by Melissa Jane
Why had Jair done this to me?
I stilled as four men walked by taking up position in front, neither of them the man I had to thank for me being here. They watched me curiously, standing in a line, their silence assaulting my ears.
Despite my fear, I met them head on. They were unlike the Santos men I had come across so far. They were well dressed. Casual, but carried an air of superiority to the rest.
“Nina Cross,” the middle one began, his voice heavily accented. He stood with his hands clasp together in front of him, a massive ring emblazoned with a ruby on his wedding ring finger. He was a good looking man, slightly smaller than Jair, well built and with a determined look in his eye. “We finally meet.”
“Who are you?”
“Your new employer.”
“What?”
“By default, of course. You weren’t our first choice.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t expect you to just yet, but soon you will.”
“Where’s Jair Ruiz?”
Ruby ring nodded to the man next to him who took quick strides back the way he came past me. We waited in silence, their unbreakable stares making me more uncomfortable. I had no idea what they were thinking. They certainly weren’t looking at me as if I would see through the day. The heavy midday sun was burning my skin, sweat trickling down my temples, and the sounds of insect wings flittered around me.
The man reappeared, this time returning with another who had his wrists bound like mine. He was being lead with a gun held at the base of his neck. He looked at me and I at him and wondered what connection we shared to be both kneeling execution style.
“Do you know who this is?” Ruby Ring asked me.
I looked between the men, my mind drawing a blank. “No, should I?” My voice trembled and in turn, a smirk spread across his face, apparent joy in his eyes.
“Nina Cross, meet Jair Ruiz.”
Again, my head flicked sharply between Ruby Ring and the Ruiz imposter.
“That’s not Ruiz. What’s going on?”
“Nina,” the beaten man next to me finally spoke, “I’m sorry, I was outnumbered.”
I could feel myself growing frantic. Things were unraveling and I felt like I was a spectator suddenly unfairly thrown into the fight pit. “I don’t understand.”
“They…” his eyes flicked to the four men watching our interaction, “…they’ve been watching you the whole time. They ambushed me in San Antonio. The man who’s been with you isn’t who he says he is.”
The man I’d been with wasn’t my protector. He was the devil in disguise.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted. A wave of guilt washed over me knowing this man’s life was in danger all because of my apparent involvement.
“Don’t be. I knew the risk when Evan assigned me.” His voice lowered. “Nina, don’t trust anyone, not me, not Evan, not them.”
“Cállate!” Ruby Ring barked.
“Don’t give them anything. I’m not an agent, I’m a Baja and these—”
“Cállate!” he barked again, this time the warning was followed by the safety unclicking on his Glock.
“Don’t give Los Santos control.” The real Ruiz’s eyes grew panicked as he struggled to say everything he needed to before Ruby Ring put a stop to him.
“Last chance,” the warning rang out.
“Forget everything your watcher ever told you. They will end you even after—”
The first shot fired and Ruiz’s body jolted on impact. He looked down at the wound in his chest now seeping with blood and then met my horrified face. I turned and I wished I hadn’t to see all four men standing, pointing their guns at Ruiz.
I screamed but I was too late. I was in a war zone I couldn’t escape. They each fired until their magazines ran out of bullets, Ruiz’s body a mere pincushion for their hate.
Blood.
It was a sea of red.
It sprayed over my entire body, coating my face in a thick goo. I was shaking violently, my breath ragged, a state of shock consuming me. When the bullets finally stopped, his destroyed body finally collapsed.
I was aware that I was crying.
I was not aware of the vomit rising in my gut until it was too late. My stomach hurled twice over the blood splattered earth, a stinging in my eyes blurring everything around me.
The world had fallen silent.
The desert plains no longer echoed of violence.
No one spoke.
No breath escaped the real Jair Ruiz’s body.
My own heart had stopped beating.
There was no sound.
Except for the desperate squalls of the eagle now flying above.
Chapter 14
My legs were wobbly like I had done a five-hour long workout. The rest of my body was numb as I was led down a beautiful hallway, into a bedroom and its adjoining bathroom. The man who’d been watching me down in the basement handled me with lack of care. Why should he care?
Throwing me into the shower, I landed heavily on the cold tiles and was immediately assaulted by a blast of ice water. Instantly, a puddle of watery blood pooled around me as I was cleansed of Ruiz’s gore. I was sick of people being murdered. I was sick of being covered in their blood.
“Clean,” the man said, dropping a used cake of soap in my lap.
Under a watchful eye, I worked the off-smelling soap into a lather and did my best to rid the dried blood staining my skin. My long dark hair seemed to contain most of the mess and I allowed the water to run rivers from root to tip. I wasn’t about to take off the one item of clothing I had worn since the night ‘Ruiz’ and I were intimate.
A sharp stab assaulted my heart at the betrayal I felt. But in hindsight, it all made perfect sense. From the moment I saw him in my bedroom, only a stranger shrouded in shadows, to the warnings he’d given me along the way.
“Be careful who you trust.”
“I am not above deception.”
To his blatant remarks about his lack of integrity. I had missed it all. He’d used intimacy as a way of molding me into a pawn and worst of all, I had let him.
“Vamos,” Tattoo urged, throwing a towel into my arms. Drying my exposed skin and hair as best I could, I was stuck with the dilemma of my shirt.
Before I could say anything he walked out of the bathroom and into the adjoining bedroom. He disappeared from sight and I wasn’t sure if I was meant to follow. Instead, I stood, shivering and wrapping the damp towel around my body. Water dripped from the hem of the shirt and trickled down my legs before Tattoo returned with an item in hand.
“Here,” he said and despite it being a little bit shorter than the oversized one I was already wearing, I was grateful for the shirt being dry and unsoiled.
“Thank you.”
He didn’t smile, he didn’t acknowledge, he just backed away and stood in the doorframe, a challenging look in his eyes.
“Can I change?”
He twirled his finger indicating for me to hurry but he had no intention of leaving his post.
“In private.”
There were no words, just a slow shake of the head.
Biting back my frustration because I really didn’t know just how violent this man was, I turned my back to him and lifted my sodden shirt. I could feel his burning gaze on my naked body as I made light work of drying my back, breasts, and stomach before quickly pulling the fresh shirt over my head. I gathered that there were no other females in the house, hence the male attire.
Taking my upper arm in his bony fingers, Tattoo led me through the hall, past the living room I’d been in earlier and into a dining room. It was large with a table that almost filled the entire space. Pulling a chair out, Tattoo pushed down on my shoulder forcing me to sit. He left the room, closing the door behind him.
No sooner had he left, another door opposite me opened and in walked Ruby Ring.
“Where’s Jair?”
He looked at me with mock confusion. “Señorita, you j
ust saw him die all thanks to you.”
“Why did you have to kill him?”
“The Baja cartel will do everything they can to plot against us. You just helped bring one their high rankers closer to our door.”
I swallowed the guilt as the man’s desperate pleas played over in my head.
“Where is the man who brought me here?” I didn’t know he was anymore. He had no name.
As if on cue, the face that had made me lose all morals, the eyes that had held me captive with their dark intensity, appeared through the door. As if the racing gates had just been opened, I sprung from the chair and advanced on the traitor.
“You bastard!” I screamed, his face remaining a picture of stoicism. “Why did you do this to me? People are dying because of you!”
I was less than a yard away from slapping his face when strong arms wrapped around me from behind and pulled my flailing body away. I wanted to hurt him so bad, I cried tears of anger. Through it all, Ruby Ring watched on amused by our interaction. He probably had no idea how our connection was formed.
The man carried me to the far end of the table and threw me down hard on the ground next to the chair.
“Who are you?” My voice was weak and husky, a hard lump of emotion now forming tightly in my throat.
“Around these parts of town…” Ruby Ring answered, “…he’s known as El Cazador.”
I scoffed in confusion. “What does that mean?”
“Your daddy was a Sinaloa was he not?” he asked with a twisted smirk.
The wind felt like it had been knocked clean out of me.
“Yes,” I replied weakly.
“And yet you know nothing of your native tongue?”
“How do you know about my father?”
Ruby Ring unbuttoned the cuffs on his shirt, folding the sleeves to below his elbow. “Let’s just say we had an interesting business relationship.”
“You worked with him? Then you’d know he was brutally murdered.”
He shrugged his shoulders, indifferent to my loss. “What can I say? When your time’s up, it’s up!”
I wanted to tell him he was wrong. I wanted to tell him he was mistaken, that he never worked with someone who was as perfect as my father.
Instead, I bit my tongue and focused my attention back to the very person who’d brought me here.
“El Cazador,” Ruby Ring continued on his original point. “It means the hunter. Fitting don’t you think?” This time, he wore a smirk. “I hear you were quite the target.”
Swallowing hard, it did little to stop heat from coloring my cheeks.
Had he divulged our sexual encounters?
Turning my attention to ‘Hunter’ or ‘Ruiz’ or whoever the hell he was, I narrowed my stare that was filled with hate and loathing. “I trusted you! You lied to me the entire time.”
“Cariña…” he finally spoke, his voice like an ice pick to the heart, “…I never once lied. You believed what you wanted to hear, interpreted how you saw fit.”
My mind flashed over everything we’d spoken about. During our time together he’d been careful with how he phrased things, his manipulation in getting me to believe what I wanted, now evident.
“You never told me you worked for them.”
“I didn’t need to.”
I shook my head, not understanding. “But you killed Los Santos men, back at the convenience store.”
“There’s a bounty on your head,” Ruby Ring announced as if it were a piece of information I should take in my stride. “All ranks had you marked as prey.”
“So you just kill them if they get in your way?” I wasn’t trying to defend the lives of those who wanted to abduct me from the store a few days ago. I was merely attempting to comprehend their thought process about killing those in the same cartel.
“Pawns. That’s all they were and that’s all you are.”
“Fuck you,” I spat, my words directed to both the men. “I’ve got nothing to do with this.”
Ruby Ring snickered while Hunter’s cheek twitched. Ruby Ring advanced, a casual air about him that was actually frightening. Distracting me by rubbing his chin with one hand, the other fisted in my long damp hair. A searing pain assaulted my scalp as I was thrown once again to the ground, this time landing on my back. Ruby Ring’s snicker had morphed into anger in the time it took to blink.
“I can see why you took your time getting the bitch down here.” He kept his eyes trained on mine while he spoke, his face hovering above.
There was no reply to which I was relieved.
After a brief pause, his eyes broke their hold and traveled down to where my shirt sat above my waist exposing me.
“Time to take my cut, perhaps?” His languid voice oozed a promise that made me shudder. “I can see you need a little lesson in cooperation. Was she this feisty for you, Hunter?”
“She practically begged for it,” my betrayer announced. I closed my eyes against the shame but not before seeing the knowing smile light up Ruby Ring’s face.
“Is that so?” He seemed pleased with what he was hearing. “I can give rough if you like it that way, puta. Just say the word. Or I can take you nice and slow and watch you squirm underneath me.”
“Perhaps we should put her to work,” Hunter interrupted, his tone carrying a hint of annoyance.
Ruby Ring, wearing an amused smile, considered his counterpart. “Come on. You’re like a brother to me, Hunter.” I looked to my betrayer who avoided all contact. His shoulders had squared, eyes darkening.
“No harm in sharing is there? Or is she different?” Ruby Ring quipped. He waited expectantly for answer knowing the he was rattling his ‘friend.’
“I don’t see the point in wasting time. Where’s Luis Santos?”
This time, Ruby Ring’s curiosity was piqued, all humor long forgotten. He leaned back, removing his knee from my chest and gave Hunter his full attention. “You’re not here to do business with my uncle. Anything you have to say can go through me. That’s how it’s always been.”
“Santos owes me and until the transaction is made, I’ll stick around. And if he shows his face, even better.”
This answer apparently was hysterical. Ruby Ring threw his head back in a full belly laugh. “Got some balls on you, Hunter. That’s why you get the jobs done. A word of advice, though. If, and that’s a big if, Santos shows his face, you my friend better duck for cover.”
Chapter 15
“What do you want from me?” I’d been locked in a bedroom and dragged onto my knees¸ Ruby Ring crouching in front of me, the threat of more violence to come.
“As I said earlier, you are my newest employee.”
“And what can I do for you that made you need me so badly?”
“Your connections. Your intel. Your usernames and passwords.”
“The money.” I eyed with challenge. “You want the money the FBI has frozen that belonged to the Florez cartel.”
Ruby Ring turned to Hunter. “I see you versed her in what was happening.”
“No use in lies.”
I wanted to scoff outright.
“What did Garcia have to do with any of this? It was you who had him killed wasn’t it?”
Ruby Rings’ eyes narrowed at the mention of my partner’s name. “That puto was just as tempted by dollar signs as much as the rest of us.”
“That’s not true.”
Was it?
“All true. With a promise of a cut he would complete the transaction. But he made a fatal error. Garcia was greedy. He wanted more and then lied about the firewalls in order for us to lose hope. You see, I just didn’t believe that even the FBI was completely indestructible. When he refused to work for us any longer he met his maker.”
“Garcia wasn’t like that.”
“You seem to have a warped perception of people Nina Cross. Far too trusting for own good. Now…” his last word had a finality to it as he advanced toward me, “…it’s simple really,” he said, his ring glimm
ering in the light from above. “Get the money transferred over to my account and I’ll let you go.”
Everything Hunter had told me in the car about warring cartels chasing the same treasure had been correct. Now, I was given the impossible task of finding it.
“I don’t have access to the account. It’s not in my jurisdiction.”
“Oh, but you do. You’re a lot closer to it than you think.”
“And if I can’t?”
He smiled, revealing perfectly straight teeth. “Do you really wanna know?”
I had a feeling it was something I wouldn’t want to hear.
“So I get you the money and you release me… I lose my job and am thrown in prison for defrauding the government. I don’t get you the money and I die?”
His eyes twinkled. “Bravo.”
“And what about the Baja cartel? Don’t you think they deserve their cut?”
“The Baja have bigger problems to attend to.” His ice cold tone sent a chill down my spine. He leaned own, gripping my chin. “Don’t fuck me over, bonita, or you too will be begging for your life.”
Someone cleared their throat at the door and Ruby Ring’s eyes flickered in annoyance.
“What?” he barked.
“I need a moment with the girl.”
“Is that so?” Ruby Ring’s eyebrows rose, amused, knowing. For a moment before he released my chin, his eyes leered over my body, his suggestion of intimacy making me cringe. He drew me in close and paused until his breath mingled with mine. I swallowed, hating his power trip. He kissed me. Hard. His dominance obvious as he staked his claim. Squirming under his control, I pushed against his chest and only felt reprieve when he voluntarily stepped away. “Later,” he promised with a wink before knocking shoulders with Hunter at the door.
I wiped furiously at my mouth wanting desperately to rid the burn. Overshadowed by yet another man, I stared up at my betrayer. This was the first time I’d been left alone with him since… well, the time he betrayed me.
To say I was angry was an understatement. If I had a weapon I would be using it. Now sitting at the end of the bed, my knuckles turned white as I gripped the mattress.
