“Scare tactic,” he replied in response to a question he’d asked himself repeatedly in the last few days.
“But how was I supposed to connect the incident to Vega? Nobody came inside to issue any type of threat. No note was left. It could’ve been anyone.” He brow furrowed as she looked to be considering that option again.
“Your neighbor said they saw a gray Lexus parked across the street from your house. Exactly seven minutes before the window was broken.” He let those words hang in the air asecond, watched as she pondered them and nodded the moment, he could tell her thoughts shifted in the direction his were already in.
“No. He wouldn’t use the same car he used in the commission of a murder,” she said.
He nodded. “There are a couple of things I know about Vega, that wouldn’t take me into the fine area of attorney/client privilege, if he were still my client. If you think I’m arrogant you haven’t seen anything yet. He’s cocky as hell and walks around like he’s damned untouchable. He believes he’s invincible so there’s no need to fear being caught.”
She frowned. “He thinks he’s invincible because you keep getting him off whenever he commits a crime.”
The terseness of her words caught him off guard and he remained silent a moment because he probably deserved that shot, at least on some level. “I represented Vega in two cases. A drug case and this murder. Yes, I got him cleared of both. That’s my job.”
“That you do by choice without a second thought as to who you’re letting back out onto the streets to do whatever they want,” she snapped.
There was no doubt he’d touched a nerve with her. The way not only her tone had changed, but her shoulders squared, eyes sharpened as if she were ready to argue this point was proof. “Then it’s your job to make sure he goes to jail this time,” he said, resisting the urge to press further into what she was really irritated about.
One perfectly arched brow lifted, and he swore she was even more beautiful when she was challenged. “Are you planning on helping me do that?” she asked.
Ben knew what his job was, he also knew the ethical lines with which he’d never thought to cross. But he wasn’t the one who’d crossed the line, Vega was. And because of that Ben hadthe wherewithal to end his representation of him. It would’ve stopped at just that, Ben was certain. But Ebony had been killed and Victoria’s personal space invaded. Vega had run headlong over the line and landed right in Ben’s backyard. To him, those were fighting terms, and next to law, boxing was Ben’s favorite pastime.
“I’ve got someone looking for Alayna Jonas. She’s the key to your case,” he said.
“The cops think she’s dead,” Victoria stated, pushing her plate to the side.
“And so they’ve stopped looking for her. But if she’s dead, where’s her body? Vega likes recognition. If he kills someone, he leaves them for everyone to see.” And sometimes he leaves a note, like a signature, Ben kept that part to himself.
“You think she ran because she knew he’d come after her?”
Ben nodded.
“But she left her daughter unprotected. What kind of mother would do that?” she asked.
“The kind that has a lot of information,” he said. “Killing her daughter would only enrage her, possibly enough to have her talking faster than they could shoot her. As long as she’s alive her family is safe because what she knows means more to Vega than another dead body.”
Ben had thought long and hard about this. He’d even considered that Vega could’ve gone the opposite route and killed all of Alayna’s family as a way of keeping her afraid and subsequently, quiet. But that would’ve gone against the person who’d hired him to kill the Congressman and his wife’s instructions.
Her brow furrowed as he suspected she was considering his words. “You work the opposite side of the law than I do. Why tell me all this?” She always had another question, always knew to push forward to get her desired outcome.
He finished chewing the last bit of his sandwich, swallowed and wiped his mouth, all the while watching her closely. At this point, they were in this together, whether she liked it or not, so he didn’t see a problem with being honest with her, at least about this.
“I want Vega in jail for the rest of his life,” he said, “or I just might kill him myself.”
Victoria
The afternoon hours flew by as Victoria stayed closed in her office, pouring over both the police and the prosecutor’s files on Ramone Vega. She knew where he was born, where he went to school until ninth grade, the first man he’d been accused of shooting and the first woman he’d raped. He was a vicious character, a heartless killer that would let absolutely nothing come between him and his money.
Born Jose Ramone Vega to Conchita and Raphael Vega, Mexican immigrants who came to the United States in the early seventies and ran a fruit stand off the local highway. Reports told a story of stark poverty and endless teasing in Vega’s elementary years. Sometime in middle school he’d met up with Salvatore “Big Sal” Pena. Joining Big Sal’s gang had been the turning point in Vega’s life and before he’d hit his sixteenth birthday he was Big Sal’s lead enforcer.
Now, at almost thirty-eight years old, five feet eleven inches tall, two hundred and thirty-five pounds, Vega’s name carried more clout than the local law. He and Big Sal ran the streets with an iron hand, one that wouldn’t hesitate to slit the throat of anyone who crossed them.
To put it mildly, this case was huge, it was highly publicized and more dangerous than any case Victoria had ever tried. Andthat made her heart beat a little faster as she sat back in her chair looking around her office at all the spread out papers and sighed.
“Can I do this?”
The words came out on a whispered breath but seemed to echo in the small government office she called home from nine to five.
Of course she could do it. She had no choice. This was her job, bringing justice to the same streets that had taken her father’s life was the goal she’d been working toward all her life. It was everything to her and the stems of fear taking hold deep inside her weren’t going to win. She could get a conviction on Ramone Vega. Shewasgoing to get a conviction on Ramone Vega, no matter what the cost.
