Death Blow

by Isabella Maldonado

  Diaz’s dark eyes bored into hers as he responded to Webster. “I take full responsibility for Detective Cruz. I’ll keep her close and monitor her activities at all times.”

  She had extricated herself from Ortiz’s trap only to land squarely in Diaz’s with her very next step. Nice going, Cruz.

  11

  Veranda watched her mother’s hazel eyes widen in shock.

  “You could have died, mi’ja.” Lorena clutched a corner of her apron. “You could have blown up into a million pieces. You could have—”

  She stopped her mother’s downward spiral into panic. “Mamá, I’m fine. I wasn’t anywhere near my house when it happened.” She deliberately avoided using words like explosion or bomb.

  When Veranda arrived at the cluster of casitas on the Cruz family property minutes ago, her relatives were chopping food, arranging tables, and decorating every available surface. Aunt Juana had directed her to the kitchen in the main house to find her mother.

  “I know you were not inside your house because Richard Diaz called me last night—before you did.” Lorena’s nostrils flared. “My own daughter did not call me until an hour after her house blew up.” She crossed herself. “Gracias a Dios that Richard thought of me right away.”

  Her mother had foregone the spoon to dish out the guilt with a ladle. And, true to form, Lieutenant Diaz had managed to make her situation worse. Veranda always found it odd when her mother referred to her supervisor by his first name. In recent weeks, Diaz’s friendship with her favorite cousin and her mother made her increasingly uncomfortable. Why on earth did they like him? Of course, they didn’t have to work for him, so he probably didn’t get in their business. Or order them around. Or question their every move.

  She did a quick assessment of her mother’s body language. From childhood, she’d learned to gauge Lorena’s anger level from the position of her arms. If her arms were crossed, she was annoyed. If her hands were on her hips, she was exasperated. If her hands were clenched at her sides, look out.

  Continuously balling the apron’s hem in her fist, Lorena had gone way past livid, right up to the edge of hysterical. Veranda looked around for an ally. Aunt Juana and Uncles Juan, Felipe, and Rico had come to the kitchen to support their older sister. They stood shoulder to shoulder, flanking Lorena, with crossed arms and matching scowls. No help there. In desperation, she turned to Chuy, who had parked himself at the small dining table, and threw him a pleading look.

  Chuy took the hint and stood. “Listen everybody, it’s not like there’s anything new going on here,” he said. “Veranda’s at war with the Villalobos family, and that’s not about to change.”

  She did a mental head slap, belatedly recalling that Chuy specialized in causing fear, not easing it.

  “Thanks a lot, Chuy.” She threw her hands up in frustration. “Huge help.”

  Chuy ambled over to her and slung a tattooed arm around her shoulders. “I don’t blow smoke, mi’jita. And I’m not saying anything they don’t already know.” He gave her a meaningful look. “Sometimes, you can’t walk away from a situation. The odds are stacked against you, so you do whatever it takes to survive.” He dropped his voice. “Whatever it takes, mi’jita.”

  Only the soft bubbling of molé sauce simmering on the stove broke the silence. Chuy’s expression had gone flat, his eyes, cold. His words were those of a man who had walked the prison yard in years past. A man who understood what it was to fight for survival against ruthless enemies. To sleep with one eye open every night.

  Choking back a sob, Lorena darted forward and threw her arms around Veranda and Chuy. “Ay, mi’ja,” she said. “I am so scared I will lose you.”

  Veranda longed to promise her mother she would always be okay. But the words lodged in her throat. She could make no such vow. And even if she did, no one would believe it.

  Chuy wiped a tear from her mother’s cheek with a tattooed knuckle. “There’s no time for that now,” he said with surprising gentleness. “You have a party to plan. Didn’t I hear you say two hundred people were coming here tomorrow night?”

  Veranda marveled at the effect of her cousin’s words. Galvanized into action, Lorena straightened and began barking orders at everyone in sight.

  Veranda took up her post at a makeshift food prep station at

  the kitchen table with Chuy. They each pulled vegetables from the pile heaped on an enormous earthenware platter in the center of the table and started chopping.

  Chuy’s knife was a blur, the steel blade slicing through an onion in a series of staccato thumps on the thick wooden cutting board. He kept his eyes on his hands as he spoke. “Where are you staying?”

  She lopped the top off a bell pepper. “Don’t know yet.”

  “You could move in with me.” Chuy lifted a muscular shoulder crisscrossed with an elaborate black spider web design. “It’s small, but there’s room enough.”

  Her cousin lived in an apartment directly over his auto repair shop. Tiffany had moved in with him, apparently preferring the scent of motor oil and engine grease to her place.

  “Thanks, but I can’t take you up on it.” She had refused her coworkers, her boyfriend, and her family. No one else would get hurt because of her. “And you know why.”

  Thoughts of Cole reminded her of their brief phone conversation while she drove to her mother’s house. She’d asked him to join her, but he’d begged off. Then she asked him about dinner, and he said he wouldn’t be off shift until tomorrow. She wondered when she would see him again.

  Chuy grabbed another onion. “I won’t let you sleep in your car.”

  “Spoke to a claims adjuster from my insurance company this morning. They’ll pay for a hotel until I can find a place.”

  “We’re family. We take care of each other.”

  “I know you’re a badass and all, Chuy, but I can’t put you in harm’s way, it’s not—”

  “I got it.” His grin exposed a silver tooth. “I crash with Tiffany, then you can stay at my place by yourself.”

  “I couldn’t impose.”

  Extending his index finger, Chuy put her on hold, plunked down his knife, and left the kitchen without another word.

  She shrugged and continued dicing, her thoughts meandering over the case. She was certain she’d missed something important, but what? Lieutenant Diaz had been right to assign the lead to Sam. The turmoil in her personal life made her feel as if she stood on shifting sand, unable to gain purchase.

  Chuy returned and picked up his knife. “It’s done.”

  She didn’t like the determined set of his jaw. “What’s done?”

  “Just got off the phone with Tiffany. I remembered her saying she used to live in a trailer before she moved in with me six months ago. I’ve never seen it, but I’m sure it’s big enough for two. Tiff and I can stay there for as long as you need.”

  She splayed her palms on the table and speared Chuy with her darkest glare. “No.”

  Chuy snorted. “You mad-dogging me, mi’jita? You got to do better than that.”

  “You’re not listening to me.”

  “Tiff’s right down the street getting her nails done. She’s coming straight here in about ten minutes.” He tilted his head in thought. “We’re both on bikes, so you’ll have to take us to my apartment in your Tahoe. We’ll grab some stuff, then you can drive us over to her trailer and give us a ride back here for our bikes.”

  The plan sounded convoluted, but she knew her cousin. She could argue with him all day and then give in, or she could accept the inevitable and get on with it. She decided to be gracious. “Thank you.” She reached out to squeeze his shoulder. “I’ll find a different place as soon as I can.”

  Her mother strolled over to check on their progress. Queen of the kitchen, Lorena insisted on inspecting everyone’s work when it came to her food. She peered at the pile of chopped vege
tables. “Looks like you’re almost finished.”

  “We’ll be done soon,” Chuy said. “And then Veranda’s moving into my apartment.”

  Her mother’s brow creased. “But I thought she would stay here in my house.”

  Chuy gave Veranda an I told you so look before facing Lorena. “We decided she should crash at my place. I’m going to Tiffany’s.”

  Veranda could practically see the gears turning in her mother’s mind. When Lorena’s lips pursed, she knew her mother had read the subtext. Her oldest daughter should live alone for everyone else’s safety.

  Lorena smoothed her apron, took a deep breath, and eyed Veranda. “But you are coming to the party, yes?”

  “Of course, Mamá.”

  Lorena relaxed. “And your capitán, the fireman, he will come too?”

  Veranda stifled a groan. How could she explain that her relationship with Cole was probably over? “I don’t think so. We’re going through … a rough patch.”

  Her mother gave her an accusatory look. “He’s a nice man. He has a good job. What happened?”

  She wasn’t surprised when her mother asked about her love life. When it came to Veranda, personal boundaries did not exist. For years, the entire family had done their best to find her a husband, the level of urgency increasing with each year. Now that she was on the wrong side of thirty, she figured they were at DEFCON 1.

  Before she could come up with a response, Lorena pressed a hand to her chest. “No, don’t tell me. I can guess. Something to do with that horrible cartel.”

  Veranda studied her shoes.

  “I came to the United States to get away from Hector Villalobos.” Lorena motioned around the room at the rest of the family. “To get all of us away. Now we are Americans. We are free. But you are not.”

  When Veranda raised a brow, Lorena wrung her hands. “Ay, I don’t know how to say it right in English.”

  Her mother turned to the group and switched to Spanish, something she only did when she wanted to be perfectly clear.

  “I’ve kept secrets for most of my life, and it’s time to let them go,” Lorena said. “I never planned to tell a soul, but the truth came out anyway.” Her eyes slid to the floor. “Except for the reason I called my daughter Veranda.”

  Everyone stilled at the abrupt shift in the conversation. Veranda remembered every detail of the day last July when her mother had confided her most painful secrets. Including the one she was about to reveal to the rest of the family.

  Thirty-two years ago, Lorena was a young bride, married to Ernesto Hidalgo, in Mexico City. When she spurned his advances, El Lobo murdered her husband and raped her. Lorena became pregnant and kept the baby without knowing whether her dead husband or his killer had fathered her child. But recently, Veranda’s true lineage became public when the Villalobos cartel leaked a paternity test to the media, devastating her mother in the process.

  “Everyone may know how Veranda was conceived.” Lorena looked up to meet her eldest daughter’s eyes. “But only she knows how her name gave me strength while I raised her.” Voice thick with emotion, Lorena turned back to the family. “I combined the words ver and la andadura to remind me that my daughter’s choices would reveal her true nature.”

  Veranda saw recognition dawn on the faces around her. Roughly translated, ver meant “see” and la andadura referred to a “path,” or a “journey.” Her mother had given her a name that would serve as a constant reminder that Veranda’s own actions created her destiny, not her bloodline. Lorena would wait and see which path her daughter took.

  “I used to believe Veranda became a police officer because Ernesto was her father.” Sorrow tinged Lorena’s words. “Before I learned the truth.”

  Veranda’s heart ached for her mother. Lorena had raised Veranda with an open heart, no doubt convincing herself over the years that her late husband lived on through her child. Then, as he had taken everything else, Hector Villalobos had stolen her last vestige of hope when Veranda’s paternity had been revealed.

  Lorena reached out to clasp Veranda’s hand. “It doesn’t matter who your father is, mi’ja,” she said, taking her other hand. “I have watched you seek your own path.” The tears that had gathered in her eyes began to spill down Lorena’s cheeks. “And I am proud to call you my daughter.”

  “Ay, Mamá, I’m proud of you too.” Veranda felt her own eyes moisten. “You’re so strong.”

  “You both are,” Uncle Rico said, putting his arms around them.

  The rest of the family began to press in, gathering into a group hug. The only one with dry eyes, Chuy kissed the top of Veranda’s head. She wished the moment could have lasted longer, but her mother wasn’t finished.

  “That’s what I was trying to say before,” Lorena continued in her native tongue. “Our life is here now. El Lobo is part of your past, but he will ruin your future if you let him. That’s why you must stop, mi’ja. Leave him alone.”

  First Cole, then Commander Webster, now her mother. Three times today she’d been given a cease and desist order regarding the Villalobos family. As if she had a choice.

  She raised her head and caught Chuy’s nod of support. As an unspoken understanding passed between them, her cousin’s words floated back to her.

  Sometimes, you can’t walk away from a situation. The odds are stacked against you, so you do whatever it takes to survive.

  12

  Villalobos family

  compound, Mexico

  Salazar clutched a metal briefcase in the subterranean anteroom, eyes adjusting to the gloom. The rough-hewn stone of the cylindrical wall surrounding him could have been in a medieval fortress.

  Hector Villalobos spoke in his customary refined Spanish. “I had this dungeon built to my specifications after much research.” He reached out to trace a finger along a paper-thin crevice between two stones. “Only the best workmanship.”

  Salazar had seen all sorts of punishments meted out in the dark chambers that held El Lobo’s prisoners. Most who entered left in a bag. Those who survived were never the same, physically or mentally. He would dearly love to see Daria dragged into one of the cells.

  He broached the subject of Daria’s betrayal with surgical precision, as he did everything. “The federales in Mexico City are working with US law enforcement now. They will run the DNA from the water bottle through our system.” He paused for emphasis, treading carefully. “When they get a match, they will know. Everyone will know.”

  Hector lowered his hand. “Secrets from the past eventually find their way to the surface no matter how far down they are buried. Maybe it’s time the world knew about yours.”

  He chose his next words for maximum impact. “You would have revealed my secret at a time of your choosing. If ever. Instead, Daria decided for you.”

  Hector’s expression darkened. “I am not pleased with her behavior.”

  Direct hit. The reaction cued him to double down. “She planted that bottle. Set me up.”

  He waited to see if he’d gone too far.

  Finally, Hector’s jet-black eyes locked with his. “Yes.”

  Without further comment, Hector strode to the heavy wooden door and seized the wrought iron bolt. He threw it back with a grunt and tugged the handle. The door creaked open. Hector stepped over the threshold, stopped short, and spun around.

  Close on his heels, Salazar nearly collided with him, barely managing to jerk the briefcase out of the way before it hit Hector’s thigh.

  “You will fly to Phoenix and relieve Daria of her command,” Hector said. “I will still permit her to kill Veranda Cruz as I promised her earlier, but only on your orders and according to your plan.”

  He had to change Hector’s mind. “I want the kill order transferred to me as well as Daria’s part of the operation.”

  Hector gave him an appraising look. “You are aware of what th
at means?”

  Three months ago, Hector told Adolfo he could not become heir apparent to the family empire until he eliminated Veranda Cruz. By his own hand. When Adolfo failed, the order passed to Daria to prove she could take the reins. Killing Cruz had become inextricably linked with assuming control of the cartel.

  And Salazar intended to do both.

  “I know what it means.” He spoke the words that had been in his heart for years. “You know that I am the one to lead our organization.”

  He’d said it. Now he waited an interminable minute while El Lobo regarded him with fathomless lupine eyes. Had he moved too quickly? Did naked ambition demonstrate his determination, or expose him as an opportunist?

  Salazar couldn’t read the emotion behind Hector’s austere features as his boss studied him with a fierce intensity. In that moment, Hector reminded him of the generales he had served during his time in the Army. Without conscious thought, he reverted to his military training. His entire body stiffened until he stood at attention, ready for inspection.

  With slow, deliberate movements, Hector circled behind him. “As of this moment, the kill order is transferred to you,” he said into Salazar’s ear.

  He remained rooted to the spot as Hector continued around to face him once again. The next words out of El Lobo’s mouth meant victory or defeat. He kept his face completely blank as he waited for the decision.

  Hector raised both arms and pulled Salazar against him in an abrazo. “And so is the prize that comes with it,” he said, breaking the embrace after kissing him on both cheeks.

  Salazar suppressed any outward display of excitement. “I will leave at once.”

  “Stay here until after our Día de los Muertos celebration tomorrow night. You will participate with us this year. You can notify Daria about the change in plans tomorrow.”