10. Chapter 9
Chapter 9
A spring from the seat of the beat-up, piece of shit car dug into Ramiro’s ass. He missed his own car, but he needed something he could ditch.
“This is a mistake,” Diego warned.
“I have to send a message,” Ramiro repeated, gripping his phone tight as he stared at the street leading to the nightclub.
Diego snorted in his ear. “Sure, I get that, but you really think walking right in to give it is the best plan?”
“You know me better than that.” Ramiro stared through the windshield at the people stumbling drunkenly on the sidewalk ahead. He’d never been the clubbing type, even when he was young enough for it.
“I should be there,” Diego murmured.
Ramiro listened to the muffled giggle of a child in the background of his friend’s phone. “You know why you’re not. I’ve got backup. ”
Diego groaned. “Don’t tell me it’s the sneaky fu—uh, fudger? Shit, that didn’t sound right. Oh, damn, I mean—”
“Please stop,” Ramiro said, rubbing at his forehead. Listening to Diego trying not to swear was painful, but it also reminded him of Summer’s situation. “I didn’t call about the hit,” he admitted.
Diego went quiet before clearing his throat. “This is about your secretary, isn’t it? I saw the way you looked when I showed up after the attack.”
“They shouldn’t have touched her.”
There was a muffled thump of a door closing on Diego’s end, and the background noise faded. “I get it. She’s yours, isn’t she?”
Summer had always been his, but she felt farther away than ever. Ramiro’s throat went dry. He swallowed, forcing the words out. “She’s pregnant.”
Saying it made it real. He’d wanted that. He hated the words anyway.
“All that pent-up need of yours must have flooded her.”
“It’s not mine,” Ramiro said.
“Fuck that. Don’t make me hurt you, Ram. Whether by blood or not, if she’s yours, that baby is yours.”
“Just because you’re now a happy father doesn’t mean we’re all cut out for that.” Ramiro needed to stop thinking about what could have been. Summer wanted the child. It was time to set her up away from all the shit he brought into her life so she could truly be safe.
“So you’re willing to give her up?” Diego asked.
“It’s what needs to happen. For her and the baby.” The words left him cold, even if they were true.
Ramiro listened to the distant laugh of people passing the alley, heading to the club. The silence through the phone stretched until he started wondering if Diego had hung up on him.
“What bullshit,” Diego muttered. “Nobody likes a fucking martyr, Ram.”
Ramiro blew out a breath. “I’m not—”
“Tell that sneaky fucker that I’ll kill him if he lets you die tonight.”
Ramiro’s brows drew together. “Are you going soft on me, Diego?”
“Soft? Fuck that. I took what I wanted after killing the asshole who had it. From where I’m sitting, you’re the pathetic one.” Then Diego really did hang up on him.
Ramiro sighed, lowering the phone. His friend wasn’t wrong. He really was pathetic.
Making sure the cartel learned from their mistake would ease the feeling.
He was still tempted to kill that prick boyfriend of hers, but the boyfriend was less of a physical threat. The cartel came first.
Ramiro pulled up the feed on his phone. Women’s laughter filtered into the car, but it didn’t include Summer’s voice. He watched her face, seeing the same defeat he’d seen back in the office .
Did she really want this baby or was she stuck with her Bible-thumping parents’ voices in her head, the same ones who’d blamed their daughter for being raped?
He studied Summer’s forced smile. She clutched some fruity concoction in her friends’ apartment. At least she was out of that dress from the night before. She wore a loose cotton skirt and a T-shirt with flowers scattered on it and the phrase Grow Positive Thoughts.
She was so fucking beautiful, even with the bags under her eyes and the faked happiness.
Could he really let her go if she decided to keep the baby? His hand began to sweat around his phone. The thought of not having her near him was as anxiety inducing as the thought of holding a fragile baby in his hands.
A shadow fell over the screen. “Stalker.”
Ramiro wasn’t surprised he’d missed Ash slipping into the car. “You’re one to talk,” he said.
Asher Mendez was a sneaky fucker, just as Diego said. Where Diego excelled at video surveillance, and Hayes could find anything linked to the internet, Ash was the one you sent in directly. He was a goddamn ghost when he wanted to be, even though he was right in front of you.
Tonight he was dressed like a typical club crawler—designer dark-washed jeans, a black button-down shirt with the top few buttons undone, and dark hair styled as if he’d just rolled out of bed and planned on going back soon.
Ash’s lips tilted up in a smirk. “Stop checking me out. ”
“The women are going to be all over you,” Ramiro said.
“Let me worry about that. Ovidio Guzman is on the second floor in one of the VIP rooms. Four with him, another two outside, plus plenty spread around the club. There’s a back hallway attached to the rooms. That’s the best exit once the hit is done, as long as they don’t kill you on sight.” Ash’s voice sounded bored, as if he didn’t give a shit how the night played out.
He probably didn’t, but he was still the best backup. Diego had too much to lose. Hayes never left his goddamn house unless Ramiro forced him to. Naz was injured and wouldn’t make it through the doors. Neither would Seb. They’d both been burned with the cartel. That left Asher Mendez, and he was worth every penny Ramiro paid him, even if he didn’t care about anything in the world.
That worked best. He had nothing to lose and no fear of dying.
Not that they were going to die that night. It was time to send another message to the Guzmans, and targeting Ovidio was the best way to do it. He was the one in charge. The cartel would scatter with the oldest Guzman brothers dead and the last one in prison.
“I’ll give you ten minutes,” Ramiro said.
Ash slipped out, closing the door of the piece of trash car silently, which defied the rules of the universe. When Ramiro opened his side ten minutes later, the hinges creaked in protest .
He walked past the growing crowd waiting to enter the club and approached the entrance where cartel thugs were acting as bouncers.
The one on the left eyed him with interest while the one on the right sneered. “Who the hell are you?”
“Ramiro Rodriguez. Guzman invited me.” He watched as the posturing thug’s eyes widened before he stepped out of the way to let Ramiro pass. The other bouncer continued to eye him and reached for his phone.
Guzman would know he was coming, but Ramiro was counting on that.
The heavy bass of the club thrummed in his head as he crossed along the edges of the dancing bodies taking up most of the space. The Guzmans knew how to handle the club scene. They ran a few around the city, and all turned a decent profit. Hayes had once shown him the numbers, and even he’d seemed impressed.
Of course, the fentanyl-laced drugs they distributed made much more than that. The clubs weren’t enough to filter the funds through; they also cleaned it through real estate, which was getting even easier with the balloon the market was seeing.
The Guzmans had been around for a while. The pampered sons took over once the authorities nabbed their father in Sinaloa, Mexico, because of some pissing contest. Then they’d birthed even more pampered sons who weren’t nearly as tough as they needed to be. Ramiro had done their dirty work back when he was in the syndicate and had continued to do it as an independent contractor building his own team. The cartel paid well for their services.
Two more thugs waited at the bottom of the steps leading up to the VIP rooms. Neither of them was a Guzman, but there were fewer of those left now. The cartel was a rainbow of skin colors as men joined up along the way. A lot of the men from the disbanded Zeta syndicate had taken positions with them once Nino Zeta died.
Ramiro made his way past the men. They didn’t frisk him for weapons. Ovidio Guzman must be feeling confident, or at least willing to risk his life to fake it.
One of his men opened the glass door to the VIP room. Ovidio sat on the couch inside, his legs spread and his arms draped over the back, as if daring Ramiro to put a bullet in his chest. He always was a cocky bastard.
He had about a dozen years on Ramiro, but Ramiro had started out much younger. They’d run together more than once back in the day. Ovidio had been an asshole even before his father died and he ended up with more power than he knew what to do with.
It was too bad he no longer had a son to pass it on to, but Naz had taken care of that.
“Rodriguez,” Ovidio said, eyeing him with satisfaction.
“I got your message.” Ramiro unbuttoned his jacket before he sat. One of Guzman’s men put his hand on his gun as Ramiro flashed his own. A familiar thrum of adrenaline filled his veins. He’d been behind a desk more often than not lately, focused on organizing things and letting his men take the heat. He didn’t hate delegating, but this felt more comfortable.
Ovidio smirked. “It took you a full day to react? You’re as slow as always, Rodriguez.”
“You’re one to talk. I sent you my message months ago. I thought it was rather clear.” He hadn’t bothered to clean up Naz’s mess after he’d killed so many of the cartel’s men. Leaving the bodies to be found spoke more strongly than trying to hide them.
All humor dropped from Ovidio’s face. “One of yours killed my son. Julio was more important to me than money or drugs or this fucked-up business.” Ovidio’s eyes narrowed. “You knew that.”
Ramiro remembered how excited Ovidio had been back when his son was born. Not for the child himself, but for the legacy. “It’s a bit late to be playing the doting father, isn’t it?”
Ovidio lunged forward, punching Ramiro in the jaw. Ramiro let him, palming his gun as he took the hit.
“Show some goddamn respect!” Ovidio’s vein bulged in his forehead. He jerked his jacket straight as he collapsed back against the couch again, breathing hard.
Ramiro shifted his jaw, the throb of pain distant. “You’re losing your touch, Ovidio. That barely hurt.”
Guzman’s eyes flashed darker.
“Is that what all these men are for?” Ramiro taunted. “You need them to rough me up now that you’ve grown soft? ”
Ovidio stared at him, then laughed. “Shit, Rodriguez. I have grown soft. Soft and bored, since everything’s gone well for years. I’d thank you for taking that away if I wasn’t so pissed at what your boy did.” He reached for a glass of clear liquor and tossed it back.
Ramiro studied the man’s face. It slid back to calm, a bright delight in his eyes that had dread churning in Ramiro’s stomach.
“As for the timing, it took me a while to find anything you gave a shit about. I thought it’d be those boys you’ve gathered together, but while you’re protective of them, that’s not enough. You don’t see them as sons. Hell, you have no interest in a legacy at all. Did you truly believe you could go legit?” Ovidio snorted. “Men like us don’t get out. And we sure as hell don’t have pretty, innocent toys, unless we’re willing to see them broken.”
Ramiro’s suspicions flared into one throng of pain. He should have kept Summer far away from the start.
“How did it feel, having one of mine dirty up that pretty little secretary of yours?”
Ramiro forced a smile, pretending to relax back into his chair. “That tweaking skinhead barely got through the door. If you wanted to send a message, Ovidio, you used the wrong delivery.”
“Oh, I think my message was perfect because here you are.” Guzman laughed. “Don’t worry about getting out of here alive. We won’t kill you, not yet. I want you to have a front-row seat for what’s going to happen to the only thing in this world you care about.”
Ramiro held his smile as fury spiked through his veins. “Well, that makes this easier,” he said, holding his gun steady and squeezing the trigger.
He’d gone for a gut shot, and the scream from Ovidio was satisfying.
Ramiro slid to the ground as the other men in the room began to shoot. The chair he’d been sitting in was shot to hell, and the glass doors behind it shattered. Ramiro squeezed off two more shots into Ovidio’s chest before the lights went out.
Hayes had great timing.
The screams that came from the main floor were louder than the thumping bass from before.
Ramiro rolled to the side of the couch, taking out the two men on that side to give him breathing room, or at least assuming he took them out from the groans and the lack of bullets plowing into him in return.
The shooting stopped before the lighting came back on as planned. Ramiro had needed a distraction, but he hadn’t wanted the clubgoers to get trampled to death.
“Why’d you wait so long?” Ash complained from the open doorway in the wall he’d hinted at earlier.
“I needed him to say it.” Ramiro’s thoughts were always consumed with Summer. He’d wanted to confirm that she really had been targeted .
The thugs from below the stairs rushed the VIP room. He and Ash took them out, but a dozen more approached from the other side of the upper hallway.
“Time to go,” Ash said, melting back through the secret door.
Ramiro scrambled after him, darting past the opening as bullets slammed into the couch behind him.
If Ovidio was still alive, his men were likely finishing the job. Three bullets should have been more than enough, though. Ramiro had no pity for the man. The cartel would splinter with his death. Summer would be safe.
Ash was nearly out of sight down the dim, hidden hallway. Ramiro followed, knowing he wouldn’t feel any satisfaction until he saw for himself that Summer was safe.