“How are we playing this?” Jesse asked.
Ivy lifted her chin as some kind of directive. Where’d she want him to go?
“Jennifer,” Beckett hissed at the realization she was gone from the dance floor.
“Who’s Jennifer? Did I miss something?” Jesse asked.
“A new responsibility and I don’t see her.” He couldn’t let some young girl die because of his mission, but he also couldn’t lose his chance to talk to Ivy. He may not get another one. “Don’t let Ivy out of your sight. I’ll find you in a minute.” Ivy was downstairs now, meandering through the crowd and advancing toward the exit. “She’s leaving.”
“I’m on it.” The second Jesse started through the pack of dancers, Beckett began searching for Jennifer.
Why’d he have to meet that girl tonight? He didn’t need the headache. But he also didn’t need her death on his conscience.
Once at the center of the club, he looked around, hoping he’d just missed her out there, but there was no sign of her.
Where are you, damn it? He was near heart failure when he spotted a flash of blonde hair. His shoulders fell with relief as Jennifer exited the women’s restroom. For fuck’s sake. Thank God. He cut through the crowd to get to her.
“You okay?” She angled her head, appearing alarmed by whatever crazy look he must’ve been giving her.
“I have to step outside for a minute. Don’t do anything to get yourself killed in the meantime, okay?” he demanded, his worried, harsh tone washed out by the music.
“Um. Yeah, sure.” She shrugged, and that wasn’t all that comforting of an answer, but he had to get to Ivy before it was too late.
He rushed for the front door, but a thick, muscled arm stretched before him as a blockade. “I wouldn’t go out there if I were you,” the bouncer warned in English.
When Beckett shot him a menacing look, a demand to let him continue, the guy lowered his arm.
“Your funeral.” He folded his beastly arms and stepped clear, but Beckett didn’t make it far.
Twenty or so meters away, Jesse was in the middle of fighting not one, but three men. And before Beckett could step in for an assist, Jesse had managed to remove a 9mm from one of the gangster-dressed men and popped off three quick precision shots.
All three fuckers fell like dominoes.
Did I really just see that? He didn’t think those were kill shots, but damn, the way Jesse had dropped them so fast was eerily impressive. And it was also the first time he’d witnessed Jesse in action. Of course, he’d brought Jesse with him tonight for a reason.
Beckett stepped forward but stopped yet again when Jesse lifted a quick palm, signaling him to hold.
It didn’t take Beckett long to figure out why. Ivy was nearby, standing alongside a vintage Cadillac with her hand over her mouth and a man at her side. He had to be cartel.
“You just took out the trash for me. Juárez gang.” The suited man by Ivy approached Jesse.
Beckett hated standing in the shadows while Jesse handled whatever the hell was about to happen, but he’d trust his brother-in-law on this one and wait and see.
“They were trying to take her,” Jesse said, probably for Beckett’s benefit, to alert him to why he’d shot three people. Clearly, the suited guy had witnessed Jesse’s heroic acts in saving Ivy.
“I’d like you to come with me.” The man snapped his fingers, and several other men started for the moaning bodies on the ground. “Now.”
Jesse quietly nodded, then stole one last look at Beckett before stepping into the back of the Cadillac while Ivy slid onto the front passenger seat.
Jesse mouthed what looked like the name “Carter” to Beckett before the car door shut.
Carter was one of Jesse’s two bosses at Falcon Falls, so he assumed he was requesting an extraction.
What in the hell did I just do?
Beckett faced the bouncer, who, for whatever reason, had tried to save his life moments ago by keeping him from the fight. “The woman, is she—”
“She’s Miguel Diego’s,” he grunted. “The owner’s girl.”
Great. Ivy was in bed with the cartel. Literally.
And now his brother-in-law was in cartel hands.
My sister’s going to kill me.
CHAPTER TWO
It’d taken Beckett a handful of seconds to learn Miguel Diego, the club owner, lived in a military-style compound in Murder-Fucking-Valley just outside Juárez. And he had to assume that was where he was taking Jesse.
Beckett’s first instinct had been to tail the Cadillac, but he’d made a promise to deliver Jennifer to the border safely. Surprisingly, the bouncer had given him a you didn’t hear it from me idea as to the whereabouts of Miguel Diego’s compound. A good thing because Jesse’s location on the tracking app they were using, on the off chance they got split up, had vanished moments after he and Ivy were whisked away. Jesse’s phone was going to voicemail as well, which meant Miguel either demanded Jesse turn it off or it’d been destroyed.
After learning the club manager’s name, Beckett had gone back in the club and quickly snatched Jennifer’s wrist, demanding they leave right away.
Thankfully, she hadn’t protested but instead scampered to keep up with his long strides. When they had burst through the door and stumbled on the three bodies being hauled away, leaving a trail of blood in their wake, the horrified look on her face caused Beckett to shelve the stern lecture he’d planned on delivering before tucking her into her car. He was pretty sure she’d be having nightmares after this, but at least she wouldn’t come back.
Beckett huffed out a frustrated breath and grabbed his phone from the console of the rental as he waited in the parking lot near the border crossing and watched Jennifer’s Tesla inch forward in the line of cars progressing toward Texas.
He’d followed her there and decided to wait until she’d safely crossed into the States before he took off. The way his luck was going tonight, he didn’t want to take any chances. He’d also given her his number and asked her to text him when she made it back to her dorm.
“How in the hell did I let tonight happen?” he hissed while scrolling through his contacts, grateful he had Carter’s number saved.
Beckett’s only hope for Jesse right now was that he’d saved Miguel’s girlfriend from three enemy cartel members. Miguel now owed Jesse, right? But in Beckett’s experience from dealing with the cartel in Los Angeles, that didn’t guarantee Jesse a get-out-of-death card.
“What happened?” Carter answered after the second ring.
“Jesse gave you a heads-up, didn’t he?” Apparently, Jesse hadn’t only called Ella on his perimeter sweep. Smart man.
“Yeah. And since you’re calling me, it’s safe to say something went wrong,” Carter answered in a low voice.
That’s an understatement. “Jesse and I got separated.” He paused to let that sink in. “I don’t know how much he told you, but I’m down here searching for a woman. I know her as Ivy Barlowe. Not sure her current alias.” Beckett waited for a second, then went on to explain how the rest of their “hunting trip” had played out.