Chapter 3
brOKEN PIECES
INEZ
Three a.m., somewhere just south of the border. We're at a gas station. I've been driving for the past five or so hours. Lorenzo is sprawled across the back seat, hat pulled over his eyes, snoring quietly. He stirred when I stopped at the fuel station, peered around, and went back to sleep.
My phone rings, an insistent buzz in my back pocket. I set the pump handle to dispense automatically and walk out of earshot before I answer. "Hello, sir."
"Inez." His deep, smooth, cultured voice washes across the line. "I apologize for the long delay. What’s the emergency?"
After the attack on the trucking garage, I sent him our prearranged code indicating that I had an emergency and I needed to speak with him ASAP.
"We have a serious problem, sir," I answer. "Rafael was not in Fresnillo."
"That is unsurprising, and therefore not the emergency, I assume."
"Correct. I was able to get some information from the survivors."
"Survivors of what, exactly?”
"We tracked what we thought were his movements to a trucking company in Fresnillo. It wasn't him, obviously, but it was his men. A lot of them, massing for some kind of attack. Lorenzo and I…neutralized them."
"How many?"
"I don't know. Thirty or forty. We didn't have a chance to do an exact count."
"And?"
"And they were preparing to raid the Club."
His silence is telling. "My club?"
"Yes, sir."
"You neutralized the threat, you said."
"Pugli and Rafael are, in fact, working together.
It was suspected, but now it's a verified fact.
Pugli was going to make sure border guards let the caravan through.
He also has a contingent of men on the US side of the border, perhaps even in Vegas as we speak.
" I pause. "We have to assume the raid is going to happen as planned, even though we eliminated Rafael's half of the attack force. "
"So the women are in imminent danger."
"Yes sir."
"And my Arrows are out hunting, and you're…where?"
"Mexico, still. Not far from the border. We'll be back in the States by dawn, but it's still several hours from the border to Vegas."
"Do you know when the raid was supposed to happen?"
"The day after tomorrow, I think? It's hard to remember what day it is, to be honest, sir. We've been driving for so long I don't know where I am or even when I am."
"Get ahold of the women. Get them out of there. I'll arrange for a safehouse of some kind."
"They found Lorenzo at a safehouse."
"I am aware." A pause. "There is a penthouse at the Bellagio. I own it through a series of subsidiaries and shells. We will put them up there. Get to Vegas ASAP, Inez. I'll be in contact."
"Yes, sir." I wait, glance at the screen—he's quiet but still connected, so he has something else for me.
Another long pause. "I just received an update from a contact in law enforcement.
Beatriz was found dead. Ren—Little Ren, I believe they call him, as opposed to your Lorenzo—is in our custody.
He is safe and unharmed, but from what I am given to understand, he witnessed his…
ahhh, Beatriz's execution at the hands of Roberto Pugli himself. "
"Fuck!" I snap, and then follow it with a long series of the most vicious curses I know in Spanish, and Portuguese, and then revert back to English for the Boss's sake. "Goddammit, Boss. She was innocent. She was his fucking mom.”
"I know, Inez. I'm sorry."
"Who is taking care of him?"
"An individual named Nicholas Harris and his wife, Layla. They are known to me. They own a security company, the best in the business. More to the point, they are wonderful, compassionate people, and grade-A operators themselves who employ a cadre of grade-A operators.”
"You trust them to keep him safe? My son?"
"Nicholas Harris can field a fully armed F-16, and his men are the best of the best. I would hire them to protect me, if I didn’t have you and the Arrows. You have my word of honor that your son could not be in safer hands."
"Good enough for me, sir." I scrub my face. "I need better intel. I need to know where Rafael is. I need someone to put a fucking slug in Pugli's goddamn skull, post-fucking-haste."
"Get to Vegas. Secure our people. By the time you do those two things, I will have something for you, if I have to leverage every contact, favor, and marker I have."
I let out a harsh sigh. "Watch your six, sir. Pugli has major reach. So does Rafael. Between them, even you cannot assume you're untouchable."
"The dead cannot die, Inez. But I take your point."
The dead cannot die? That's the first direct reference he has ever made to his past, which I have guessed at—in the privacy of my own mind, never out loud. I've long had suspicions as to his identity, but I respect his privacy and have not attempted to find out who he truly is.
He laughs, a quiet, amused chuckle. "You mean to say you've never tried to figure out who I am, Inez?"
"Sir?"
"Your silence is rather telling."
"No, sir. I have not. I would not. I, more than perhaps anyone, understand that one's past is one's own. You gave me a life, a future, a career, a home…and, I am coming to discover, a kind of family in the Arrows. I would not betray that favor by trying to discover your secrets. If you wished for me to know, you would have told me.”
"Your loyalty is priceless to me, Inez." A soft breath. "Get to Vegas. We will speak again soon."
"Sir."
The line goes dead, and I pocket the phone. When I return to the car, the pump has stopped and Lorenzo is awake, sitting in the passenger seat, gnawing on a stick of beef jerky. I slide behind the wheel and start the motor, but do not put it into gear, yet.
I look at him. Sigh. "Pugli murdered Beatriz. Little Ren is safe, and with some security contractor my boss knows, a man named Nicholas Harris."
Lorenzo nods. "I know of him—any operator, mercenary, or security operative knows of Harris. Alpha One Security is the top name in kidnap recovery, elite security operations, and off-book, white hat black ops."
"White-hat black ops?" I echo.
He nods, shrugs. "He's very particular about the work he accepts. Think of them as…paladins, of a kind, if you know what I mean.” He eyes me, shrugs again.
"I am not surprised you haven’t heard of him.
You have not worked in the black ops field, not really.
It's a very small, very insular world unto itself. "
"The Boss trusts him, and that's good enough for me."
Lorenzo eyes me. "Beatriz is dead?"
I nod. "Yes. Little Ren watched Pugli blow her brains out, apparently."
"Fuck," he growls. "I am sick of that man. Beatriz was no threat to anyone."
"I know."
"So…have our plans changed in light of this information?" he asks.
"No," I answer. "We go to Vegas as planned. We secure my girls. Boss says he'll have some kind of intel on Pugli, Rafael, or both once that's done."
“Your girls?" he says, eyebrow arched at me.
"Yes," I snap, silently daring him to push the point.
"My girls. Myka, Annika, Anjalee, Naomi, Terra, Tatiana, and Scarlett.
" I swallow hard, thinking of them. Of all they've been through.
Their attempts to draw me into the social fold.
How much they've improved the lives of my guys—my Arrows.
"Anyone seeking to harm them will have to go through me. "
Lorenzo nods, resting a big, strong hand on my thigh and squeezing. "Both of us, meu amor. You will never face anything alone again. Eu prometo."
This makes my eyes burn. His hand on my thigh scorches my skin through the fabric of my black denim jeans.
"Lorenzo, I…" I shake my head, clear my throat with a hoarse, scratchy cough.
He runs his hand along my thigh from knee to hip crease. "You don't need to say anything."
I grasp his wrist as his hand passes up to my hip crease once more—where his pinky presses against the seam of my core. I squeeze hard, fighting for breath, for calm; his touch, there, allows neither. "Ren," I whisper. "It is hard for me to endure being touched. By anyone. At all. Ever."
He moves to remove his hand. "I'm sorry, Sophia…Inez. Deus, meu amor, I don't know which name to use."
I grip his wrist with all the strength I possess, eyes closed against the army of biting ants crawling under my skin at his innocent, affectionate touch. "I am trying, Ren. I know—I know what you want. What you need. I do not know if I can ever give it to you, but I swear, I'm trying."
"What I want and need is only you. Just you." He peels my fingers away from his wrist and mates our hands, fingers intertwined. "We can start here. Sím?"
I look at our joined hands. His is large, hard, and scarred across the knuckles.
A faded green-blue ink tattoo, long faded into unintelligibility, is smeared across the web of skin between thumb and forefinger.
It was once an insignia of his particular branch of the Brazilian Army Special Forces.
Now, it's little more than smeared, faded lines on brown, weathered skin.
I rub my thumb over the tattoo. "This, I can do."
I put the car in gear and continue north. I hold his hand, resting on my knee, for the next few hours.
For some reason, it comforts me.
I wake to oppressive heat layered with cool-ish air from a struggling A/C system.
Lorenzo took over driving a while ago, and I took the opportunity to catch some sleep.
I watch him through slitted eyes, not quite ready to admit to being awake just yet.
His hat brim is pulled low against the blazing sun, mirrored aviators perched on his nose just beneath the curved brim.
He hasn't shaved in who knows how long, his hard, angular jawline shadowed with the start of a beard.
It suits him, though I prefer him clean-shaven.
He scratches that jawline, sniffs, rubs his nose. Adjusts his crotch.
I find myself wondering at his life, between escaping my father's enmity and me calling him for help.