Page 28 of Thaddeus

“That fast?” Max asked.

“Fuck, yeah. Garcia’s had a stronghold for years. Now that the other gangs in the area have a shot at changing the landscape, they’re jumping on it. Total chaos right now.”

I was rethinking my earlier assessment. Maybe the disorder and confusion would work in our favor. Hopefully Garcia’s crew was too busy spilling blood on the streets of Morrocoy to care about moving the dead man’s belongings.

The swank hotel came into view and I thought about Emerson staying there with her fancy clothes, shoes, and jewelry. And of course with Garcia, too. She’d said she spent eight months with him. Eight months sleeping next to him. The thought had me seeing red. And it pissed me off that I wanted to know, but I did, what the hell was Emerson doing with a man like Garcia?

When we’d found the girls, she’d been gentle with them. Conciliatory and kind as she helped them out of the house, reassuring them we were the good guys and we’d get them help. How could a woman like that be with a man who’d bought, violated, and then sold those same girls?

It didn’t make any sense.

None of it did.

Declan passed the entrance to the hotel and I noted there was only one police car out front. That didn’t make sense either. Three people reported dead and there was one unit there?

“How good is the intel we received about the shooting?” I asked.

“Straight from the police band,” Declan answered, pulling over and parking behind a dilapidated building that left me wondering if the SUV would still be there when we came back. “If you’re asking about the lack of police presence, I’ll remind you, we’re not in the good ol’ U.S. of A. Not to mention, the police are a little busy with Garcia’s crew taking out their rivals.”

Declan put the SUV in park but didn’t get out. Instead, he turned in his seat and pinned me with his gaze.

“You good?” He quickly shook his head when I opened my mouth to tell him to fuck off. “Seriously, brother, you straight?”

All of his normal sarcasm gone, leaving only concern.

“I’m good,” I told him.

“I don’t know what happened between the two of you, but I don’t need to know the specifics to see the fallout. You have to know we all have your back. I wish we didn’t need to pick her up, but we do, if you need to be taken—”

“’Preciate it, but I told you, I’m straight. I’m focused. I’m ready. Emerson Pierce is nothing to me, not anymore. That was by her choice. I was shocked when I first saw her again, but that’s done. I’m over it. She’s nothing more than a job. We straight?”

Now, not only was I lying to myself, but I was lying to my team.

“Yep,” he returned.

“Great, let’s roll.”

The cold dread I’d felt back at the house hadn’t subsided and it wouldn’t until I verified Emerson was alive.

Emerson

My plan worked, maybe a little too well.

By the grace of God, I’d made my way out of the jungle. I hadn’t thought-out my trek through the forest and it had taken me forever to get my bearings. And by the time daylight broke I realized I’d been walking in circles and I was back at the shack where the girls had been kept.

That was possibly the best mistake. I followed the dirt road back out to the industrial buildings and found a local fisherman getting ready to launch his boat. As it turned out, the ride the man gave me back to the hotel was expensive. Thankfully, I’d nabbed my earrings off the table before we’d left the house Thaddeus and his team were staying at or I would’ve been up shit’s creek. The fisherman hadn’t been willing to miss a day’s work without payment. The earrings were worth six years’ worth of fishing for the man. Though it was highly doubtful, he understood their value.

Easy come, easy go, right?

I’d had no other choice. I needed to get back to the hotel and collect my belongings before Jefferson’s men cleared out the room.

Paul, Jefferson’s second in command, was in the villa when I’d finally arrived. I put on the performance of a lifetime and was overjoyed when he’d bought my story of kidnapping and escape. I’d laid it on thick, too. I’d told him that the men who’d killed Jefferson and Carlos were from a gang from Caracas. That was Jefferson’s most profitable and coveted area. I’d told Paul the men wanted Jefferson’s territory and were planning on killing all of Jefferson’s lieutenants in an effort to seize what they wanted and they were going to use me for ransom.

He’d bought it—all of it. Paul had hung on every last word until he’d exploded in a rage and started making phone calls dispatching his men to exact revenge. Then after he’d commanded me to stay in the room until he returned, he’d left.

I didn’t know how many guards he’d left outside of the room and I didn’t bother to check. I was too busy packing my shit and riffling through Jefferson’s, searching for anything valuable I could take. I didn’t feel bad for stealing a dead man’s belongings. Everything he’d owned had been acquired with dirty money.

Money that was tainted with horrors he’d inflicted on others. So, no, I didn’t feel a bit of remorse I was stealing it and using it to track down and kill other men who would cause the same kind of harm.