Chapter Twenty-Seven
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“THIS FUCKING BLOWS. Swear to Christ, you guys better find someone for me to kill when I’m back on my feet.”
Spec’s disgusted voice reverberated through Pulse’s earpiece. He’d stayed back but refused to be left out, so he listened on comms and joined in spirit.
“What? You want some kind of execution IOU?” Jinx asked with a laugh.
“That’s exactly what I want, fucker, so you better be prepared to deliver.”
Pulse rolled his eyes. Some days, he was amazed those two could function at all.
“You good, Pulse?” Spec asked.
He pressed his hand to the small communication device tucked in his ear. “All good. Just getting the lay of the land.”
He sat in his truck in the parking lot of the Breezy Palm, a motel that could only be described as shitty. It was about an hour inland and south of Lithia, near Sweetwater, Florida. When he first pulled into the lot, Pulse barely believed the ten-room motel was operational. One door, room seven, stood wide open and hanging from the hinges. Room four had a cracked window and a remnant of crime scene tape dangling from the doorknob. A vacancy sign lit the dark parking lot with neon orange, or it would have had any letters beyond the ‘C’ glowed. The once-white building had a yellowish tinge he could see even in the dark. The paint was a peeling mess as well. Off to the right, past the last room, a rusted chain link fence surrounded a pool he could only imagine was a lovely shade of green. Tall palm trees surrounded the structure and provided the only pleasant sight.
Birdy had informed him their target booked room ten, next to the pool and farthest from the office, for the foreseeable future. At present, he was the only guest in this dump unless they counted the prostitute renting room two by the hour. She’d arrived with a greasy-haired john a few moments ago. Pulse would be keeping an ear out for trouble there as well. He had no problem doling out a few black eyes if the trick decided to get rough with her.
The second he’d pulled his vehicle into the motel’s parking lot, instincts he’d buried five years ago came rushing back. He’d slipped into federal agent mode as though no time had passed. He registered every sound, smell, sight, and feeling. His observation skills might be rusty, but they hadn’t fled and came surging back when he needed them most.
He’d been there for thirty minutes, scouting the area and preparing for the next step. One motel employee snoozed at the reservation desk. Their mouth dangled open as they slept in their desk chair, visible through a wide storefront window. They hadn’t so much as twitched since Pulse arrived. Aside from that, the only other people he’d laid eyes on were the hooker and her client. No one had even driven past the motel. He’d spotted two exterior cameras, one outside the lobby entrance and one in the pool area. Neither appeared functional. The camera near the pool dangled from the side of the building by a fraying wire, and the other had a green moldy film over the lens.
The isolation and low risk of being recorded had to be the reason the cartel member picked this motel.
The ambiance sure wasn’t a draw.
The rest of his club—minus Spec—sat in cars on the street, waiting for Pulse’s instructions. Much to everyone’s dismay, they’d left the bikes behind, being less identifiable without motorcycles and cuts.
“Okay, I’m confident I won’t be seen. I’m going to engage the target.”
Jinx snorted. “I’m going to engage,” he mocked. “You sound like a damn fed.”
“If the shoe fits,” Tracker said.
“Funny,” Pulse muttered. “Can you all shut your traps for a hot minute so you don’t get me caught?”
“Quiet on comms,” Curly ordered.
No one spoke.
He slid from the truck without making a sound, then shut the door quietly behind him. Pulse darted across the parking lot toward room ten, dressed in black from head to toe. None of the security lights in the lot or building worked, so he could easily remain unseen. He’d have blended with the shadows even if someone driving by took a long look at the crumbling motel.
Room ten’s shades were drawn, but a light glowed along the bottom edge. The building’s shitty insulation allowed Pulse to hear the rush of the shower through the closed door. “Target is in the shower,” he whispered into his comms. “I’m going in.”
“Stay safe,” Curly replied. The others remained quiet as ordered.
Pulse pulled a lock pick kit from his pocket—thank you, Lock—and had the rusted lock open within seconds. A familiar surge of anticipation he hadn’t experienced in ages flooded his system. Even years later, he could admit nothing matched the thrill of taking down a perp. This one would be extra satisfying since this shithead posed a threat to his woman.
He won’t threaten anyone after tonight.
With excitement racing through his veins, he slipped into the room and shut the door behind him. The dull snick of the door wouldn’t be heard above the shower, even with the bathroom door wide open. Steam wafted into the room, illuminated by the glow of the harsh bathroom lights. After securing the chain lock—the last thing he needed was an unexpected visitor—he turned to assess the room.
The inside of the hotel room was as nasty as the outside. A faded mauve comforter with at least two cigarette burns covered the single full-size bed. Two flat pillows were propped together against the headboard as though someone had been using them as a backrest. The walls were painted tan and stained yellow from cigarette smoke, which the entire room reeked of. Not recent smoke, but stale, years-old tar and nicotine.
The decades-old television played a telenovela on low. Next to the door, beneath the window, sat a small table and two wooden chairs. Empty Chinese food containers littered the table and overflowed a trash can beside the bed.
Pulse grabbed one of the chairs by the table and spun it to face the bathroom. Then he drew his gun and plopped down to wait, pointing the weapon toward the bathroom.
Not three minutes later, the water cut off, and the metallic scrape of the shower curtain along the rod announced his target was exiting the shower. Pulse readied his trigger finger but remained relaxed in the chair. At the wet slap of footsteps on the tile, he grinned.
Showtime .
His target came into view, striding into the room bare-assed and rubbing a towel over his dark hair.
“Jesus, fuck,” he shouted as he spotted Pulse. He immediately dropped the towel down to his waist to cover his swinging dick.
Recognition bloomed inside Pulse, immediately turning to nausea. Birdy had told him Tomás Del Rios was resurrecting the cartel and posing as a DEA agent, but part of Pulse hadn’t believed him. The Tomás he’d known had been a gangly, geeky teen who’d loved reading and playing Dungeons and Dragons . His father didn’t involve him in cartel business, believing Tomás too soft for that life.
Looked like he’d been wrong.
“Tomás,” he whispered. “For fuck’s sake.”
“Max. Gotta admit I wasn’t expecting you to find me here.”
“You didn’t make it easy. You chose the shittiest motel in existence and paid cash.”
Tomás shrugged. “It served its purpose.”
Tomás. Fuck, he never would have thought. “Why?” Pulse asked because he couldn’t think of anything else. When the cartel came down, the kid could have walked away and lived a safe and satisfying life.
The younger man snorted. “Come on, Max. The feds might not be rocket scientists, but they don’t hire idiots. You know why. It’s simple. You destroyed my fucking family.”
“Your family ran the most violent and deadly drug cartel we’ve ever seen,” he said, gun trained on Tomás. “You hated what they did.”
“You spent years with my goddamn family.” His voice broke as he spoke. “Fucking years. My family welcomed you. Accepted you. My father loved you like a son!” By the time he finished, he was red-faced and screaming.
“It was my job, Tomás. Countless lives have been saved since the takedown of the cartel. Your father murdered anyone who looked at you sideways. Thousands of fatal overdoses were directly linked to the Del Rios Cartel’s supply. My job was to save lives, and I did it well.”
“Too bad one of those lives you saved wasn’t Camila, huh?”
Shot fired.
Direct hit.
It felt like acid being poured into a fresh wound.
“Camila wasn’t supposed to be there that day, Tomás. I did everything in my power to keep her away. I tried every damn day to get her to move away from your family. I showed her pictures that gave her nightmares and begged her to move somewhere safer. The risk of arrest was always high, and the risk of a war with rival cartels even higher. But Camila loved the lavish lifestyle your father provided. She loved the mansion and fancy cars. She loved the diamonds and envious stares everywhere she went. No, she didn’t directly work for the cartel, but she benefited as much as anyone from the suffering of others. Even still, I did everything in my power to keep her alive and will regret her death for the rest of my life.”
“Your regret doesn’t mean shit to me, asshole. My father and brother are behind bars for the rest of their lives, and my sister is dead. The government seized every fucking dollar. I was left with nothing.”
That wasn’t entirely true. Tomás had a trust fund he’d been scheduled to receive when he turned eighteen, only three months after the cartel’s takedown. The US and Mexican governments, working together, decided to leave that money for seventeen-year-old Tomás as a sort of twisted consolation prize for the loss of his family. Financially, he was set for life.
They should have considered his emotional security as well.
“So, this is all one big plot of vengeance against me? Seems like a lot of effort when you could have just hired someone to shoot me in the head.”
Tomás snorted. “There’s that arrogance you feds all have, thinking you’re the center of the goddamn universe. You’re just the first domino to fall, Max. I’m taking down the agency one evil operator at a time.”
A conflicting mix of sadness and satisfaction warred within Pulse, giving him a familiar heaviness in his chest he’d battled with for months after leaving the DEA. Tomás had to be stopped. There wasn’t any way to let him go free. The man couldn’t be bargained with or bought off. Hatred had invaded his cells and ruled his life. Not only was he a direct threat to everyone Pulse loved, but he would topple an entire government agency if allowed to leave today.
Still, part of Pulse took no joy in ending the young man’s life. He’d become collateral damage in a war he should have been shielded from. Another life destroyed by violent cartel life.
“So what’s your plan here, Max?” Tomás asked with a smirk. He still had the towel covering his junk and stood dripping all over the thin carpet. “Shoot a DEA agent in cold blood? One who is down here specifically investigating your club? You think my superiors don’t know where I am? The second I go off the grid, the entire agency will be so far up your club’s ass they’ll be peeking out your mouth.”
“Give me a little credit.” Pulse stood. “Like you said, the DEA doesn’t hire idiots. No, Tomás, that’s not how it will happen, although you are right about some of it.” He took a step closer. The way Tomás frowned as though unable to fathom a way out of this for Pulse had him grinning. The man wasn’t as clever as he thought.
“I am going to kill you.”
“You’ll never fucking get away with it.”
“I promise you, I will. You think you covered your tracks so well. You think you scrubbed your history so clean no one could ever find a link between you and the Del Rios Cartel. I mean, hell, you passed the government’s most invasive background check. But you’d be wrong. Or maybe my guy is just that good. You see, right now, as we speak, your immediate supervisor, his supervisor, and so forth until we reach the tippy top of the DEA, are receiving an email with very detailed background information on their hot-shot young agent.”
Blood leached from Tomás’ tanned face, leaving him with a sickly pale hue. Fuck, it felt good to have the upper hand, finally. To know Talia would be safe and his club could continue to thrive.
Pulse waved his gun with a flourish. “Things like who your father is, who your brother is, what you’ve been doing with the money the government generously let you keep when the cartel was dismantled. I think they’d give me a damn medal for shooting you, frankly, but they’ll never know it was me.”
Tomás’ mouth flopped open and closed like the large fish Pulse had caught a few months ago out in the Gulf.
“You see, as we’re talking, my club is waiting for my signal. As soon as I’ve… done my thing…” He smirked and wiggled the gun. “They’ll be here to assist with cleanup and to transport your body to New Mexico.”
The flash of fear in Tomás’ eyes hit Pulse’s blood like a caffeine surge.
“That’s right,” he said with a chuckle. “My sources are so good they even found out you purchased your father’s old property in New Mexico. Your body will be there, surrounded by more proof of how you’ve resurrected the cartel these past few years. A nice present for the DEA, all wrapped up with a pretty bow.”
He bowed as though having completed the grand finale of an epic performance.
Tomás stood frozen with the towel hiding his dick. The shrill shriek of an enraged telenovela character played in the background.
In an instant, a tsunami of rage transformed Tomás face into a furious snarl, and he lunged at Pulse. It happened so fast that only his decade of training made him react quickly. Muscle memory kicked in. He raised the gun and fired two rounds straight into Tomás’ chest before the man could touch him.
The towel slipped from Tomás’ fingers and floated to the floor, landing after his heavy body collapsed. Wide, hateful eyes stared up at him as blood erupted from the two wounds in his chest. Without clothing to absorb the liquid, blood spurted onto the floor, creating a large puddle in seconds.
Pulse stared down at Tomás as life left the younger man.
All he felt was peace—more peace than he’d experienced since before he’d walked into the Del Rios’ world.
He pulled out his phone and shot a quick text to Curly. Ten seconds later, there was a light rasp on the door. Pulse turned from the naked dead body and went to open the door. Jinx pushed into the room, followed by Curly, Tracker, and Ty.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Jinx muttered as he spotted the body.
“What? What the fuck is happening? This is fucking bullshit. I need to be there.” Spec’s tone matched his irritated words.
“Why the fuck couldn’t you have asked him to put on some goddamned clothes? Now we gotta stare at his dick the whole time we’re moving him.”
“That’s your biggest concern?” Tracker asked with a snort.
“What? The only dick I like looking at is mine, which, I might add, is much more impressive than this dude’s.”
“You’re mind never grew past a damn thirteen-year-old,” Ty muttered as he walked over to Tomás’ crumpled body.
Jinx folded his arms and glared at Ty. “It sure as fuck did, VP. Trust me, the things I think of now did not cross my mind at thirteen.” He waggled his eyebrows, earning a laugh from Tracker.
“Hey…” Curly strode over to Pulse. “You good, brother?”
He allowed himself a second to consider the question. “Yeah. I am, Prez.”
Curly slapped him on the shoulder. “Why don’t you head out? Your woman must be climbing the walls by now.”
They’d be lucky if that’s all Talia was doing.
“You guys got this?”
Curly nodded. “Not our first rodeo.”
“Fair enough. Thanks, Prez.”
He strode out of the shitty motel into the cool, clear night, only to stop when he saw the gorgeous woman leaning against his truck. One glimpse of her had him grinning like a damn fool. “Just couldn’t be left out of the action, could you?”
Talia shrugged without an ounce of regret. “You don’t seem surprised to see me,” she said as she pushed off the car and strode his way.
Pulse stayed put so he could enjoy the show as she walked to him. She looked damn sexy in her black leggings and long-sleeve top, ready for a night of crime.
As soon as she was close enough to touch, he reached around her waist and yanked her to him. “Hi, baby,” he said before kissing her.
“Is it done?”
He nodded. “It’s done.”
She blew out a breath and leaned into his embrace. “So we can leave here, be together, and just be normal?”
He chuckled. “I’m not sure anything is ever normal with the Handlers.”
“Good point.” She tipped her chin up, offering her lips for a kiss. “I’ll take your club’s brand of crazy any day.”
“You better. You’re stuck with us now.”
“As long as I’m stuck with you.”
“Forever.” He kissed her until they were both panting, and her eyes had glazed. “Now let’s get the hell out of here, counselor. I’ve had a lot of trouble with the law lately, and I’m gonna need you to get me off.”
Talia burst out laughing. “Oh my God, that is the worst attorney pun I’ve ever heard. You’re lucky I love you, or that might be enough to have me running from you.”
He slid his arm around her shoulders and guided her across the lot to his truck. “Trust me, I know how goddamn lucky I am.”
Talia’s soft grin warmed his insides. “Love you.”
“Love you, too, baby.”
He helped her into the giant truck, and then they sped off, finally leaving this part of Pulse’s life where it belonged—in the past. Only this time, he had his brothers at his back, his woman at his side, and no secrets to jeopardize that perfection.