3. THE CARTEL KING
THE CARTEL KING
By ten thirty the next morning, Chris Roman had already replaced a cracked serpentine belt, diagnosed a transmission problem nobody else had wanted to touch, and learned three useful things about the Vargas garage.Rafael Ortega drank his coffee black.Luis talked too much when he was irritated.And everyone in the building changed when Mateo Vargas showed up.Chris noticed it before he ever saw the man.Conversation dropped.A wrench stopped clattering against metal.One of the younger mechanics straightened so quickly he nearly hit his head on the hood above him.Luis muttered something under his breath and wiped his hands on his jeans.Chris stayed where he was.Bent over the engine of a charcoal-gray Range Rover with half the intake torn apart.He didn’t look toward the entrance.Not immediately.That mattered.Men like Mateo Vargas were accustomed to being noticed.
People watched them walk into rooms.People moved aside.People became nervous.
People tried too hard not to look nervous.Chris Roman wouldn’t.A vehicle door closed outside.Then another.Measured footsteps crossed concrete.Nobody announced him.
Nobody had to.Chris tightened the ratchet another quarter turn.“Roman.”Rafael’s voice.
Chris finished what he was doing first.Then straightened.Mateo Vargas stood twenty feet away.Exactly as Chris remembered from the intelligence photographs.Late thirties.
Dark hair combed neatly back.Tailored charcoal suit despite the Texas heat.No tie.
Expensive watch.Nothing excessive.That almost made him more dangerous.Men desperate to display power usually wanted you to know they had it.Mateo didn’t need the reminder.Two men stood several feet behind him.Chris recognized one from the board.
Diego Serrano.Mateo’s second-in-command.Broad-shouldered.Dark-eyed.Expression like he’d already decided he disliked Chris and was simply waiting for a reason.The other man was unknown.Security, probably.Chris wiped his hands on a shop towel.No hurry.No nerves.At least none anyone could see.Mateo looked him over.
“So you’re Roman.”Chris tossed the rag onto the workbench.
“So I’m told.”Silence.Luis’s eyes widened slightly.
Rafael looked like he wanted to put his head through the nearest wall.Mateo’s expression didn’t change.Chris knew exactly what he’d done.Enough attitude to establish Roman wasn’t intimidated.Not enough to be disrespectful.Maybe.Mateo stepped closer.
“You always talk like that?”Chris shrugged.
“Depends who’s asking.”Luis looked at the floor.Smart man.
Diego’s mouth hardened.Mateo stopped several feet from Chris.Close enough to make the distance deliberate.“I’m asking.”Chris met his eyes.And there it was.The test.Mateo wasn’t asking about conversation.He was measuring whether Chris would look away.
Chris didn’t.Not because Roman was fearless.That would be stupid.Fearless men died young.Roman simply didn’t advertise fear.A few seconds passed.Mateo finally glanced toward the Range Rover.“What was wrong with it?”
“Vacuum leak. Cracked intake line. Couple other things somebody ignored.”Rafael cleared his throat.Chris didn’t look at him.Mateo did.“Somebody?”Chris nodded toward Luis.“Wasn’t him.”Luis looked grateful.Rafael looked less grateful.Mateo’s eyes came back to Chris.“You’re sure?”
“Wouldn’t have said it otherwise.”Mateo walked toward the vehicle.Chris watched him without appearing to.Everything about Mateo was controlled.No wasted movement.
No nervous habits.He rested one hand on the fender.“You fix it?”
“Almost.”
“How long?”
“Twenty minutes.”Mateo glanced at the scattered tools.“Rafael said you did good work yesterday.”Chris leaned back against the bench.“Rafael’s very emotional.”Luis made a strangled sound that might have been a laugh.Rafael stared at him.Chris’s mouth twitched.
Mateo looked toward Rafael.“You emotional?”
“Not particularly.”
“Good.”Mateo looked back at Chris.“Because Roman apparently thinks you are.”Chris said, “I said very.”Mateo stared at him another moment.Then laughed.Not loudly.Just once.
Diego didn’t.That was useful.Chris filed it away.Mateo walked around the vehicle.“You from El Paso?”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly isn’t a place.”
“I moved.”
“Where?”
“Phoenix for a while. Albuquerque. Dallas.”
“You don’t stay put.”
“Never found a good enough reason.”Mateo’s eyes narrowed slightly.“Family?”
“None worth mentioning.”That answer was built into the cover.Father supposedly dead.
Mother estranged.No siblings.No wife.No children.Nobody Mateo could easily threaten to control him.Also nobody Chris would have to pretend to call.“Girlfriend?” Mateo asked.Chris almost smiled.“That’s getting personal.”Diego stepped forward half a pace.
“Answer him.”Chris looked at Diego.First time.Slowly.“Didn’t realize he needed your help asking.”Everything in the garage went completely silent.There it was.Too far?Possibly.Chris let the silence sit.Diego’s jaw flexed.Mateo turned his head toward him.A tiny gesture.
Enough.Diego stopped.Chris noticed.Mateo noticed Chris noticing.Interesting.Mateo looked back at him.“You’ve got a problem with Diego?”Chris shrugged.“Don’t know him well enough to have one.”
“That’s a good answer.”
“Usually try to have those.”Mateo smiled faintly.“Usually?”Chris looked toward the engine.“I’m still working on consistency.”Another low laugh.Good.Chris wasn’t trying to become Mateo’s friend.Not yet.He was trying to become memorable.There was a difference.
Mateo moved closer to the open hood.“Rafael tells me you raced.”
“Years ago.”
“Legally?”Chris looked at him.Mateo smiled.“Thought so.”
“Would’ve been less interesting.”
“What did you run?”
“Whatever I could afford to keep together.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Civic first. Then an old Mustang. Couple imports after that.”
“All yours?”
“Most.”
“Win?”
“Enough.”Mateo’s gaze sharpened.“How much is enough?”Chris shrugged.“Enough people stopped asking if I could drive.”Diego scoffed quietly.Chris heard it.Of course he did.
Mateo glanced at him.Then back at Chris.“You work security too?”
“Sometimes.”
“For who?”
“People who needed it.”
“What kind of people?”
“The kind who didn’t like explaining themselves.
”Mateo studied him.Chris could almost see the calculations happening.Was Roman hiding something?
Absolutely.Would a man like Roman be expected to hide something?
Also absolutely.That was the balance.Too open and he looked manufactured.Too secretive and he looked suspicious.Mateo stepped closer.
“How many people have you killed?”Rafael froze.Luis stopped pretending to work.Chris’s face didn’t change.Inside, every instinct sharpened.That wasn’t in the expected line of questioning.Good.Chris let a second pass.Then two. “That’s an interesting job question.”
Mateo’s voice stayed pleasant.“Answer it.”Chris held his gaze.“No.”Diego gave a humorless laugh.“Wrong answer.”Chris looked at him again.“Wasn’t talking to you.”
Diego took another step.Mateo raised one hand.Stopped him again.Then Mateo moved directly in front of Chris.Close now.Barely three feet.“If you work for me, Roman, I ask questions.”Chris nodded once.“You can ask.”Mateo’s eyebrows lifted.“That doesn’t mean you answer?”
“Depends on the question.”A beat.“Then answer this one.”Chris looked at him.
Mateo’s voice dropped.“How many?”Chris could have invented a number.One.
Three.Five.Too much detail would invite more questions.Too little could make Roman look harmless.So Chris gave him something better.“If you ever need me to answer that question for you, you’re probably already having a very bad day.”Silence.Then Mateo smiled.
Slowly.“Rafael.”Rafael straightened.“Yeah?”
“Where’d you find this asshole?”Chris almost laughed.Rafael answered carefully.
“Luis knew somebody who knew somebody.”Mateo nodded.
“That’s usually how it starts.”Chris understood the double meaning.Everything in organizations like this started with somebody knowing somebody.Trust spread sideways before it spread upward.Mateo walked back toward the Range Rover.
“Finish it.”Chris pushed off the bench.“That was the plan.”Mateo glanced at him.
“You really don’t get nervous, do you?”Chris looked at him.
“That bother you?”
“No.”Mateo’s mouth curved.“It makes me curious.”That was less idea.
Chris bent over the engine again.“Curiosity’s expensive.
”Mateo laughed.Behind him, Diego didn’t.Chris could feel Diego’s stare between his shoulder blades.He ignored it.For now.He picked up the ratchet.Tightened another bolt.Listened.Mateo began speaking quietly with Rafael.Nothing useful.Business invoices.A vehicle shipment.One name Chris didn’t recognize.He memorized it anyway.Then heels clicked against the concrete floor.Different sound.
Sharper.Lighter.The energy in the garage changed again.Not fear this time.Attention.
Chris kept working for another second.Then he heard Luis say:“Morning, Camila.”
His hand stopped.Just slightly.He hated that it did.Chris straightened.Turned.And then he saw her.Camila Vargas walked through the open bay wearing fitted dark jeans, a cream blouse, oversized sunglasses pushed into her hair, and an expression suggesting she’d rather be almost anywhere else.The surveillance photographs hadn’t done her justice.
That was Chris’s first problem.The second was that she looked directly at him.
And stopped.Not physically.She kept walking.But something in her expression paused.
Recognition without knowing him.Interest before either had earned it.Chris’s eyes met hers.Brown.Darker than the photographs.Warm.Sharp.Observant.She was beautiful.
Not delicate.Not soft in the way people probably expected Mateo Vargas’s protected younger sister to be.There was attitude in the tilt of her chin.Confidence in the way she walked through a garage full of dangerous men without checking whether anyone moved aside.They did.Chris watched her one second too long.Camila noticed.Of course she did.