Chapter Seventeen
“Boss, I got a hot little thing here who wants a job,” the bouncer called out as he entered the back office of Chicas Asesinas.
“Bring her in.” Tulio, the heavyset strip club manager, hauled himself up from his worn padded chair, which faced the desk that Enrique had commandeered for his inspection.
Repressing a frustrated sigh, Enrique double-checked the club’s inventory list on the desktop computer with the hard copy on his clipboard for the third time.
The words and numbers blurred together, straining his already tired eyes.
His head ached from the steady ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum that seeped through the paper-thin beige walls.
Even the cool air blowing from the overhead vent set his nerves on edge.
He pressed the heels of his hands against his eye sockets to relieve the strain.
Waking up early to find breakfast between Lourdes’s legs had been a stupid idea, but fuck, she tasted better than the coffee and greasy fish taco he’d scarfed down for lunch.
Inhaling through his nose, he gagged on the scent of cocoa butter. Ugh. He sneezed into the crook of his arm and cleared his sinuses.
“Need a drink?” Juana winked at him and filed her nails from her perch on the edge of his borrowed desk. Her sequined bra and denim short-shorts covered all the important bits, but left little else to the imagination.
He snorted and faced the screen. What he needed was toilet paper to stick up his nose. Better yet, Juana should scrub the cocoa scent from her skin and leave him the hell alone.
“Are you sure, man?” Tulio asked the bouncer. “This babe looks too prim.”
“Why don’t you let El Tajador decide that?”
Lourdes’s sharp voice snapped Enrique’s head up. His mouth fell open as she strode in and flashed him a smile that shot an icy tremor down his spine.
“Well? Am I hot enough to work alongside her?” Lourdes nodded at the stripper.
“Maybe,” Juana answered for him. She straightened from her lean and cocked her head. “In the right clothes, you could make decent money. But can you dance, sweet thing?”
“Enough, Juana.” Enrique stood and coughed behind his balled-up hand. “Lourdes, what are you doing here?”
Tulio’s eyes widened. “Lourdes? That’s your new wife’s name, sí?”
“Correct.” Enrique crossed his arms over his chest and scowled at the manager. “Leave.”
Tulio hustled out along with Juana and the bouncer who shut the door behind them.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Lourdes? How did you get here? What the fuck?” The questions poured out of him. His mind blown, he half-feared he was hallucinating. “Why do they think you’re here for a job?”
“Because I said I was. It was the only way I could get that bouncer to let me come into the back.” Lourdes fidgeted with the strap of her purse.
“We need to talk. It’s not something to discuss over the phone.
” She swung her glare to the door and back at him.
“Juana is pretty. Does she thrust her breasts on you often?”
“What?”
Lourdes pulled her phone from her purse, tapped a few buttons, and handed it over.
He stared at a picture of Juana pressing her tits against him. As she’d done on the main floor before he shut her down faster than he could snap his fingers. He flipped through the other photos, and his gut twisted into a pretzel.
“I don’t know who sent it. The number is restricted,” she said, glancing away.
“Somebody took photos of me and texted them to you, and you came here to confront me.” No question, just fact. “Do you not trust me at all?”
“I want to, but those photos...” she trailed off and licked her lips.
The corners of her eyes pinched. “No, I’m sorry.
I don’t. Not after what Jacobo did to me.
Not after he came to this very club and screwed women in the backrooms, just as he did at the brothel.
Not after the flimsy explanation you gave me this morning. I need more than words, Enrique.”
“I’m nothing like that bastard.”
“Of course, you’re not, but how do you explain that?” She waved her hand at her phone. “You’re grinning like you’re soaking up the attention.”
He tossed the cell onto the desk with a hard clatter and snatched his own from an inner pocket of his suit jacket to text Domingo.
—Get to Chicas Asesinas. Now. Bring your laptop.—
A beep resounded. Domingo’s response.
—On my way.—
“Lourdes, this is insane.” He set his phone aside and breathed through his rage.
“Juana propositioned me. As did the other girl. Their gall amused me—that was it. But for you to question my integrity, I thought our relationship was stronger than that. I didn’t touch them. Sure as hell didn’t fuck them.”
“Maybe not today.”
“Fine. Not for a long while. Hell, you want the truth? I haven’t slept with anyone since we saw each other at Rubén’s fundraiser.
That was five-plus months ago. I couldn’t stop thinking about you, wanting you.
Every woman I looked at or thought about screwing, I couldn’t do it.
They weren’t you. I’m done with flings.” The surprise in her wide eyes would’ve amused him if she hadn’t shoved a crowbar into his heart.
“We just got married. I haven’t had time to cheat on you if I was going to. ”
Lourdes dropped into the seat that Tulio had vacated and set her purse on the floor.
Her shoulders slumped. “I had to hear it from your lips. See the truth in your eyes. I’m sorry.
You being here surrounded by all these women is driving me crazy.
I need to know what you do for a living and the people you’re associated with.
I need action, a grand gesture of sorts. ”
She was asking for too damn much. “It comes down to trust.”
“That’s more than I can give right now.”
“Obviously.” He circled the desk and sat back down with all the calm he could muster. Then he brought up the real-time surveillance feed on the computer and clicked a few buttons to rewind the day’s recording.
“Is that it? You’re going to ignore me and get back to work?”
Enrique bit his tongue to keep back a snappy retort and gripped the mouse so hard his knuckles ached. “I’m checking the camera feeds to see who took the photos.”
She slouched in the chair. “All right, then.”
Once he found the right camera and timestamp, he played back the footage of the main stage area.
In the grainy, silent black-and-white recording, the club could be one of many from its bright lights, nondescript décor, and neon-lit stage and catwalk.
He’d visited every single one across the Lozano turf since Rubén had promoted him to second-in-command the previous year, when he took over the administration of the brothel and strip club franchises.
On one side of the screen, he spoke with Juana about the girls’ complaints—typical stuff like their irritation with the club policy that they get a health check every six weeks to work there.
As the de facto leader of the girls, Juana kept them in check.
At first glance, everything appeared normal. The dancers danced, the patrons ogled and raised money in the air for lap dances, the works.
He replayed the footage and narrowed his gaze at a man on the far side of the screen.
A baseball cap partially shielded his face.
He switched camera angles for a better view.
Carajo. That was Salcido, one of Zayas’s enforcers.
A faint flash of light beamed out from under Salcido’s table, so fast Enrique almost missed it.
He replayed the footage again. No doubt about it.
Salcido had snapped a photo with his phone.
Fury surged through Enrique in a flood of lava.
Tulio wouldn’t have known Salcido worked for Zayas, and Domingo’s facial recognition software was only set up to search for the former capo.
Of course, the coward would send his thugs to do his dirty work.
After shooting up La Paradoja and setting fire to La Estancia Roja, the heat was on.
The risk too great. Fuck, this betrayal burned on so many levels.
Who knew how many Lozano enforcers had denounced their obedience to the jefe to do the bidding of a goddamned lunatic.
He grabbed his phone again and shot Rubén a text.
—Zayas’s enforcer, Salcido, was at Chicas Asesinas. Took pics of me. Zayas sent them to Lourdes. She’s here at the club.—
Seconds passed before his phone beeped.
—Salcido gone?—
—Affirmative.—
No response, so Enrique stuffed the phone into his pocket and met Lourdes’s glower from across the desk. “I understand you were upset. Are upset,” he corrected, striving for composure, “but you left the apartment against my wishes.”
“I’m not your prisoner, Enrique. I’m your wife. And I’ll go wherever I damn well please.”
He tensed. Never would she have spoken to Jacobo like that.
He’d brought this on himself. Hadn’t he told her father he wanted a strong woman?
“You can,” he forced out through gritted teeth, “but not without a bodyguard and not until Zayas is dead. Libertad Torre is under twenty-four-hour surveillance with security guards on the premises. You’re safe there.
Coming here alone was dangerous. Anyone could’ve followed you, run the car off the road, and kidnapped you.
” Dios mío. He could’ve lost her so easily, and he wouldn’t have known until he returned home that night to an empty apartment.
“Did you take my SUV?” Once she nodded, he leaned back and sighed. “Found the club address online?”
“Exactly.” She shifted in the chair. “I had to see this place for myself.”