The Vargas Cartel Trilogy: Books 1 - 3

by Lisa Cardiff

  My heart stuttered. “Oh my God. Please, no more.”

  I tugged my arm back, but Enrique stepped on the chain shackling me to the wall, and the rough metal edges of the cuff tore into my underside of my wrist. He dug his finger into my blistered wound. Curses tangled with screams flowed like a river from my mouth.

  “Two more should be good unless your reactions disappoint me, in which case, I won’t stop with your arm.” He tilted his head to the side. “Now that I think about it, I do enjoy branding my victims.” He brushed his fingertips down my arm. “Do you think Ryker would mind looking at an A while he fucks you?”

  I whimpered and my vision slanted.

  “How many places do you think I’ll be able to brand you before your boyfriend delivers Anna back to us?”

  Panic zipped through me. I squeezed my eyes closed, and my throat narrowed to a pinprick. “I won’t move again. Just finish what you started.”

  He flicked his finger against the middle of my forehead. “No cheating, Miss Covington. You have to watch so you fully appreciate my artistry.”

  “No,” I gasped, hooking my fingers in the hem of my shorts.

  “Open your eyes or I will staple your eyelids to your eyebrows,” he growled.

  Spittle showered my scrunched up face. I bit the inside of my cheek, swallowing back all the insults I wanted to hurl at him. They wouldn’t do anything except bring me more pain. “Go ahead,” I said as I cracked my eyes open one by one. My mind floated as I circled through memory after memory, trying to hold on to anything to stop the pain and the anxiety as I waited for him to brand me again.

  “Buena chica,” he muttered, his voice dripping with ridicule as he pressed the cigar into my arm adjacent to the first mark.

  Tears blurred my vision as I willed myself to stay still and keep my eyes open. Flames of agony rippled through my arm as my skin wilted like burning paper, curling up at the edges. My eyes locked on his. A smile twisted his lips into a sadistic sneer, and he lifted the cigar again. His black eyes glittered with a sick satisfaction as he lit it again and inhaled.

  “Una vez más,” he said as smoke exited his mouth in uneven puffs.

  The cigar smashed against my arm once more. I didn’t move. I didn’t respond. Hate coursed through my veins, and I plotted my revenge. Disjointed thoughts tumbled through my mind, each one more warped than the last. I visualized carving the lines of his tattoos with a knife until a river of blood poured from his arms and neck. I mentally pierced his eyeballs, plucked them out of their sockets and stuffed them down his throat until his suffocated. I imagined his severed body parts scattered across the room.

  I was deranged. My thoughts turned my stomach, but something about conjuring ways to torture and kill Enrique brought me clarity and purpose. It kept my mind from dwelling on the pain, and it gave me the incentive to keep fighting instead of succumbing to the defeat crushing my chest.

  Then, it ended.

  He removed the cigar from my arm for the fourth and hopefully final time. I sucked in a breath, filling my lungs with much-needed air. He caressed the side of my head, and I flinched. His touch made my stomach roll.

  “Don’t touch me,” I hissed through my teeth even though I knew I should’ve kept my mouth shut and feigned compliance.

  He sighed as he pinched my cheek, his dirty fingernails digging into my skin like two arrows. His putrid breath misted over my face. “Don’t be tiresome. I can do whatever I want with you. You’re our prisoner. You’re mine until I decide otherwise.”

  I scoffed and ripped my gaze away from his penetrating stare. He could do what he wanted with me. I knew that, but it didn’t mean I had to like it or acknowledge it.

  Smiling faintly, he stood and tossed the cigar onto the floor. He ground the heel of his black boot into the fat stub. “That’s all for today, but I’ll be back tomorrow to finish the A. Two more should do it.”

  I glanced at my arm for the first time since he finished. Four circular burn marks marred my bicep, creating something that loosely resembled an upside down ‘V’. I glared at him, wishing I could kill him with my hands instead of settling for killing and torturing him in my mind.

  “Have a good night,” he said as he turned to face the door.

  “Wait. I have to go to the bathroom.”

  He didn’t pause. He didn’t stop. He pretended I didn’t exist.

  Juan Alvarez cleared his throat, and I focused my narrowed eyes on him.

  “You can use that,” he said, waving his hand at a small metal pail to my right.

  A tremor rolled through my body. “What about food or water?” My throat was so dry I could barely swallow and my stomach was caving in on itself.

  “I might have someone bring you food in the next hour or two if I remember.” He flipped off the light and engaged the lock, bathing me in shadows again.

  “Fuck you. I hope you burn in hell,” I whispered.

  Chapter Two

  Ryker

  “Good news,” Ignacio said when I walked into his private hospital room twenty-four hours after I discovered Juan Alvarez had abducted Hattie.

  “I find that hard to believe.” I lifted my eyebrows as I settled into a chair on the far side of the room. To me, good news meant Juan Alvarez realized this whole thing was a big misunderstanding, and Hattie was waiting for me at the hotel.

  Ignacio raised the top of his hospital bed into a seated position. “Don’t look so defeated. My sons aren’t losers or whiny pansies. Don’t give up before we’ve started to fight back.”

  I exhaled hard out of my mouth. “Go ahead. Give me the good news.” I hadn’t slept last night. My mind flitted from one dead end to the next, trying to coordinate a rescue effort, but there was one big fucking problem. I had no idea where Juan Alvarez was hiding Hattie, and I didn’t have the connections to figure it out.

  To top off my problems, Rever wouldn’t answer his phone or return my calls. If I couldn’t get Hattie back in the next seventy-two hours, I would fly to Panama, hunt Anna, and drag her ass back here. Pregnant or not, I didn’t give a shit. Hattie came first. Hattie was the only innocent party in this entire fucked up situation.

  “Emanuel has narrowed down Hattie’s location to two safe houses.”

  I leaned forward in my seat. Emanuel acted as Ignacio’s right-hand man for at least ten years now, but he’d been affiliated with the Vargas Cartel for as long as I could remember. He’d systematically worked his way through ranks, and managed to ingratiate himself with Ignacio. In fact, he was the person who contacted me when Ignacio was shot over a week ago.

  “How’d he manage that?”

  Ignacio drummed his fingers on the metal safety rail on the side of his bed. “We have informants inside the Alvarez Cartel.”

  “So how long until he can pinpoint the exact location?” I didn’t want to arrange simultaneous raids of two safe houses. Planning two raids would take time. A lot of time, and time was my enemy. I’d already wasted twenty-four hours. I only had two more days until Juan Alvarez made good on his threat to torture her unless he had already started, which wasn’t altogether unlikely. Unlike in other criminal organizations, Mexican cartels didn’t attribute any value to honesty. In fact, there weren’t any rules except to show as much cruelty as possible in order to send clear and concise messages to your rivals. Mercy equaled weakness in the drug smuggling world.

  “Two or three days. Maybe a week.”

  I shook my head. “That won’t work. I need the information today or tomorrow. I have to attack before the seventy-two hour deadline.”

  Ignacio snorted. “I’ve known Juan Alvarez for a long time and his deadline doesn’t mean anything. I can’t believe he actually mentioned one. If he plans to hurt her, a deadline won’t stop him.”

  I swallowed over the sudden tightness lodged in my throat like a rock. He hadn’t told me anything I didn’t know, but having him utter the words out loud killed any lingering hopes I had about rescuing her before she suffered ment
ally or physically.

  “Yeah.” I rubbed my hand down the side of my face. I hadn’t shaved in days, and the bristles were almost soft to the touch. “You’re probably right, which means every minute counts. I can’t wait a week or two to find her.”

  Ignacio lifted a lidded plastic cup of water and sipped from the curved accordion straw. “Are you sure you want to do this? You could fly home and continue your life. Forget about Hattie, the Vargas Cartel, and Mexico. No one would know and eventually no one would care. She’d be another statistic, and you’d be free.”

  My eyebrows snapped together. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? I would know. Hattie would know. I won’t let her die.” If Ignacio knew about the baby, I don’t think he’d act so cavalier, but I wasn’t ready to tell him or any other member of my family.

  He shifted his weight in the bed. Sadness lined his face. “There’s a real possibility Hattie is already dead or well on her way there.”

  I jumped out of the chair and yanked on the collar of my shirt. I felt like I was coming out of my skin. “She’s not dead.”

  “If she’s not dead, then she probably wishes she were.”

  “No.” I slammed my hand on the rolling food tray next to his bed. His fork clattered to the floor. “Hattie’s strong. She’ll keep fighting. She won’t give up.”

  “And that’s what scares me. When we abducted Hattie, we toyed with her because that’s what the Deverons wanted. If she were any other hostage, we would’ve used her, tortured her, and inevitably killed her. With her bitchy mouth, she wouldn’t have made it three days much less three weeks.”

  “They need her as collateral.”

  “They don’t need anything. There is always another option to get what you want.”

  “If they want Anna in one piece, they won’t harm Hattie.”

  Ignacio sighed. “You haven’t spent much time with me in the last ten years, but the cartels have changed. Sometimes their crimes and viciousness shock the hell out of me, and I thought I’d seen everything. I hate to tell you this, but I know how Juan thinks, and he believes Hattie and Anna are disposable.”

  Rage and fear collided in my chest. My hands shook. I stuffed them into my pockets as I walked to the window to get my emotions under control. I needed to be composed and clearheaded. Knee jerk reactions wouldn’t save Hattie.

  I leaned my forehead against the window. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky and the trees were stagnant, almost frozen in time. Cars packed the two-lane street. Horns honked, and music spilled from their open windows. People strolled along the sidewalk, talking, laughing, joking, and living their lives as if they didn’t have a care in the world. In comparison to me, they probably didn’t. As much as I hated everything about my life, I would spend a hundred lifetimes in hell to give Hattie and our baby the life they deserved. And if living in misery guarantied her happiness, I would do it without regret for the rest of my days.

  “I know things have changed since the last time I dabbled in cartel business with you and Rever, but I won’t abandon her.” I spun around. “It’s my fault she’s in Mexico. I left her unprotected while I helped Rever. I should’ve brought her to the Vargas compound until it was time to catch our flight, but I didn’t think the Alvarez Cartel knew about her. I thought they’d be focused on Rever and Anna, not Hattie or me.” I tugged on the cuffs of my shirt. My gut burned like I’d drank too many shots of Tequila on an empty stomach. “I didn’t fucking think.”

  “You’re right. You didn’t think.” Ignacio angled his chin to the side. “Juan Alvarez isn’t an amateur. Not by a long shot. He has informants too.”

  “Who the hell would tell that two-bit piece of shit anything? He’s got two fucking shipping routes. He’s not powerful. He doesn’t have much influence beyond a couple of small towns in your territory.”

  “Loyalties shift and bend every day. Juan’s smart. He’s been in this business for over a decade. You have to assume your enemy knows everything you know or you’ll be caught with your pants down.”

  “Nobody knew Hattie was with me except you, Emanuel, and Rever.”

  “Exactly. Rever probably told a couple of friends and Anna Alvarez.” His face scrunched up when he said Anna’s name. “That’s as good as telling the whole goddamn world. You might as well have left a note with Hattie’s picture and location on the church steps when you and Rever took her.”

  “What’s wrong with telling Anna? She’s not going to tell her family anything. She wanted to get the hell away from them.”

  Ignacio raised one eyebrow. “I don’t believe that for one second. Anyone with the last name of Alvarez cannot be trusted. If you had consulted me, I would’ve told you to let her rot in hell. I don’t know for sure, but I’d bet my half of my fortune that Anna’s jerking Rever around. She won’t marry him. Hell, I bet she can barely tolerate him.”

  My brows flattened. “How can you talk about her like that? She’s carrying your grandchild.” His words didn’t jive with the father I knew. Family meant everything to Ignacio, and Anna would be part of his family any day now. Rever planned to marry her as soon as possible.

  He snorted. “I’ll believe it when I have the paternity test in my hands. From the little I know about Anna Alvarez, that kid she’s carrying could belong to a half dozen men.”

  I shifted on my feet. “Rever was pretty confident it was his.”

  “Because Rever is a dumbass. He spent the majority of the last three or four months in prison or with you. The timing doesn’t add up.”

  “He came back to Mexico for a while,” I argued, even though I was starting to believe Ignacio had a point. This whole thing could’ve been a set-up and the Alvarez Cartel played Rever or Rever played me. The thought caused my stomach to knot with anger.

  “It’s possible. I know,” Ignacio agreed, nodding his head. “Rever could be the father if she’s pregnant, but like I said, Anna Alvarez isn’t a blushing virgin by anyone’s account and she’s not above lying either. This could be one more game in the war between our cartels.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “So what do you think I should do?”

  “Don’t involve Rever in any of your plans. He can’t be trusted right now. His relationship with Anna is clouding his judgment.”

  “I need his help. He owes me, and he has Anna.”

  “You’ll have to collect on that favor later. Right now, you have to assume anything you tell Rever will be fed to Juan Alvarez.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so,” he countered.

  Pacing the length of the hospital room, I weighed my dwindling options. Nothing was foolproof. Nothing would unwind the damage. Nothing would make Hattie whole.

  I paused, sucking in a deep breath. “In that case, I think I’ll call Rever and tell him I’m not going after Hattie. I’ll tell him I’m going to report her disappearance to her family and the U.S. Embassy, and let them deal directly with Juan Alvarez.”

  Ignacio rubbed his hand along his jaw line, his dark eyes narrowed. “That’s risky. They might decide she’s not worth the hassle and kill her.”

  “I know, but they’re probably expecting me to launch an attack any day. If they think I’ve changed my mind, they might lower their defenses, and I could catch them off guard.”

  “You might be right.” Ignacio squinted his eyes as he stared over my head. “You need to get going. Emanuel is waiting for you at the compound. He wants to discuss a few things with you. Before you call Rever, ask him what he thinks.”

  I rubbed my hands along my thighs. “Do you think I can trust Emanuel?”

  “Yes,” he answered without hesitating. “He’s the best man I have.”

  “Okay,” I said as I walked to the door without a backward glance. Ignacio had told me to trust Emanuel more times than I could count, but something about him got under my skin.

  “Call me tonight.”

  “I will.”

  Chapter Three

  Hattie />
  “Are you hungry?”

  I didn’t move. I didn’t open my eyes. My bones ached. My head hurt. I wanted to die.

  “Hello?” Cold fingertips trailed across my forehead, and I flinched, anticipating more pain or torture. “Are you awake?”

  “Leave me alone,” I mumbled, but the words bled together. They sounded like a stream of incoherent grunts and moans.

  “Sorry, I can’t do that.”

  Lukewarm liquid dribbled across my lips, and I cracked my painfully dry eyes open. For a frozen second, I couldn’t see anything. Black spots dotted my vision. I licked my lips, trying to draw every molecule of the unknown liquid into my parched mouth. My throat burned when I tried to swallow. I blinked my eyes, struggling to bring the person in front of me into focus.

  “Who are you?” I croaked, staring at the gray-haired man hovering over me. Hard lines bracketed his eyes and mouth. His skin resembled a worn leather jacket. A sheen of sweat beaded at his hairline.

  “The closest thing you’re going to get to an ally while you’re here,” he whispered, his dark eyes unreadable.

  Focusing on the cement block wall, I rolled to my side and pain ricocheted up my arm. Crap. I had forgotten about the cigar burns. Straining to move, I flattened my palms on the cold concrete floor and pushed my body upright, folding my legs to the side. Chains scraped against the concrete and the metal shackles bit into my wrists. “I don’t have any allies here. Don’t pretend otherwise.”

  He frowned. “You have a couple, but we can talk about that later. Right now you need to eat and drink.”

  My stomach rumbled as he placed a paper plate with some cut up fruit and rice on the floor next to me.

  “What’s your name?”

  He cocked his head to the side as though he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to tell me. He blew out a breath. “Raul.”

  I attempted to smile, but I strongly suspected it resembled a grimace. “Thanks for the food.”