Chapter 5
FIVE
Ferrera traced a finger over Jessica’s name again. The he stood, joints still stiff from the long car ride and the lumpy motel bed.
The television was still on. On the screen, grainy footage looped.
A burned-out prison transport van sat skewed across a desert road east of El Paso, one tire blown clean off the rim.
Blood darkened the dirt. Two bodies lay covered with white sheets.
Another angle showed bullet holes stitched across the metal.
A banner crawled along the bottom of the screen:
WANTED BY U.S. MARSHALS: JOSé FERRERA (EL MERC)
ARMED AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS
His face filled the frame next. The mugshot caught him mid-blink, mouth set in a hard line. He looked older than he remembered.
The Sicaria watched him from near the window, her pale eyes giving nothing away. “They’re saying you won’t make it forty-eight hours,” she said. “There's roadblocks and border alerts. State and federal.”
Ferrera folded the paper carefully and slid it into the pocket over his heart.
He turned toward the television again, watching the footage replay.
Every instinct in him screamed to get in a car and drive straight to Corpus Christi.
To put his hands on the problem himself, and finish what had been waiting for him for more than a decade.
But every camera in Texas would be waiting too. Every traffic stop, every motel clerk, and every patrol car.
So he forced his instincts aside and reached for the phone on the nightstand instead. He punched in a number from memory. It rang once before someone picked up.
“I need a favor,” he said. “En Corpus. Dos personas.”
He paused, listening.
“Yes. Alive if possible. I want to be the last thing they see.”
Dante leaned over the open engine bay, forearms braced on the steel frame. He’d been staring at the same bolt for ten minutes. Outside, the sky was turning pink as dawn spread across Agua Dulce.
It’s a family ring, Santiago’s voice echoed in his head. You ever plan on getting it back?
Dante twisted a greasy rag until his knuckles ached. He was pissed at his brother. But he was more pissed at himself for his inability to end this recurring nightmare.
A sharp, rhythmic knock echoed against the bay door. Three precise raps.
Dante straightened slowly. His hand slid beneath the workbench, fingers curling around the textured grip of a Colt .45. He didn’t pull it, but he let the weight of it anchor him.
“Shop’s closed,” he called out.
“Daniel Castano,” a voice replied. It was low and steady, a gringo’s drawl. “I need a minute.”
Dante’s blood turned to ice. No one used that name. Daniel Castano was a dead man buried in a federal file from thirteen years ago.
He released his grip on the gun, then crossed the concrete floor and cracked the door just enough to see.
The man standing under the yellow security light was tall, blond, and built like a linebacker.
He wore a battered leather jacket and jeans, but he stood with the unmistakable, irritating posture of a man who used to carry a badge.
Dante knew that face. He’d seen it on the news, on the Wanted posters, and in the dark corners of his own mind. It was Ryan Inglis, the Deputy Marshal who’d sold Jessica out to save his own skin.
Dante's lip curled. “Well. You look a lot more like a bitch in person.”
Ryan’s jaw flexed, but he didn't give any other reaction.
Dante didn’t open the door. “I’ve seen your face all over the news. The big hero who broke his oath. The man who handed Jessica to La Mano so he could save his ex-wife. I should put a hole in you for what you did to her.”
Ryan shifted his weight, his blue eyes flicking past Dante into the shop—checking the exits, the shadows, the red ’Cuda under the tarp. Old habits, probably. Finally, he spoke. “I made a choice. I’m living with it.”
“Yeah.” Dante stepped closer. “And now you’re standing in my shop, breathing my air. Give me one reason I shouldn't break your neck.”
“Because they found her,” Ryan said, voice low and matter-of-fact. “Jessica. And your name came up, too. Right alongside hers.”
Dante stilled. “Who?”
“You know who.”
Finally, he stepped back, letting the door swing wide. He watched Ryan cross the threshold, feeling like a man inviting a rattlesnake into his kitchen.
“She’s in Corpus and she’s refusing to leave,” Ryan said. “I need to get her out of there and she won’t listen to me.”
Neither man spoke for a long moment. Dante could feel the blood pulsing in his ears, partly because of the shock of what he was being told, and partly because of the anger it was this man telling him it.
The balls on him, that he thought he had any right to make decisions for Jessica—or for him—anymore.
“You don’t get to talk about her,” he said. “You lost that right the second you let them take her the first time.”
“I was trying to save a life,” Ryan snapped, a flash of heat finally breaking through his stoic mask.
“So was I!” Dante roared. “I tried to get her out thirteen years ago. I tried to give her a life that didn't involve federal goons or cartel hitmen. But she chose your world. And look what it got her.”
Ryan’s eyes darkened. “It got her a chance. You would have dragged her into the dirt with you.”
“She loved me,” Dante stepped into Ryan’s personal space. “We belonged to each other. Long before you ever showed up with your shiny badge.”
The air between them was thick enough to choke on.
“If you stay here,” Ryan said, “they’ll find you. They’ll use you to break her. Or they’ll kill you both to send a message.”
Dante laughed. “You think I don't know how La Mano Negra works? I grew up in their shadow while you were still playing with G.I. Joes.”
“Then stop pretending hiding equals safety. I’m offering a plan. Protection.”
“From a man the Marshals want to put in a cage?” Dante shook his head. “No. I’m not disappearing again. I’m not dragging Santiago back into this. And I sure as fuck am not trusting her life to a man who already failed her once.”
Ryan stared at him for a long beat. “Then you’re already failing her, too.”
“Get the fuck out,” Dante snarled.
Ryan hesitated at the door, looking back one last time. It looked like he wanted to say something else. Then he just turned and vanished into the grey dawn.