He didn’t hesitate. “Her. Shoot her.”
Piece of shit.
“Unfortunately, that’s the wrong answer, Vic.” Swinging the gun around, I fired once, and Vicente Hernandez hit the ground. Shaking my head, I noted Selena’s shocked face. “I can’t stand a weak man,” I explained. “At least die with dignity.”
“Are you going to kill me?” They were the first words she’d spoken since giving me a dead man’s name.
Never leave a witness.
It was the cartel’s number one rule, but something in her eyes that told me she understood the value of silence.
Call it instinct.
“Selena, I want you to listen very carefully,” I said, lowering the gun. “I will know where you sleep, where you eat, and the names of your family. If you open your mouth to say anything other than, ‘I don’t remember,’ I will find you and kill you slowly until you beg for death. ¿Me entiendes?” Do you understand me?
Instead of breaking down, Selena dipped her chin. “Te entiendo.” I understand you.
“Now, just so things don’t look suspicious, I have to do this.” Lifting my arm, I pulled the trigger and sank a bullet in her shoulder. She screamed and crumbled to the floor. “Don’t worry, it’s not fatal. Been shot there myself.”
I heard shouting and another high-pitched wail just before another shot rang out.
“Let’s go!” I yelled toward the vault.
Before I could say another word, Adriana ran out from the back holding a brown envelope in her hands. She didn’t give the bodies on the ground a second glance as she tore out the door.
Once we were a safe distance away, I called Rafael and instructed him to use his more useful talents to hack into the bank’s surveillance system and erase the feeds from the last half hour.
We drove in twenty minutes of silence before Adriana turned to me. “You shouldn’t have left a witness.”
“Don’t start with me.”
“Wow, someone’s in a bad mood.”
I gritted my teeth. “I’m fine.”
I caught her bored stare out of the corner of my eye and hated the sudden rush of blood through my veins as she raked that sultry gaze down my body.
“You don’t look fine. You look like you’re about to rip that steering wheel off and beat somebody with it.” I forced myself to look away as she settled her attention back on the road.
“Pretty and perceptive. Tell me again why some lucky guy hasn’t snatched you up yet?” Before she could respond, I answered with a smirk of my own. “Oh, that’s right, it must be because you learned your social skills from a bunch of psychopaths.”
“Wow, that was a good one,” she exclaimed, giving me a slow clap. “It must be nerve-racking throwing all those stones inside that glass house of yours."
My smirk faded. As much as I enjoyed this push and pull between us, I couldn’t forget what Val said. Adriana’s back was against the wall. She had nothing to lose and everything to gain. While he was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, he wouldn’t trust without verifying. He was right, and I needed to find out what he’d uncovered and give him an update on whatever was in that envelope. Especially since there were now two more bodies to contend with. He wouldn’t be happy we left them there, but without the surveillance tape, nothing could be traced back to us.
I had no doubt this Ignacio posed a real threat against Val. The man I reported to was a walking bull’s-eye. However, Adriana was hiding something else. Originally, I convinced myself it involved an intricate plot to take me down simply for screwing her over, but now I had a feeling what lay behind that secret smile was much worse.
“I said I’m fine. I’m just ready to get this shit with you over with and get back to Houston.”
Adriana’s eyes snapped back to mine. “I’m sorry, what was that?”
“You heard me.”
Silent for a moment, she squinted and studied me. “You’re punishing me for turning you down the other night.”
“That’s funny, I don’t remember you turning me down. What I remember is fucking you over the hood of this car.”
Her cheeks flushed. “That’s not what I meant. I’m talking about afterward when you insinuated that you wanted more.”
A confession said in the heat of an argument I wished I could take back. I swore to never let my guard down, but despite every effort, she managed to slip behind my defenses. A mistake I didn’t intend to repeat.
Glancing at her out of the corner of my eye, I snorted. “Don’t lean too far forward, or you’re going to fall off that pedestal you’ve put yourself on, princesa.”
Adriana reared back as if I’d slapped her. A few tense moments passed as we stared at each other. Eventually, the shock on her face faded into suspicion. “Why do you do this?”
“Do what?”
“Live this life. Cartel life. Val and I were born into it, but you chose it. It’s going to be a hard existence for you. Our world is too blood tied for you to ever truly belong to our familia.” Shifting, she waved a hand from my shoulders to my waist. “I mean, Dios mío, look at you with your Armani suit and your manicured hands, and…”
“My white skin?”
Adriana’s lips parted. “I didn’t say that.”
She didn’t have to.
“You don’t think I have to work three times as hard as anyone else just to prove myself?” I didn’t bother hiding the steel in my voice. “I have more eyes on me than I care to count. Hell, half the time I don’t know if someone wants to shake my hand, cuff it behind my back, or cut it off at the wrist.”
“So, why do it?”
Baring my teeth in a cold smile, I cupped her cheek. “Newsflash, sweetheart, other than a 6x8 jail cell or a 3x6 grave, this is all I have left. Until I’m forcefully shoved in one or the other, I am your fucking familia.”
Her eyes darkened as she slapped my hand away. “How dare—”
“So,” I continued, cutting her off. “You’ll have to excuse me if I’m still figuring out the proper protocol for entertaining my boss’s recently resurrected petulant sister while she holds my balls in her hands.”
“I’m not petulant,” she growled, folding her arms across her chest.
For the next thirty minutes, we gave each other the silent treatment, the conflict inside me driving me insane. I'd never had such a violent urge to simultaneously sink a blade and my dick in a woman before. I hoped for both our sakes she kept her mouth shut, but by the time we made it back to Chapala, my anger gave way to curiosity.
Tilting my chin, I nodded to the envelope resting in her lap. “Are you going to look inside that thing or what?”
“Later.”
“Adriana…”
“Don’t push me,” she warned, placing a protective hand over it. “You may have been the boss in Houston, but you’re in Muñoz territory. That means I call the shots here, not you.”
“Fine,” I growled, flinging my door open. “But if you think I’m calling you jefe, you can shove that crown up your ass, princesa.”