Chapter 16 #4
“I can see your mind working overtime. It won’t kill you.
It’s Rohypnol. It’ll relax you. In fifteen or twenty minutes, you’ll fall asleep.
You won’t remember what happened here. You won’t be able to tell the cops anything about me or what we talked about.
It’ll be as if it never happened. This is in your best interest. It’s this…
or my lieutenant slicing your throat and you bleeding out. ”
Salazar leaned over her until Gillian was looking up into his steely brown eyes.
“But this is your only free pass, Ms. Romano. If I hear you’ve somehow remembered our little talk today, and you’ve snitched, it won’t go as well for you a second time.
And I understand you have some good friends in the area too, right?
You wouldn’t want your friends—Ms. Pierce, Ms. Reed, or Ms. Thomas—to have an accident, would you? ”
The thought of Ann, Wendy, or Clarissa being in the hands of this cold-hearted monster made her physically sick. Gillian shook her head as best she could.
“Good. So we’re on the same page. Now, drink up.”
Before she could agree or not agree, a plastic cup was pressed against her lips and the goon who held her head pressed on an area of her jaw that made her cry out in pain. With her mouth open, the second man tipped the glass and she had no choice but to drink.
It tasted horrible and burned as it went down her throat. For a second, Gillian thought they’d forced her to drink acid or antifreeze or something, but when she inhaled through her nose as she swallowed, she knew it was some kind of alcohol. Tequila maybe.
She sputtered and choked, but the men didn’t relent. By the time they let go of her, she was soaked from her chin to her belly button. She tried to breathe, but gagged instead.
A huge hand covered her mouth from behind and she stared up at Salazar as he said, “If you throw it up, you’ll have to swallow it back down. Can’t let good roofies go to waste.”
Forcing herself to take a big breath through her nose, Gillian tried to tamp down the need to puke. When the man finally let go of her, she immediately inhaled and asked, “What now?”
“Now? We wait for you to go to sleep. Then my men will find a nice quiet place to drop you off. Wouldn’t want any big bad drug dealers to find you passed out now, would we? They might not be as nice to you as I’ve been.”
Gillian wanted to scratch his eyes out, but she couldn’t do anything but sit there and listen.
“Just because I made a mistake in believing my falcon and having you brought in doesn’t mean I’m not keeping an eye on you. Be a good girl, go back to your white world of privilege and stay there. Understand?”
Gillian had no idea what he was talking about with a falcon, but she nodded anyway. She was still terrified of what was going to happen to her when she went unconscious. The alcohol was going straight to her head, but it was the drug he’d forced her to ingest that worried her the most.
She knew all about women being roofied at clubs. It was an infamous date-rape drug. She didn’t want to forget what happened here. It seemed very, very important that she not forget.
As the minutes ticked by, she repeated the words over and over in her head in the slight hope that maybe when she woke up, her unconscious mind would be able to recall them.
Salazar, falcon, Salazar, falcon, Falazar, salcon…
The room was beginning to spin.
“That’s it, Gillian. Close your eyes and go to sleep. When you wake up, this will all be a bad dream.”
She did as ordered, feeling as if her body belonged to someone else. Salafar, fanzar…
Gillian tried to hang on, tried to memorize what she needed to before she lost it completely, but it was too late.
Salazar waited until he was sure the bitch was out before motioning to his lieutenants.
“Bring Vilchez to me as soon as she can be found. First, I told her to bring Gillian to me unharmed. Those bruises on her face are gonna piss her man off, and that’s the last thing we need.
Secondly, this meeting was unnecessary and potentially dangerous to our organization.
She’s already on the Feds’ radar, and her new boyfriend is one of the men who took out Luis and the others.
I’ve done as much damage control as I can do here, but there’s still a chance she’ll remember something and talk. Vilchez has a lot to answer for.”
“Si, Senor,” the men said in unison.
“Where do you want us to put her?” the man who’d forced the roofied drink down Gillian’s throat asked.
“Don’t care. Somewhere without cameras,” Salazar said impatiently, then turned and left the room. He was pissed he’d wasted his time on this shit today. He had more important things to do—namely, distributing the millions of street dollars’ worth of cocaine he’d just had delivered the day before.
Vilchez would be dealt with one way or another.
Making sure his falcons knew their place was imperative, and disciplining Vilchez would serve as a reminder of how they were supposed to be serving Sinaloa.
Watching and reporting so they could stay under the radar.
Not lying about what they’d seen or heard to serve their own vendettas.
Sinaloa came first, period. When a falcon agreed to work for Salazar, he or she was putting their own needs second to those of the cartel. A reminder of that would be good for everyone.
The falcons would be scared into thinking before they acted.
The hitmen would have a chance to practice their interrogation techniques.
And the lieutenants would learn to think twice before bringing stupid shit to his door.
Shaking his head, Salazar strode confidently to the car that was waiting at the curb.
His Mercedes was out of place in the rundown neighborhood, but no one would say a word, he was sure of that.
He owned this part of town. Half the residents were working for him and the other half needed the drugs he supplied.
Putting thoughts of Gillian Romano out of his head, Salazar settled onto the leather seat of his car and nodded at his driver.
This little meeting might’ve been an amusing break from his normal routine, but it was also annoying, because now it meant he had to deal with the reason it had come about in the first place.
“Fucking bitches and their drama,” he murmured for the second time that afternoon, before picking up one of his many untraceable cell phones and dialing another one of his lieutenants. Time to get back to work making money and selling drugs.