CHAPTER TWELVE
“It hurts really bad, Tam.” Tears streamed from Jaime Ortega’s eyes, all of the color had drained from his face, and his breathing was erratic. “I want to go to the ospital.” He dragged his forearm across his brow to keep the sweat from dripping into his eyes.
Tamarin Rios grabbed fistfuls of the front of Jaime’s shirt and yanked it open to access the wound on his right shoulder. Buttons flew, and one bounced off the refrigerator before landing on the floor with the others.
Blood oozed from the wound with each beat of Jaime’s heart.
“You can’t go to the fucking hospital, dumbass.
” Agustin Martín sat at the round, wooden dining table sharpening his big knife.
Scrape scrape, back and forth, he skimmed the blade across the sharpening stone.
“Every hospital and clinic within a fifty-mile radius will be looking for a Hispanic dude with shaggy hair and a bullet wound.”
Tamarin glared at him over his shoulder.
“Shut the fuck up, Martín.” He turned back to Jaime.
“This is gonna hurt like a bitch, but try not to scream.” He reached over to pick up the bottle of alcohol sitting on the table and looked him in the eye.
“Ya hear me?” Jaime didn’t answer, so Tamarin gave him a little shake. “Jaime, did you hear me?”
The guy’s lips trembled, and his entire body shook from shock, but he managed a quick nod.
“Hand me that towel over there.” Tamaran pointed to a dish towel with a cow on it draped over the oven handle.
Martín leaned back until the chair was on two legs and stretched his long arm out. He yanked the towel off the bar and tossed it to him.
“Here, just in case, put this over your mouth.” Tamarin handed Jaime the towel and screwed the top off of the plastic bottle.
As always, Jaime did what he was told and placed the towel over his mouth before squeezing his eyes tightly shut.
Tamarin lifted the bottle, tipped it over his shoulder, and let the clear liquid pour into the quarter-size bullet hole.
Jaime threw his head back, veins bulging in his neck. His agonized screams were muffled by the towel. Pink liquid dripped and splattered across the linoleum.
The bullet was still lodged in his shoulder, which had to hurt like hell. They needed to clean it as best as possible, so Tamarin poured every drop of the alcohol onto the wound, then tossed the empty bottle into the kitchen sink.
“Breathe, man,” he told him.
Jaime removed the towel and drew in huge, deep breaths and blew them out.
“Good.” Now for the really bad news. “I have to remove that bullet.”
Jaime’s eyes widened with dread, and he shook his head. “No, Tam, no—”
“I have to.” Tamarin set his hand on his friend’s knee.
“But—”
“We can’t leave it in there, man.” He stood, walked around, yanking drawers open and rifling through them. He stopped at the knife block, pulled out a small paring knife, and handed it to Martín. “Sharpen this for me.”
“Gladly.” The asshole actually smiled, then he spit on the stone, rubbed the small blade back and forth over it, and flicked the edge of the blade with the pad of his thumb to test the sharpness. “That oughta be good enough.”
He handed it back to him, and Tamarin dug through the plastic grocery bag on the table until he found the other bottle of alcohol. He went to the sink and poured some over the blade to sterilize it as best he could, then sat in front of Jaime again.
“You can’t move, or this won’t work. So I’m gonna have Martín hold you.”
Martín slid his knife into the sheath at his waist, shoved back from the table, and moved to stand behind him.
Jaime stared up at him with a combination of distrust and fear in his eyes, and his Adam’s apple slid up and down.
Tamarin waited until Martín had a good hold on Jaime’s shoulders.
“You got him?” he asked.
“Yep.” Martín nodded.
Tamarin took a deep breath, leaned close, and stuck the tip of the blade about an inch or so into the wound. Jaime screamed into the towel, passed out, and the towel fell from his limp hand and landed next to his chair.
Blood streamed down his chest, soaking the waistband of his jeans, and dripped onto the floor.
Now that Jaime was out cold, Tamarin moved the blade around until he felt the bullet.
Now that he knew where it was, he could extract it.
He didn’t have any tweezers, so he had to reach in with his thumb and forefinger to try to grasp the small piece of lead.
After a minute or so of rooting around inside his friend’s shoulder, he managed to pinch it between his fingers and slowly removed it.
“Fuck.” He blew out a breath and dropped the bullet—shiny with Jaime’s blood—onto the table.
He picked the towel up from the floor and wiped his fingers.
Then he wadded it up, held it against the wound, and applied pressure.
“We need to move him to the couch. I’ll grab his legs. You get his shoulders.”
They heaved him up from the chair and laid him on the couch. Jaime groaned and grimaced but didn’t wake up.
“He’s a liability,” Martín said.
“Shut … the fuck … up,” Tamarin growled.
He ripped open the gauze pads with his teeth, tore off some lengths of tape and stuck them to the edge of the coffee table, then he dressed the wound as best he could.
“You know I’m right.” The asshole picked up his cigarettes and phone from the table, moved to the back door, and stepped outside.
Jaime’s delirium kicked in. His head started rolling side to side, and he mumbled incoherently before passing out again.
Tamarin took the blanket from where it was draped over the back of the couch and covered his friend.
As he watched him lay there, he was glad they’d found this place.
Keeping the kids in the storage unit much longer would’ve been risky, so they’d already looked around for another location. They’d driven into the outskirts of San Salsillo and come across this place about twenty miles outside of town.
Martín had scoped it out and determined it was unoccupied and would be a safe place to hole up.
Tamarin taking a bullet and not getting the kid had forced them to pick the girls up earlier than they originally planned.
Just as well. When they first rented the unit, the guy in the office at the storage facility had busted his balls about requiring a credit card, said it was company policy.
Tamarin had slapped a short stack of hundreds on the counter, and suddenly the asshole’s rigid dedication to following company policy softened.
Most sensible people would assume someone throwing around that kind of cash might have something to hide.
They couldn’t take the chance he might get curious and start sniffin’ around their unit.
The three-bedroom mobile home was perfectly located at the end of a private, dead-end road that backed up to a sandstone ridgeline.
It was surrounded by nothing but scrub, cactus, and sand, with only one dirt road leading to the property, giving them the perfect vantage point to see anyone approaching.
And way out there, no one could hear the girls screaming for help.
Based on the time of year—early summer—and the fact the fridge was pretty much empty and the air-conditioning had been turned down, Tamarin figured the people who owned it must be snowbirds who only lived there when they were trying to escape the cold-ass winters up north.
That should give them a couple of months to use this place as their home base. More than enough time to do what they came here for.
Tamarin gathered up the garbage and went to the kitchen. He grabbed an empty trash bag from beneath the sink and shoved the garbage inside, along with the bloody towel, and set it on the floor next to the door.
He stood at the sink, cranked the water on until it was as hot as he could tolerate, and soaped up his hands and forearms. A few minutes later, satisfied he’d washed away all of Jaime’s blood, he dried off, yanked open the fridge, and grabbed a Modelo.
He pressed the cold bottle against his forehead, then popped the top off and took a long swallow.
The cold liquid trailed down his throat and settled in his gut.
Whimpering came from the bedroom at the far end of the house.
The girls had been screaming pretty much nonstop since they brought them out there.
No one could hear them, so he hadn’t bothered threatening them to get them to stop.
A few hours ago, they finally ran out of steam.
All they could muster up now was a raspy plea for help every once in a while.
A part of him felt bad for them, albeit it a very small part.
Tamarin’s moral compass had stopped functioning a long time ago, right after his mama was killed for the grave sin of her son accidentally encroaching on the wrong turf.
Not long after that, when Tamarin was three months shy of his thirteenth birthday, his dad just sorta took off one day, leaving him to fend for himself.
Shit like that blackens a man’s soul against just about everything.
Except for his mama.
Not a day went by that he didn’t miss her. She had been an angel on earth, and he never let himself dwell on how disappointed she would be with him over the path he’d chosen. Scratch that. He hadn’t chosen this path; he’d been forced into it due to circumstances beyond his control.
The only reason Tamarin made it past his thirteenth birthday was because old man Munoz took pity on him. He took him in when he was a scrawny, angry kid and gave him a place to stay. Then he taught him the importance of discipline and loyalty.
Over time, he’d become friends with AJ and eventually was invited to be part of his crew—the group of guys he trusted most.
Unfortunately, Rodrigo had never shared his father’s benevolence or his brother’s fondness for him. He’d made sure Tamarin knew how much he disdained his presence on the periphery of his family.
From a very young age, all Rodrigo had cared about was the family business and earning his father’s favor.
He was always hyperfocused on learning everything he could from his old man, then he left home and went to school at that fancy college in America.
He did all of that knowing his screwup of an older brother would one day be running things, not him.
Perhaps he figured out early on that AJ’s carelessness and volatility would one day destroy him. At which time, Rodrigo would take what he felt was his rightful place as the head of the family empire.
He’d been right. AJ’s behavior had been the cause of his demise.
Rodrigo had always harbored a deep resentment toward his brother due to his lack of motivation and the shame and negative attention he brought to their family.
So naturally, in his opinion, all of the people who were a part of his brother’s inner circle were no better.
It didn’t matter how many times Tamarin proved his loyalty to the family.
He still had yet to earn the trust of the sole remaining family member—Rodrigo.
His phone vibrated across the table, and he hurried over to pick it up.
Speak of the devil.
Rodrigo’s name appeared on the screen, and he took the call.
“Rodrigo—”
“What is this I hear about that idiot, Jaime, getting shot and you not getting the girl?”
Just then, Martín stepped inside with a big smirk on his face, tucking his phone back into his pocket.
“I was going to call you as soon as we got Jaime patched up.” But Martín beat him to it. “There was a cop at the kid’s school, and he got a shot off on him.”
“It is my understanding that the small child was able to escape his grasp,” Rodrigo said. “Is that true?”
“She kicked him in the nuts, and he dropped her.” No man could be expected to withstand that kind of abuse. “That’s when the cop shot him. He managed to get away. We picked him up a couple of blocks over, then relocated the girls.”
“I am beginning to wonder if I put the wrong person in charge of this assignment.”
Tamarin glared at Martín, the fucking rat.
“Have I ever let the family down before, Rodrigo?” He was beginning to question whether his years of unquestioning service to the Munoz family had been a waste of his life.
He never should’ve brought Martín into this. The guy was a bloodthirsty psychopath. If he had his way, every single one of the girls they’d grabbed would be gagged and hog-tied. And he sure as hell wouldn’t return them to their families alive when this whole thing was over.
That was the reason Tamarin insisted they wear masks whenever they were around them. Because, unlike Martín, killing kids was not something he enjoyed doing.
He was already going to end up in hell. No sense getting relegated to the darkest corner immediately upon arrival.
“Okay, I will leave you in charge. For now.” Rodrigo was cool as ice. He never raised his voice, nor did he ever lose control. “But I want Calabretta destroyed. And soon. I don’t care what you must do to make that happen.”
“You can trust—”
Rodrigo hung up.
Tamarin looked at the phone and set it on the table.
He stepped over, stood a few inches in front of Martín and pointed right at his face.
“If you ever go behind my back to Rodrigo again,” he ground out the words between clenched teeth, “I will fucking end you, and you won’t see it coming.”
An evil smile slowly crept across Martín’s face. Unfazed, he chuckled. Without a word, he reached past Tamarin to snag a fresh pack of cigarettes, then headed back outside.
With that phone call, Martín had made it clear he had his sights set on taking over this operation. He was the kind of guy who killed just for the fun of it. So he wouldn’t hesitate to take Tamarin out if it meant becoming Rodrigo’s go-to guy.
Tamarin would have to watch his back even more than usual. Then he would take care of Martín himself.