after I walked out of this house. “I don’t give a shit how you get it,” I said, shoving it in his hand, his fingers barely touching the edges as if it burned him, “just do it. It’s either this or the Houston PD gets a delivery of a video starr
ing you and known drug dealers doing some business in the second ward. It’ll be out of my hands then.”
The stunned look on his face might have made me feel a bit sorry for him if I didn’t already know he’d bled the hardware store dry. His selfishness caused Nash to leave his job in San Antonio and Eden to work two jobs just to keep it alive.
He frowned and continued staring at the box. As I was about to hit him with another ultimatum, he set it on the kitchen table and took a step back. “I’m sorry, Brody. I can’t.”
“Excuse me?” My gaze snapped from the box back to his face.
“I can’t,” he repeated, his chin trembling. “I’ve lost everything. The only thing I have left is my life. If I do what you’re asking, they’ll kill me.”
“They’ll kill you anyway.” He had to know that. Drug cartels never let debts walk. Even I knew Elliot Lachey had gotten himself in over his head with the Carreras. My hands fisted by my side. His cooperation wasn’t an option. I wouldn’t leave here without the answer I came to get.
My attempt at intimidation fell short. Lachey’s upper lip twisted in a wistful snarl as he laughed without humor. “You stand there with your suit and tie and pretty boy blond hair and lecture me on what the fucking Mexicans will do to me?” He threw his head back and held his stomach with a loud roar. “Worry about yourself, son. You’re more in bed with them than I am. If you’re at my house, freaking out with sweat rolling down your forehead like that, they must have something on you too.”
I schooled my emotions. He knew his words hit home, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing it on my face. “So, you’ve made your decision then?”
A low snort fell from his closed mouth, and his eyelids half closed as he looked away. “You tell the district attorney’s office to kiss my ass. I’ve never seen these pictures you say you have, so I’m not even sure they exist. If they want the goods on Carrera, they can get it themselves. I’ll take my chances in jail.”
Fury filled my chest as fear hid close behind it. Everything inside me screamed to tell him what was coming for him tonight, but because ears were on me, I kept silent.
Tucking my morals behind a steel expression, I approached him and whispered low in his ear. “You just made a fatal mistake.” Saying nothing more, I turned to leave the room.
My casual tone broke his confident attitude as he grabbed my arm. “Stay away from my daughter, Harcourt.”
Shaking him off, I glanced over my shoulder one last time. “Screw you.”
With Elliot Lachey’s fate sealed, I slammed the door.
* * *
I’d barely pulled my gray BMW into my designated parking space at the courthouse when my phone rang. I didn’t have to glance down at it to know who was calling. Timing was everything, and I’d been expecting a shrill ring to break through the silence the whole ride back.
Forcing myself to answer, I leaned back in the seat and hit the green button on my phone. “Harcourt.”
“Didn’t go well, I hear.”
With the heavy accent and dangerous lilt in his voice, the man on the other end was unmistakable. Wrapping my fingers around my chin, I squeezed in frustration. “You have me bugged. I tried, but I can’t force the man. If he wants to die in jail, so be it.”
“You know what’s at stake, yes?”
“I can’t forget.” The picture he’d sent of his men inside of her bedroom had given me more sleepless nights than I could count. My stomach churned as I recalled the video of them going through her panty drawer and holding them up to their dirty faces. Taking long inhales, they’d licked the lace and smiled into the camera.
“The deal was, you get us a mole into Carrera’s camp, and we leave that sweet pussy alone. You’ve failed.”
Panic gripped me as light swam before my eyes. “Don’t fucking touch her!”
The low growl of a laugh fueled my hatred. “She looks good enough to eat, Harcourt.” He made a throaty moan that had my fingers gripping the steering wheel.
“I’ll kill you.”
“No, you won’t,” he sneered, breathing heavily over the line.
“Give me more time.” I focused on the people walking in front of the parking lot, returning from their lunch breaks, laughing carefree as if my world wasn’t crashing down around me. “I can change his mind.”
“No need. It’s time for plan B.”
“There’s a plan B?”
He laughed again, and the sound grated on my last frayed nerve. “Thanks to your call with Carrera, Mr. Lachey will change his mind about helping you after tonight.”
“What are you going to do?” I demanded to know. The man was crazy. He made Valentin Carrera look like the Pope.
“Don’t worry,” he warned, his voice low. “Carrera has it all set up. We just have to stick our hands in and shake it around a little.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Your junkie is getting a lesson he’ll never forget. When it’s done, I’ll call. You make sure the police arrest Carrera and make the evidence stick. My men on the inside will do the rest.”
“Wait, arrested for what?”
“Premeditated murder.”
“Where does that leave—” A dial tone hit my ear before I could finish. Pulling the phone away, I stared at it, praying to a God that seemed to have left the city to keep her safe.
Because if I tried to, we’d both be dead.
Chapter Six
EDEN
“Sweet cheeks, I’ve been dry for hours. How about shaking that ass over here and wetting me down?”
Wiping down the distressed wooden bar, my fingers tightened around the wet rag as I scrubbed harder at the hardened glob of salsa. “I heard you the first three times you said it, Frankie,” I said, releasing the sigh I’d been holding. “The answer is still no. You’re cut off.”
“Aw, c’mon baby,” he slurred as the empty glass tumbled from his hand. “You’re not my mother.”
I picked at what remained of the salsa with my fingernail. “No, I’m not.” Reaching behind me, I smacked his outstretched arm with the soggy rag. “I’m also not your wife, so unless you want me to make a really unpleasant call to her, keep your hands to yourself.”
Frankie raised his hands in surrender. Holding his palms up for inspection, he leaned on the shoulder of his drinking buddy, his eyes half-lidded. “I don’t know why, they’re the only ones in town that haven’t been up Cherry’s skirt.”
His words circled my ears and detonated into a hundred pieces of truth, but I willed the emotion back down to the place I kept it locked away. No man would bring me to tears again–in public or in private. Especially some drunk asshole who couldn’t find his limit if he tripped over it.
Squaring my shoulders, I dropped the rag across the sink divider and reached for my cell phone to call him a cab. I’d just rattled off the address to the cab company when Frankie’s hand swatted at my ass.
“Hey, I go when I want to go, sweet cheeks.” He laughed low under his breath. “Unless you want to ride me home.”
Ignoring them, I balanced the phone between my ear and shoulder, rolling my eyes as Frankie and his cohort snickered and high-fived each other. He wasn’t the first drunk asshole to try to manhandle me near closing time. He wouldn’t be the last.
“Disculpas, señorita.”
My chin instinctively turned toward the coffee-liquor voice sending shivers down my spine in the otherwise sweltering cantina. Without the pressure of my jaw holding it in place, the phone tumbled from my shoulder and clattered against the counter.
My ears heard his foreign words, but my eyes commanded a stronghold over my common sense, gawking like I’d never seen a man before.
But I had. I’d seen him once at the bar and a few more times occupying one of the bar tables served eagerly by one of the revolving door of underage morons Emilio employed. He was impossible to forget and played a starring role in a few of my more descriptive fantasies. Of course, my creative mind r
eplaced whoever I happened to be screwing with my Mr. Danger on more occasions than I cared to admit.
Now, as we came face-to-face again, he looked even more dangerous than I remembered. He stood confidently, wearing black suit pants that hugged him in all the right places and a white button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I gawked shamelessly at him as if he’d walked in stark naked. I had a feeling he’d discarded his suit jacket and tie before entering the bar, and I couldn’t decide if I was appreciative or a little bummed. On one hand, the casual look displayed his muscular tattooed arms, but the idea of that man in a suit did things to me I wasn’t proud of.
I stared, fascinated at the intricate designs on his forearms, while inky, black hair lay tousled around his bronzed forehead as if worried hands had disrupted a carefully prearranged style. A beard, slightly heavier than a five ‘o clock shadow, stretched from temple to temple and filled in across defined cheeks, circling the fullest lips I’d ever seen.
He still looked like pure danger.
Tightened chocolate eyes lasered across the bar at Frankie and his friend, the golden flakes around his pupils speaking loudly in the silence.
“Excuse me, Pedro?” Frankie mocked, cupping one hand to his ear and hooking his other thumb between himself and his friend. “See, this is America. We don’t speak your dirty-ass language here.”
“Frankie!” I chastised, shocked at his blatant ignorance. However, Danger simply lifted a hand, effectively silencing me.
“Then let me say it in the language of the American asshole,” he said, his tone an even keel. “Apologize to the lady.”
Frankie snorted. “To Cherry? Are you shitting me?” He raised his finger as if he were about to make a point before swaying on the barstool. “I’m not apologizing for trying to get a piece of what everyone else in this town has tasted, Pedro.”
My face flamed. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. Normally I didn’t give two shits what people said about me, for the simple fact that most of it was usually true. But for some reason, the idea that Danger thought I walked around fucking until my knees gave out bothered me.
Blurred Red Lines: A Carrera Cartel Novel Page 4
