Daria, who had been observing the byplay between her older brothers with a calculating expression on her lovely features, eyed her father. “I’ve increased production of armor-piercing ammunition. Our last gunfight with police in Mexico City was much more successful than before.” She tucked a loose strand of hair behind a delicate ear. “The rounds are expensive to produce, but my last distributor had no trouble finding buyers. Profits are strong, and I’m reinvesting back into production to supply our own personnel.”
“Excellent,” Hector said. “The police upgraded their body armor, so we need rounds with better penetration.” He turned to his left. “Salazar?”
Tension snaked through the room as everyone waited for Salazar to speak. His words often spelled doom for an underperforming cartel member. No one wanted to be the subject of his report.
Salazar’s sensuous mouth curved into an enigmatic smile. “I have nothing to add to the report I gave you earlier.”
Adolfo’s blood froze in his veins. What had Salazar told his father in private? He exchanged glances with Carlos and Daria, who appeared equally confused.
El Lobo looked pleased. “Ah yes, we’ll get to that later. Dessert is here.”
Two waiters in black tailcoats entered the dining room, bearing silver salvers with small dessert plates. As they carefully placed each plate in front of a dinner guest, they rotated the dish to display a perfectly formed flan topped with fresh strawberries. Crimson sauce dripped down the side of the flesh-colored tartlet to puddle on the bone china dish.
Adolfo curled his lip, wondering if his father had ordered the chef to make their final course resemble a crime scene. Nerves frayed, he picked up his dessert fork and hesitated. His father dug into his flan and swiped it through the strawberry sauce before placing it into his mouth and closing his eyes briefly.
“Please continue to enjoy,” Hector said, dabbing his mouth with a linen napkin before he launched into a speech. “It’s been a long time since we’ve all gathered in person.” He swept a hand out to encompass his assembled guests. “I invited you here to celebrate Adolfo’s success and to get a direct report from each of you.” He tilted his chin at the far end of the table. “Some of you have never been here before. When I made introductions at the beginning of our luncheon, you may have noticed that each person here heads part of the Villalobos family business. Indeed, everyone at this table bears the tattoo of the black wolf over their heart, symbolizing loyalty. You have all become wealthy under my rule, and I always keep abreast of developments to ensure our continued success.”
Adolfo slowly laid his fork down. His father’s flowery speeches often preceded appalling brutality. The more elevated the language, the more profane the act.
El Lobo turned his dark gaze to a slender man seated near the far end of the table. “Delgado, your report?”
Adolfo had never met Delgado, who was second-in-command of the largest Villalobos grow operation in Colombia.
Adams apple bobbing, Delgado swallowed audibly before he responded. “Our farms have had record harvests since Señor Salazar arrived five years ago.” He flicked a glance at Salazar, who inclined his head in acknowledgment.
Delgado resumed his report to Hector. “We haven’t had interference from law enforcement or rival growers in the region since he left last week. No one knows Señor Salazar is gone yet, but we’re prepared to defend ourselves when word gets out.”
Adolfo noticed all eyes at the table covertly sliding to Salazar. Their gazes held respect bordering on awe. El Matador’s reputation alone suppressed potential threats when he was present, and his absence invited attack. Adolfo seethed. He was Adolfo Villalobos, firstborn son of El Lobo. All of the men should turn to him with admiration, not an outsider.
As his temper subsided from a full boil down to a simmer, a question crossed his mind. Jaime Cortez was in charge of the largest Colombia grow operation, not Delgado. “Where is Cortez?” he asked his father.
“Cortez couldn’t make it to our luncheon,” Hector said, his expression giving nothing away. “But I’m sure we will see him again soon.”
Before Adolfo could fully identify the sinking feeling in his stomach, his father turned to the next man at the table. “Carrera?”
Adolfo listened in silence as the other men gave their reports on their areas of responsibility for the cartel. Instinct told him Salazar and his father shared a secret. He had to figure out what it was.
As soon as the last person provided an update, Hector stood. “Let us adjourn to the bullring.”
Carlos and Daria exchanged excited glances, but Adolfo’s gut roiled. His father referred to the private stadium adjacent to the main mansion, which resembled arenas where the blood sport took place, but on a smaller scale.
Adolfo trailed behind the others in their tuxedos, wondering what today’s horrific spectacle would be. The entire entourage traipsed through the compound in silence until they arrived at a mammoth set of oak doors with wrought iron bars and hinges. Two burly guards hauled them open and the group followed Hector into the stadium. The click of their dress shoes echoed from the concrete floor as they made their way to the tiered rows of seats. The arena could hold over a hundred people, but he’d rarely seen more than forty spectators attending one of his father’s events.
Hector led them to the front row where he settled in his custom gold-plated chair, trimmed in black leather, situated to face the center of the ring. Their seats were directly in front of a dirt-covered arena floor that included a raised stage. After everyone sat, Hector pressed a button on his right armrest.
A curtain on stage right raised to reveal an iron cage the size of a single-car garage. Inside, an immense black wolf paced the length of the enclosure. Ebony fur bristling, slavering lips curled back to reveal enormous fangs, the creature turned amber eyes toward them and snarled.
Hector beamed. “Diablo is my favorite pet. We normally feed him every other day, but he has not eaten for a week. And he is ravenous.” He pointed at the drooling beast. “Look at his nose.”
Ears flat against his head, the wolf’s snout twitched as he lifted his head to scent the air. His red tongue swept his muzzle, leaving glistening strands of saliva behind.
Hector scooted forward to the edge of his seat. “I believe he smells the fear of his prey.” He pressed another button and a second curtain on stage left went up to reveal an identical metal cage. This one, however, held a naked man.
“Shit,” Adolfo muttered under his breath. “Cortez.”
“Jaime Cortez,” Hector announced, loud enough for everyone, including Cortez, to hear. “Salazar transferred supervision of the crops over to him when he left Colombia to come here. The next day, Cortez decided to expand his income by selling some of his crop to our enemy. The very enemy Salazar had worked for years to crush.”
Cortez shrieked a denial of the charges leveled against him. Hector paused briefly, then continued as if the man hadn’t spoken. “Because of his greed, Cortez’s wife and children no longer live in a fine house. They work sixteen hours a day in the fields, and he is about to meet Diablo.”
“Please, Señor Villalobos,” Cortez pleaded, changing tactics from denial to contrition. “I will never betray you again.” His hands grasped the bars, which began sinking into the floor of the stage below him. In seconds, the cage around him vanished.
Hector pressed another button. “I am quite sure you won’t.” This time, the cage around the wolf began its descent.
As the wolf’s bars lowered, Cortez jumped off the stage, legs pumping as he hit the sandy stadium ground. A futile act of desperation.
“Fight or flight.” Hector sounded like a behavioral scientist observing a field study. “At its most basic, the human mind will react in certain ways when faced with mortal peril.” He stroked his goatee. “Unfortunately, running from a hungry predator only further stimulates its natural prey d
rive.”
As soon as the bars of its cage sank low enough to clear with a leap, the wolf bounded after Cortez. The animal leaped onto the man’s back, claws and fangs gouging into bare flesh. Cortez let out a sustained bleat of agony as the ferocious wolf brought him down, his face thudding into the dusty ground at the center of the bullring. Cortez rolled over, using his hands in a fruitless effort to fend off the attack. Incisors tore the man’s throat apart, and his head lolled as blood spewed from the ragged wound.
Gorge rising, Adolfo turned his head, unable to watch the carnage. His gaze fell on the other spectators, where he noted the excited gleam in his younger brother’s eyes, the sadistic smile on his sister’s lips, and the implacable resolve in Salazar’s expression. The rest of the guests gaped in abject horror. Delgado, Cortez’s second-in-command, leaned over and vomited.
Over Cortez’s death throes and Diablo’s low growls as he lay atop his prey to feed, Hector addressed the spectators. “Jaime Cortez chose unwisely. Both he and his family paid the price. Go back and tell your workers what you have seen today.” He pointed at Delgado, who swiped a trembling palm across his mouth. “José Delgado, you are now in charge of my grow operation in Colombia.”
Hector waited while Delgado retched with a fresh wave of nausea. Satisfied he had regained everyone’s attention, he turned to the others. “Adolfo, Carlos, Daria, and Salazar, join me in my office. The rest of you will stay here until Diablo has eaten his fill. You must remember every detail when you tell the story.”
Hector strode from the stadium. Anxiety growing, Adolfo trudged behind him. The small group reentered the main residential building and wound through the halls in silence until they reached the mahogany double doors leading into El Lobo’s private office. As the butler bowed them inside, Carlos slid his cell phone out of his pocket and tapped the screen.
“Excuse me,” Carlos said to his father. “It’s marked urgent. Better take this.”
“Certainly, mi’jo. Business first.”
Carlos put the phone to his ear and switched to English. “What is it, Nacho?”
Adolfo’s apprehension grew. Why was his man reporting to Carlos? When he fished his cell phone out of his pocket and tapped the screen, his mouth went dry. Nine missed calls from Nacho. Dammit. He’d muted the device instead of putting it on vibrate, as Carlos must have done. Now he could only stand by helplessly to find out what emergency had prompted the repeated calls.
Hector marched to the ornate conference table at the far side of the elegant room. He took his customary seat at the head of the table. Sick with tension Adolfo sat to his right while Daria slid into the seat on his left. Salazar sauntered to the table to sit at Bartolo’s unoccupied chair. Red-faced, Carlos stalked in and parked himself next to his sister.
Again, he wondered at Salazar’s inclusion in the group. Previously, only family members were permitted in the inner sanctum but, since Bartolo’s death, Salazar had been intruding where he didn’t belong. He couldn’t fathom his father’s reasoning, but he knew it didn’t bode well for him.
“We can speak freely now,” Hector began. “I didn’t want the others to hear our discussion about Phoenix. It doesn’t concern them.” He cut his eyes to Carlos. “Nacho’s phone call upset you. What’s going on? And why isn’t Nacho reporting to Adolfo?”
Adolfo silently cursed himself. “I accidentally put my phone on mute.” He despised the pleading note in his voice. “I apologize for my mistake.”
Daria let out a contemptuous snort. Salazar shook his head in disgust.
Hector sighed heavily and turned back to Carlos. “What did Nacho tell you?”
“It’s those motherfucking girls again.” Carlos’s fist clenched. “The smart one, Sofia, helps us monitor the task force’s cell phones and emails. We need her because we don’t have enough men with advanced computer skills. She’s Nacho’s only tech support and we can’t risk him missing something if we take her offline.” He dragged a hand through his thick curls. “After she tried to trick us about the warrant locations, Salazar punished her twin sister with a branding iron.”
Hector gave Salazar an approving nod. “I heard.”
“Only Sofia didn’t learn her lesson after all.” Carlos flattened his palm on the table and leaned forward. “Nacho just told me the little puta tried to send Detective Cruz an encrypted message through her email.”
Adolfo’s heart slammed inside his chest. “Did Nacho catch it in time?”
“Barely.” All traces of his characteristic good humor gone, Carlos met his anxious gaze. “And Nacho double-checked to be sure this was her first attempt. We’re still good.”
“What did she try to tell the detective?” Salazar asked, his voice perfectly calm, as if he had inquired about the weather.
“That we’ve hacked their phones and emails and we’re tracking their movements through GPS.” Carlos threw up his hands. “She also tried to send her the coordinates of our new location, which has all our property and personnel. We’d have been fucked if that message had gone through.”
Hector’s response was low and full of menace. “Do you still need her?”
“Yes,” Carlos and Adolfo answered in unison.
Their father drummed the table with his fingers, a rare display of agitation. “Besides her twin sister, does she have any other family with her at your location?”
“Her mother,” Carlos said. “You recall she brought both of her daughters here a few weeks ago.”
A calculating gleam in his pitiless eyes, Hector looked at Adolfo and Carlos in turn. “As soon as you return to Phoenix, gather the three of them together in front of everyone in a central space at your new location. Force them to say goodbye to each other, then have one of your men take the twin you don’t need out into the desert and kill her. Make it … memorable. Bring back pictures of the body to put on her sister’s computer. Tell the girl her mother will be next.” He shifted his gaze to the foot of the table. “And Salazar … ”
“Yes, sir?”
“Brand the mother while everyone watches. We don’t want rebellion to spread.”
Salazar nodded.
“A final question for you, mi’jo,” Hector said, swiveling his chair to confront Adolfo. “Why is Veranda Cruz still alive?”
Caught off guard, he reeled at the abrupt change in subject and scrambled to formulate a response. “There’s one more piece to put in place for my plan to work. I need a little more time.”
His father sneered. “This is taking too long. I’m done waiting.” A heavy silence settled over the room before he continued. “Salazar will execute Detective Cruz as soon as you all fly back to Phoenix this evening.”
Adolfo envisioned his plans and dreams shattering. El Lobo had said Adolfo could never become heir apparent to the Villalobos
empire until he personally killed Veranda Cruz. He looked at his father. “You promised that job to me.”
“That was before,” Hector said. “You may still take your place as my second if your plan succeeds, but it will be Salazar who finishes her.” Adolfo opened his mouth to plead his case, but his father held up a hand. “I have my reasons.”
“Please give me just one more night.” He reflected on his carefully laid plan. If he made some adjustments, he could accelerate the timetable and still make it work. “Salazar can kill her tomorrow. What difference can a few hours make?”
His father’s salt-and-pepper brows drew together. “That is my question to you.”
“The difference is in how law enforcement will respond to her death.” He tried to exude confidence. “I want the task force to disband, not simply change its mission to finding Detective Cruz’s killer.”
“That’s why Salazar will do it,” Hector said. “He knows how to deal with police.”
Realization dawned. Unlike the Villalobos children, Salazar was expendable. Perhaps Hector wan
ted to insulate his own flesh and blood from the risk of a death sentence for murdering a police officer in the US.
“Speaking of Salazar,” Daria said, cutting through his tangle of thoughts. “Carlos told me Detective Cruz and some other cops chased him through a hotel in downtown Phoenix. They’ll know he’s in town now, so he’s blown his cover.” She gave Salazar a smug smile. “In fact, it will be harder for him to cross the border since he’s on every watch list.”
Hector frowned at his daughter. “Salazar acted on my orders. Thanks to him, I know I’m dealing with an old enemy now.”
Adolfo straightened. “What enemy?” He ached to learn what secret his father had shared with Salazar.
“Agent Esteban Lopez with the Ministerial Federal Police.” Hector’s face clouded. “He’s harassed me for decades. Back when the agency was called the Federal Judicial Police, Lopez came to my unit when that cabrón, Ernesto Hidalgo, got promoted. After I left the force to pursue … other options, I tried to recruit Lopez to inform for me. I needed information from law enforcement. But Lopez idolized Hidalgo.”
Hector shook his head and let out a humorless laugh. “The bastard actually had the cojones to try to arrest me. I barely got away. Ever since, he’s used every resource to interfere with my business. I haven’t bothered to kill him because I have no trouble working around him. But now he’s getting involved at a higher level, and I may change my mind.”
“Will you have Agent Lopez killed?” Carlos asked.
“I’ll deal with Lopez when he returns to Mexico, but first, we have a more pressing problem. And Salazar can solve it.”
Salazar smoothed his lapel in a way that forcibly reminded Adolfo of his father. When he spoke, Salazar’s tone was perfectly modulated. Just like the man himself. “I will do it tonight when we return to Phoenix. I’ll make it look like an accident.”
Adolfo had to speak before his father answered. His plans for Detective Cruz hinged on one more piece falling into place. He appealed to family bonds. “Papá, given the circumstances, the police won’t be fooled. They’ll spend weeks sniffing around until they catch a whiff of foul play.”
Phoenix Burning Page 18
