King's Reign (The Xander King Series Book 4)

by Bradley Wright

  “Okay, you’ve got my attention. But I want to hear all of the options.”

  “That won’t be necessary, I assure you.”

  “Then lay it on us.”

  “Javier Romero.”

  Xander set down his glass. “This better be good. I’ve had my fill of Mexican thugs already this week.”

  “He is one of the largest drug lords in Mexico. Responsible for more than half of the narcotics that have made their way into Southern California over the last twenty-five years.”

  “Nope. Pass. Pasadena. Come on, Sam, you know drug dealers don’t do it for me.”

  Sam sat up. “Are you quite through? Let me finish, yeah?”

  Xander held up both hands as if to say, “Geez, okay, go on then.”

  “I knew the drugs wouldn’t be your fancy, but over the past year his men have been linked to one of the fastest growing human trafficking rings—sex slaves really—in North America.”

  That got Xander’s attention. “All right, now you’re talking.”

  Ever since Xander saved a few young girls from the basement of Miguel Juarez’s compound in Chula Vista, California, he’d been hoping that one day he would get a chance to stop that trade run at its origin.

  “Thought that would perk your ears.” Sam stood and paced the large round table that was cast in the orange rays of the setting sun. “Millions of dollars are changing hands while thousands of young lives are being destroyed. The part that makes this more difficult, however, is twofold. One, they are also moving a massive amount of illegal weapons with these truckloads of young girls. Always several men on board, heavily guarding their shipments.”

  “And the other problem?” Xander wasn’t really concerned with the armed men. What mission didn’t have armed men?

  “The other problem is more difficult. No one gets close to Javier Romero. His compound is unlike any we’ve ever encountered. It is nestled in the mountains down in Sinaloa, Mexico. And there is no getting in without being invited.”

  “Come on, Sam. No getting in?” Xander was skeptical.

  “No getting in. But . . .”

  “I knew there was a way in.” Xander smiled.

  “Only because you are who you are.”

  Xander stood and leaned forward, both palms resting on the table.

  “I don’t get it. We’re going to introduce ourselves before we kill him?”

  “Precisely, and you are quite possibly the only man in the world that he would let inside his little circle. And it is the only reason we are taking him on as a target.”

  “The suspense is killing me.”

  “Horse racing. The man has a fetish for horse racing. Like you, he thinks the ‘Sport of Kings’ is the greatest sport in the world.”

  “All right, I see the connection, but what does that have to do with getting on the inside?”

  “Well, Romero has been wanting to break into horse racing in America for years. And for years he has been growing his stables in Sinaloa,” Sam continued to explain. “The problem for him is no one will take him seriously in the US because the level of competition that his horses run against is widely considered mediocre at best.”

  “So you think he will open his home to me, for what, so I’ll put in the good word?” Now Xander began to pace.

  “Not that simple. After a couple of phone calls as your assistant, I was able to speak with Romero himself.”

  “Wait, what? So the man who is impossible to get close to now all of a sudden calls you back himself? You’re losing me, Sammy.”

  “No, I know, I was shocked as well. But it seems that the prospect of one of his horses winning a race against the horse of a Kentucky Derby–winning owner was all it took for him to jump all over personally inviting you, and the horse of your choice, down to Sinaloa for an impromptu exhibition race. And he wants to do it this Saturday as part of a show he already had scheduled. A lot of wealthy people are coming into town. He’s throwing a party, supposedly to get some hype going for his horses. But I believe it is for something much more sinister.”

  “What?” Xander was flabbergasted. “This is crazy. Even if I had a horse that was ready to run in a couple of days, there is no way I would interrupt the schedule Gary has mapped out to get them ready for the Derby next May.”

  Gary Trudough was Xander’s trainer for all the Thoroughbreds in his stable. Xander trusted him implicitly when it came to his horses. He always had. And winning the Derby and the Preakness last year with King’s Ransom cemented that trust forever.

  “All taken care of. I spoke with Gary today and he said he could shuffle some things around if it’s what you really wanted. He didn’t get it but said you must have your reasons.”

  “What I really wanted? How did you know I would even want to be a part of all this in the first place?”

  Sam emphatically placed both hands on her hips. Her face was telling him to “wake up.”

  “Xander, it is quite literally the mission of a lifetime for you. You get to fly in on your jet, smoke cigars, drink some bourbon, watch one of your precious horses conquer a field of inadequate equines, all while stopping a power-hungry tyrant from shipping innocent young girls off to be degraded and ruined by other power-hungry sexual deviants all across the United States.”

  Xander stood quietly for a moment. Sam waited patiently.

  “Well, when you put it that way . . .”

  “Sounds like she nailed this one, son,” Jack said.

  Kyle agreed. “X, we’ve got to do this one. It’s perfect.”

  “And it is the perfect cover to have all of us come along with you,” Sam said.

  “How’s that?” Xander asked.

  Sam motioned around the table. “All of them can be part of the racing team. Publicist, assistant trainer, and, hell, Jack is an actual cowboy, he won’t even have to act.”

  Xander raised his eyebrows and shrugged, acknowledging that she had a point.

  “What about you?” Xander asked Sam.

  “Well, I’ll be your girlfriend.”

  “What?” Xander laughed.

  “Don’t act like it’s so out of the question.”

  Xander couldn’t help himself; it had been too long since he’d been around to give Sam a hard time. “No offense, but you really think that they would buy you with me?”

  He of course was just poking fun. Sam was as gorgeous as any woman he’d ever been around. But the beauty of a brother-sister relationship is that you get free license to give each other hell.

  “Oh, go to hell. Besides, Romero has a girlfriend around my age. It will be a good opportunity to stay close to you but possibly get some easy intel if I can get her to have a few too many drinks.”

  “Close to me?” Xander didn’t let it die. “Whoa, whoa, I can see right now that we are going to have to set some boundaries for this mission. It’s just business, Sam, there won’t be any funny business.”

  “Good God, will you ever grow up?”

  Jack laughed. “I sure hope not, this is pretty fun to watch.”

  “If that is all, I have some more arrangements to make.” Sam was through playing games. “Someone actually has to work around here.”

  “Aw, Sam. You know I love you . . .” Xander paused for effect. “Not in that way, of course. Damn, this is getting weird already.”

  Sam rolled her eyes and said good night. Jack and Zhanna followed suit, and Xander invited Kyle to have a drink and a cigar before they turned in.

  Kyle held up his finger. “Let me just go change my shirt and I’ll be right back.”

  “Change before we smoke?”

  “Yeah, it will just take a second. You gonna be right here?”

  “I’ll pour the drinks.”

  “Perfect, be right back.”

  Xander grabbed two glasses from the table as Kyle ran off into the cabin. He walked over to the starboard stern and pulled two cigars from his travel humidor. Kyle didn’t seem like anything was terribly wrong, but he knew his friend
, and something was certainly off. As he looked back at the marina in the distance, the mountain rising up behind it, the tangerine sky shining on its peak, seagulls floating together on a warm breeze, he couldn’t help but be excited. He was right where he wanted to be, with the people he wanted to be with, getting ready to do some terrible things in the name of justice, just as he was meant to.

  He reached in his pocket, and after thumbing around for his cigar cutter, he remembered it was sitting on the nightstand in his room. He set the cigars down on the lounge chair and took his glass of King’s Ransom bourbon with him inside. He walked around the main salon, and just before he made it through the galley, something caught his eye just outside the entryway. It looked like Kyle from behind. Xander stepped outside the door onto the outer walkway.

  “What in the—” Xander dropped his glass, and it shattered on the teakwood below his feet. Kyle whipped around at the crashing sound, startled, and so too was Sam. Kyle didn’t realize it, but he still had his arm wrapped around Sam’s waist, her deep-red lipstick smeared on his face.

  “Good God, X, I thought you were at the back of the boat.” Kyle didn’t know what to say.

  “Nope, but mystery solved, I guess, on why you’ve been acting so damn weird. How long’s this been going on?” Xander wasn’t mad. He wasn’t even shocked. It just felt odd that they hadn’t told him.

  Sam pulled away from Kyle. “Nothing’s going on, we were, we just . . .”

  “Sam, it’s fine. I love you guys. I love you even more together. This has been a long time in the making. The only thing I hate is that Kyle won’t make fun of you with me anymore. Now that hurts.”

  The tension fell from both Kyle’s and Sam’s shoulders. Kyle said, “We’ve been wanting to tell you forever, we just . . . couldn’t find the right time.”

  “It’s fine. Really.” Xander meant it. He was happy for both of them. “So are we going to have that cigar, or are you gonna finish what you’ve started there, Kyle?”

  “You boys go have your cigar. I’ll be in my room, Kyle.”

  “Vomit,” Xander joked. “Is this going to be awkward, me being your boyfriend this weekend?”

  Sam sighed. Then on her way inside she said, “No more awkward than you were already going to make it.”

  Xander smiled at Kyle.

  “Touché.”

  7

  Meet the Tarters

  With surfboards jutting out the back, a black Jeep Wrangler pulled into the driveway of the beach house that sat on the boardwalk in Pacific Beach, a small beach community in San Diego, California. David Tarter stood staring out the living room window. He was livid. For the last hour he had been pacing the room, waiting on his younger brother and sister to show up with their friend. Waiting on them to show up at the meeting he had given them a full day’s notice about. But it wasn’t a surprise to David that they were late. His brother and sister did this all the time. Like they had no responsibilities in the world. If it hadn’t been his mother’s dying wish that he bring them in and take care of them, he would have cut them out a long time ago.

  “Is that them?” Jonathan Haag asked David from the kitchen table.

  Haag was David’s right hand. Had been since they did a couple of tours together a few years ago in the Middle East, and even further than that, all the way back to grade school. They were both well known for their fearlessness. And they were both equally known for their ruthlessness. It’s ultimately what handed them their dishonorable discharge papers from the Navy SEALs. The two of them had wanted out for a while. The only reason they’d joined up was because it was the only way the two of them could stay out of trouble. But in the end, all it did was teach them how to find trouble and not get caught.

  “Yeah, it’s them,” David answered.

  “This shit has to stop, David. I love your family, but they aren’t cut out for this. They just want to play all day and party all night. This stuff is too serious to have them mess it up. And way too expensive if they screw it up for us.”

  “Look, this is the way it is. You don’t like it, find another way to make money.”

  Haag frowned and shook his head. “I hear you, brother. I know you’re doing this for your mom—”

  David turned and shouted, “Don’t!” His muscles rippled under his black tank top.

  Jon held up his hands. David wasn’t a man whose anger you wanted directed at you.

  “Just get them in line. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “You worry about the job. Let me worry about them.”

  David heard the doors shut on the Jeep. He couldn’t wait until they got inside. This was the reason he’d purchased the two beach houses on either side of this one, so he could keep these sorts of things private, even when it was out in the driveway. He flung open the back door and rushed outside.

  “David.” A young surfer-looking man with straight blond hair down past the middle of his neck walked toward David with his hands up. “David, calm down, I know we’re a little late, but—”

  “But nothing,” David charged at him, took him by his T-shirt, and slammed him up against the passenger door of the Jeep. “Tommy, you’re over an hour late. You think this is a game?”

  “No, David, I don’t think this is a game. Relax, bro.”

  “Bro?” David slammed him again.

  “David, relax!” a young dark-haired woman shouted from behind him. “It just took longer than we thought to get Greg. What’s your problem?”

  David turned toward her. “Was I talking to you, Lisa? Huh?” David released his brother and stepped back so he could look at all of them. “Don’t give me this ‘it just took a little longer’ bullshit. You don’t think that I can see that your hair is wet and you have surfboards in the back? You don’t think I smell the weed and Jack Daniels on your breath? This happens again, you’re out. You hear me?” He pointed a finger at all three of them.

  “Good!” Tommy shouted back. “You aren’t Mom. You can’t tell us what to do. We’re twenty-five years old, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Yeah? And you act like you’re fifteen. So you’re out then? You think I need you? Be out. And both of you get your stuff out of the beach house and find somewhere else to mooch.”

  “Mooch? We’ve made you enough money to pay for these houses ourselves!” Tommy shouted.

  “Yeah, working jobs I trained you for, put together for you, and went along with you on, doing all the work.”

  Tommy started to pace. “This is ridiculous, bro. We can pull these jobs on our own. We don’t need you. We’re out.”

  Lisa stepped forward and used her small but powerful frame to put some muscle into pushing her brother Tommy, trying to bring him to his senses. “No, we are not out.” She turned to David. “We are not out. You’re right. We were partying, that’s why we were late. It won’t happen again.” She looked back to Tommy. “Right, Tommy?”

  Tommy bowed up a little, then after a second, better judgment kicked in. He knew David was his meal ticket.

  “Right.”

  Lisa turned to their friend, Greg, the last one in the group involved in their underground family business. “Right, Greg?”

  Greg, a dark-haired version of Tommy, stepped forward. “I got no problem. I’m just happy to be here.”

  Greg had been a lifelong family friend, the son of one of their mother’s best friends. That’s the only reason he was ever involved.

  Lisa looked back to David. “We good?”

  “No, we’re not good. All of you get inside, we’ve got work to do.”

  8

  Make It Reign

  The sun was rising from behind the deep blue ocean, casting its first golden rays over the island of Saint Thomas. Kyle, Zhanna, Sam, and Xander decided to go for a morning run along the harbor. They tried to convince Jack to go along with them, but he politely told them that the only running he planned on doing was running the coffee machine. Marv agreed, and the two of them also offered to get everything together for th
e plane. They all would be flying that evening to Sinaloa, Mexico, meeting Gary there with Xander’s latest Kentucky Derby hopeful, Heir to the Throne. Since Throne was actually sired by the father of Xander’s Kentucky Derby champion, King’s Ransom, Xander thought it fitting that Ransom’s little brother be named what he is: the next in line to be the king of horse racing.

  “So how good is the new horse?” Kyle asked in between rhythmic jogging breaths. “He’s got big horseshoes to fill.”

  “Good one.” Xander laughed. “He’s even bigger than Ransom if you can believe it. Gary says he’s a step faster too.”

  “Wow. That’s really saying something.”

  “Speaking of fast,” Xander changed the subject, “how quickly has this thing between the two of you been moving?” He swiveled his head between Kyle on his left and Sam on his right, the calm harbor full of boats just beyond her shoulders.

  “Couple of months,” Kyle answered.

  “So, how’d it happen?”

  Sam said, “Kyle knocked on my door one night, sloshed, probably turned down by half a dozen lasses, looking entirely too pitiful to turn away.”

  “Broken man.” Xander laughed. “Love that angle. Usually only buys you one night. Glad to see you could turn it into something more long-term, Kyle.”

  “We’re just having a good go at it. Nothing serious, Xander,” Sam said.

  Xander glanced at Kyle and caught a glimpse of disappointment. He decided to give his old friend a break.

  “So what’s the plan when we get to Mexico?”

  The four of them rounded a turn and headed back toward the yacht.

  Sam answered, “Romero’s people sent over an itinerary. You and I will be staying in the mansion. Everyone else will be in the guesthouse, which I’ve been assured is five-star worthy. Xander, you and I will join Romero for dinner. Tomorrow will be the exhibition race. This will be our first real shot at gathering some intel. Tonight, while everyone is sleeping, I will try to find a way to get you into the mansion. The CIA does have some surveillance of the property, I will be studying those on the plane. I will find something. I already have blueprints, so I will direct you to Romero’s office.”