Chapter 23 #2
“Yeah. He failed a mission. Can’t have that. Your man should have killed him. Dev knew he was on borrowed time, which is why we only caught him at the Mexico border. Dumbass was going toward the Cartel instead of away from it. They’re even worse at torture than anyone up here.”
Bile rises in my throat. The guy watches me, smirking, knowing he’s affecting me.
Ava and I are sitting together on a small wooden bench, while the man sits across from us, knees wide apart, with the gun pointed at us.
He’s short. Shorter than I remember, and my gaze falls to his feet.
His shoes look odd, like the heel of his foot is nowhere near the bottom of the shoe.
Are they lifted? I choke on a hysterical giggle as I imagine this guy waltzing into a shoe store and asking for something to give him height .
“May I ask who we are meeting today?” I finally ask, once I know my voice can stay even.
“I guess there’s no harm in telling you.
We’re meeting Fernando Montoya. He runs the distribution ring for all of Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah.
He is a second cousin to the Salazar family, of the Salazar Cartel in Mexico.
Or maybe he’s not a cousin. Honestly, the whole family is incestual, and it’s hard to keep track of who is related to who. ”
Ava whimpers next to me. Still holding her hand, I squeeze it, but keep it away from my stomach. I don’t want her to give away the fact that I have a phone. “Why does the head of a drug ring want to meet with me?”
“Two reasons.” The man dangerously spins the gun between his two hands, his eyes glittering at me.
He wants to scare me, that I know. Unfortunately for him, I have two brothers who were in the military, and one of them is a police officer.
I know guns, and I know his gun still has the safety on.
“He doesn’t believe that you’re innocent. ”
“And the other reason?” I ask evenly.
“He wants a little background on your boyfriend.”
“Ex-boyfriend,” I growl, my teeth clenched.
The man smiles, a leering grin that makes my stomach sink. “Oh, no. Your current one, if you can even call him that. I guess maybe he is now? He certainly wasn’t at the beginning, but after the way you sucked him off in his kitchen a while ago, I’d say you’re at least friends-with-benefits.”
I’m about to vomit.
I’ve only gone down on Sebastian once in the kitchen.
I’ve done it a lot since then in other places, but never in the kitchen.
Did this guy hack into the cameras to watch old content, or was he watching live?
I feel sick that he’s now tainted an amazing memory.
A time when I’ve never felt more sexy or sensual.
The more I think about it, the angrier I get. This asshole has watched me sleep with two men now, without my consent. I’m more angry with Rick over that footage, but for this guy to watch me with Sebastian has crossed a major line.
“May I ask your name?” I ask.
“The name I gave you, or my actual name?”
“Does it really matter which one?” I snap, and his posture straightens. The cocky grin is no longer in place. His gaze is locked in on me, and I know I’m dangerously close to him getting violent again.
But this time, I’m expecting it. He will not take me by surprise.
“You know what? It really doesn’t matter. I told them my name was Rico. It’s really Diego. Well, my legal name is Rico Diego Delgado.”
“Well, Diego,” I tell him sweetly, “I think Sebastian is going to enjoy hurting you once he finds out you watched us without our consent. Well, more me. He won’t care that you saw his dick, since he’ll know his is much bigger than yours.”
I see the moment the words strike, and his arm moves.
The look in his eyes is pure hostility as he lunges toward me, but both Ava and I lash out.
Ava swiftly punches him in the groin, and as he’s groaning and doubling over in pain, I quickly poke both fingers into his eye sockets.
The feeling is horrific, and I know I’ve done damage, but I don’t have a moment to feel bad.
Diego stupidly drops the gun, which Ava and I scramble to pick up.
I hear one of the guys in the front seat stutter, “What the fuck?” right as I get my hands around the grip of the gun.
Diego reaches up blindly, grabbing the gun, and as we both wrestle for ownership, my fingers hit the safety just as his hit the trigger.
The loud boom ricochets around the van, and I watch as blood spurts out of Diego’s throat.
“Bitch, what did you do!” The driver turns to shout at me, making the van swerve.
“I didn’t! He shot himself, I swear! His thumb hit the trigger!” Struggling to calm my nerves, I swivel and point the gun at him. “But the safety is off now, and I have no qualms about having you go with him. Pull the fucking van over.”
“Montoya will kill us if we don’t bring her in,” the guy in the passenger seat says.
“You heard Diego. We’re dead either way.” He slams on the brakes, and I tumble into Ava. I hear a screech of tires, and the driver mutters a string of curse words. “We’ve got company.”
“Shit. We’ve got a lot of company.”
I hear the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard. A sound I’ll never forget.
It’s the sound of many, many motorcycles.
Sebastian came for me.
“You should probably let us out,” I announce cheerfully.
“The door ain’t locked, bitch. Just get out,” the driver says tiredly.
Ava lunges for the sliding door, swinging it open with gusto. As soon as her feet hit the pavement, she screams as she runs toward the motorcycles. Crouching by the door, I turn to the guys. “Is Fernando Montoya going to keep coming after me?”
The driver shrugs. “Probably. He won’t believe us until he sees it with his own eyes.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I murmur. Stepping out of the van, I find Sebastian straddling his wheels in front of motorcycles as far as I can see. It’s as if he brought every single RMRRMC member with him. “Sebastian isn’t going to let me go with you now. He’ll kill you both before he lets me go.”
The driver sighs again. “I’m really sick of being threatened with death.”
“No fucking kidding,” the other guy mutters. “We need to get the hell out of Colorado.”
The driver turns to look at me. “You won’t all be allowed in the compound. But if you bring only him, I think Montoya will allow it.”
I hesitate. “Do you think he’ll kill us both? It’s just … Sebastian has a daughter. Her mom isn’t in the picture, so he’s all she has. I can’t put him in a situation where she might lose him.”
“We know all about his daughter. Montoya is a sick fuck, but the one thing he doesn’t fuck with is children. He’s pretty adamant about it, actually. Diego wanted to abduct Camila, and Montoya threatened to hang him by the balls in a wolf enclosure.”
Peering down at Diego’s body, I shudder. “That’s oddly specific.”
“Isabella,” I hear whispered, and I turn my head to find Sebastian at the edge of the van.
The driver sighs again. “Tell him to approach. You’re the only one with a gun. Well, I assume he has one too. But we don’t. Diego wouldn’t let us carry. It was too emasculating for him.”
Sebastian immediately steps alongside, an arm gripping me tightly. “Is there a problem?”
“Is Ava okay?” I ask quietly, and he nods. Turning toward the men, I ask, “Can I ride with Sebastian to follow you, or do we need to be in the van? I don’t want to be near … that.”
“Jesus Christ,” Sebastian breathes.
“Your girl did that,” one of the guys says.
“I did not!” I exclaim with indignation. “I swear, my hand hit the safety, and his hit the trigger! I did poke his eyes out, though.”
Sebastian muffles a chuckle. “Where do they think you’re going?”
“I need to go speak to this guy Fernando Montoya —”
“Absolutely the fuck not!” Sebastian shouts. “No fucking way. They were taking you to him? Seriously? Baby, do you know who he is?”
I nod. “They told me. But he thinks I stole all these drugs, and I told them that you got video from a doorbell camera that shows someone entered the apartment thirty minutes before me. If we tell Fernando that, I’m hoping he’ll let us go.
But I said if they think Fernando might kill us, that you shouldn’t be involved, because I refuse to leave Camila without any parents. ”
Sebastian’s eyes soften slightly. “ Mi Cielo , I’m not letting you go in there alone. And you may not have given birth to Camila, but there’s no one she’d rather have as her mother than you.”
“I know, but I can’t let you go if something might happen. She’s too important to me,” I sniffle.
The driver speaks up. “If it’s any consolation, I told her that Montoya is violent, but he doesn’t fuck with children. He would never harm your daughter, and knowing you’re a single parent like he is, he’s more likely to let you go.”
“Dude!” the passenger hisses. “No one fucking knows that!”
“Oh. Whoops. You should probably follow us. We gotta get back because Montoya knows you’re coming, and he gets mean if he sends out the troops to intercept people.”
“We’ll follow,” Sebastian says curtly, before grabbing my hand, pulling me quickly toward his bike. “Isabella, I swear to God, I’m gonna light your ass red when we get home.”
As soon as we get to his bike, he rips a spare helmet off the back. “I love you too, baby.”
Sebastian glances at me before grabbing the back of my head and crashing our lips together. It’s a quick, borderline punishing kiss, but it’s full of love, pent up desire, and promise. “You didn’t have to call me. I’ve got software on your phone, and there’s a GPS tracker in the sole of your shoe.”
“In my shoe?” I ask incredulously, my mouth open in shock.
“Yup. You wear the same shoes to work every day. I figured there was a chance you might not get to grab your phone, but you’d always have your shoes on.
Turns out I had two ways to track you today.
And I snuck back in through the basement, so I was in the kitchen listening for most of the conversation with Diego. He never knew I was there, though.”
“Of course not. You’re much smarter than him,” I announce proudly, as he positions the helmet on my head. “And much more handsome.”
“I did hear the part about having a bigger dick, though. I appreciated that,” he says with a chuckle. “Hop on, but avoid these parts here. They’ll burn you.”
“I wasn’t sure if the call dropped,” I comment as I throw my leg over the bike.
“It didn’t. I had myself muted in case they could hear me. I was texting you that I was on my way. Ava would probably love to know how many laws I broke getting to you as quickly as I did,” he jokes as he climbs on.
A few months ago, I’d had a dream about riding on the back of Sebastian’s motorcycle, my arms wound tightly around him, with one of his hands running up and down my thigh.
While that part of my fantasy is coming true, I certainly never thought it would be so I could go speak to a someone in a cartel.