But between one of my men and Eden, I’d choose death for my men over and over.
Leaning over him, I recognized Joaquin Salazar. Barely an adult, the loyal member of my father’s personal team had proved his honor and willingness to protect our cartel with his life. It was the whole reason Mateo chose him to stay with Eden.
If a man like that had been gutted like a fish, what the hell had they done to a woman who’d been at the center of an international drug war?
“Manuel Muñoz has probably slit her from throat to pussy by now.”
Within seconds, Mateo appeared by my side, gun in hand. “I’ve searched the upper floors and the pantry, jefe. They’re not here.”
“Where the fuck is she?” Conflicting emotions raged through me: relief at not finding her lying in a pool of blood and fear at what was happening to her at the hands of Manuel Muñoz.
“I don’t know where they are, but come with me. I think I know how it went down.”
Moments later, Mateo led me down into the cook’s pantry. Shattered glass on the panes of the door indicated multiple locations of impact. They were too small to belong to a man. Blood splatter across the walls and the floor indicated a hard-fought struggle.
Sudden pride filled my hollow chest. She didn’t go quietly or shaking with fear. Eden fought like a hellcat with everything she had inside her.
That’s my girl.
Bending down, I traced a smear of blood that beaded on the cold tile floor. Somehow, I knew it was hers. Rubbing it between my fingers I brought my index finger to the left side of my white button down shirt and drew an ‘x’ over the muscle. Glancing down, the red from my fingers soaked into the white thread, staining the tiny lines a deep crimson color.
X marks the spot.
Cross my heart and hope to die.
Imprinted in blood.
Eden Lachey had branded her name on my heart and her soul in my blood for the rest of my life. However long that life lasted depended on the shape I found her in.
Mateo hadn’t said a word when I refused to leave the pantry. Leaving momentarily, he climbed the stairs, retrieving his phone, and a few more guns. While out of sight, he’d called for a cleaner to remove Joaquin’s body from the estate.
For the first time in a long time, a stab of remorse slashed a hole in the heart I couldn’t believe still existed. Maybe it stemmed from the fact that Joaquin Salazar didn’t hesitate to shift his alliance to me the minute I stepped off the plane in Mexico City. Maybe it came from his willingness to protect Eden with his life without any question.
Or maybe, the woman in question had managed to stitch together what had been destroyed for a lifetime.
When I first saw her, I thought Eden had been sent to save my soul. Losing her made me realize why I’d pushed her away. I was drowning in her, and she’d suffocate beside me. For the first time in my life, I’d put someone else’s needs first and tried to do the right thing. Eden was no angel, but she was the closest I’d ever get to heaven. Marking her and caging her light had made me hate myself to the point of letting her go.
As her blood dried on my fingertip, I realized how blind I’d been. Eden Lachey had marked me long before I touched her. She’d branded me more than any tattoo and cut deeper than any blade ever had. She calmed my killer’s soul and had become the bandage to a lifetime of chaos. The minute they took the woman I loved, chaos would be all they’d breathe until I had her back in my arms.
Regardless, I instructed Mateo to have Joaquin buried properly, instead of our usual destroy and dispose method. Eden would have my ass if she found out I’d done anything to the contrary.
I’d take whatever she had to dish out, just to hear it in person.
Two hours later, I still sat in the pantry, my eyes glued to the phone in my hand. Demanding all lieutenants abandon anything they were working on, I ordered them to pull all their best sicarios and disperse them to Guadalajara, Monterrey, Matamoros, and any other fucking place I could think of that they’d take her. Giving shoot to kill orders, I ran a hand over my wild hair, secretly hoping my men kept Manuel Muñoz alive long enough for him to beg me for death.
“Why hasn’t anyone called?”
Mateo looked up from his phone, the lines in his forehead deepening. “They will, jefe. It’s only been an hour.”
“It’s been two.”
Turning my head away from his relentless stare, a glint from the overhead light caught a reflection from something shiny a few feet away. Pulled out of my destructive thoughts, I walked on my haunches over to it, and picked it up. Breath hitched in my throat as I recognized the top gold piece of the Santa Muerte pendant I’d given Eden back in Houston. It was jagged as if it’d broken off in a struggle.
Closing my hand around it, I brought it to my lips, praying it held enough power to still protect her.
And if we were lucky, Santa Muerte would answer a prayer and lead us to her.
Lead us to her.
A jolt of electricity shot through me as the fake metal all but burned my hand with the answer. Climbing to my feet, I pulled my phone from my pocket and activated the GPS application I’d installed days before.
“What are you doing, jefe?”
For the first time in hours, something besides loss occupied my soul, and I could feel my eyes flash with excitement. “Activating the tracking device.”
“Uh, you destroyed it, remember, sir?”
“Not that one, Mateo. Santa Muerte.”
“I’m not following, sir.”
An actual smile tugged on one corner of my mouth, struggling to break free as I furiously punched numbers onto the keypad. “When Eden demanded that we take her to Mexico, I had a feeling she’d end up getting herself into some shit like this, so I pulled a trick out of Muñoz’s own play book. I had one of your men implant it into a cheap ass Santa Muerte trinket he picked up at a street fair.” I tapped it with my fingernail. “It isn’t even real metal.”
Mateo ran his hands over the top of his long hair. “Jesus, so you’re saying…”
Punching the last few numbers, I turned my phone around and held it to his face. “I’m saying she’s past Reynosa and heading up Highway 2. They’re going back to Texas.”
Hitting a speed dial number, I paced the room—the knowledge that Eden was alive and on the move, spurring a fire in me.
“Who are you calling?”
“Reinforcements. I know where she’s headed, but we need someone with connections to track down where they’ll eventually hold her to prepare for the possible trap we’ll be walking into.”
“What the fuck do you mean, you took her to Mexico?”
“Just what I said,” I repeated, reminding myself I needed his help and not to lose my shit on the assistant district attorney. “I had to go. She wanted to go with me, so I took her.”
“Jesus…no one has seen her in weeks! We thought…we thought…goddamn it, you know what we thought, Carrera! I thought Muñoz had gotten to her, too. Her whole family is missing, for Christ’s sake! I mean…damn, man…”
When Brody Harcourt’s jerky speech and subject jumping connected in my disjointed brain, I growled deep within my stomach, and slammed my fist into the wall. “You fucking know Manuel Muñoz, don’t you?” Brody grunted, yet offered no further explanation. Cursing, I hit the wall again. “Goddamn it, Harcourt! Come clean or I swear to God, I’ll blow the lid off everything for you. One call to the newspaper and your life will be over.”