Chapter 25
Joaquin Sosa didn’t care how many runners and grunts he lost if it meant he got access to the whole pie, not just a slice.
There were always more mules to bribe or coerce.
More smugglers to entice with a stack of bills.
More dealers to sell drugs that had no place on our streets if we weren’t getting a cut.
If I was to get my point across to the Urabá cartel, I had to hit him where it hurt: his product.
Picking Sosa’s men off the streets came at a profit.
Every man had their breaking point, and his were no different.
It didn’t matter how much they feared him.
In the end, when it came to pain and suffering, the one with the immediate grip on their lives usually won out.
There had been plenty of pickings to capture and pry information out of in the last three days since I dragged myself through muck and left Alice in my bed. It was the distraction I needed.
My phone rang.
“We got them. Heading your way. Two minutes out.”
I got out of the car and signaled over my head. “Lay it out.”
Two minutes later, headlights skipped and blurred down the road.
“Incoming,” Liam yelled.
All eight of us crouched behind our vehicles, guns tracking our targets.
Rain wept from my hair down my face, cool and pitiless, and steamed off our coats.
My finger caressed the trigger. My blood buzzed, and my heart thudded in my ears.
Tonight, we took the first real step toward putting the cartel first under our heels and then at our backs.
The trucks barreled through the spike strips.
The tires thumped and hissed. Brakes squealed.
The vehicles swerved as their tires slapped the asphalt but didn’t stop.
I aimed my gun and fired. The bullet’s crack and recoil echoed off the shattering of glass.
The truck brayed as it swerved, then tipped over, its driver draped over the wheel.
Another shot popped off from our men one car down, and the second truck lolled to a stop.
We raced from our positions on their flanks.
The sicarios fired blindly, yelling into the night.
Interior dome lighting mottled their skin and twisted their faces into gaunt, sickly carcasses.
In this rain, we were dark specters of death, sent to deliver them, and that was exactly what we did.
Quickly, efficiently, and with no-nonsense.
We only kept one alive for information, then we packed up the goods.
With the last kilo of drugs stacked and tied down, we slammed the doors of our vans shut and rolled the spike strips back up.
Vehicle by vehicle, O’Leary men took off and dispersed until only Liam and I remained.
I shook out the dripping wetness from my hair as Liam doused accelerant over every inch of the interior of both trucks and the bodies inside.
His eyes gleamed and twinkled under the hand-sheltered flame of a match.
His mouth split wide, and he hollered a whoop as he flicked the match into the downed truck.
Flames whooshed and rushed from back to front. They licked the doors and tested for a way through the rain to Liam, before finally retreating to the havoc inside. They gleamed over his frame and the road in golden, dancing light that was as mesmerizing as the joy on my brother’s face.
I rubbed at the sudden suffocating squeeze in my chest through my soaked coat. A sharp tang of bitterness hit the back of my throat. I glared down at the rippling puddles along the asphalt and the rain plopping into them so it never went smooth.
Moments of happiness always found Liam easily.
Where the darkness cocooned me and dragged me down, he coasted over its sticky touch without letting it faze him.
He joked at times when laughter shouldn’t exist. He took pleasure in whatever he could find.
I should have been happy for him, but it didn’t stop this burning, tugging pull in my belly, or the sickening taste over my tongue, or the desire to rip that grin off his face.
I turned away and slid into the car before my bitterness swallowed me whole.
The car sputtered to life, and the heating kicked on. It wrapped around me in a suffocating shroud, while my chilled, wet skin prickled with protest. I leaned my head back and slipped a cigarette between my lips. Not to smoke, just to feel the comfort of its familiarity and its dry, leafy taste.
My head twisted to watch Liam. He was still at it, laughing like a loon under the glow of the blaze and jubilant despite how the rain tried to best his efforts. He basked as if in the glory of a triumph, completely enraptured.
Something cracked along my rib cage, and shards spiked through my organs. I struck my fist against my sternum, right over the aching tension below. Because I understood what he was feeling.
It twisted my insides to see exactly what Alice could give me so easily visible on my brother’s face.
It reminded me of her obstinate smile, which turned soft the longer I stared, of her unflappable nerves that were a front for vulnerabilities she rarely let loose, and of her graceful body that melted in my arms and her bewitching voice that broke me out of the humdrum.
I flipped through my phone contacts on the linked car computer screen and rang Paulie. Deafening music pierced my eardrums, bass thumping and vibrating. A cacophony of voices screamed lyrics over each other as Paulie yelled through the line. A door banged shut, and the music considerably dampened.
“Yeah, boss?”
“You better not be mucking about.”
“Never. You know me. Never do.”
I grunted, wishing Liam would hurry up. “How is she?”
“Active.”
I huffed through my annoyance and chewed along the edge of my cigarette butt.
“Details, Paulie. Give me bloody details.”
Paulie sent me photos and clips once or twice a day of her jaunt to New York.
I stared at those, loathing whatever reason took her from Boston, where I held her attention and she pursued me relentlessly.
Where she lassoed me around the ankle and hauled me out of the chasm I nosedived into every day, with sass and determination.
So far, she meandered through the streets, did some light shopping, ate out with suits, and entered or exited skyscrapers either alone or accompanied by more suits. She greeted one or two with a hug. A few others got cheek-touching air kisses. I almost chucked my phone at the wall because of those.
“She met up with more suits today. Some of the same. Some new. They took her to lunch at some fancy-as-shit place. Dinner too.”
“Any of them get handsy?”
“All kept to themselves.”
“Good. That’s good.”
The fact that she ran off to New York hours after she left my apartment still set me on edge.
“But boss”—Paulie cleared his throat—“she hasn’t gone back to the hotel yet tonight.”
“Where?”
“A rooftop lounge club.”
“You keeping her safe?”
“Not an easy feat. The lady gets more attention than a dancer at The Pearl.”
My teeth gritted, hands tightening around the steering wheel, because those two didn’t mix.
Alice stripping on the stage of The Pearl while the crowd cheered on was as probable as me snitching to the boys in blue.
The idea churned my insides. Her body was mine.
No one would set eyes on it. Ever again.
“Paulie…” I growled.
“She told a few guys off. I cut off a guy who invited her to dance, but I got a little distracted by this scumbag who bought her a drink and slipped something into it.”
“What?” The leather creaked between my white-knuckled grasp, the stitching digging into my fingers.
“Don’t worry, boss. She refused it, and I took care of it before he could—”
“I want the fucker. You bring him back to me. Tonight. Just you.”
“Right, sure. I’ll do that. What about the two men she was dancin’ with?”
“Show me.”
Frustration bubbled in the pit of my stomach.
The bass picked back up under a cracking, aggressive beat and the buzz of a synth.
It vibrated through the speaker, matching the pounding of my pulse trying to excise itself out of my body.
It had only been three days. Three days since she smiled at me.
Since she disappeared as quickly as she barged into my life, bright like the sun and tossing the stability of my life into a passionate whirlwind of emotions.
Three days since a void opened up over my heart that I already thought was empty.
Even Brody noticed me zoning out more often at our family meetings this week.
The passenger car door clicked and swung open.
Liam popped his head inside like an overeager bunny.
The flames crackled and sparked outside, glowing an orange spread over our car interior.
Glass popped. It wouldn’t be long until the fire licked at the gas lines and over the engines.
My brother was cutting it a little too close.
“Switch with me,” I barked at him and jumped out under the toasty rain.
“Seriously? You want me driving? You sure?”
“Get your arse over here.” Checking on Alice beat any high from outracing a pending explosion.
The camera switched on as the passenger door clacked shut after me. Liam kicked the car in full gear, and it swerved under the rising steam behind the back tires. The eejit cheered, and I clutched the grab handle. Fucking maniac. Just a drive with him was enough to raise my blood pressure.