by Alexis Grant
“I don’t want to die and don’t want to see my brother dead,” Hector said through unshed tears. He swallowed hard and straightened his rumpled jacket.
“Then you are clearly in the wrong business.” Roberto moved back to his desk and holstered his weapon. “What happened to you? We used to run the corners together … and now I don’t know who you are.”
“We were poor. Had nothing to lose, then.”
“So prosperity has made you soft, like Bruno and the others?”
“No,” Hector said, lifting his chin. “I just got a chance to have my belly filled and everything I’ve ever wanted. That was enough for me. I didn’t need more.”
Roberto nodded and considered his brother with sad eyes. “I know. You never needed more. That is the difference between you and me.” He released a long sigh. “You stay here like a woman with my Camille and Rico will protect you both.”
* * *
She heard loud voices, then angry male footsteps rushing up the stairs. Sage braced herself, but no one came barreling into her bedroom. A door down the far end of the hallway slammed. Then as she went to the window, lying back in the shadows of it, she saw Roberto leaving with several armed guards.
It was imperative to know who was still in the house. Taking the toast off the tray, she broke it up into small pieces and then flushed the toilet. After a beat, she sucked in a deep breath and went into the main section of the master bedroom, gathered up the small silver tray, and slipped into the hallway.
Walking as silently as possible, she hurried in the direction that she’d heard the door slam, and then slowed her steps as she heard Hector’s voice.
His words were partially muffled, but the little that she did make out made her eyes widen. Hector’s panic-laden voice had become shrill, resonating at a pitch that allowed her to hear every third word. The moment he hung up the call, she quickly tiptoed to the back staircase and walked down it to the kitchen, giving Rico and Maritsa a start.
“Señorita!” Maritsa exclaimed. “Madre de Dios.” The older woman closed her eyes and swept toward Sage to take her tray. “You scared the life out of me. Por favor, you should be resting.”
“Things are bad here in the house, Camille,” Rico said in a cautious tone. “You need to announce yourself … the guys’ nerves are sprung and the last thing we need is for them to accidentally hurt you.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, dragging her fingers through her hair. “I heard yelling, couldn’t tell who was shouting or what was being said … and then a door slammed. I got scared.”
Rico glanced at another bodyguard who was standing by the door before speaking. “Just Hector and Roberto having a brother-to-brother disagreement, as always. Nothing to worry about.”
Sage nodded. “Okay … I guess I’m still a little jumpy after everything. I think I’ll take another pill.”
“Don’t worry. We all understand … you’ve been through a lot.” Rico let out a hard breath. “We’re all gonna be like that for a while.”
Sage hugged herself. “I know this sounds silly, but … how many people are in the house?”
“Doesn’t sound silly at all,” the guard at the door muttered.
Rico nodded. “There’s ten of us right now. Seven guards including me, you, Hector, and Maritsa—who will be going home for the day in a little while. So don’t worry. You’re safe.”
Rico’s voice didn’t sound sure, apparently not even to Maritsa.
“If you don’t mind, Señor … may I leave now?” Maritsa said, taking off her apron. “All of this shouting and guards is making me nervioso. I’m sorry,” she added, making the sign of the crucifix over her chest. “I must go. Give my apologies to Señor Salazar for having to leave early.”
Sage stood behind Maritsa with Rico and the guard by the kitchen door as the older woman fetched her big black pocketbook and hurried out of the door. She couldn’t blame the woman and was glad she was gone—at least this way there were no civilians in the house for whatever might go down here.
CHAPTER 14
Construction yard gravel bit into his tires as his vehicle left the main warehouse road. Every bump and crunch under his wheels felt like shrapnel assaulting his nervous system. Anthony kept his eyes sweeping. A black Escalade and two black Beemers were his escort, filled with men as wary as he was. He had to trust that his men were in position, but where were the Colombians?
After several passes through the dead truck yard, the driver of the black Escalade rolled up beside Anthony’s vehicle and lowered his window.
“All ten trucks are at the loading docks. You go in first and make sure the drivers check out.” He smiled in a lopsided sneer. “If you walk back out, we’ll go in and sweep the warehouse with you.”
Anthony nodded, checked the clip in his nine-millimeter, and rolled up to the loading dock knowing all eyes were on him. He’d either get a bullet in his back from Roberto’s suspicious men or several in the chest from drivers who didn’t know him—or Colombians who assumed he was a betrayer, which he was by all counts.
He stepped through the darkened loading dock door and ten armed drivers with several shotgun riders nodded at him as he walked across the floor.
“Roberto’s security team needs to sweep the building before the meeting,” he called out to the most menacing driver.
A pair of dark eyes considered him and then nodded. Anthony turned on his heel, straining to hear the slightest movement or a hammer click, and walked back out into the late afternoon sunlight. Then he motioned to the black Escalade waiting in the distance.
“Vamanos!”
* * *
Hours had gone by, and she was bouncing off the wall. From her high window she could see Mardi Gras revelers clogging the streets and the sound of New Orleans jazz thrummed outside the windows. The city had its own pulse that could practically be felt through the floorboards.
But being trapped in the bedroom was, for all intents and purposes, like being on a stakeout. Boring. Long. Tiresome. But necessary.
As far as the men in the house knew, she’d taken a Xanax and was out cold. Trying to get a call off would be foolhardy, in case there was a hidden camera or mic. She’d even body-blocked washing the pill down the sink and faked taking it with her water. Then she had taken a few fake bites of toast, inconspicuously spit them in her hand, and finally washed her hands so the bread would melt into the pipes unseen. Although she hadn’t eaten all day, the last thing she could stomach was food, not when stress nausea had replaced hunger.
So she watched Mardi Gras from the window, her gaze sweeping the street for any incursion, her gun only an arm’s length away in her purse on the nightstand. But her mind was a million miles away.
“Camille!”
Hector’s angry voice shattered the calm. Something was wrong. His tone prepared her for battle as she dashed into the hallway with her weapon and headed for the back stairs.
Several footfalls stampeded up the main staircase, and she could hear a man rushing up the back steps.
“Puta Negro! You fucking whore!”
Hector hit the hallway landing at the same time Rico burst through the top hallway door. Brandishing his cell phone, Hector raised a Beretta and squeezed hard, Rico pushed Sage out of the way yelling.
“What the fu—”
The bullet hit Rico square in the chest. Blood splatter stained the back stairs hall door before his body dropped to the hardwood floor with a loud thud. Men yelled in the near distance just behind Hector. Sage fired instantly, blowing Hector back into the arms of the men who’d just reached the landing. Then she screamed for dramatic effect. She’d meant to hit his arm, that part was on purpose. But he lunged at her at the last moment, causing her to nail him in the right side of his chest—now in the chaos, him still living might create a diversion that could save her life. Taking him into custody alive had been the plan. DEA could descend on him once he was in a hospital. But he wouldn’t last long with that much blood loss. Shit!
Weapon lowered, she spoke in a high-pitched panic to the men who’d surrounded the boss’s brother. Her life depended on keeping the confusion swirling. “He tried to kill me and Rico!”
“What the fuck happened?” a guard shouted, afraid to shoot her and find out he’d been wrong, clearly not knowing what to do.
“He shot Rico!” she screamed, crumpling against the wall to maintain her cover and told the truth: It was self-defense. “He came up shouting and waving a gun. Then he pointed it at me.”
Nervous guards split up, two standing over Rico’s dead body, knowing that it was hopeless, while four others held Hector.
“C’mon, man … c’mon, man. We gonna get Doc to get you straight. Hang in there,” a bloodied guard said, trying to stop the torrent of blood gushing from Hector’s chest.
“No, man—it’s fucking Mardi Gras!” another panicked guard shouted. “We’ve gotta get him to a hospital now, homes. He’ll bleed out waiting on Doc or an ambulance.”
“Okay, okay, get the car,” the one holding Hector said as another guard tried to staunch the bleeding with his jacket. “Oh, man, why you gotta get loco on us now while Roberto ain’t here. What the fuck, man?”
Hector’s mouth began moving even as his eyes rolled back. It was evident that he was trying to tell them something, but the overwrought guards were more focused on trying to save his life.
“Do something, bitch! Get a towel or something!” the man working on the wound yelled.
Blocked from the front hallway stairs by the men gathered around Hector, and with her room and the general bathroom at the other end of the hall beyond their frenetic chaos, she passed Rico’s body and fled down the back stairs to the kitchen to supposedly fetch towels.
She never stopped running. Out the back door, into the courtyard holding a gun, she quickly maneuvered the gate latch and cracked the heavy metal barrier open, and then slipped through it. Looking back once, she saw one of Roberto’s men at the now open bedroom window, but at least she had a head start on them.
During Mardi Gras, it was definitely faster running through the French Quarter than trying to navigate traffic. The narrow streets were clogged with very happy, very inebriated tourists, and the main thoroughfares were clogged with floats, bands, and marchers of all stripes. In that regard, it was a great place to get lost in and the din of the crowd was even enough to drown out the occasional gunshot—something that would be attributed to the party and not a homicide tonight, which—depending on who was shooting—was either a very good thing or a very bad thing.
Stashing her weapon beneath her blouse in the back waistband of her pants, she shoved past sweaty painted bodies, jumping a float procession, to head away from the river and the Bourbon Street and Canal Street mayhem. Her cell was back at the house, abandoned with her purse. She had to get to a hotel desk, a police station, somewhere she could commandeer a phone and find quick cover from the two men she was sure had come out on foot to follow her.
Ducking into an alley, she quickly caught her breath. Four would stay with the fallen—two riding in the front seat as driver and man riding shotgun, two in the back to carry Hector and hold him up. That was the safest bet to ensure Roberto didn’t shoot them for allowing his brother to bleed to death on the house floor. But two had to recover her to either save her from sure danger in the streets with Colombians lurking nearby, or to bring her to justice for shooting his brother … and for whatever crimes Hector had found out she’d committed against the family.
Pushing away from the wall, she headed back out into the street and ran toward the Hotel Monteleone. DEA had to have seen her leave the house on foot followed by two or more gunmen. As she rounded the corner, an agent wearing a Kevlar vest came out of the shadows and turned to fire at a pursuer, but a rooftop sniper’s bullet slammed into his vest, sending the agent sprawling. Sage flattened herself against the wall for a second to take dead aim at the man running toward her, and jumped back as his head exploded several feet from her.
Grabbing the fallen agent by the vest, she dragged him into the dark shadows of an alley and felt for his vitals. He was alive, Kevlar had saved him, but somebody didn’t mean for him to make it.
Quickly finding his radio, she opened a channel and looked at the streets from the shadows. “Man down! Man down, hit in vest, still breathing—in the alley on Iberville between Burgundy and Dauphine. We’ve got a sniper. Must be Colombian, because they took out one of Salazar’s men. I’ve been made. Out!”
She loosened the man’s vest and made sure he could breathe, and took a defensive position behind a Dumpster in the narrow alley to protect the fallen. If she left him, they’d put a bullet in his head. But a shadow at the far end of the alley didn’t call out to her that he was DEA or raise a weapon when the unidentified caught a glimpse of her. Instead of barreling forward, he disappeared.
Sage looked up and moved along the wall with her weapon cocked. They might be jumping rooftops to fire down on her from a strategic position or rounding the building to do a quick takedown. She headed out into the street, running now, forced to leave the fallen man. When she looked over her shoulder she saw agents converging on the alley. That could have been what spooked the shooter. A man’s foot splattered with blood was barely noticeable as she passed it—but he had on expensive Italian leathers. Had to be one of Roberto’s. His two security henchmen who had been chasing her were history. So were whatever secrets they carried. The Monteleone was only a couple of blocks away.
Something stabbed into her neck. She whirled on the sensation, her elbow connecting with facial cartilage, as she brought her knee up to a groin and stomped down hard on a kneecap that shattered. Stumbling backward, she yanked the needle out of her neck and grabbed onto a street lamppost. New Orleans was loud and hot and chaotic and confusing and blurry … but someone caught her before she hit the ground.
* * *
Agent Alvarez, posing as Rene Santiago, stood beside him, and Anthony kept his eyes forward as Roberto walked along the open truck bays. He’d been introduced to Dominic Reyes, Sammy Garza, and Alfonzo Gutierrez, and he was filling in for Miguel Estevez, who’d been taken into police custody to make room for his entry at the table.
Interestingly enough, Anthony noted, Assad and his men were also here. At this juncture, they were probably only concerned with getting their money, which was to be provided by Alvarez and the four other distributors.
The product checked out and the trucks were loaded. Each distributor had a large black case with a million dollars in it that they slid across the floor to Assad and his three men. Assad picked up two cases and each of his men took one.
“At the casino, we will wait for the word from Aalam Bashir to transfer funds to your man, Charles Wallace … once our weapons are in place.” Assad calmly turned and walked away, each man getting into a nondescript rental car and driving off.
“You have just made a very wise choice to become wealthy men,” Roberto said, smiling. “Each one of these trucks will take a different route with armed guards along the route to your legitimate warehouses, and then in much smaller weight via vans to your processing plants. The hard part is done. Now you just have to sell the goddamned product!”
Laughter rang out in the warehouse. A guard handed Roberto a bottle of chilled Cristal, and then a forklift rolled forward with cases of the bubbly. Guards worked quickly to break open cases and began handing out cold champagne to the distributors and their men.
“A toast,” Roberto said, popping his cork. “To being wealthy motherfuckers and Mardi Gras!”
More laughter rang out as champagne head splashed on the ground and bottles belched open. But Anthony and Alvarez watched as Roberto took a call, his expression darkened, and the bottle he’d been holding slid from his grip to shatter on the cement floor. Silence instantly eclipsed all merrymaking. Roberto held up his hand to keep guards from firing as a car sped up, careening into the driveway, and a bloody, gasping guard jumped out of the BMW.<
br />
“She shot Hector! Rico is dead!” he shouted, breathing hard. “Two of our men went after her, Mario and Manuel, and they’re now dead in the street! DEA is all over this. Hector was trying to warn us! This was on his phone, Roberto!”
The distraught guard tossed Roberto the cell phone and he stood motionless, playing back the shaky video. From Anthony’s vantage point, the images were damning. Sage was in the red Mercedes in hot pursuit of the Colombians who had hit Bruno and then fired on her team. Something in the dashboard or mirror of the vehicle had been recording. In the heat of battle, she’d called in to DEA for reinforcement. She did not look like a distraught fiancée or an innocent. She looked like a cop, a badge, law enforcement, and from the look on Roberto’s face, if he found her first, she wouldn’t live long to explain.
“What’s this mean, Roberto?” Alfonzo Gutierrez called out. “We need to move this shit pronto, hombre, if you got a fucking leak. Your woman is DEA? Is that who fucked up a hundred and fifty mil? You stupid—”
Roberto drew on Gutierrez like lightning, but multiple gun clicks from his security and Roberto’s created a temporary standoff.
“Move the trucks and get my product out of here,” another distributor shouted.
The armed driver teams nodded and headed for their trucks. Then all hell broke loose.
CHAPTER 15
Machine-gun fire strafed the trucks’ cabins, shattering windows and instantly killing the drivers. Distributors scattered, shooting out of the truck bays at the loading dock and taking cover, not sure who the enemy was or where they were coming from. Mercenary commandos stormed the building and grabbed a fleeing Roberto, but they didn’t execute him. It wasn’t DELTA, it wasn’t DEA—that much Anthony knew for sure. He hadn’t given the order, nor had Alvarez, but once the shooting started, his unit and Alvarez’s team would drop the hammer.
