The Vargas Cartel Trilogy: Books 1 - 3

by Lisa Cardiff

  Eight. Nine. Ten.

  “No.” I handed the bar to Rever. “I think he’s playing Juan and Ignacio against each other.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  I licked my lips. “Think about it. If both cartels are weakened by this turf war, it leaves the whole region open to being exploited by other cartels or new leadership.”

  Rever frowned. “How would that benefit Emanuel?”

  I wiped my hand across my sweat stained forehead. “Emanuel wants to be the new leader to rise from the ashes, and consolidate the entire region under him. We all know he has people in the Alvarez Cartel feeding Emanuel information. Who’s to say they’re not working for both sides? I’m sure he has plenty of people loyal to him in the Vargas Cartel, but in order to unite everyone behind him, he needs to discredit both of Ignacio’s potential successors. Your name is already shit, and that leaves me.”

  “And Juan’s successor apparent is dead.” Rever leaned his back against the wall behind him and tipped his head toward the ceiling.

  I sat up and stretched my aching arm muscles over my head. “Yes, and Juan is in the hospital, and we killed almost all of his inner circle when we rescued Hattie.”

  “Now the attempt on Ignacio’s life makes a lot of sense. I couldn’t believe his guard screwed up and allowed him to get shot.”

  “Right, and who directs Ignacio’s personal guard?” I asked, the pieces of the puzzle shifting into place in my mind.

  Rever whistled under his breath. “Emanuel directs the Fuerzas Especiales de Ignacio,” he said, referencing Ignacio’s paramilitary unit.

  “Dammit.” I rubbed my temples. “If I suspected we were being manipulated, I would’ve let Enrique live. I played right into Emanuel’s hands.” Images of things Enrique did to Hattie flashed through my mind. “Then again, I probably still would’ve killed him for hurting Hattie.”

  “Fuck,” Rever said, his voice rough.

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  “So what are we going to do?” Rever asked.

  “You’re going to help me.”

  He nodded. “I’m in. That fucker has manipulated me for the last time.”

  I angled my chin to the side. “I have one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Ignacio has to go too.”

  “You’re planning to run the Vargas Cartel by yourself?”

  “No,” I said. “You’re going to do it with me.”

  He pursed his lips. “I don’t know. I think I’m done with this.”

  “You owe me. I helped you with Anna.”

  Rever scoffed. “Yeah, well, that didn’t turn out so great. She was jerking me around.”

  I shrugged. “A debt for a debt, remember?” I reminded him. He had promised me if I helped with Anna, he owed me a favor in the future.

  “I remember.” Rever scrubbed his hands over his face. “Why do you want my help running the cartel? What do I have to offer?”

  “You know all the contacts. You know the history. I’d be running blind by myself.”

  “What’s going to happen to Ignacio? Are you going to kill him?”

  Standing up, I smiled. “No. I have other plans for him.”

  Rever’s eyebrows lifted. “Should I ask?”

  “No.” I patted him on his shoulder. “But I think you’ll like the outcome.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Hattie

  “We’re wasting our time. There has to be another way,” I complained as I sat on the sofa in Ryker’s D.C. apartment to buckle my heels.

  I hadn’t done anything about my living situation. The majority of my stuff was still at Vera’s apartment. She was my best friend, but after I saw the email she sent to Evan indicating she fed him information about me, I didn’t fully trust her. Also, I couldn’t imagine what she’d think if I showed up with Noah in tow.

  He’d been my constant shadow for the last week, but tonight that was going to change. I’d promised to meet my parents at a restaurant for dinner tonight. Noah wanted to come with me, but I refused. Despite Noah’s insistence that we could introduce him to my parents as a friend from college, I didn’t think the lie would work. After hours of back and forth, we agreed he’d sit at the restaurant bar to keep an eye on me.

  Noah glanced at his phone for a moment without comment. “We’re in luck. I have one more lead, and I don’t have any doubts they’ll print the story.” He cocked a brow. “In fact, I know they will.”

  My heart skipped a beat. I’d love to wrap up this whole mess in the next couple of days. For the past week, I successfully avoided a confrontation with my parents and my professors while I focused all of my energy on exposing Senator Deveron. Unfortunately, my parents were getting increasingly suspicious.

  First, I called them from Mexico pretending I’d taken a road trip to clear my head. Then, I didn’t reach out to them for another week after being abducted by the Alvarez Cartel. My dad had filed a missing person’s report when they couldn’t reach me. Now that I’d been home a week, I couldn’t avoid them any longer. I had to force myself to do normal things even though I felt as though my life had been turned upside down.

  I grabbed my small rectangular black purse from the coffee table and opened the front door. “Are you going to tell me or were you planning to surprise me?”

  He squeezed my upper arm. “I planned to tell you, but I don’t think you’ll like my idea.”

  I pressed the call button for the elevator. “What are you afraid of?”

  He smirked. “That you’ll refuse to cooperate.”

  “This doesn’t sound promising.” I groaned.

  He lifted his eyebrows. “It’s perfect, actually. We should’ve started there rather than with the more reputable places.”

  “Noah,” I cautioned as we stepped into the elevator. “You better tell me.”

  “Fine, but it’s too late to cancel.” He shrugged. “We’re meeting a reporter from Star Weekly for coffee tomorrow morning.”

  I gaped at him. “You can’t be serious.”

  He winked at me. “Dead serious.”

  I glared at him. “What the hell, Noah. I’m not entrusting this story to a grocery store tabloid. This isn’t some guess about who’s cheating or in rehab scandal. This is serious.”

  He laughed softly as he stepped out of the elevator and into the parking garage. “I realize that, but a tabloid will take chances a mainstream news agency won’t. Think of the John Edwards love child scandal.”

  “Yes, that’s my point exactly. That was a cheating scandal, involving an illegitimate love child. It belonged on the front page of a tabloid.”

  He opened the passenger door of Ryker’s car and I slipped inside. It felt strange using all of Ryker’s things while he was still in Mexico doing God only knows what. I broke down and called him yesterday to listen to his voicemail. Even though it was irrational, I had hoped he’d answer the phone.

  He slipped into the driver’s seat and drove out of the parking garage. “Look, I know it’s not ideal, but at least the story will be out in the open. Once they let the cat out of the bag, some independent websites will cover it too, and the networks won’t be able to ignore it. The story will have too much traction, especially with the mountain of evidence Ryker gave you.”

  “Yeah, maybe you’re right,” I said, staring at the flickering lights of D.C. illuminating the dark sky. “I just wish we could’ve got it on the front pages of the major D.C. newspapers.”

  His jaw clenched as he tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. “Don’t worry. It will get there. Senator Deveron won’t be doing his backroom deals for much longer.”

  I stared at his profile, and I couldn’t hold back any longer. “Why did you get involved with pay-for-hire mercenary work?”

  Jarringly silent, Noah’s eyes narrowed and his eyebrows slanted low over his light brown eyes. He seemed to be trying to figure out how to answer my question, but then it hit me. He had no intention of telling m
e anything about him. I’d spent the last week living in his pocket, and he knew everything about me, and I didn’t know more than a few inconsequential facts about him. I was so tired of all the secrets, lies, and half-truths.

  “It pays well, and it’s never boring. Not many people can say the same thing about their jobs,” he finally answered.

  “Do you have a family?” I asked.

  He white-knuckled the steering wheel. “Nope.”

  I chewed my lip, taking in the sharp angles of his profile and his heavily lashed eyes. “Everybody has a family.”

  “I don’t,” he snapped, his eyes darkening.

  I rolled my eyes. “So you were born in a test tube and raised in an orphanage?”

  “Drop it, Hattie,” he growled, his lips thinning. “You know all you need to know about me. We aren’t friends. I’m doing a job.”

  My shoulders tensed, and I folded my arms across my body. “Fine. I don’t mind being strangers. We’ll only communicate when absolutely necessary. How does that sound?”

  His frown deepened. “Perfect,” he answered without glancing at me.

  “Great.” I leaned forward and turned up the volume of the radio.

  I stared out the window. Trees lined the street. The yellow glow of lights from the inside the buildings dotted the sidewalk. Couples strolled hand and hand. Laughter floated through the air from the restaurants. Everything looked normal. Simple even. Jealousy ate at my insides. I missed my uncomplicated life where I didn’t have to second-guess everyone and everything.

  Noah turned down the volume and pulled the car over to the side of the road. “My job requires anonymity and you’re safer the less you know about me.” He threaded his fingers through his hair. “I shouldn’t have taken this job. I just…” His voice faded, and I didn’t think he’d say anything else. “I don’t know. I wanted to help you. Let’s leave it at that.”

  “Okay,” I rasped, forcing a weak smile. From the look on his face, it resembled more of a grimace than a smile.

  He gestured to the valet stand on the sidewalk, looking pained. “We’re here. You go ahead. I’ll see you inside in a few minutes. I have to make a call.”

  I cracked open the door and slipped one leg out the door. “Wait.” I glanced over my shoulder. “Are you calling Ryker?”

  His shoulders hiked up. “Yes.”

  I pulled my leg back into the car and closed the door. “I want to talk to him.”

  “No.” He leaned over me and opened the door again. “Get out.”

  “He’ll want to talk to me too.”

  “You can call him after the meeting tomorrow if he gives me the green light.” He shoved me lightly on my shoulder. “Now leave. You’re already five minutes late. Your parents are going to start calling.”

  I frowned. “I just want to say hi. That’s it.”

  He pointed at the door. “Tomorrow. That’s as good as I can do.”

  I rolled my eyes and then my phone rang, as if my parents knew I wanted to back out of dinner. I glanced at the screen. It was my mom. “Fine. See you in a few minutes.”

  “Text me if you need anything,” he said as I climbed out of the car. “And don’t leave without me.”

  “Yeah. Yeah,” I mumbled, nodding my head. “I won’t go anywhere without you. I know the drill.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Hattie

  “Hi,” I said as I bent to kiss my mom’s stiff cheek.

  My mom smiled tepidly. “It’s good to see you, Hattie. We were beginning to think you weren’t going to show.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.” I forced a smile on my face as I unfolded my napkin and arranged it on my lap. “I’m only a couple of minutes late. It took longer than I thought to get here.”

  “Don’t pick on her, Elaine,” my dad griped, his eyes narrowing fractionally. “We weren’t waiting more than a couple of minutes. You’re going to scare her away again.”

  I glanced back and forth between my mom and dad. Normally, they presented a unified front, but something told me that wasn’t the case right now. The tension between them was palpable.

  My mom cocked her perfectly coiffed blonde head to the side. “She should show us the respect we deserve. She disappeared on a road trip without a word. Then, she didn’t bother to come see us for a week after she returned home.”

  I tugged on the edge of the sleeve of my silk blouse. It barely covered my burn marks, but wearing a long-sleeved shirt in the middle of the summer would look suspicious. “You’re right. I should’ve stopped by the house, but I’ve been busy.”

  My mom’s sculpted eyebrow lifted. “Doing what? You haven’t touched base with your professors in three weeks. You haven’t called Evan. I don’t even know where you’re living. I called Vera, and she hasn’t seen you either.”

  The metal legs scraped across the hardwood floor as I slid my chair away from the table and tossed my napkin on the table. Anger lit my veins on fire. How dare she pry into my life? How dare she bring up Evan? “I don’t know why I bothered to come here tonight. For some reason, I keep giving you the benefit of the doubt.” I shook my head. “I should know better by now. I need to stop wasting my time.”

  My mom stared down her nose at me. “I could say the same thing verbatim to you.”

  I leaned back in my chair. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s time you stopped this nonsense and pulled your life together. You’re all over the place. You got engaged. You dropped out of your master’s program. You terminated your internship. You ended your engagement. You moved in with Vera. You reenrolled in the master’s program. You disappeared on a road trip.” She punctuated each point with a flick of her blood-red fingernails.

  “Nonsense?” I echoed. “In case you’ve forgotten, I experienced some traumatic things lately, not that you care. All you care about is preventing the chaos from spilling over into your perfect little world.”

  My dad slammed his hand on the table. The water glasses shook, and the silverware rattled. “Dammit, Elaine, this is not the time to scrutinize every decision she’s made in the past few months. We agreed we’d have dinner without diving into anything confrontational. Give her time to come to terms with everything and put her life back together. You need to know when to stop pushing so hard. She’ll come around.”

  “She’s had plenty of time,” my mom mumbled under her breath.

  Even though my gut churned with resentment, I schooled my face into a blank mask, trying to hide all my emotions. My mom preyed on insecurities. “I don’t need time. My life is just fine.” I lifted the glass of ice water to my lips.

  My mom gasped. “Are you engaged?”

  My stomach dropped. I’d forgotten to take off Ryker’s engagement ring before dinner. I’d been running late after another unsuccessful meeting with a small D.C. magazine. I stared at my parents for a long moment, then cleared my throat. “Kind of,” I answered, inwardly cursing the tremble in my voice. Ryker and I weren’t technically engaged, but I couldn’t explain the details of our promise to each other.

  My dad pursed his lips. “Kind of? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “We’re still working things out. You know, school, living arrangements and other stuff,” I murmured, hating, and not for the first time, that things between us weren’t simple.

  My mom pressed her hand to her chest, her eyes wide with panic. “You haven’t talked to Evan for weeks. What’s going on?”

  Twirling a strand of hair around my finger, I squinted across the room, trying to find anything to look at other than either of my parents’ faces. “This has nothing to do with Evan. I met someone else.”

  “When?”

  I moved my hands into my lap and twisted the ends of my napkin. “I’ve known him for a few months,” I answered vaguely. “I know it seems sudden, but I love him.”

  My mom’s brows knitted together, disgust contorting her lips into a scowl. “You met him when you were engaged to Evan?”
/>   I sat awkwardly, heat rushing to my face under the intense stare of both my parents. Part of me longed to burst out laughing and claim the whole thing was a joke gone awry, but I knew I couldn’t. This was just the beginning. I needed to break my parents’ hold on me once and for all and make my own decisions. As a child, my mom had used every psychological trick in her arsenal to mold me into the person she wanted me to be. The moment I left for college, I started pushing back, but I had never managed to eliminate her control entirely.

  I squeezed my hands into tight balls and drew in a deep breath through my nose, summoning my willpower. “No, before that.”

  “I don’t understand,” my mom said, her voice hushed as though she suddenly realized she didn’t want anyone to overhear our conversation.

  “What’s to understand? I met someone I want to spend my life with,” I snarled, unable to control my growing temper. “You don’t need to understand. You need to support me.”

  “But you haven’t even introduced him to us, and I’m not sure you’ve recovered.” She leaned closer to me and her heavy floral scent curled around my nose. “Don’t you think this is too sudden? I mean, what will we tell everyone? A month or so ago you were engaged to Evan, and now you’re engaged to someone new. That doesn’t look good.”

  I sat taller in my chair and squared my shoulders, refusing to bow under the weight of my mom’s glare. She’d never change. She thought she knew how I should live my life. She was wrong. If she thought I’d bend to her will right now, she didn’t know me at all. I’d been subjected to far worse at the hands of the Alvarez Cartel. She could dump a mountain of guilt on me, glare at me until her eye sockets froze, but I wouldn’t leave Ryker or change my course. I was a fighter, and I planned to fight for Ryker and our child every step of the way.

  “Evan was a mistake. He asked me to marry him when I wasn’t thinking clearly. If I hadn’t been emotionally vulnerable and exhausted, I never would’ve agreed. I hate him. I hate his family.” I pinned her with my eyes, daring her to challenge me.