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“I’ve dealt with dangerous men before, Connor. It’s my line of work.”
I ran my hand through my hair, trying to wrap my head around what I was hearing.
“Him,” I said, pointing in the direction of where the car had once been. “Jose Burciaga. The goddamn Oscuridad, he’s your client.”
She stood firm, but I could sense by the wavering in her posture that my tone was having an effect on her.
“That’s right. And don’t bother asking me about the details of the case, that’s strictly confidential.”
“I don’t give a good goddamn about the specifics of the case. I care about you, Claire. And while there’s not a single doubt in my mind that you’re brilliant enough to take on whatever legal challenge Burciaga’s got in store for you, the fact of the matter is that he’s dangerous. You’re getting in over your head in a way you can’t even begin to understand.”
Fire returned to Claire’s eyes. “Is it possible for you to talk to me like I’m not some stupid little girl who needs a big strong man to look out for her and make all of her decisions?”
Just my luck that telling her what to do served nothing more than to make her double down and do whatever she’d wanted to in the first place.
I tried another angle. “You know what Oscuridad means, right?”
She narrowed her eyes, trying to anticipate where I was going.
“Yeah. Shadow, darkness, something like that.”
“The Darkness, that’s right. Now, do you know why they call him that?”
She sighed, crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t know. Because it sounds scary?”
I shook my head. “No, not just because it sounds scary. See, Jose doesn’t need tosoundterrifying, heisterrifying. Back in the day when Jose was still making a name for himself in the lower ranks of the cartel, he worked as an enforcer for his bosses, the kind of guy you send out when you really need to put the screws to someone, drive a point home. Someone doesn’t pay up? Or, even worse, they front like they’re going to the feds? Jose was your man.”
She said nothing, regarding me with skeptical eyes, her arms still crossed. All the same, I could tell I had her attention.
“He wanted to make a name for himself. And he sure as hell did. See, other enforcers would be just fine with meeting the target with a couple of thugs and giving them a working over. Not Jose. He’d take his time with them. He’d take… souvenirs. He’d show up all by himself, nothing more than a butterfly knife. That was all he needed. Word of his brutality spread around, his deeds so disturbing that people had a hard time believing that a normal man did them and not some creature from the darkness.”
“The darkness,” she repeated. “La Oscuridad.”
“Now you’re getting it. Sure, he’s glib and charming and can afford a nice suit. But in him beats the heart of a killer—a sick one at that. And this is the sort of man you’re associating with. You really want to be defending someone like that?”
“Like you’re any better,” she shot back. “I know who you are, what you do.”
“Maybe you’ve got some idea. But if you think I’m anything like him, you’re dead wrong.”
She refolded her arms over her chest, inadvertently pushing her breasts up and together in a manner that truly tested my ability to keep my eyes where they needed to be.
“I don’t know that.”
“I think you do. I think you can look into the eyes of someone like Jose and know he’s evil, then look into my eyes and know that I’m different.”
“You’re still a criminal.”
I stepped closer to her. “Is that right? You think that I’m bad?”
“I know you’re bad. I shouldn’t even be talking to you, let alone getting coffee with you.”
“And yet, here you are.”
She said nothing, instead biting down on her lip indecisively.
“You need to be careful, Claire.”
“Yeah? And why is that?”
