I saw red. I didn’t care about stalling. I didn’t care about anything but getting to Eden.
“Motherfucker!” I landed a sharp elbow into his stomach, immediately getting rewarded with a forceful grunt as he doubled over. Taking advantage of his vulnerable position, I twisted and grabbed the wrist holding the gun. Regaining his footing, he cursed, slamming me into the side of the building. Still holding his wrist with my left hand, I grabbed his throat with the right. “What did you do to her, you piece of shit traitor? If Muñoz touched her, I’ll see you both in hell!”
He coughed as a sadistic smile crept along his face. “You’re not the only one who knows how to forge alliances, boy. You take from me, little Val, and I take from you.”
The images in my mind swirled a torrid mix of blind rage and indescribable pain. Past and present raced toward one point in time and collided. The six-year old boy in me, and the thirty-year-old man I’d become, converged and imploded as history repeated itself before my eyes.
Everything moved in slow motion. Guzman landed a punch to my stomach, causing me to loosen my hold on his throat. Gaining leverage, he wrestled the gun out of my grasp. Seeing the gun tucked in my waistband, he tossed it behind him, then aimed his own gun at my chest.
“Your old man fought me, too, Valentin. I wonder if I’ll get the same pleasure in watching you bleed out?” Steadying his hand, he tightened his finger around the trigger.
Without a weapon to protect myself, I held his gaze and waited. The last thing I’d do on this earth wouldn’t be giving this asshole the satisfaction of looking away while he killed me. An arrogant smile lifted the edges of his thick mustache as the gun went off, the blast echoing in my ears long after the shot rang out.
My last thought was of Eden. I wish I could’ve said goodbye. Without a doubt, I knew we weren’t headed to the same place. She’d have everlasting life. I’d burn for eternity.
I waited for the pain…the blood…the coldness that told me I’d left this world.
None of it happened.
I ran my hands over my still dry shirt when I noticed blood seeping from the corners of Guzman’s mouth. Frozen in the darkness, I watched as his eyes rolled back in his head moments before his knees buckled, and he dropped to the ground.
Tearing my fixated stare away, I glanced up to see Mateo standing behind him, his arm extended, and smoke still fuming from his gun. His eyes were a dangerous black with a depth of hatred I’d never seen from him.
“Mateo?”
“When we take our pledge, we do it with honor.” Looking down at Guzman’s lifeless body, he spit on him without remorse. “A man is nothing without honor. Death is mercy for a traitor.”
There was more to say, but it’d have to wait for another time. Only one thing burned in my mind.
Eden.
“Car, Mateo. Where’s the car?”
He pointed around the building. “Across the street. What’s happened?” Following behind me, he nodded toward Guzman. “Should I call a cleaner?”
“Fuck it,” I growled. “Let it be a message. Leave him for whatever wild animal gives a shit enough to eat him.” Grabbing my gun off the ground, I hit the speed dial button to Eden’s number and cursed as it rang repeatedly with no answer. “Damn it!” Disconnecting the call, I hit redial, and got the same result.
“Jefe?”
Bile rose in my throat as fear conjured my mother’s screams from a place in my mind I never allowed myself to revisit. Eventually, her voice became Eden’s, and I had to forcefully swallow vomit.
“Get me to the plane. They have Eden.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Eden
The gun shook as I pressed two fingers against Joaquin’s neck.
Dead.
The bartender from Houston in me wanted to scream and cry as I stood over the young man whose throat had been slit. His only crime was protecting me.
However, the kidnapped woman in me, who’d lived through my brother’s execution, fifteen days of captivity, shootings, bombings, and a volatile affair with the drug lord who arranged it all, shut my fucking mouth and took his gun.
I had no clue what happened inside the house, but common sense told me it had Muñoz written all over it. No civilian would have the balls to set foot on Carrera grounds, much less touch one of their men.
Pressed up against a corner wall, my breath came hard and heavy. Sweat rolled down my temples, and I forced myself to calm down enough to think when the realization hit me.
I was completely alone.
Joaquin was dead, Val and Mateo were God knew where, and I’d crossed the border into a nightmare.
“Eden Lachey…”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I crossed my arms against my chest with a gun in each hand and a layer of sweat building between the grips and my palms. The thick accent snarled with contempt as heavy footsteps moved around the living room.
“Come out, Eden Lachey. The longer you make me chase you, the worse it’s going to be for you.”
Stifling a scream, I pushed myself farther into the wall. As the footsteps moved closer, I opened my eyes and scanned the alcove for an escape route. Near panicking, I finally located a cracked door that led to a pantry the size of my dad’s entire house. I’d run into it earlier in a self-guided tour of the estate.
Five hundred feet was all that stood between life and death.
I was prey, hunted in a fatal game of cat and mouse.
I wonder if this is what Nash felt like before he died?
Leaving the security of my dark alcove scared the shit out of me, but logic told me I was seconds away from being found. Needing a free hand, I shoved my gun back into my thigh holster and held the grip of Joaquin’s with a sweaty grasp. Giving the Santa Muerte pendant a rub for good luck, I counted to three and pushed off the wall. My chest burned as I ran like hell toward the door, keeping a straight-line focus with a prayer on my lips.
With no footsteps behind me, my heart beat wild with adrenaline.
Holy shit, I’m going to make it.
Just as my fingers closed around the corners of the open door, my phone rang.
The phone I’d left in the pantry down the steps in front of me rang loud and repeatedly.
No!
Rapid footsteps pounded behind me.
Tearing the door open, I took one step when a rough hand grabbed me by the hair and jerked me backward until I lost my footing and tumbled against a hard chest. Terror shot through me, and I managed one scream before a dirty and calloused hand clamped hard against my mouth. Out of nowhere, his other hand ripped the gun from my hands the moment I took aim.
“Going somewhere?”
When Emilio took me outside my father’s house, it was from behind. I never saw it coming and was unprepared for the attack. I never had a chance to defend myself or fight back.
If death came for me tonight, it’d be with blood under my nails.
Opening wide, I bit down as hard as I could on his fingers, immediately tasting blood on my tongue. Yelling loud, he shook his mangled hand, as droplets of blood splattered across the white walls. Seizing the opportunity, I quickly turned around and raised a knee, grazing the side of his nuts. It was enough to double him over and draw out a tortured groan.
With no time to wipe errant tears, I took the pantry stairs three at a time, praying I didn’t stumble and fall. Part of me wanted to stop and look for the incessantly ringing phone to call Val, but I knew there wasn’t time. Once my eyes landed on the door leading to the courtyard, I broke into an all-out sprint.