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I stared at the barrel of the gun, trying to hide my shaking.
“Melissa. She knows that you are here.”
He smiled. “No, she doesn’t. Melissa was never contacted about our little meeting. I only told you that to calm you enough so that you would sit down.” He kept the gun raised, his calm making it clear that he was, indeed, the sort of man who would kill without breaking a sweat. It took all the control I had to keep it together.
“Now,” he went on. “Are you going to cooperate? Or am I going to have to splatter the contents of your pretty little head all over this fancy office? It’d be quite a mess, but I could have it cleaned up, your body sinking deep into the bay, within two hours.”
Something occurred to me in those terrifying moments. It wasn’t just my life at stake. There was another person in the equation. I was responsible for the baby growing inside of me, the reality of pregnancy hitting me hard.
I took a deep breath and spoke.
“What happens if I come with you?”
“You stay with me and my men for the evening. There are important business negotiations happening tonight, and your presence is going to be an insurance policy of sorts. After that… who knows? Perhaps I let you go, perhaps I take you on a private plane to my beach house in Yucatan. It would be the perfect place for you and me to get to know one another.”
I narrowed my eyes, pulling back and spitting in his face. The moment the spit connected I realized what a stupid thing it had been to do.
Jose wickedly laughed, tucking the gun back into his holster and taking out a cloth, wiping his face with it.
“I’ll give you that one for free,” he said. “Now, come along.”
He rose, stepping over to me and grabbing my arm, yanking me from the seat. Pain shot through my wrist as I got up, Jose dragging me out of the room and into the hallway. Moments later I saw that he hadn’t been lying; two hulking guards were in front of the elevator.
We approached, one of the guards opening the doors and leading us both inside. Jose hit the button for the basement, taking us all the way to the bottom floor of the building where maintenance was located.
“Somos claros?” Burciaga asked. I didn’t speak much Spanish, but a little bit from high school had stuck in my mind, enough to know that he was asking if the coast was clear.
One of the guards offered a “si”in response. The elevator went down, leading us into the depths of the building. It being the weekend, no one was there. Jose and his men were taking me through the industrial area and to a set of double doors at the back. The guards opened the doors where a van was parked and waiting right outside in the alley.
Jose nodded to one of the guards who then hurried over to me, taking out zip ties and binding my wrists. The other guard produced a roll of tape, ripping off a piece and putting it over my mouth. Jose opened the back doors of the van revealing that, to my shock, I wasn’t alone.
There was someone else there, a woman with red hair streaked with grey who appeared to be in her seventies.
“Claire, I’d like you to meet Mrs. O’Leary.”
I wanted to say something, but the tape prevented me. One of the guards shoved me into the back of the van and I turned just in time to see Jose take out his phone and position it for a photo.
“Saycheese.” With that, he snapped a picture of the two of us. “Yes, this will do nicely. Now,vamanos.”
The guards shut the door, Mrs. O’Leary and I regarding one another with the same expression of horror.
Chapter 34
Connor
It was late into the evening, Kellan and I seated at the bar of Pussycats. We’d closed down the place for the day, Kellan’s ceremony and the meeting with the cartel taking up the open hours of the joint.
“Fuckin’ pig.” Kellan, the new boss of the Coonan Syndicate, looked like he wanted to spit.
I didn’t have to take a guess at what he was talking about. Juarez was seated in the front row of the club, just in front of the stage. He had a big glass of tequila on the rocks in his hand, two of his cronies on either side of him. The girls on stage—a trio of dancers we’d paid extra to do some afterhours work—did their best to keep out of reach of his fat, hairy hands.
“Hope we’re paying the girls enough to take the next week off and spend the entire time at a spa,” Kellan said. “Can’t imagine how goddamn disgusting it would be to have a man like him pawing at you.”
I said nothing, sipping my whiskey as I watched Juarez. One of the girls moved in for a lap dance and Juarez wasted no time putting his mitts all over her.
“Juarez!” I called out. “We don’t touch the girls like that here.”
Sapphire, the stripper, glanced up at me with an expression of total relief on her face. Juarez glanced back, his double chin practically swaying as he turned.
