Chapter 14
Daleyza
The warm water pounded down onto her back.
Rather than washing away the emotions, it only allowed her to feel more, which in turn made her even more confused.
Who the hell were these men? Black clothes and balaclavas.
Firepower she’d only ever seen among the cartel.
Voices from afar—the man named Midas had been tracking them using satellites, she’d found out, all the way from Los Angeles—like in a spy movie.
A handler, something she’d heard of from government agencies.
A husband back from the dead. It was like some terrifying action movie.
When she exited the shower, she pulled herself back together, dressed in the clothes Ildefanso had left for her on the bed, and went out to the main room.
The men were standing in a half circle, staring at the big screen television on the wall, their faces grim.
They weren’t saying anything. The picture looked strange to her, like the framing of the movie was all wrong.
Heads were cut off as they got closer to the camera, when they normally would still be in the picture.
The color was vibrant, the noises of the crowd loud, but not controlled like in a Hollywood film or television show.
Not ambient. They were real. Whatever they were watching was live.
The voice from the car came over the speakers. “No idea how long the camera will be functional, but Nova will record as long as it’s active.”
“Copy that, Midas.” It was another voice over the speakers, one she hadn’t heard before. Low. Quiet. Like he was trying not to draw attention to himself.
As she drew closer to the television, she began to recognize the street. The wide thoroughfares. The obelisk. Whoever was on the screen, he was looking down Avenida 9 de Julio.
“No contact yet.”
“Just stay in view as much as possible. The chain reaction will occur quickly. Chatter has reached the Colonels, so they know you’re there. The bounty on you rises with each hour you’re not brought in, so you can expect swift capture.”
As if the voice channeled action, two men stepped in front of whoever sent the images back to the men in the room.
She flashed a frightened look at Ildefanso, but his eyes were glued to the screen. However, ever aware of her, he held out a hand to her. Instinctively, she took it and let him draw her to his side. Who was this person in Colonel territory, and why? It sounded like they were there on purpose.
“Fuck, I can’t stand this,” the giant muttered. He turned his back, walked two feet away as he ran his hands through his hair, then immediately walked back to his original position, eyes riveted to the screen.
The two men on the screen, native Argentinians, had weapons subtly exposed.
“What’s going on?” she whispered. “Those are two of Ignacio’s soldiers. Who’s in Argentina?”
“Our team leader, Waters. Short version—he’s trying to get caught by the cartel so he can draw out whoever’s pulling my father’s strings.
“Maico hunted me down. Threatened Madre. You. Claimed they have Ka-Bar hostage. Said they’ll release him and leave the two of you alone if I go back to the cartel.”
“And you said no.”
“Sí. It’s why we came for you.”
“So if they hadn’t threatened us…”
“You’d still be at home.”
“And you’d still be ‘dead.’”
He didn’t answer, which told her all she needed to know.
“If they threatened you, why is your team leader giving himself up to the cartel?”
“The cartel wants me, but whoever is ruling the cartel wants Waters. We think whoever has my father in his stranglehold is taking advantage of my history to get access to him. Years ago, he interrupted a shipment of women overseas. Cost the seller a lot of money. The pendejo never forgot, and until we took him down this past winter, he’d been plotting his revenge.
“Now, whoever that man’s boss is, he’s on the hunt for Waters.
In order to get to this mystery man, my team leader put himself at the wolf’s door to draw out the estúpido.
We’re hoping that if he gives himself up to the cartel, the leader will call off the Colonels to get the one thing he wants more than anything else.
If the Colonels are forced to focus on capturing and holding him for their puppet master, then their focus is off you and me. ”
“Fanso, he’ll die!” she whisper-yelled. Her stomach plummeted at being partially responsible for the death of another person, even one she didn’t know.
“It’s a risk he was willing to take. We need to get to whoever is behind the trafficking. Millions of women across the globe are at risk.”
On the screen, two cartel soldiers approached Waters and hustled him into a waiting vehicle.
“Contact is made. Facial recognition is working on our foot soldiers.”
“I can save you time,” she said. “The man on the left, as you look at the screen, is Jose Insúa, and the one on the right is Aurelio Núnez.”
There was a pause while all heads turned in her direction. The individual manning the cameras from Los Angeles coughed lightly. “Thank you. Confirming is always easier than searching. Happen to know who they answer to?”
“My brother, Ignacio,” Ildefanso said. “If he had to be captured by one of my brothers, he got the better of the two.”
“Better how?” the giant asked.
“He’ll be presented conscious and in one piece. They won’t start breaking bones until after that.”
A chorus of expletives was muttered quietly among the men.
“I’ll keep the first watch on the cameras,” the blond offered. “If all of us stand around nonstop, we’ll be overtired when it’s time to move out.”
The man who’d worked on her calf said, “Call me when they start working him over so I know what we’re dealing with when we get to him.” He took off for the basement, giving the door a good slam behind him.
The giant went to sit at the dining room table, pulled out his gun, and began to take it apart and clean it.
Medusa walked in from the garage and went straight to the sink to wash her hands. The odor of gasoline permeated lightly behind her.
Nemo quipped, “Ah, the subtle hints of diesel with an undertone of motor oil.”
“Shut up, fuckwitch,” she tossed back. “Anytime you want to deal with your own transportation, just say the word. I’ve got other places I could be.”
“Pfft. Where?”
“Protecting him.” She gestured with a nod to the television.
“Does Kubrick know you’ve got a crush on her man?”
“Why are you such an asshole?”
“Just comes naturally, I guess,” Nemo deadpanned. He put on a set of headphones as the television flipped over to a baking reality show, and he sat alone, watching whatever Waters was going through on the screen in front of him.
Ildefanso looked to Medusa. “Ignore them. They’re wound up.”
Walking up to them, she wiped her hands on a paper towel. “I should be his backup, not some group of Marines who don’t know him.”
“What is she talking about?” Daleyza asked.
Ildefanso answered, “We called in some help from a contact of TB’s.
” He nodded over to the giant at the table, his gun in pieces in front of him.
“Marine Raiders. They’ll follow him as best they can.
Since they don’t know Waters, our boss thought they’d be less biased, less prone to jump in too soon. ”
“I thought this Waters was your boss.”
He shook his head. “More of a supervisor. We have a bigger boss. Goes by the name of God.”
“God.” Seriously? Who did the man think he was?
“For years, we never saw him. Voice in the clouds sort of thing. A couple of months ago, he finally came out of hiding when one of our team—Midas, the guy on the speakers—was shot and almost died. He runs our group and another group named Mythos. Nemo”—he pointed to the blond with the headphones on—“and Medusa work for them. They hunt down sex traffickers.”
“And what does your group do?”
“Most of what we do isn’t quite so altruistic.
Basically, we take jobs no one else can.
Recovering kidnap victims. Acquiring stolen goods for their rightful owners.
Escorting people defecting. Recon for information.
High-priced jobs from people who can afford it, and then that money is used to funnel into Mythos for its objectives.
At least, I think that’s what our purpose is. ”
“You think?”
“Well, no one’s ever said, but why else would the two organizations be joined? They don’t take jobs for money, and we’re run by the same man.” He shrugged. “There have been some morally gray areas, but… For the most part, we’re on the right side of morality, even if not the law.”
She blinked. This is what he left her for? A life as a mercenary? Her heart, its two halves that had been pushing closer together since his return this morning, suddenly shoved them back apart, further than before.
“Daleyza.”
Her name held a note of warning in his voice. The same tone it got in the past when she jumped to conclusions. By the look on his face, one she was also very familiar with, he was about to chastise her for being ignorant.
“Whatever you’re thinking right now, stop. You don’t even have close to enough information to make a judgment about what’s going on or why I did what I did.”
And there it was. Telling her what not to think because he hadn’t given her enough information to make a logical response on her own.
“No, you’re right. I don’t have enough information because I have no information at all. You never told me anything. Always kept little Leeza in the dark.”
“What was I supposed to do? Send you coded emails from the grave? Jesuchristo, Daleyza, be reasonable!”