by Logan Fox
“Well,” the motel manager said in a slow drawl. “Luckily for you, son, I happen to know a few numbers off the top of my head.”
Angel frowned at him. “You know Senor West?”
“Sure I do. He’s kinda famous around here.”
Angel shrugged. “You have number?”
“I’ll do you one better,” the guy said, and fumbled around on the reception counter for a few seconds. “I’ll even call him for you myself.”
A cellphone appeared on the counter. The manager pressed a few buttons then held it to his ear. He gave Angel a wide smile, and then began speaking in rapid English, too fast for Angel to catch more than a few words.
“…Mexican…asking…Zachary’s number.”
The guy bit off a piece of candy and chewed thoughtfully while he listened to whatever the person on the other line was saying. Angel watched silently.
“…speak…renting…night duty…keep…eye…”
Angel frowned. Then he reached for the cellphone. The guy put up a finger, and hesitantly said, “Yeah, hey, listen. Guy wants…put him on.”
The man handed Angel the phone with another wide smile.
The device was warm when Angel put it to his ear. “Beunos dias,” Angel said into the phone. “May I talk to—”
“Who is this?” asked the person on the other end of the line in fluent Spanish.
Angel didn’t recognize the voice at all. He hesitated for a second. But he’d made his decision last night already. “Angel.”
“And what makes you think you can just call and speak to Don Zachary, Angel?”
“He has my brother,” Angel said. He swallowed, and willed the pit in his stomach to disappear. “And I have Eleodora Rivera.”
64
Shut up and listen
“He tell you where he was going?” Lars asked as he shoved his legs into his jeans. His usual smile wasn’t in sight again this morning; instead, he wore a small, permanent frown between his pale brows.
“Just out,” Finn said. He shrugged. “I didn’t feel the need to interrogate him.”
“Fucking should have,” Lars said. “That guy’s been trouble from the word go. He leaves here, wounded and barefoot, and that didn’t raise any red flags?”
“How far could he have gone?” Finn asked. “He’s probably trying to hitch a ride or something.”
“Or,” Lars said, lifting a finger, “or he could be going around saying stuff like, ‘Oh, si, where I find Mexico border?’”
Finn rolled his eyes and then squeezed his lids shut with his fingers. “Jesus, you’re a fucking drama queen.”
“He could be out there right now, trying to—”
The motel room’s door handle rattled. “Hello?” came Angel’s voice from outside.
Finn swept a hand to the door as he rose to answer it. “You were saying?”
“I wouldn’t give him a ride either,” Lars snapped.
Cora sat up in bed, watching the two of them arguing, still wearing nothing but a towel and a slightly worried expression. Finn watched her face as he opened the door and Angel limped inside, a bag of sweets dangling from one hand. Her eyes brightened a little, and then a shadow crossed her face almost immediately.
He closed the door as Lars began tossing Cora’s clothes at her. “Here, put on something decent,” the man growled, giving Angel a foul look before disappearing into the bathroom.
Cora sat with her clothes in her lap, looking confused. “Sure, I’ll just do that,” she muttered. Then she unhooked her towel and began unwrapping it.
Finn grabbed Angel’s shoulder as the man walked past him and spun him to face the door. Then he stood facing the same way, glancing beside him at Angel as they waited for Cora to get dressed.
Angel opened the packet of sweets and offered them to Finn.
He gave them a look and snorted. “Bad for your teeth.”
“I have good teeth,” Angel countered. He chewed one of the sweets, and then took another, fidgeting with it more than anything else. Behind them, Cora cursed quietly under her breath as clothes rustled.
Finn saw Angel’s head turning ever so slightly, and cleared his throat. The guy faced forward again in a hurry and shoved the sweet in his mouth.
“Where’d you go?” Finn asked.
“Out.”
“There isn’t a whole of anything out there.”
“Shop,” Angel said, hoisting the sweets again. “Want?”
“You always have a sudden craving for sugar at the crack of dawn?”
“¿Que?” Angel said, looking up at him with a frown.
“Forget it,” Finn grumbled. He risked a glance over his shoulder. Cora was straightening her shirt, but other than that she was fully dressed. Finn took his seat at the dresser again. “Lars?”
“What?” came the man’s voice from the bathroom.
“You gonna be long in there?”
Lars ripped open the door. “Guess not,” he muttered, and then went over to Cora. She squeaked in surprise when he grabbed her shoulders and forced her to sit on the edge of the bed.
“You shut up and listen,” he said, seeming to ignore Finn’s frown when he turned to take a seat beside her.
Cora opened her mouth, and then shut it again.
Finn cleared his throat again, then glanced at Angel. He was still standing close to the doorway, another sweet in his fingers. When he saw Finn looking at him, he offered the bag of sweets again.
“No!” Finn said. “Get out.”
“Finn,” Cora began.
“I go,” Angel said, sounding relieved. The motel door closed softly behind him.
“You don’t have to be so rude,” Cora said, and then cast Lars a quick glance as if expecting a reprimand for speaking.
Finn sat forward, his elbows on his knees, and laced his fingers together. “Things have gotten fucked up.”
Cora watched him, her gaze flickering across his eyes. Then she nodded.
“Worst case scenario,” Lars said, “both Martin and West still want to get their hands on you.”
She opened her mouth, and then shut it again. Ducked her head. Began twisting her hands in her lap.
“I don’t think Martin’s necessarily out to hurt you, but he seems to have his own fucking agenda,” Finn said.
“And don’t forget he seemed perfectly happy with using Milo as target practice,” Lars added. “That strike you as the action of a sane person?”
“Maybe he thought you were trying to—”
Lars flicked her ear with his fingers. She yelped and turned an astonished face to him. “What did I say about speaking?”
Her mouth fell open, and she held out a hand, staring at Finn as if asking him to intervene.
“Just let us talk, Cora.”
She closed her mouth, but reluctantly, and tightly crossed her arms over her chest.
“We’re taking you away from here. We need to regroup. Change identities. Whatever we can to get off their radars,” Finn said.
Cora looked as if she was bursting to speak, but held her tongue.
“However…” Lars looked across at him, and his mouth twisted reluctantly. “There’s something you should know first.”
Cora glanced up at that, turning worried eyes first to Lars, and then Finn.
“Obviously we can’t confirm it, not stuck out here, but…” Finn paused, glancing toward the motel door before looking back at her. “Javier said you were his goddaughter.”
Cora sat up at this, her face growing slack. The swelling had down a little during the night, but the left side of her face still looked a bit puffy and tender. The scratches were starting to scab. Hopefully they wouldn’t leave scars.
Although she’d look smoking hot with a pale scar over her cheek.
Finn pushed away the random thought and shrugged. “Until you’re twenty-one, that could mean Javier’s your legal guardian.”
“Unless you emancipate,” Lars said.
“Which you’d probab
ly have to do in Mexico, since you’re an illegal,” Finn said.
“I’m his goddaughter?” Cora whispered.
Lars didn’t flick her ear this time. Perhaps he thought the announcement deserved a little back-and-forth.
“That’s what he said.” Finn shrugged. “He could be lying, of course…”
“I…” Cora ducked her head. “It’s possible. My father thought the world of him. I guess, if something happened to Papá, there wouldn’t be anyone else to—” She cut off, and blinked back tears.
Finn scratched the back of his neck, and glanced across at Lars. “Then…there’s something else you should probably know.”
Cora’s face went pale. Two spots of color popped onto her cheeks.
God, why was this so difficult? And Lars seemed to be waiting him out instead of jumping in. Guess he had it coming. He’d kept Lars out of this whole thing for days; the man had every right to be upset.
“Before I met you, Lars and I—”
“You were a couple?” Cora put in, her voice quavering.
Finn deflated. “I wouldn’t say—”
“Jesus,” Lars said dryly. “We fucked a few times, that’s it.”
When he looked across at Lars, the man wasn’t making eye contact with him.
Cora turned round eyes to Lars, and then began fidgeting with the collar of her shirt. “Oh,” she said, and then swallowed visibly.
“That’s it?” Lars said, the ghost of a smile playing on his lips. “No questions? You don’t want to know what we got up to—”
“Lars,” Finn said gruffly. “This isn’t the time.”
“Yeah?” Lars shot him a quick look, and then his eyes darted to the closed motel room door. “Think Angel’s going to bust in on us? ‘Cos I was thinking we could show her what we—”
“Enough,” Finn said hastily, drawing Cora’s eyes back to him.
He didn’t know what he’d expected. Revulsion, astonishment, anger. Instead, something else brimmed from those bright golden eyes, a kind of hedonistic curiosity.
It was probably his imagination. After what she’d seen him do to that guy yesterday, there was no way she could ever look at him like a woman looked at a man. Not without seeing the violence teeming just beneath the surface. How could you be vulnerable in the face of something so destructive?
“Look, I can’t see into the future. All I know is, we got to get you somewhere far away from the cartels,” Finn said, loud enough to drown out the thoughts in his head. “I was thinking—”
“Ah, fuck you Finn,” Lars said. “You seriously not going to be honest with her?”
Finn closed his mouth and threw Lars a meaningful glare which the man completely failed to see. Lars tucked a curl of Cora’s hair behind her ear. She shivered, and dropped her gaze into her lap.
“What he’s too shit scared to say, is that he’s fallen hard for you.”
“Lars,” Finn growled, but the man flat-out ignored him.
“You see, bunny, I know Finn. We’ve been friends for years. I know when some chick comes along and uses his heart for a punching bag.”
Cora glared up at Lars, heat in her eyes and her mouth pulling into a line. “What?” she demanded.
“It probably wasn’t intentional,” Lars said soothingly, still playing with a curl of her hair, “But you did it nonetheless.” He gave Finn a quick glance. “So it’s not good for us to keep hanging around you. But we’ll make sure you don’t ever have to worry about the cartels again.”
“And then?” Cora asked in a shaking voice. “Then I’ll never see you again?”
Finn rose. “That’s the plan,” he said quietly.
Cora turned to Lars, as if seeking some kind of explanation. Lars shrugged and said simply, “We’ll all be better off without each other.”
His words stung Finn like a slap through the face, but he made himself turn away so he could tell Angel to come back inside. They’d had their talk. It was time to gear up and get themselves to safety. And once Cora was—
As he opened the motel door, there came the sound of a gun cocking. Finn froze, and moved only his eyes to the right. Beside him, stood a stranger and, a little behind him, Angel. The newcomer held a Smith & Wesson magnum in his hands, steady as a statue, and trained it on Finn’s chest.
Larger target. Better chance at getting a hit.
“Who the fuck are you?” Finn grated, loud enough that Lars had to have heard him through the open door. True enough, he heard frantic movement from inside the motel room.
The guy holding the magnum gave him an unpleasant smile, eyes flickering for a second to the room as if he’d heard those furtive noises too. “Tell them not to bother. There’s no way out ‘cept through this door.” A slight dip of the revolver took in the doorway Finn crowded. “And ‘sides,” the man said with a smug little sneer. “Backup’ll be here any second now.”
Finn’s eyes flickered to the grimy sign heralding the motel’s name.
The Elegance.
He’d known it was no fucking coincidence. This motel was probably one of Zachary West’s fronts. And this guy must have been working the counter. Maybe he’d seen one of them who matched a description—
But then Finn’s eyes darted to Angel. The young man held his chin up, eyes blazing with defiance.
“What have you done?” Finn whispered hoarsely.
65
An exorcism
The SUVs arrived less than a minute later. The motel manager shooed Finn to the side, calling for Lars and Cora to come out with their hands up. Finn had hoped Lars would pull some magic trick out of his ass to make him and Cora disappear, but it turned out the motel guy had been right; the only way out was through the front door.
Lars came out first, hands up. Finn saw the pistol tucked into the back of his belt, but it would be suicidal for Lars to try and use it. Especially when those five SUVs came screaming into the motel’s parking lot. A few doors down, the man who’d been sleeping off his hangover came out, looking bleary-eyed.
He didn’t seem to notice anything unusual at first, until he happened to look up while trying to get his car door open. Then his mouth fell open and he ran back inside his room, slamming the door shut.
Would he call the cops? Would that even fucking help?
“You goddamn piece of shit,” Lars said to Angel.
“Hey, back up,” the manager said, pointing his magnum at Lars’s gut. Lars grimaced at the man and then glared at Angel. “It was you, wasn’t it? I knew we couldn’t—”
The manager slammed the butt of his pistol into Lars’s face. Lars twisted a little, touching the cut above his eye, and straightened again. “You hit like a fucking girl,” he spat.
“Where’s she?” the manager asked.
A troop of ten armed men climbed out of the SUVs and formed a rough circle. Another two disappeared off to the side, no doubt circling around in case Cora could somehow squeeze through the bathroom window.
Could she?
Finn’s heart stalled. But no, he’d seen that window. It was little more than a gap for air to flow through.
No place to run.
No place to hide.
“I fetch,” Angel said, and sidled into the room before the manager could say anything.
Jesus, the guy had no shame. They could have left Angel there in Javier’s compound. But no, Cora’d had a fucking vision or something. More likely, she’d still been under the influence of whatever cocktail Javier had fed her.
Angel came limping out, holding Cora by the arm. She didn’t fight him, and almost limped as badly as he did. But when she saw the SUVs and the pair of armed men drawing closer, she stiffened.
Perhaps remembering how it had felt to get kicked in the jaw.
One of the men stopped a few yards away. They all wore shades and dark clothing, like some kind of mob uniform. Did none of these fucking cartels have the time to pick out colors or something? They all seemed to dress the same. Must be hard, figuring out who was on
your team when there was a cartel war.
Then Finn stared harder. To the side, a third man was walking closer. Calmly, but with intent. And heading straight for Cora.
“Hey,” Finn said, holding out a hand. “You’re going to have to get through me first if you—”
But the man ignored him. He walked right up to Angel, drew a Five-seveN pistol from its holster, and shot Angel in the face.
Cora let out a short, sharp scream. Both he and Lars had flinched. He expected her to run to Angel’s side, perhaps cradle the young man’s dead body. But she stared at him as he rammed into the motel room’s wall, and then watched his body slide down. There was a spray of blood and brain matter on the wall behind him, a streak following his body to the ground.
But his eyes were blank now. No more hatred. No more doubt. Whatever demons had infested his mind, they’d finally been exorcised.
Cora stepped forward, ducking her head a little so she could see under the shooter’s black cap.
“Miguel?” Cora said. “What—”
And then the hatred writ so plain on that face melted away. A cheery, lopsided smile replaced it. “Princesa!”
Finn recognized him too now.
Miguel waved a hand to the SUVs. “Come, come,” he said, voice oozing charm. “Tío is waiting for you.”
This time, when they arrived at Javier’s compound, the man was waiting at the steps of his villa to greet them. Along with several of his guards, all armed, all looking twitchy. Cora sat in the car until the sicario who’d come to sit beside her prompted her out with the muzzle of his assault rifle. She’d had to travel alone with him and Miguel, and a third man driving shotgun. Finn and Lars had each been bundled into separate cars.
Looked like Javier wasn’t taking any more chances with them.
“Elle,” Javier called, spreading his arms wide.
A wave of deja-vu flowed over her, thick and nauseating. It was like the first day she’d arrived here, if she didn’t take into account all her injuries.
If Javier was put out by the sight of her, he didn’t show it. The rifle in the small of her back forced her forward and up the steps, until she was in reach of Javier.
