Chapter Eight #3
Her stomach churned, heart thudding in her throat.
There was no easy way to say it. Simply was best. “Kirk had me get close to someone in the cartel. One night, he sent me to a restaurant. Told me to sit at the bar and be myself. But he wanted me to order a steak and an absurdly priced bottle of wine.” Chateau Pétrus.
“In the hopes I would catch the eye of the right person. It worked. Kirk had studied the mark. Knew he had a type. And I was it.” She took a breath.
“The guy struck up a conversation at the bar. Asked me out. Next thing I knew, we were seeing each other.”
“Who was the right person?” Jackson dragged his gaze away from her, looking down at his fists. “Who was the mark?”
She licked her lips, but her mouth had gone bone-dry. “I didn’t know anything about him. Kirk told me that he was a fixer for the cartel. But he didn’t explain exactly what that meant. Instead, he let my imagination fill in the blanks with things far less dangerous than the truth.”
“Who?” Jackson ground out the word, his head lifting, and pinned her with a stare. “Hector Ibarra?”
“Hector?” She squirmed. The man was a cane toad. Highly toxic. Sickening to look at. She never would’ve let him touch her. “Not him.”
She could practically hear it when the wheels inside Jackson’s head slowed, the gears clicking into place.
Then understanding dawned on his face. Horror twisted his features. “No, no, no.” He shook his head like he wanted to erase the answer from his mind. “Alvaro Aguilar. Is that why this is personal for him?”
Her throat closed in on itself.
She nodded.
Jackson surged to his feet. Paced around the tent. Raked his hands through his hair. “Do you know what he is?”
“I didn’t at the time. Not for two years,” she said, the words leaving her breathless. “But I do now.” Better than most.
“Two years!” He stopped. Didn’t move an inch. His gaze fastened to hers, as though her eyes were a window deep into her soul, and the look he gave her made her wither on the inside.
Growing up around the Iron Warriors, she’d thought she could tell a bad guy from a good one by looking at him. By the way he treated others. Sure, Alvaro had tattoos and was hardened, guarded. Plenty of good guys in the club were the same, even the one who was like a big brother to her.
In those first two years, Alvaro had showed her kindness. Respect for others. Didn’t tolerate bullies. Wined and dined her. It was different. Exciting.
But not romantic. He took care of her, protected her. Treated her as though she were a precious toy. A prized possession.
Kirk Kehoe had watched it all happen. Encouraged the entanglement. Allowed her to get seduced by the devil.
“You were with that animal for two years?” Jackson asked, digging in, not letting it go.
“He traveled a lot for the cartel,” she said. “I didn’t see him every day.” Sometimes she went weeks, even months without seeing him. Even though he saw her. She later learned he’d spent a lot of time surveilling her when he thought her guard would be down. “It wasn’t a typical relationship.”
Jackson made a sound of disgust in the back of his throat. “You know what I mean.”
“There are two sides to Alvaro. He can slide between them like flicking a switch,” she said.
“He only showed me the one I wanted to see. It took time to get in.” Much longer than she’d anticipated.
“To earn his trust. But I did. Slowly. He started sharing things with me, introduced me to his aunt, stopped testing me in little ways. Eventually, I convinced him to let me work for the cartel, using my skills as a lawyer for them.”
“Did the cartel tell you about Aguilar?” Strong muscles in his neck flexed and released. “That he was a murderer with no conscience.”
“I quickly noticed the cartel feared him, but, no, that’s not how I found out.
” The ruse of a relationship worked too well, and Kirk started to worry she was developing feelings for Alvaro.
Then the Machiavellian FBI agent had decided it was time she learned the truth.
“As soon as I told Kirk that I was going to start working for the cartel, he gave me Alvaro’s file, filled with pictures of his handiwork.
I discovered he fixed problems with a gun or a knife or a garrote or a bomb.
” Gruesome images sprang to mind, the myriad ways he had hurt and killed others, but she blocked them out.
“So many people he murdered. Men. Women.” She shuddered.
“At that point, Kehoe also told something he’d withheld.
That every woman Alvaro had ‘dated’ eventually ended up dead.
I realized if I ever became a problem, he would kill me, too. ”
“How could you stay with him for so long?” His tone once again turning accusatory. “How could you not see what he was?”
Sighing, she shook her head, weary of the battle.
She’d asked herself the same questions, many times. But how dare Jackson?
“I signed up to stop the cartel. To put an end to their drug trafficking and save lives.” Christina stood up and faced him.
“Your beloved mentor and cherished friend, Kirk Kehoe, threw me to Alvaro Aguilar like chum in the water to a shark. Knowing full well what he was—an apex predator. Kirk also knew there would be no turning back for me. No way out, Jackson! You and your task force wonder why I was in for six years. Because I couldn’t leave.
I was trapped. As Kirk’s informant. What kind of man does that to a twenty-two-year-old girl?
So, before you judge me, take a hard look at the choices of the one person who set all this in motion. ”