Blurred Red Lines: A Carrera Cartel Novel

by Kenborn, Cora

  Nash rolled his chin toward me, lacking the strength to lift it any higher. His sullen blue eyes blinked, narrowed, then focused in the dim light. In a split second, I knew he saw me, and everything happened before I could react.

  Emilio returned from outside and must’ve heard the noise too, because he immediately turned toward me. Furrowing his dark brows, he wiped the knife on his jeans. He took three steps toward the chef’s cart and paused a few feet away from me. I held my breath, curling my fingers into my palms until my nails pierced my skin.

  I wondered what it felt like to have your fingers cut off. Was it quick and painless, or was every slice of tendon and muscle pure torture, until the bone cracked? Vomit curdled in my stomach again, and I let out a small squeak, preparing to run to my brother.

  Until I heard my name.

  “Eden? Are you fucking here Eden?”

  At the same moment that Emilio called out to me, Nash inhaled a rattling breath and yelled across the kitchen. “Hey! Are two fingers enough? You need more? I mean, don’t you need five to jerk yourself off?”

  What the hell is he doing?

  Emilio jerked his head around. Darkness glinted in his eyes as his face twisted in anger. “What did you say, asshole?”

  Now was my chance to move. Nash gave me the opportunity to take Emilio out. Sneaking a hand to the top of the cart, I curled my fingers around a cast iron skillet. It’d be loud, but if I got a running start, he’d go down before he could turn around.

  As Emilio charged toward Nash, I reached for the handle. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Nash’s eyes bounce from his attacker to my movement. With a pained grimace, he shook his head forcefully.

  “Gumshoe! Gumshoe, damn it!” The exertion spewed more blood out of his mouth, and he collapsed onto the block, his eyes half closed from pain.

  I froze mid-movement.

  Emilio did as well, pulling Nash up by his hair. “What the fuck? Get a grip, Lachey! You’re going loco.”

  With his head wobbling, Nash held it suspended in midair, and our eyes locked. Mine pleaded with him not to hold me to a pledge between two teenage kids, who thought they knew everything. His demanded I honor a trust we once held more sacred than any promise.

  I opened the cellar door and it creaked with the loud moan of a dying man. I might as well blow an air horn announcing my late arrival. The darkness creeped me out, and shadows wrapped around foundation pillars, making my eyes see things that weren’t there. It was the thing horror movies were made of.

  The stairs creaked as my sneakers touched them, each one sounding like a gunshot.

  Shit! Why were sneakers so loud?

  Turning the knob, I slowly stuck my face through and peered through the mud room. It seemed quiet. Dad was in bed, or passed out on the couch. Either option worked for me. Taking a deep breath, I opened the door wider and stepped into the bright room.

  “Where you going, boy?”

  I froze with one leg in the mud room and one still stuck in the cellar. My father’s voice carried from the kitchen, and from the trajectory I knew he was headed my way.

  “Gumshoe,” Nash yelled, much louder than necessary. “Damn gum on my shoe. Stay there, Dad, I’ve got it. I think I tracked it in here. You don’t want it on yours.” His voice elevated louder. “Damn, gumshoe.”

  Our code word clicked. Gumshoe.

  The stupid word from our childhood we used to use during freeze-tag. As teenagers, we morphed it from its original detective meaning, into a code word alerting each other to, ‘stop what you’re doing and hide.’ No ifs, ands, or buts.

  Gumshoe had saved my ass more times than I could count.

  I climbed back down and waited until Dad had fallen back to sleep to sneak upstairs.

  “Gumshoe.” Nash whispered again as Emilio backhanded him. His eyes never wavered from my face. They were serious and hard, as if begging me to do this one thing for him.

  Nodding, I slowly crouched back behind the cart. The relief on his face was something I knew I’d never forget. I felt shameful in watching my brother’s pain, yet helpless to stop it.

  Mercifully, Emilio ended his torture, dropping his knife back in his pocket. “You know, lucky for you, I’ve reached my limit for today, Lachey.” He checked his reflection in the chrome refrigerator and smoothed back the sides of his greased hair. “My crew will stop by in a few minutes to take you back to your store.” He glanced at the floor and smirked. “Try not to bleed too much on my floor.”

  I held my breath as he walked out of the kitchen, and I didn’t release it until the cantina door closed. As soon as the chime rang, signaling his exit, I threw the chef’s cart aside and scrambled on all fours toward my brother. I reached out to help him, then stopped. I didn’t even know where to touch that wouldn’t cause more pain.

  “Nash,” I whispered as my voice broke. When he didn’t open his eyes, I panicked. “Nash, answer me!” My fingers clamped around his bleeding wrists, shaking against cold and clammy hands. The more I touched him, the more hysterical my voice became. All the pent-up fear I’d harbored hiding behind the chef’s cart came spilling out in a tirade of anger. “What the fuck have you gotten yourself into? Drugs? Fucking drugs, Nash? Jesus Christ, are you’re mixed up with a fucking drug cartel? They cut off your damn fingers, Nash!”

  As if my asinine statements of the obvious woke him, Nash cracked one eye, and his tongue darted out to lick his cracked lips. “Is that what happened? I thought he was doing… cough…my nails.”

  “I’m not arguing with you,” I whispered harshly into his ear. “You can explain later why you’re doing fucking coke. We’re leaving.”

  He nodded weakly, allowing me to wrap his torso around my shoulders. I’d heard stories of adrenaline rushes that allowed mothers to lift cars off their children. I never believed them until I hoisted my two-hundred-and-five-pound brother over my shoulder and prepared to carry him out.

  His hand skimmed my back. “Cherry, I don’t do drugs. They got the wrong guy. I swear.”

  I knew his words to be true. If there was one thing I believed in my life, it was that Nash Lachey didn’t lie.

  “Then what’s this all about, Nash?”

  His breath wheezed harder with forced exertion. “Dad.”

  It was the last word he spoke.

  With him draped over my shoulder, I headed toward the back door when the knob turned. Nash’s cheek twisted against my back to face it, and my heart knew my brother wouldn’t let me put myself in between him and what was behind it.

  The moment the door cracked open, Nash used his last thread of strength and flung himself off my shoulder and against the butcher’s block. With mangled hands, he pressed his palm against my chest and shoved me hard into an open pantry door. The impact sent both of us flying backward. My ass landed on top of a huge bag of cornmeal as Nash crashed to the floor.

  I barely breathed as I waited for Emilio to taunt Nash again. Instead, two new men, clad in jeans, green bandanas, white tank tops, and dirty long pony tails surrounded my brother. I assumed they were the men Emilio said would take him back to the hardware store and breathed a sigh of relief.

  As they moved closer, my heart sped up. The older man’s long ponytail caught a fleeting memory of a bag of cable ties, rope, and creepy innuendos.

  I knew them.

  “This is the same one?” the shorter one asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “That’s what the boss said.” The taller one circled Nash, coming to rest behind him. With a slow smile, he leaned back and spit on him. “La Muerte.”

  The words were spoken with such contempt that they imprinted themselves into my memory. The snarl in which he said them, and the hatred in his eyes as he glared at my brother sent a chill up my spine.

  The darkened pantry turned into my own personal confessional as the taller man pulled a long-barreled gun out of his back pocket and aimed it at the back of Nash’s head. A silent voice inside of me screamed at my brother to run. It begged
him to open his eyes and move.

  As if hearing my pleas, my brother, who’d always protected me, stood by me, and never made me feel any less than worthy of his love, opened his eyes. Sadness glazed them and ripped an irreparable jagged hole in my heart.

  His mouth silently formed the word that meant everything.

  Gumshoe.

  With a flash of light, and a deafening blast from the gun, my brother was gone.

  * * *

  I awoke to my name being called. Well, not necessarily my name. I’d taken enough high school Spanish to know what a puta meant, and it wasn’t complimentary. It wasn’t the first time I’d been called a whore, but disorientation had me frantically trying to come to grips with the situation.

  My head hurt. I ran my fingers over the back of it and felt a big knot. Taking stock of my surroundings, I realized I sat in the middle of a pantry closet with a thick wooden shelf behind my head.

  Nash had thrown me inside after the back door rattled and…

  Oh, God.

  I’d passed out after they…

  Tears tumbled down my cheeks with reckless abandon. I squeezed them to block out the images that flashed through my head on constant replay.

  The bright light. The crack of the gun. The vacantness in my brother’s eyes as he fell.

  The men from the hardware store murdered my brother, and now they were coming for me.

  With a jolt, I remembered my car sat parked behind the cantina. My license plate shone like a beacon. All they had to do was look it up and they’d see who it was registered to. They’d know it was mine and that I worked for Emilio.

  Emilio.

  I’d accepted that murdering bastard as my friend. I’d never make that mistake again. I’d never allow any man that close to me. I’d honor that vow until the day I died.

  I remained quiet as the voices moved from the kitchen into the main cantina. My skin crawled with fear, but I’d made a dying promise to my brother.

  As low to the floor as I could get, I belly slithered across the tile on my elbows toward the back door. Every instinct pulled at me to go to Nash. I couldn’t just leave him here. But as my body instinctively twisted toward the right, his voice boomed loud and clear in my head.

  Gumshoe, Cherry. You promised.

  Swallowing my heart, I commando crawled, forcing my mind to think of nothing but the door. I didn’t look back. The voices from the cantina turned around, and I was running out of time. I reached for the door on my hands and knees and flung it open into the darkness.

  Once outside, I pulled my keys out of a cross body bag slung around my chest. My chest burned, and my thighs screamed as adrenaline surged through my veins. Fumbling with the keys in the rain, I dropped them, cursing as my tears fell. The reality of the situation started to crash down on me as I tried to hold it together. Flinging the door open, I dove in, fumbled with the keys, and slammed on the accelerator.

  Every part of me shook. I drove erratically, swerving across yellow lines, passing in no passing zones, and driving at least thirty miles over the speed limit. If I got pulled over, fine. They could just follow me back to Caliente and arrest the men who’d ended my brother’s life.

  Eventually, the adrenaline would fade, and the shock would wear off. I’d have to deal with the cold reality of what had happened, but right now, everything seemed surreal. The whole thing almost felt like it happened to someone else, and I’d played a movie role I’d never prepared for. How would I go on living tomorrow when the numbness wore off, and pain destroyed what little humanity I had left?

  Tonight, however, I had one thing on my mind.

  I needed answers, and there was only one man who had them.

  Chapter Ten

  VAL

  After an early morning of hitting the punching bag and splitting my knuckles, I’d worked out enough aggression to walk through the doors of RVC Enterprises and not throw punches. Tugging the sleeves of my dress shirt over my knuckles hid the destruction of the bag. I’d punched the hell out of it, imagining it was my father’s face.

  As I rounded the corner to my small office, incessant heels clicked behind me. Clenching my jaw, I inhaled slowly before coming to a complete stop. “What is it, Janine?”

  She barreled into the back of me, papers flying everywhere. “Oh, goodness, I’m sorry Mr. Carrera.” Her red framed glasses slid down her nose as she vomited apologies. “I didn’t mean to wrinkle your suit or upset you…”

  I glanced over my shoulder and let her squirm. Stammering, she nervously pushed the glasses back into place with her forefinger four times before working up the courage to look me in the eye. My silence made me a giant asshole, but I enjoyed watching her anxiousness. I’d practiced my entire life at being intimidating as fuck. Unfortunately for my secretary, her skittishness around me made her my primary source for daytime entertainment.

  “I’m not upset, Janine.” I ran my hands down my red tie, straightening it. “You’re my secretary. If you need me, that’s fine.”

  “Oh, good. Then you probably—”

  I held up my hand, silencing her. “But, let me walk into my office first, all right? I don’t need a shadow.”

  Her lips tightened as she nodded quickly. Janine was efficient and knew her way around real estate, but if I walked up behind her and yelled ‘boo,’ she’d probably hug the ceiling fan.

  Strange girl.

  My office boasted the same extravagance as my home, moderate but adequate. The lone brick building stood unassuming and dull. Each agent had a tiny cubicle, and I insisted technology be kept at a bare minimum. The less opportunity for the Feds to bug our office or hack into our computers, the better. Not that I’d ever left a trail the DEA could find. Mateo outfitted the entire office with wiretap detectors, data scramblers and closed-circuit television.

  Once seated, I folded my hands in front of me and leaned forward. I learned the power play move from watching my father during meetings. “So, what’s so urgent?”

  She rubbed her palms over her mouth. It was a move I’d come to know as her telltale sign of anxiety. “Well, sir, Rob called in sick early this morning, so I assumed there was no way you’d want to miss a chance at the Toller property.”

  Rob Young needed to be knocked down a few notches. He had an overextended sense of self-worth I found irritating. However, he’d proven to be my best flipper, so I’d let his attitude slide. All my house flippers were men. I’d never send a woman to a job site. It wasn’t sexist; it was good business.

  I was still alive, because I took nothing for granted. No situation was safe.

  I didn’t like where this was going. “I don’t care about Rob. What happened?”

  Janine wrung her hands while shuffling the papers in her hand. “When I got to the site, the house was a total wreck, as we expected. No one was there yet, so I thought I’d walk around the perimeter and check out the foundation.”

  A coldness filled the space where my soul used to be. I had no feelings one way or the other for Janine, but I’d hate to see ambition end her life. Only an American civilian would do something as stupid as wander a foreclosure in the second ward, alone and unarmed.

  The lengthy conversation began to lose my focus, and I clenched my fingers around the edge of my desk. “For fuck’s sake, what happened, Janine?”

  Bristling from my comment, she hugged her chest, as her chin trembled. “As I rounded the back of the house, a man came up behind me. He scared me at first, because I thought no one else was around.” She paused, dabbing at her eyes.

  Tears. Wonderful.

  I raised an eyebrow and waited, my stare fixated on her.

  “Yes, well,” she continued, sniffling, “he grabbed my shoulder and asked me what I was doing. I know I shouldn’t have responded, but I was so scared, Mr. Carrera.”

  “What did you say?”

  She finally looked me in the eye. “I told him I was looking at the property to buy for my boss. He asked who you were, so I told him.”

/>   Blood pulsed against my temple. “You told him my name?”

  She winced. “I said I represented RVC Enterprises.”

  At least she didn’t use my name. That may’ve saved her life.

  “Go on,” I encouraged, my knuckles turning white.

  She sniffled again. “He dug his fingers into my shoulder and told me the place was already under contract. I told him I’d just looked at the MLS listings and there’d been no update. That’s when he got in my face and yelled at me.”

  Getting information out of this woman frayed all my thinned nerves.

  “Words, Janine,” I bit out between clenched teeth. “What did he say?”

  She nodded her head. “He said he didn’t give an f-word about my listing, and to back off and tell La Muerte, it’s not over.” She slouched forward, her earlier poise vanishing. Worried lines coated her eyes. “Who’s La Muerte, Mr. Carrera? And what’s not over?”

  “Shit!” It pissed me off how quickly things derailed when my mind was consumed with flame-haired bartenders. I’d allowed the worst breach of my cleanest sanctum, and I had only myself to blame.

  And maybe Janine for being stupid.

  I stood and stormed to my office door. Throwing it open, I motioned to the cubicles lined outside of it. “Go, Janine. I need to think.”

  She paused, halfway out of the chair, her doe eyes rounded. “Who’s La Muerte?”

  I hardened a steeled look, my eyes informing her that we were done. Nodding her head, she hugged the papers to her chest. Her face held a mix of concern and fear as she exited my office.

  Locking the door behind her, I tugged at my meticulously combed back hair until it hung disheveled in my face. I needed to be careful. Every decision I made from here on out affected everyone I met.

  Janine wasn’t in danger. Janine was a message. Muñoz enforcers were following an order.

  Punching the wall, I rested my forehead against the molding. “I’m La Muerte,” I whispered to an empty room. “The Reaper.”