“I can do better than that,” he replied, his voice anxious and short.
I rolled my shoulders in a futile attempt at releasing the knot of tension in my back. “I don’t have time for this, Brody. I’ve been trying to find this house myself all fucking day, but according to everything I’ve researched, the damn thing doesn’t exist.” Glancing at my watch, I cursed the late hour. “Give me Eden’s location and get the hell off the phone.”
From five-hundred feet in front of me, the door swung open to a gray BMW. Black slacks emerged, followed by a crisp white shirt, a red power tie, and a pressed black suit jacket. A self-satisfied smirk planted across his face as he brushed back his annoying mop of dark blond hair. “How about I take you there myself?”
Gritting my teeth, I stomped past him. “How about you don’t?”
Slamming his door, Brody shed his suit jacket as he raced to catch up with me. “You need me, Carrera. I know where she is, and I need you. I can’t go in there alone. I’ll never make it out.”
“You’ve got that right.”
“Look,” he said, placing a hand on my shoulder and stopping our movement. “She doesn’t want me, man. I don’t know what you’ve got going on with Cherry, but it’s obvious you care about her. I may not like you, but that’s enough for me. I just want her safe.”
“She’s mine.” After his proclamation, I had no idea why I felt the need to stake my claim like a goddamn caveman, but the words just slipped out.
“Fine, she’s yours. Can we go get her now?”
I narrowed my eyes, suspicious of his motives. “If you have no interest in her, why are you so dead set on walking into a massacre? You do understand this isn’t the movies, right? These men are real. They have real guns with real bullets and a lot of people will die. I can’t guarantee you won’t be one of them. My only concern will be Eden.”
Much to my surprise, he didn’t flinch. “You think I haven’t talked to Manuel Muñoz one-on-one, Carrera? I know exactly what kind of sick fuck he is. Let’s just say, I’m hoping if I do this, you’ll owe me one.”
“How so?”
“If Muñoz makes it out of there, and I don’t, I need you to promise me something.”
“I don’t make promises, Harcourt.”
He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “I’ll protect Eden with my life, no matter what. I’ll even accept that she’s yours, but you have to promise me, if something happens to me, you’ll make sure nothing happens to my sister.”
“No way.”
“Please, Val,” he begged, his eyes reddening with remnants of hidden fear. “She’s an innocent. Her name is Leighton Harcourt. She’s a senior at Texas State, and that bastard threatened to gut her like a fish.”
“Boss, my bartender is an innocent. When I went back out, her car was gone. If they have her, you know what will happen.”
“It’s a shame he had to rip that sexy, little black number to shreds when he gutted her.”
Two separate moments in time collided with two different conversations from two different men as Brody Harcourt stood in front of me begging for his sister’s life. Eden’s face flashed before my eyes, and I knew I couldn’t deny him or cause him the same fear I held in my heart.
Turning around, I motioned for Mateo. “Drive fast.”
* * *
“Are you sure this is it?” Rubbing my palm across my chin, I stared out the window at the modest half-brick, run-down house that sat in the middle of fifteen acres off Highway 90 and Lake Houston Parkway. I had my doubts Brody had tracked the correct address.
“Carrera, did you know I’d been working behind your back this whole time?”
The reminder pissed me off to the point of snapping his neck. “No,” I bit out.
“My point exactly. I find out shit because people underestimate me. I made a call to the Texas Housing Agency. It seems that only structures with physical house numbers show up in a search.” He held up his phone for emphasis. “No building permit, no house number. It doesn’t actually exist per the state of Texas.”
“So, how did you find it?”
Waving the gun Mateo gave him in his other hand, Brody flashed a wide smile. “Let’s go get your girl.”
“I don’t—”
“Boss!” Mateo broke in, wiping a layer of sweat off his brow. “Are we going to sit here debating how the gringo charmed some virgin receptionist in the attorney general’s office, or are we going to go kick some Muñoz ass?”
Glancing at them both, I gave Mateo a quick nod, and we made our way to the door. No surprise, it was locked.
Mateo gestured toward the back while nodding to Brody. “We’ll go around to the back and see if there’s a rear entrance. You head off to the side and see if—” A loud crack broke our whispers as his side erupted in a mushroom of red. With his face twisted in pain, he waved his gun around the corner of the house. “Go! Jesus, go, now!”
My feet felt molded to the concrete landing. “Mateo, no!”
With mustered strength, he shoved me backward. “I said, fucking go! I’ve got this.”
As I rounded the corner, more gun fire exploded. Mateo’s voice screamed curses at Brody as he unloaded his weapon at the approaching forces.
Everything inside me told me to turn around and back up my friend. Then I heard it.
Her scream.
Cereza.
Chapter Thirty-Three
EDEN
There’s a fine line between love and hate.
I’d heard that cliché all my life thrown around by half-interested adults who gave few fucks about either one. The idiom du jour served to placate me enough to remove my adolescent angst from blocking Monday night football and return to my room, where I belonged.
It wasn’t until my heart blackened to a charred void that I understood the true meaning of the phrase. I found it amazing how much that fine line thickened while sweat dripped from the brow of someone I loved as I aimed a gun at his heart.
“Eden, you don’t know what you’re doing.”
His image blurred although my hand held steady. “Yours is the betrayal I never saw coming. Congratulations.” In my head the words sounded cold, despite the wetness that trailed from the corners of my eyes. Crawling to my feet, I paced the small space in front of him before I realized I’d uprooted from my spot. Keeping my breathing shallow, I focused on inhaling only when necessary. The run-down house reeked of dank mildew and death.
The number of deaths that would be added to the stench remained to be seen.
“I never wanted to hurt you,” he implored, begging me to recall what we’d meant to each other. When I stared vacantly at him, he licked his lips and attempted to reach me on another level. “After all we’ve been through, it ends like this?”
“You’ve left me no choice.”
“There’s always a choice.”
Hatred burned my eyes, incinerating the man reflected in them. “Fuck you.”
His sigh turned into a cough, rattling his chest. A knowing smile curved his lips. “There’s my feisty girl.”
I waved the gun in the air—a stupid move on all accounts, but his play on my emotions ripped at my soul. “I’m not anything of yours. You sold me out. You made me believe we were on the same side.” Tears rolled harder, ignoring my commands to stop and pissed me off. “The whole time you had an end game, you son of a bitch!”
One step. Two steps. Three steps.
If I pulled the trigger now, it’d be point blank range. I couldn’t claim self-defense. True, it hadn’t been his hand that’d pushed me off the step and sent me careening down a flight of stairs. But, in the end, it was his actions that brought me here.
And I wasn’t the one looking down the barrel of a Colt 1911 .38 Super.
All this time I’d believed him. All this time I’d trusted him. In the end, I’d been a fool because all this time I’d been used.
“Eden,” he pleaded, searching for a shred of the affection we’d shared. “I love you.�
��
There’s a fine line between love and hate.
Watching him grovel for his life, I suddenly understood the meaning behind the phrase. When I loved a person, I saw them through rose-colored glasses. Everything was perfect…until it wasn’t. I walked the line until I got knocked off and opened my eyes to the person I’d been blind to. My heart became torn, desperate to recapture the first untainted moments where the line was straight and steady. Before I knew it, hate filled the space where the love vacated, and my heart battled with my head.
Like an addict who promised one more hit would be the last, I knew it was a lie but told it anyway. I knew I couldn’t stop. The cycle always repeated and I hurt myself until there was nothing left but hate for the both of us.
Unless the cycle ends.
I thought the events of the past week had hardened me to violence, so it surprised me when my chin quivered. Vengeance took my salvation, but apparently, a conscience still resided somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind. Maybe that was one thing he hadn’t killed. Maybe that was the last shred of humanity I could hold onto as I burned in hell for the path I'd walked.
I would’ve done anything for him. He’d held me in his arms and promised to protect me.
I didn’t bother to stop the lone tear as it rolled across my nose and fell onto my bottom lip, pausing briefly before tumbling down my chin. “I love you too,” I whispered as I unloaded the gun, my mask slipping as he stumbled.
It’s funny how sometimes the people you’d give your life for are the ones who take it.
My breath came in shallow spurts as my hand shook. The last thing I remembered was kneeling, my eyes landing on my father, standing fifteen feet away from me with his shoulder turned toward the wall.
The part where I reached for the gun tucked in my thigh holster was a complete blur.
My father staggered against the wall, grabbing his chest with both hands, gritting his teeth as if in severe pain. “Edie! Oh, Jesus…why…?”
Coming down from the shock of pulling the trigger on my flesh and blood, a curtain fell over my emotions. No longer did the same heart beat between us. My own father sold me and Nash out to save his own ass. Val was right all along.
“You can stop the theatrics now, old man. I missed.”
Opening one eye, he glanced down, and realizing no blood stained his shirt, he sighed. “Thank God…oh, sweet mercies.”
“No,” I said, frowning as I shrugged one shoulder. “Not God. Thank bad aim. If you’d had a can sitting on your head, I would’ve blown your dick off.”
“Edie?” Taking a cautious step forward, he tilted his head as if seeing me for the first time. “What’s happened to you?”
“I’m an orphan, you son of a bitch.”
“No.” He patted his chest as if that made things all better. “I’m here. We still have each other.”
My arm extended, and he froze mid-step as I aimed the gun at his chest again. “You’re dead to me.” A laugh erupted, ending in a wet cough that burned my chest. “You know what’s pathetic, Dad? I’ve been held captive by a man you made me a living beacon for, then warned me to stay away from.”
Tears filled his weathered eyes. “Baby, I—”
“But you know what the most fucked up part is, Dad?” I interrupted, biting down on his name as if saying the word caused me physical pain. “Val Carrera has been the only man in my whole life besides Nash who has cared more about me than himself.”
“Oh, Edie…you didn’t…
“Sleep with him? Is that what you want to ask me, Dad? Did I follow my usual open-leg policy and lay down with the enemy?” I smiled, the thought of our last morning together outside his house in Monterrey filling my mind. “You’re damn right I did—over and over again.”
In an instant, my father’s face hardened, and his eyes frosted with an icy glaze. “Well, I guess once a whore always a whore.”
Shifting slightly to the right, I pulled the trigger again. My father let out a blood-curdling scream that had me rolling my eyes. “Will you please shut up?”
“You shot me again! My own daughter!”
“I didn’t shoot you. I shot at you.” Shaking my head, I sighed at my own ineptitude and conscience. “For all you are, and the father you aren’t, for some fucked up reason, I still can’t kill you.”
A commotion up the stairs pulled my attention away from my father and toward the door. With a slew of obscenities, Manuel Muñoz flew down the stairs, an entourage of men clamoring behind him. In the middle of him, Marisol stood sandwiched, a gun tucked in her perfectly manicured hand.
I backed up as fast as I could, but with broken ribs and a sprained ankle from the tumble down the stairs, Manuel easily caught up with me, jerking the gun out of my hand and grabbing me in a choke hold. “Where the fuck did you get a gun, puta?”
Clawing at his arm, I fought for air. “I... I…can’t…”
“Let her go!”
Unable to turn my head, I rolled my eyes to the side as my father’s clenched fists charged toward Manuel. I tried to shake my head and warn him to stay where he was.
“What the hell do you care, Lachey? She’s been down here using you for a target practice.”
“I’m warning you, Muñoz, take your hands off my daughter, or—”
Groaning, Manuel turned over his shoulder toward Marisol. “You know what? I’ve had just about as much of the protective father act as I can take. You?” Marisol shrugged as Manuel raised his gun and pumped four rounds into my father’s chest.
With the kick-back, Manuel’s hold lessened enough for a full scream to tear from my throat as my father dropped to the ground in an explosion of angry red splotches that quickly soaked his shirt.
As Manuel readjusted his hold, I struggled to free myself.
I’m next. I’m next. I’m next.
The words repeated over and over in my head, until I swore I said them, out loud.
With a kiss to my temple, Manuel chuckled in my ear. “Perk up, Cereza. The fun has arrived.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
VAL
The last thing I wanted to do was announce my arrival by shooting out a window, but once I heard her scream, I would’ve bulldozed my way in. With the commotion behind me, I knew Muñoz sicarios were minutes from pumping a few bullets in my back.
When gunshots rang out, I froze, glancing over my shoulder to make sure I hadn’t been hit. Having been shot before, I knew sometimes the bullet tore through so fast, there was no way to know it had even hit until someone screamed, or blood stained a shirt.
The irony always made me shake my head. A bullet could rip through a man’s skin, likely severing vital organs in the process, yet the only thing he’d feel would be the wetness of blood.
Once I knew the gunshots weren’t meant for me, my heart constricted as another scream traveled up the stairs, leading from the basement.
Eden.
Without a second thought, I ran full force to the door where I knew I’d find her. Tightening my hold on my gun, I kicked it open, ready to blow anyone’s head off who dared get in my way. As I stepped one foot off the ledge, a gun pressed against my temple.
“Don’t fucking move, Carrera.” Ripping the gun from my hand, one of Manuel’s enforcers smiled as he swung the tip toward the bottom of the stairs. “Only the hosts get party favors.” Laughing at his own joke, he pushed the muzzle harder against my skull. “Now go…you’re the guest of honor.”
I half expected him to either shove me straight to the bottom, or go ahead and put a bullet in my brain. He did neither. He just continued fucking smiling to himself as I slowly took one step at a time, making sure to stay aware of my surroundings.
The moment I hit the bottom, all hell broke loose.
“Ah, La Muerte, welcome. We’ve been anticipating your arrival. Sorry for the mess. One of our guests forgot his manners.”
The familiar scent of spilled blood drew my attention to an older man crumpled on the floor in a po
ol of it. By himself, a dead man in a basement would mean little to me. However, as my eyes traveled back to the voice, I knew without question the dead man was Elliot Lachey.
My mouth went dry as my gaze landed on Manuel Muñoz, his forearm wrapped around Eden’s throat. She struggled against him, her face red from lack of oxygen.
A murderous blinding rage shattered my hold on the humanity Eden had resurrected the minute I saw what he’d done to her.
Her beautiful face stared back at me, mangled and covered in too many bruises and gashes to count. Both her right cheek and right eye were swollen, and blood trickled from both nostrils and the corners of her mouth. We locked gazes and her brows furled as she fought for every rattled breath.
Broken ribs.
Her exposed arms and legs were covered in bruises and cuts, as if she’d been thrown around like a rag doll. Deep lacerations on her wrists drew my eyes, sickening me to the permanent reminder she’d suffered for me.
I held her eye, communicating without words.
He’ll pay. On the soul of my mother, he’ll pay.
“Let her go, Muñoz. This is between you and me. She has nothing to do with it.” My mind raced, frantically trying to come up with workable scenarios where four against two logically came out in our favor. I kept coming up short, especially since the four were armed, and the two had nothing but the small pistol attached to my ankle holster. Unfortunately, with four guns drawn, one of them would put a bullet in Eden before I could reach for it. I wasn’t willing to risk it.
“Hello, Val.”
Who the hell was the woman? “Do I know you?”
“Probably not. But I’ve studied you for a while now, and I think I understand you more than most anyone.”
“I doubt that,” I shot back with full conviction.
Stepping out of the shadows, she ran a hand through her long dark hair, and I immediately took a step back. Something didn’t feel right.
“I’m the one that ordered the hit on your new girlfriend’s brother.” She smiled and moved closer. “I’m the one who’s been tracking you, turning all your allies against you.” Pounding her chest with her palm, the light hit her eyes, highlighting flecks of glittered anger. “I’m the one who watched you long enough to know you had such a hard-on for your own lieutenant’s bartender that it was just a matter of time before you fucked up.”
Blurred Red Lines: A Carrera Cartel Novel Page 24
