Chapter 7
7
VAUGHN
A fter picking the lock on the restaurant and cleaning up the mess, I’d driven back out of town toward Hope’s house and parked across the road from her driveway. There, my truck remained partially hidden behind shrubs and a grove of palms.
I supposed I had to sleep in my car somewhere, and this spot allowed me to keep an eye on Hope’s place in case those cartel asshats made the unfortunate life-limiting decision to track her down. I didn’t think they would tonight, but that was the excuse I was going with. Why else would I position myself so close to a woman I’d just met like some kind of stalker?
I dropped the seat back and closed my eyes, settling in for an uncomfortable night’s sleep. Tomorrow, I’d start investigating the local fishermen. If the cartel was sniffing around, maybe some of the Playa de la Palmera villagers were already involved in offshore collections.
I’d probably end up at Javi’s for dinner. There was no better place to hear gossip than the local restaurant. It definitely wasn’t so I could check up on a certain sassy little brunette.
Again, I racked my brain for why she looked so damn familiar. A memory teased at the fringes of my mind. A woman dressed in expensive-looking clothes and big sunglasses, crossing a busy city road while flanked by two bodyguards. She didn’t have facial scars, and her hair was cut in a sharp platinum-blond bob, but dammit, the face I kept seeing was Hope’s.
Wait.
I sat bolt upright and clutched the windowsill when a disturbing thought slammed into me like a freight train. The vision in my head wasn’t an actual memory, at least not one where I’d been present. It was from a photo I’d seen in one of Brandon’s case files.
Holy fuck.
No way. It couldn’t be her. It wasn’t even possible.
I fumbled my phone from the dash and dialed Brandon’s number.
He answered on the second ring. “If you’ve killed someone already, I’m going to be very disappointed in you.” He didn’t even sound tired, which meant he was probably at his computer, working late like always.
“They’re not dead. They just have less blood than before they met me.”
“That’s hardly reassuring.”
“Never mind about them. That’s not why I called.”
There was a sound like a chair creaking. “What is it? You sound flustered.”
He was right, and I never got flustered.
“I need you to tell me if I’m losing my mind. I’m going to send you something.” I messaged Brandon the photo I’d snapped of Hope’s driver’s license, which I now assumed was a fake.
His phone chimed. “She looks a little familiar. Who’s Hope Garcia Lopez?”
“You tell me.” I scraped a hand over my face. “Look at her, man. Who does she look like?”
Silence. The scars and long dark hair must be throwing him off. That and one other undeniable fact.
“I’ll give you two hints,” I said. “Her father is the biggest piece of shit to ever walk the earth, and she’s a potential heir to the Pacific Coast Cartel.”
“Then you are losing your mind, because Elena Espinoza is dead. The Alvarez Cartel killed her three years ago.”
“Uh-huh. I know that. But unless I was staring at a ghost a few hours ago, I’d say she’s very much alive.” Restless, I stepped out of the truck. “Take another look at the Espinoza family file.”
That was where I’d seen her photo a year ago, although I’d only glanced at it fleetingly. There’d been no need to commit Elena Espinoza’s face to memory since she was dead. I chose to ignore how her striking features had lingered in the depths of my mind since then.
She was the enemy. Cartel scum. The epitome of everything our team worked to eliminate. Elena Espinoza would’ve grown up spoiled by the riches of her father’s drug- and human-trafficking business, her luxury lifestyle funded by people’s misery.
“Interesting,” Brandon said with a surprised tone. “She does look a lot like Elena. Let me run the photo through my facial-recognition program. I can select the unscarred side of her face for the comparison.”
I paced in front of the hood while I waited. Finding Espinoza’s daughter was a good thing, right? It meant we’d finally cornered someone with valuable information about the cartel and the whereabouts of their compound. Truthfully, we’d hit the mother lode. Being a cartel princess, she’d have deep loyalty, so it would be hard to get her to talk, but not impossible.
Shit . I’d have to question her. My methods were…not gentle.
Then I recalled how my stomach had twisted when Gonzo had hurt her, and how helpless she’d looked unconscious on the floor of the restaurant. Even if she was the offspring of the devil, I didn’t like the idea of having to practice my brand of enhanced-interrogation techniques on her.
She didn’t seem dangerous or evil. She was gutsy as fuck, and I kind of liked that about her. Women were usually intimidated by me, so it was refreshing that she’d held her own when I’d been my usual douchey self. All that feistiness wrapped up in one sexy-as-sin curvy little body.
And that ass. That ass would bring any red-blooded man to his knees in a pool of his own saliva. At the very least it would make them do a whole pile of dumb shit just to get her attention.
I shook my head and smacked my skull with my fist.
Enemy, remember?
Maybe I had it all wrong. Maybe she was just some girl living in a tiny fishing village in the middle of nowhere who happened to look a lot like the dead daughter of our target. Then I wouldn’t have to?—
“It’s her,” Brandon said. “Facial recognition is giving me a 99.8 percent match.”
Fuck .
“I don’t believe it,” he added. “Tell me everything.”
So I told him all about the strange initial conversation with Hope where she’d been coy about her past. I told him about the brawl at Javi’s, and the tense car ride to her house. I didn’t mention how her gorgeous body and smart mouth had turned me on, because if I’d known she was a fucking cartel heiress, there was no way those thoughts would’ve entered my head.
I leaned against the hood. “I went through her phone while she was out cold. Didn’t find anything strange. Just regular girl stuff. And when those cartel assholes came into the restaurant, she treated them like they were her enemy. None of it adds up. Why would a woman from one of the wealthiest families on the planet be living in a fishing village and using a fake name while everyone thinks she’s dead?”
Brandon blew out a loud breath. “I don’t know what to make of it. Did you ever read her file?”
“Only the part about her being kidnapped and killed by the Alvarez Cartel. It was what started the war between them and the PCC.”
“Yeah. That’s about all I can recall, too. Let me do some digging. I’ll gather what intel I can and call you back.”
“Copy that.”
I jammed my phone into my back pocket and stared at the stars above me.
“What game are you playing at, Gatita?”