by Elle Kennedy
He couldn’t deny that he’d enjoyed speaking to the girl, but he hadn’t appreciated her insolence. She could afford to learn some manners. Perhaps he’d teach her some before he cut off her head.
“I didn’t see Benicio upstairs,” Camila remarked. “And he left the church before me. He should be back by now.”
“He was already here. I sent him to take care of a dispute at the shipyard.”
She raised a brow, but Rivera didn’t elaborate.
“Perhaps he’ll actually get the job done this time,” he mumbled under his breath.
But Camila didn’t miss that. “You need to have more faith in him,” she said firmly.
“He has yet to show himself worthy.”
She made a tsking sound with her tongue. “He’s your son. That makes him worthy.” Sighing, she leaned closer and rested her head on his shoulder. “Adrián was my firstborn, and I loved him. I’ll always love him, querido. But Benicio has spent his whole life trying to prove himself to you, to show you that he can be as strong and as capable as his brother. He has potential, Mateo. I don’t know why you refuse to see it.”
“All I’ve seen,” he said stiffly, “is a spoiled, entitled boy who thought I would give him an empire simply because we have the same blood running through our veins. He’s yet to show me that he has what it takes to lead.” He grasped her chin and tipped her head up. “Do you remember the dog?”
An exasperated look crossed her face. “He was just a boy,” she protested. “You asked too much of him.”
“No. I didn’t.” He released his wife and stared up at the ceiling. “He doesn’t have it, Camila. He doesn’t have what we have.”
She took his hand, brought it up to her lips, and kissed it softly. “Perhaps not, but maybe his way is just as good as ours. Maybe you don’t need to spill blood to rule the world.”
He gave her an indulgent smile. “We both know better than that, mi amor.”
Benicio might be his son, but the boy lacked the thirst for bloodshed that was required of all leaders. Rivera had killed his first man when he was only ten years old. His father was the one who’d handed him the knife, encouraged him to spill the blood of their enemy. Feeling that blade slice into that vermin’s abdomen had given Rivera a thrill he’d never experienced before.
Adrián had known that same thrill. Camila, too, knew the unparalleled satisfaction that came from taking a human life. But not Benicio.
Benicio was weak.
Rivera stood up and walked over to the side table. A stack of files sat on the weathered wood, and he picked it up and returned to sit by his wife.
Camila’s manicured hand slid over the front of the top folder before slowly opening it. The first page was a photograph of Cate Morgan.
“This is her?” Camila asked.
“Yes.”
One fingernail traced the girl’s heart-shaped face. “She’s beautiful.”
“Yes.”
She shut the folder and opened the next one. And then the next one, and the one after that. She did the same thing with each one, tracing the faces with her fingers, and when she’d gone through the whole stack, she placed the files beside her and turned to meet his eyes.
“These are the people who killed our boy?”
“Yes.”
“I want all of their heads.”
Rivera smiled and lifted his arm, and his wife slid closer and tucked her head in the crook of his neck. His grip tightened around her. This woman . . . She was magnificent.
From the moment he’d laid his eyes on her, he’d known that he was going to make her his wife. She’d been gripping a knife in her hand, pushing the blade deep in the gut of the local punk who’d tried to rape her. She’d twisted that blade and left it in his flabby flesh, then wiped her bloody hand on the front of her paisley dress, leaving a streak of crimson on the fabric. When she’d turned to find him standing in the mouth of the alley, she’d jumped in surprise.
And then she’d smiled at him.
He was thirty-three. She was seventeen. Their ages hadn’t mattered. Nothing had mattered except that Mateo Rivera knew, with bone-deep certainty, that he was staring at his soul mate.
“Mateo,” she said, drawing him out of his memories.
“Yes, mi amor?”
“Give Benicio one of these folders.”
He hesitated.
“Please.” Her tone softened, her warm breath fluttering over his shoulder. “He’s not like us, but he’s still our son, and he’s the only son we’ve got left.” She paused. “Give him the opportunity to show us what he’s capable of. For me, querido. Do this for me.”
Chapter 17
After two days of round-the-clock surveillance on Felipe Aguilar, Ash was dying for some action. But for a woman who’d demanded they bring her Mateo Rivera’s head on a spike, Noelle had taken her sweet-ass time giving the order for them to grab the naval defense minister.
Which meant forty-eight straight hours of recon on a dude who spent most of his days going from the ministry offices to his palatial home, where he ate dinner, had two bottles of wine post-dinner to wind down, and was then entertained by his young wife well into the wee hours of the morning. For a sixty-year-old, Aguilar had a lot of energy.
As excruciatingly boring as it was, the surveillance had led Ash and the others to the conclusion that Aguilar—shockingly enough—might actually love his wife. He’d had a couple of mistresses on the side before he’d married Renata, but he seemed to have set them aside. Granted, twenty-six-year-old Renata was Aguilar’s third wife, but Bailey, Isabel, and Juliet had utilized various covers to gain access to the man’s house and office and had found no evidence that he was fucking around on the girl.
His wife appeared to be their best leverage, which was why she was currently gagged and bound in the trunk of Ash and D’s car.
“This snatch-and-grab is taking too long,” D muttered from the passenger seat. “They should’ve checked in by now.”
Ash kept his gaze on the windshield, monitoring the deserted street for any suspicious activity. “Hey, it’s not easy to take out a convoy,” he said in the rest of the team’s defense.
If everything was going according to plan, then the others were currently in the process of staging a car accident in order to ambush the general on his way from his home to his office. The twenty-five-minute drive never varied, which would make it easy to catch Aguilar five miles from his estate in the hills and right outside of town.
D snorted. “I could do it in my sleep.”
“I have no doubt,” Ash said, rolling his eyes. “All you’d have to do is stand in front of the guy’s car and glare at the driver and they’d piss their pants in surrender.”
He was only half joking. With his coal-black eyes, big frame, and multitude of tattoos, Derek Pratt was a scary motherfucker. Most men cowered at the mere sight of him.
D tapped his fingers impatiently on the dashboard. “They’re taking too long,” he repeated.
“Would you just chill?” Ash grumbled. Then he laughed, because asking a man like D to “chill” was fucking absurd. D had probably never known a moment of relaxation in his life. “How about we pass the time with some conversation?”
The other man looked bewildered. “Why would we do that?”
“Because that’s what people do,” Ash answered in exasperation. “They talk to each other. How’s Sofia doing? And the kidlet?”
“Sofia’s good. Kid’s good.”
A conversational genius, this one. “Glad to hear it. Gabby walking yet?”
At his daughter’s name, D’s harsh features softened. Just slightly. “Yeah. And she’s fucking fast, bro. One second she’s there, the next she’s running off to cause trouble. Drives me batshit crazy.”
Ash laughed. “Wait until she’s old enough to date. Then you’ll really g
o nuts.”
D smirked. “She’ll be a virgin ’til the day she dies. Guarantee it.”
“Aw man. You’re gonna be one of those dads?” He paused. “Wait—what am I even saying? Of course you will. I already feel bad for poor Gabriela. She’s gonna hate you, dude. Straight-up hate you—”
“We’re on our way,” a sharp voice interrupted.
Both men snapped to attention at Noelle’s report.
“See?” Ash said. “Told you they’d get it done.”
D harrumphed, then touched his earpiece. “Any hiccups?”
“Negative,” Kane replied. “Went off without a hitch.”
“Didn’t even have to kill any of his guards,” Noelle muttered, and Ash grinned at the disappointment he heard in her voice.
“Be there in ten,” Kane said before the feed went quiet.
D reverted to his silent self as they waited for the others to arrive, leaving Ash to sit there in tense anticipation. Ten minutes could feel like a lifetime when you were on waiting duty, and it wasn’t long before Ash’s mind wandered toward subjects he’d been trying hard not to think about.
Like Morgan, who was still unconscious even after two days out of surgery and whose doctors couldn’t explain why that was or whether it would change.
And Cate, who’d barely said a word to him since he’d refused to let her accompany him on surveillance and then chewed her out for delaying reporting Rivera’s phone call to the team.
But what the hell else was he supposed to do? Let her come along? Take the risk that she might get caught in the cross fire of this war they’d started? If a bunch of cartel scumbags were capable of taking Jim Morgan down, then how the fuck did Cate think she’d fare?
With Morgan fighting for his life at the moment, someone needed to watch out for his daughter. And Ash had dubbed himself that someone, whether Cate liked it or not.
He just wished she’d stop freezing him out. He wished Morgan would open his damn eyes. He wished . . .
Wishes don’t always come true, Davey.
Ash gulped as his grandmother’s blunt voice filled his mind. Yeah, Gran had never pulled any punches with him. Brutal honesty was that woman’s forte, and she’d given him many doses of it over the years.
Your dad’s a drunk, Davey. The booze will always be more important to him than you.
Your mama’s not coming back, kiddo. She done and left ya.
You’re a good kid, Ash, but those daddy issues—hoo-boy, they’re gonna screw you up big-time if you don’t deal with ’em.
A smile sprang to his lips. Edie Ashton was one tough broad, but Lord, he loved that woman to death. He wouldn’t be half the man he was today if it weren’t for her.
“Go time,” D rasped.
Ash straightened his shoulders when he spotted the approaching vehicle. The headlights were off, but he glimpsed a blond head at the wheel—Kane. The SUV stopped at the curb and Ash saw several shadows get out. The busted streetlights made it easy for Ash’s teammates to haul Aguilar from the car to the dingy shack they’d secured for this op. But even if the sidewalks were lit up like Times Square, Ash doubted the residents of this slum were going to pay any attention to what their neighbors were doing. These were folks who were too busy worrying about buying bread at the grocery store.
Noelle’s voice drawled in his ear. “Bring her in.”
He and D wasted no time. They jumped out, popped the trunk, and were greeted with the muffled yelps of their captive.
Ash reached in for the bleached blonde, who was trussed up with zip ties around her ankles and wrists. Her mouth had been covered with tape and he lifted a finger to his lips when their eyes locked.
“Don’t make a sound,” he warned.
She thrashed around and yelled a few curses against the duct tape.
He sighed. Captives never did what you asked them to. He grabbed her ankles and threw her over his shoulder, clamping one arm around her legs. D slammed the trunk closed, and then the two of them headed for the shack, Ash effortlessly carrying Renata’s thin, squirming body.
Inside, they discovered that Noelle, Kane, and Trevor had been busy. Felipe Aguilar’s hands and feet were duct-taped to a metal chair, and there was a bandana tied around his mouth in a gag. A square table had been dragged near his chair and someone had already laid out their supplies on it. They were going low tech with this interrogation—piano wire, a car battery from the general’s own Mercedes, and a set of electrical leads.
D walked over to the table and picked up a length of wire. “Do we want to save her or start with her?” he said brusquely.
Noelle gestured for Ash to bring Renata to the second chair. “Start with her. We don’t have time to dick around.”
With a shrug, D squatted down in front of Aguilar and ripped the gag off.
Immediately, Aguilar started to shout, “Don’t hurt her! She has nothing to do with anything! She knows nothing!”
Ignoring him, Ash dragged the sobbing woman over to the chair and dropped her into it. Kane silently joined him, his features hard as stone as he attached one of the leads to the battery and then threw the ends to Ash.
“We don’t want to play games,” Noelle told the stricken-faced couple as she watched Ash attach one lead to the pulse point of the neck and another to the woman’s wrist. “Mateo Rivera is still alive. He sent out a hit against an American photographer.” She smiled humorlessly. “We aren’t fans of that. So tell us where Rivera is and you and the missus get to walk out of here alive, with all of your body parts intact. If you don’t, we’re hooking your wife up to a few thousand volts of electricity.”
Renata moaned, and while part of Ash felt sorry for her, the rest of him was mostly contemptuous. This woman sat in her air-conditioned palace eating imported berries and wine while her country fell to pieces. Renata Aguilar belonged to a corrupt rich upper class that skimmed all the wealth. Meanwhile, the rest of Guatana lived in squalor with hardly enough food and clean water to keep one person alive, let alone the large families that were housed together.
So yeah, did he feel bad that they were threatening to hurt this woman? A little. But if it meant officially putting Mateo Rivera out of commission, he’d do whatever needed to be done.
D shifted on the balls of his feet. “Can you shut her up? She’s annoying me.”
“She’s got tape on her mouth already,” Ash pointed out. “I think it’s your guy’s sniveling that’s making all the noise.”
“He’s right,” Noelle snapped. “Let’s make the asshole talk.”
Without delay, she tapped the wire to the battery and the girl nearly flew out of her chair. Tears streamed down Renata’s face, matching the ones rolling down Aguilar’s cheeks.
Ash exchanged an incredulous look with D. He had a feeling this was going to be the easiest interrogation they’d ever conducted.
Kneeling down, he peeled the tape off the woman’s mouth and said, “Tell your man to help us out and you can both go.”
“Please, please, Fefe, tell them! Please!” she begged.
Aguilar gritted his teeth. “She is young. Let her go. She knows nothing.”
Noelle sent another bolt of electricity through the woman’s body.
When Renata screamed high and long, Ash raised his eyes to the ceiling. They were using a twelve-volt battery, hardly enough to make a person flinch, let alone wail like a tormented banshee.
“Don’t waste my fucking time,” Noelle barked.
“Please, please,” Renata cried.
Aguilar shut his eyes and turned his face away. That earned him a scream from his wife, but this time it was out of outrage.
“New plan,” Kane suggested. “Let’s hook this bad boy up to Aguilar’s nuts and shock him until either his dick falls off or he starts talking.”
D gave a savage grin. “I like that. Get i
t over here.”
As Ash stripped off the leads, Renata disparaged Aguilar’s parents, grandparents, his prowess in bed, and most of all, his weak-ass cowardly self. Aguilar, however, was too busy watching Ash, his expression growing increasingly uneasy.
“I predict this marriage isn’t going to last long after tonight,” Ash remarked as he kicked the battery over to Aguilar’s chair.
Behind him, Noelle was retaping the wife’s mouth.
“You might need counseling,” Trevor said conversationally.
Chuckling, Ash kneeled down and stuck a lead onto Aguilar’s shaking knee. “I’ve heard it’s helpful. Hey, D—you and Sofia ever go to counseling?”
“No. We fuck.”
Kane snickered. “That’s what keeps a marriage alive, right?”
Trevor threw in his two cents. “That, and not wanting her to suffer any pain.”
“That’s a given.” D took out his knife and flicked it at Aguilar’s crotch. When the man jerked backward, almost tipping his chair over, D smirked at the general. “Just cutting your pants off, bro. No need to lose it.”
“I don’t know where he is!” Aguilar blurted out. “A street boy brings me a message to meet him!”
Ash and the others nodded in satisfaction. “Good start,” Trevor said. “What does Rivera want from you?”
Aguilar looked down at the knife against his groin and then at the wires that Ash was holding. A second later, he reluctantly started talking again. “Sometimes it’s protection. Sometimes it’s information.”
“What kind of information?” Noelle asked.
“What other countries are requesting. What rivals are doing. That sort of thing.”
“Why’d he fake his death?” That probably wasn’t important but Ash was curious.
“I don’t know. I guess he wanted to retire.” Aguilar hesitated. “His son is in charge now—Adrián.” He made an embittered noise. “Mateo wanted me to cooperate with the boy. I was reticent. We arranged to meet to discuss it further.”
Ash shook his head. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Adrián Rivera is dead.”
