“Make it quick.”
“One of our new dealers, Isabella, let us know a repeat buyer in Maplewood has put four grams of our shipment up his nose. He’s in for about ten g’s and missed the last two drops…”
I’d worried one of my high-ranking men had been a leak. Not once did I consider a street-dealing woman would take me down.
“No, not Isabella.” She pulled her hair to the side and tucked the other behind her ear. “Marisol. Marisol Muñoz.”
“Muñoz?”
“Yes, Valentin…Muñoz. As in Manuel’s sister and Esteban’s daughter. I’ve been away for many years while you’ve been in America. Too bad we won’t be getting better acquainted.”
“Mari! We’ve been here too long. It’s time to finish this and leave.”
My gaze reverted to Manuel, his hold still firm on Eden. I had no idea if Mateo and Brody were still alive, but I had to stall for time.
“I thought this was a party, Manuel. Where’s your sense of hospitality? Leaving so soon?”
One corner of his mouth lifted in a twisted smile as Manuel pressed the muzzle of his gun against Eden’s temple. Catching my eye, he lowered his lips behind it and blew into her hair. “You always did have an overdeveloped sense of entitlement, Carrera.” The moment his tongue darted out and licked Eden behind the ear, I almost forgot everything and gave in to the rage boiling inside of me. “I see why this one caught your attention, Valentin. Tell me, does she taste as good between her legs as she does behind her ear?”
“Motherfucker!”
“Manuel!” My head spun around to face Marisol, her face hot with anger. “We are many things, but you will not speak that way to a woman in front of me. Do you understand?”
“Fine,” he muttered, lowering his eyes.
The exchange fascinated me—the tiny, younger sister commanding an iron rule over the much larger and callous older brother. But figuring out their dynamic was at the bottom of my priority list. Manuel still held Eden and showed no signs of letting her go. The fear in her eyes gutted me, and I knew I’d do anything to take it away.
“So, what do you want me to do with them, your highness?” Manuel shot back, a slight edge of resentment creeping into this voice.
“Dealer’s choice,” she answered with a wave of her hand. “You’re the muscle in this partnership, not me. I have no stomach for it.” Nodding to one of the guards, she walked away. He moved ahead of her, dutifully opening a side door I hadn’t noticed when entering the room.
Her brother cocked an eyebrow, his eyes following her every move. “Where are you going?”
“Guadalajara,” she smiled over her shoulder with one foot out the door. “My work in America is done. Adios, Valentin.” Giving me a wink and pursing her lips in a mock kiss, she left as the lieutenant closed the door behind her.
Using Eden as a human shield, Manuel turned toward me. “I guess there’s just one thing left to do.”
“Don’t tell me there’s cake,” I offered with a well-timed smirk.
Where the hell was Mateo?
Throwing his head back, Manuel laughed with a roar. “No, but I’ve got a game we can play.” Pulling his gun away from Eden’s temple, he bounced it between her head and my chest, each word he spoke, punctuated by an aim of the muzzle. “Eeny, meenie, minie, moe...”
The moment his mouth formed the last word, I looked into the barrel of his gun. As I reached for my ankle holster, I heard Eden scream my name, but it melted into ripples of white, hot heat as pain shredded my insides like a warm knife through butter.
I take that back…sometimes, a man absolutely knows when he’s been shot.
Chaos ensued around me as multiple shots rang out, and shouting echoed in a warped bubble above my head. One word repeated on my lips as I hit the ground.
“Eden…”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Brody
“You’ve been shot!”
Soaked with blood and holding his side with a hard grimace, Mateo still managed to shoot me a disgusted glare out of the corner of his eye. “Yeah, and you’re a fucking genius.” Grunting in pain, he waved his gun across the street. “Get in the car.”
“And leave you here? Have you been hoping for an early death or are you just really masochistic?” Why I stood there instead of hauling my ass inside four panels of reinforced steel remained a mystery to me. What had happened in the last hour to alter everything I held sacred and cause me to jump head first into the inferno between life and death? Six hours ago, I sat in my orderly tenth-floor office where everything made sense and life had order. With one phone call and a snap decision, I’d found myself neck deep in a drug-war stand-off with bullets flying at me from all angles.
All because two women had found themselves on Manuel Muñoz’s radar. One who had done nothing but love me, and one who had done anything but. The irony wasn’t lost on me.
Gunshots rang out in the distance, along with angry shouts in clipped Spanish.
“Shit!” Mateo coughed, blood pooling in the corner of his mouth and trickling down his chin. With another garbled curse, he smeared it across his cheek with the back of his hand while waving his gun at me. “We don’t have time for this. I said get in the car, Brody. I got this.”
The shouts became closer and more heated as Mateo wheezed and attempted to steady a shaking trigger finger. Boldly rolling my eyes at the second in command of the Houston leg of the Carrera Cartel, I grabbed his wrist and hauled his arm around my shoulder for support.
“Yeah, you really got this, don’t you? You can barely breathe as it is. Whether you like it or not, lieutenant, you need me, and whether I like it or not, my conscience won’t let me turn my back on you, Eden, or even fucking Carrera. So, how about you stop arguing and try working with me, huh?”
I expected an argument. When he simply nodded his head around the back of the house where Val had disappeared moments earlier, I raised an eyebrow. Supporting his arm, I stumbled around the corner with Mateo draped over my shoulder. I didn’t take much time to consider why I wasn’t more nervous about what we were doing. If I’d stopped to think about it, I’d realize we were walking into a mass suicide, and the thoughts I’d allow myself would probably be my last. I didn’t have the years of gun handling expertise these men had. They’d avoided taking a bullet to the back of the head their entire lives. My target practice included weekend paintball with my fraternity brothers where I got my ass handed to me.
“Are you sure about this? My loyalty is with Val. Do you understand what I’m saying?” Mateo dug his feet into the grass, causing us to come to a complete stop. He glanced up, his bloodshot eyes raising from his bowed head, serious and unwavering.
Steeling my chin, I turned away, the decrepit building in my line of sight. Somewhere inside those mildewed walls, Eden needed me. I was no idiot. I knew I’d lost her to Carrera. For a while, I would’ve fought to have had a chance at something real with her, but I wouldn’t kid myself. A man didn’t fight a Carrera on anything, especially something he considered his. Plus, I knew Cherry better than she knew herself. If she didn’t want to be with him, even the almighty Valentin Carrera couldn’t force her into it. Whatever existed between the two of them was something I didn’t stand a chance in breaking.