While Val headed straight for his fully-stocked bar, I decided on a quick nap before we headed back out for our nightly meeting. Flopping onto the couch, I pressed every button on the remote control until one of them sparked the eighty-inch flat screen television on the wall to life. The damn thing was obnoxious, and I couldn’t help but smirk. While Val’s father’s extravagant lifestyle initially repulsed him, I laughed at how easily he’d become accustomed to the finer things in life since taking over. Not that I had any complaints. I spent more time here than I did at my own place.
I’d almost dozed off when Val came storming into the room, his footsteps heavy and fierce.
“¡Cálmate!” His eyes glazed with irritation as a voice shouted on the other end of the line. “I said, calm down, Brody. I can’t understand you for shit. Hold on.” Pulling the phone away from his ear, Val pressed a button, and the room filled with the incoherent ramblings of the second in command of Houston operations. “Okay, now you’re on speaker with Mateo and me.”
Brody cleared his throat. “Is anyone else there?”
We were trained to ignore emotion and react with logic, but from the first four words out of his mouth, Brody and logic weren’t even in the same state.
“What do you think?” Val growled, rolling his eyes toward me.
“I need a favor.”
“Of course you do.” Leaving the phone on the coffee table, he walked to another glass bar nestled in the corner of the room and refilled his stem of tequila.
The desperation coming from the other end of the line didn’t sit well with me. Brody hadn’t lived cartel life long enough to understand desperation. Staring down the barrel of a gun while one pressed to the back of your skull—that was desperation. However, something in his tone made me sit up and pay attention.
“Do you remember when Manuel Muñoz kidnapped Eden?”
Val’s face tightened at hearing the name of the man who’d almost killed us all. “Why would you bring that up?”
“You promised if I helped you find her you’d look after my sister.”
“That deal was made in the event that you didn’t make it out of that stash house.” Pausing for a drink, he raised the glass toward the phone. “Clearly, you’re very much alive.”
“Val, this is serious! Leighton is on her way to Houston, and she’s in trouble.”
Val drained the glass and slammed it on the table. “What the fuck have you done, Harcourt?”
Brody was a top lieutenant, trying cases as an assistant district attorney by day with cartel blood staining his hands by night. Bound by oath and code, he passed killers through the system because they were marked with Carrera ink.
“Technically, nothing.”
“What the fuck does ‘technically’ mean?” As Val paced, a vein in his forehead pulsed with rage. I had to take control, or we’d soon have a vacancy in the Houston hierarchy.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked calmly.
“Her boyfriend tried to kill her.”
“So, what, technically, you killed him and turned him into bait?”
“No, she did.”
Val’s eyebrows drew up to his hairline. “What was that?”
“The fucker pulled a gun on her. I guess he didn’t expect her to fight back. They struggled, and it went off. Leighton panicked and called me.”
Silence engulfed the room as Val pressed his palms together. “I see. Well, what we have here isn’t a Carrera problem. This isn’t even a Houston problem. This, my friend, is a Harcourt problem, and you need to take care of it.”
“You didn’t let me finish,” Brody insisted. “The guy she killed was one of ours.”
Shit. Job opening in Houston. Apply within.
“Hijo de su puta madre!” Son of a bitch.
“Val...” I tried to intervene as a storm brewed on his face.
Val’s nostrils flared. “Why was your sister fucking a Carrera sicario?”
“Whoa,” I interjected. “Brody is familia.”
For now.
“Your point?”
“That means his sister is familia. Whatever she’s done, remember your own code.”
Val’s face paled. It was a low blow, but his control issues were brewing a war I had no intention of fighting.
Val’s strict code against any member harming a woman was a hard pill to swallow for a cartel used to fifty years of indiscriminate brutality. Unfortunately, blood was blood in the eyes of the loyal followers of his father. It didn’t matter the gender of the vein from which it dripped.
“Fine,” he grumbled. Humility wasn’t an emotion he handled graciously. “How did Leslie get mixed up with one of our men?”
Brody spoke slowly, emphasizing every word. “Her. Name. Is. Leighton.” He let out a long sigh. “Muñoz tried to force me to turn against you by harassing her. After he died, I was still worried, so once I became a Carrera, I sent a soldier to San Marcos to watch over her.”
Val snorted. “Taking our oath doesn’t give you free rein, Harcourt.”
“We need a name, Brody,” I asked, trying to maintain control of the conversation.
“Luis Delgado.”
I scrubbed my hand over my mouth. “That’s one of Emilio’s men. I remember the name.”
Which complicated things even more. Emilio Reyes was the head of our Houston operations, the position Val held before his father’s death. Tensions had run high since Val had passed him over for underboss in favor of me.
“I assume you’ve called a cleaner,” Val conceded, the corners of his eyes pulled tight.
“Not yet. I wanted to get your approval first.”
He smirked. “Because that worked out so well for you in the first place.”
I took over before things escalated. “Your sister had no problem leaving a dead body lying around an apartment?”
“Leighton is innocent to all we do.” He paused as if saying the words out loud would taint her. “I told her I’d handle it, and she trusts me.”
Val shifted his gaze to me, but I avoided it. “But do you trust her?”
“What are you saying?”
“He’s saying we have bigger issues than your sister’s happy trigger finger,” Val blurted out. “Gunshots aren’t quiet. Someone knows what she did. If she gets picked up, your little phone call implicates you.”
For a moment, I thought Brody hung up, but then he sighed. “When I said she’s innocent, I meant it, but something isn’t adding up. The ‘why’ is bothering me.”
Val shrugged. “Innocent and evasive are a dangerous combination in any woman.”
This time, Brody interrupted. “Luis never struck me as the type to willingly violate our code. It’s why I chose him in the first place. That means—”
“He was involved in something outside this cartel.” Val finished for him, scrubbing a hand down his bearded face. Turning, he focused his attention on me. “Call for a cleaner then check out Delgado’s place. After that, I want you to go to Houston and keep an eye on Harcourt’s sister. I need someone I can trust.”
“Wait a minute, having Cortes on my sister wasn’t part of the deal,” Brody broke in. “I can take care of Leighton on my own.”