Pulse (Hell’s Handlers MC Florida Chapter #7)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

THEY WERE EARLY.

Not by much—only fifteen minutes before he expected them, but it was enough to devastate everything.

Everything .

“Yo, you in here, man?” Enrique pounded on the door with his heavy fist.

How did Max know the power that fist wielded? Well, he’d been on the receiving end of that fist a time or two. It hurt like a bitch when it made contact and left massive bruises as a parting gift.

“I’m here,” Max called out. “It’s open. Come on in.”

“You fucking decent?” Enrique asked as he always did. “I walk in on your scrawny ass doing unspeakable shit to my sister, and I’ll fucking die on the spot.”

Chuckling, Max strode to the door. He opened it and gestured into the empty room with a flourish. “How long have I known you? Have you ever once caught me and Camila getting busy?”

Enrique shuddered. He wasn’t the biggest man at only five-eight, but he made up for that height with his bulky width and massive personality. “Nah, but you can never be too careful.” He strolled into the room, hiking up his sagging jeans. He wore his jet-black hair slicked back, showing off his tanned face with the strong jaw women went nuts over. His dark eyes and thick eyelashes didn’t hurt. Enrique raked in women like no one Max had ever met. They flocked to him. Two, sometimes three a night. The man couldn’t get enough of them either.

“Lucky for you, I respect her too much to risk anyone catching a glimpse of her. She is for my eyes only.”

Enrique grunted. “Lucky for you, you mean.” He plopped into Max’s desk chair and pushed aside a pile of paper, leaving a smooth, blank expanse of wood in front of him. “The only reason the old man and I let you near her was cuz you’re a respectful motherfucker.” He drew a vial from his pocket and began tapping a few lines onto the table. Cocaine was Enrique’s drug of choice, probably in his top three favorite things. “If you were any other man, we’da cut your nuts off for how hard you went after her. Ya know?”

Oh yeah, he knew—two years of carefully earning Enrique and his father’s trust while making his interest in Camila obvious. More than once, he’d feared for his life after a night spent heavily flirting with the very pampered and protected cartel princess.

But he’d had nothing but success. Max had not only worked his way deep into the cartel’s circle of trust but also into the heart and bed of the revered Camila, daughter of the most powerful cartel leader in recent history.

They’d been together ever since Enrique’s father gave his blessing—nearly a year and a half.

While he didn’t love her and never would, they’d built a bond he would mourn the loss of once this assignment ended, not to mention the weighted guilt that would live on his shoulders for the rest of his life for ruining her family and her life.

“Want some?” Enrique asked, staring up at Max, who stood by the open door.

“Nah.” He shut the door and strode to the empty chair on the opposite side of his desk. Enrique often spent time in Max’s office eating, snorting coke, fucking, and doing whatever the fuck he wanted. What was Max’s was Enrique’s—well, the cartel’s.

“Don’t know why I bother offering to share.” His dark head bent over the desk as he inhaled his first line. “Damn, that’s good shit.” He wiped his nose and went for a second line. “You’re so fucking straitlaced,” he said with a laugh as he came up, blinking and brushing the excess powder from beneath his nose.

“You know that’s not true.” Max had participated more times than he liked to admit. He’d had to. Sampling the merchandise was part of the game, and he knew how to play it well. But he hated coke. He spent ninety percent of his life an anxious mess of hypervigilance, worried the cartel would find out he was an undercover DEA agent. Living in that heightened state was hard on the body and mind, but he’d accepted that fate when he accepted the job. Coke made it worse. He didn’t need anything to increase his heart rate or make him sweat more. It was only a matter of time before he dropped dead of a heart attack—coke would only speed up his demise.

Unless the cartel discovered who he was and put a bullet in his brain. Nothing he’d done the last few years would matter in that case.

Enrique’s grin turned mischievous. “True. You can be a wild motherfucker when you want to be. So, you set for tonight?”

Ah, tonight. Max had been both dreading and anticipating this moment since he went undercover almost four years ago. He’d finally be able to rejoin the world and shed the crooked persona he’d played every day for years. Leaving this assignment behind was a monumental relief but also terrifying.

He’d done things as the third in command for the Del Rios Cartel. Hell, he’d been promised to slide into the number two position when Enrique eventually took over, a powerful station he’d receive over Enrique’s brother, Tomás. Tomás was young and soft, a kid who would struggle to make it in his family’s world but would have been given the title of number three when he came of age if Max hadn’t arrived. However, Enrique’s father viewed Max as invaluable to their operation and much better suited for the position than the book-loving Tomás. Becoming vital to the cartel didn’t happen by accident. And it didn’t happen without great personal sacrifice and a long leash from the US Department of Justice.

Late at night, while the woman who loved him slept by his side, Max wondered what would happen to him when this job ended. It was easy to compartmentalize the vile things he’d seen and done in the thick of it. But once he returned to his shoebox apartment in New Mexico, would his conscience flare to life and destroy him?

He’d find out soon.

“Of course I’m ready,” he said with the exaggerated confidence Enrique had come to expect from him. “Could do this shit in my sleep.”

Laughing, Enrique bent over his final line. “Always such a cocky fucker,” he said before snorting the last of his coke. “Any last details to be sorted? This one’s bigger than most.”

That was the understatement of the year. Tonight, their most significant shipment to date would arrive from Colombia on multiple small boats. Max would oversee the crew meeting the boats, supervise the unloading, and then see it safely delivered to one of the cartel’s many secret warehouses around the city.

It never ceased to amaze him how much of the cartel’s operation happened right under the noses of unsuspecting citizens and oblivious law enforcement.

“It’s all good,” he said, folding his arms over his chest. He’d bulked up to his largest size since taking his job—working out like a fiend provided one of his only outlets for the stress. It was either that or becoming a raging alcoholic, and he couldn’t afford the risk to his safety by being drunk all the time. “Your father and I have been through every detail of this thing a million times. You coming to the dock?”

“Nah, but Dad and I’ll be at the drop location to help you unload when you get back.”

“Perfect.”

And it was. The more people the DEA could round up in one sting, the better.

Enrique stood, so Max followed suit. “You call me if you need anything tonight, okay?” Enrique said as he grabbed the back of Max’s neck and drew their foreheads together. The Del Rios were affectionate with those they considered family, and Max had been so since the moment they agreed to let him date Camila. “I mean it, man. If one fucking thing feels off, you call me. I’m here for you. You’re my brother in all but blood. As soon as you grow some balls and ask Cami to marry you, you’ll be my brother by law too. I got your back. You hear me? If just one fucking thing feels wrong.”

A sick feeling settled in his gut. He’d become accustomed to it over the past few years, but it still sucked. “I hear you.” The worst part of this assignment was trying to find a way to reconcile the way he both loved and hated Enrique and his family in equal measure. “Thank you.”

Enrique wasn’t a good man. Some called him a sociopath, but he knew damn well right from wrong and could empathize with those he loved. He enjoyed choosing wrong. Max had witnessed Enrique do things that would haunt him for the rest of his days. He’d watched the man kill in cold blood without being able to do a damn thing to stop it. One time, Max witnessed Enrique torture a man for hitting on Camila at a nightclub. Last month, Enrique carved his initials into a man’s tongue for mouthing off during a meeting.

As a law enforcement officer, allowing these atrocities to happen went against everything he stood for. As an undercover agent, it was just another day at the office.

But the flip side of Enrique’s violence was the man Max had spent every holiday with for the past few years. The man who called him brother. The man who had saved his life two years ago when a rival cartel member planted a bomb in his car. The dichotomy fucked with Max’s head. The shrink his superiors sent to deal with him after all this would have a field day rooting around his fucked-up emotions and unhealthy attachments from this assignment.

Three hours later, Max drove his pickup into the lot behind the cartel’s sneaker warehouse, a few minutes behind the semi-truck full of product. The legitimate side of the business did so well that he’d never understood why Domingo Del Rio bothered to run drugs. Then he’d met the man and realized money wasn’t why he ran the world’s most dangerous and profitable drug cartel. The man craved power like most craved water. He thrived on it, reveled in it, couldn’t survive without it, and he had it in spades.

Max parked his pickup next to the big rig backed into the loading dock. Hundreds of sneakers with drug-filled false bottoms were being unloaded into the warehouse. The shipment had arrived without a hitch. The hard part was over. Or so they all thought.

Little did they know that in exactly eighteen minutes, the DEA would flood the warehouse with agents armed for war and prepared to go to battle. They’d arrest everyone on site, Max included, to keep up appearances, then dismantle the cartel, ending the most prolonged and complicated operation the DEA had ever run against a drug cartel.

All thanks to him.

They’d give him a medal and maybe a promotion.

They’d debrief him until his hair turned gray, and he’d answer the questions correctly to keep them from putting him in a padded room. But at night, when he laid his head down, he’d be alone with his fucked-up thoughts and traumatizing memories.

Sixteen minutes.

He blew out a breath and exited his truck. If he lingered too long, someone would become suspicious.

“Yo, the man of the hour,” Enrique announced with a victorious grin as Max entered the warehouse. Men scurried all around, unloading the truck while at least thirty women sitting at multiple tables began breaking down the shoes and removing the product. He slung an arm around Max’s shoulders. “This man never disappoints. There’s no one I fucking trust more,” he bellowed as he slapped Max’s chest.

Max forced a smile. “Thank—”

Boom.

A ground-shaking blast rumbled through the building.

Enrique’s arm fell from his shoulders. “What the fuck?” he shouted, eyes wide and wild.

Men in tactical gear rushed in from all angles with weapons drawn and shields in place.

“DEA, get on the fucking ground!”

Max froze.

They’re early.

Why are they so early?

Even five minutes off schedule could fuck up the entire plan.

“ Feds! ” Enrique screamed. Fury transformed his face into a terrifying mask of death and violence. He lunged forward while reaching for the gun forever tucked into the small of his back.

“Don’t.” Max barked. He snagged Enrique’s arm before the man could grab his weapon and force the DEA to fire on them. “Just get the fuck down and don’t do anything stupid. They’ll mow us down like animals.” And they would. He had no doubt the strike team would end any immediate threat with deadly force. It’s what they trained for.

“Max…” Fear bled into Enrique’s voice for the first time since Max met the man. This entire warehouse was a prosecutor’s dream come to life. All it would take was five minutes of searching for the DA to have enough evidence to lock up Enrique and his father for life, and he knew it.

This moment was what Max had spent the last four years of his life working for, sacrificing for, and lying for. It was necessary and deserved. Enrique and his father did things even the most depraved nightmares couldn’t rival.

They belonged behind bars and away from the public for the rest of their lives so they couldn’t hurt another innocent soul.

So why was his heart racing and his stomach sour with guilt and dread?

Ah, the murky waters undercover cops swam in—the fine line between doing his job well enough to fool his mark and actually becoming what he pretended to be.

“I know,” he said, letting his dread bleed into his voice. “Just do it. We’re fucking dead if they start shooting. Think about Marisol.” Enrique’s wife. “Think about Camila.” His sister.

A hard shove knocked Max a few feet forward. “I said get down!”

He allowed the momentum to drop him to his knees, then pitched onto his stomach, immediately interlacing his hands behind his head as ordered.

“Get your fucking hands off me.” Enrique struggled, but the trained agents had him prone and cuffed in seconds. He shouted and cursed the entire time, but they ignored him, all business in their actions.

Max was restrained next. He didn’t belong there, lying on the ground like one of the bad guys. A heavy boot pressed down in the center of his back, immobilizing him on the filthy warehouse floor as an agent slid cuffs around his wrists. The click of the metal jolted through him like a gunshot.

Get these off me.

Get these off me.

His chest tightened, and the boot restricted his lung movement.

I can’t breathe.

For four years, he’d tried to prepare for this moment.

Nothing could have prepared him for the panic that seized his lungs and stole his air.

This isn’t real. It’ll be over, and you’ll be set free soon. Pull it the fuck together.

The pressure eased off his back, and he sucked in large gulps of air. The oxygen eased some of the panic but not the hatred of being restrained. He was dying to glance over his shoulder to see if he recognized the agent who’d cuffed him, but he resisted. The risk of blowing his cover was higher than ever. The only way to get out of this without an enormous blinking target on his back was to play along. He’d done it for four years, so he could pull it off for a few more hours.

“Fucking pigs,” he shouted, jerking his arms against the cuffs. “You have no idea who the fuck you’re dealing with.”

“Big talk for a man in cuffs,” the agent behind him said with a laugh.

He recognized that laugh. Mosley, a veteran agent Max considered a friend, or he had before New Mexico’s dark underbelly swallowed him up.

Now Mosley was the arresting agent Max needed to make everyone believe he’d kill if he had the chance.

“Fuck you,” he shouted as best he could with his chest on the ground and his hands behind his back.

A dark chuckle rang out as Mosley yanked him to his knees with a vicious tug on the cuffs. Agony tore through his shoulders, making his pained cry legitimate.

“You fucks,” Enrique shouted from the same kneeling position as Max. His jet-black hair stuck out in all directions, much the same as it did the many times Max caught him strolling into his father’s compound after a night spent cheating on his wife. “I’m going to fucking kill every last one of you. You’re fucking families too.”

“Shut the fuck up, E,” Max said, as would be expected of him in this situation if he were looking out for Enrique.

“Someone ratted, brother,” Enrique whispered when the agents left them to assist in arresting others.

Max’s blood ran cold, but somehow, he managed a scoff. “No fucking way,” he muttered back. “No one is that stupid, E. You’d fucking kill them. Everyone here knows that. No one is stupid enough to betray your family.”

Wild-eyed, Enrique shook his head. “No. Death would be too easy for them. I’d make them beg for death every minute of every day. But I wouldn’t grant it. Not until I peeled every inch of skin from their bodies. I’d snatch their babies from their cribs and make them watch while I snuffed the life out of the little bodies. I’d carve up their wife and make them watch as I coat myself with her blood.”

Ice ran down Max’s spine. He did not doubt the truth of Enrique’s lethal promise for one second. Max didn’t have a family. Well, maybe there was someone out there somewhere, but his grandmother raised him, and she’d passed during his senior year of high school. That lack of connection was part of why he’d accepted the DEA’s offer after getting out of the Army.

He’d be the only one to endure unspeakable suffering should the Del Rios discover his true identity. That fact comforted him, though he’d prefer his skin to remain on his body if given the choice. But seeing as how that choice might be taken from him, at the very least, he knew no one he loved would suffer for his actions.

Because he didn’t love anyone.

And no one loved him.

Well, one person loved him. Someone he had no doubt would turn as brutal as Enrique should she find out he destroyed her family. If the DEA did its job, she never would. She’d mourn his arrest and whatever story they’d concoct about why he didn’t get a trial. Most likely, they’d fake his death, but she’d never discover the truth.

Max Dominguez, her beloved cartel boyfriend, was Maximus Gabriel Varga, an orphan from Texas turned undercover DEA agent.

“What the fuck do we do?” Enrique whispered.

He turned to the panicked man beside him. “We’re chained on the floor. What can we do?”

“I don’t fucking know, but I gotta do something. I won’t let—”

“Drop the weapon!”

The harsh shout had both Max’s and Enrique’s heads whipping in the direction of the command.

“Cami, no.” The cry left Max’s lips before his consciousness registered her standing there with a semi-automatic rifle jammed against her shoulder. Fire blazed in her dark eyes, not unlike the heated gazes she gave Max when she wanted him, but this was full of fury and hatred instead of lust.

His heart hammered against this ribcage.

Why was she there? She wasn’t supposed to be there. He’d booked her an entire day at her favorite spa to keep her far away from this disaster.

“Kill every one of these fuckers,” Enrique shouted at his trembling sister.

“Put the gun on the ground and get on your knees!” one of the agents shouted. “We will shoot you if you discharge the weapon.”

Fuck.

Max hopped to his feet in a move that would make ninjas proud. “Everyone shut the fuck up.” Most guns remained trained on Camila, but a few turned his way.

“Cami,” he said, trying for a soothing tone even though his stomach was tangled in a million knots. “Cami, honey, please put the gun down.”

She shook her head, her long, dark hair swishing around her tear-stained face. “I-I can’t let them take you from me.”

Guilt was a ruthless motherfucker. It twisted Max’s insides until he nearly screamed out his anguish. Camila wasn’t innocent, but she didn’t deserve a life behind bars as her family did. She was aware of who her father and brother were, but she was also a woman born into a militant, male-dominated drug cartel. She held no power and never would.

Max might not love her, but he cared for her deeply. She was the one person he wanted to spare in all this—the one person who didn’t deserve the backlash of his betrayal.

And the one who’d suffer most for it because he’d done a damn good job of convincing her she was the love of his life.

All part of the job.

His fucked-up job.

“It’s okay,” he said as though speaking to a frightened animal. “Just put the gun down, and we’ll sort it all out.”

“Fuck that.” Enrique climbed to his feet and shot Max a disgusted glare. “You know what you need to do, Camila Del Rios. This is family. Blood. The most important thing in the world.”

Her face crumbled. “Enrique,” she whispered, heartbreak bleeding through the words as she stared at him. “I love you, but…”

“It’s okay, baby. Just put the gun down.”

Camila’s gaze bounced between him and her brother. Silent tears rolled down her beautiful face, dragging her mascara with them.

“Max…” Her arm lowered a few inches.

He nodded as relief flooded him. “That’s good, baby, keep—”

Her spine snapped straight, and she whirled left, lifting the rifle back up.

“Camila!” he screamed as his gaze locked on her tensed trigger finger.

It sounded as though every gun in the room fired at once.

Bullets entered Camila’s body from all angles, jerking her in an unnatural but unmistakable way.

“No!” Enrique screamed so loud Max’s ears rang. He lurched forward with a feral cry only to be slammed back on the ground by the one agent not shooting.

Max stood frozen, staring at the body of the woman he’d pretended to love crumpled to the ground. Inside, he wailed as long and loud as Enrique, but he couldn’t move a muscle. He should scream. He should cry and try to attack the agents. It would help his cover, and it was what he wanted to do.

But he stood paralyzed.

Camila didn’t move. She lay in a lifeless heap with a crimson pool expanding all around her.

She wasn’t supposed to be there.

Why was she there?

He’d tried so damn hard to keep her from the fallout of her family’s business.

But he’d failed.

And now she was dead.

Was it worth it? Were the lives saved by ending the Del Rios Cartel worth more than the ones lost in the process?

The day he’d accepted this position, he’d believed that. Now, he wasn’t so sure. Four years deep undercover fucked with his head, heart, and soul in a way he might never recover from.

For one heart-stopping second, the warehouse fell deathly silent.

Then all hell broke loose.

For his part, Max stood staring at Camila’s body until someone finally dragged him to a waiting DEA vehicle.

He rested his head against the rear window, his gaze still fixated on the slain body.

I’m sorry, Camila.

He barely noticed the agents who slipped into the front seat and drove toward the government detention center.

“Heard you’ve been in four years,” the driver said after a few minutes of riding in silence.

Max merely stared at the shrinking warehouse as they drove away.

His partner gasped. “Four years? Shit, you must be glad this shit is over, huh?”

It was over all right—permanently for Camila.

And for Max too.