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“See you tomorrow,” Pirro says as I stand.
I shake my head. “Wasn’t joking when I said I was completely out of money.”
He nods his head once, a single dip of acknowledgment instead of taking the bait and offering me a job.
I walk away, knowing the plan now is to follow them when they leave. Something Angel warned me against doing until I knew that they wouldn’t let me into their organization.
Two weeks isn’t exactly long enough to gain the trust of hardened criminals, but it was the timeline I gave myself.
There’s a devious smile playing on my face as I walk outside. I know the next time I see Pirro, it will be when I press my gun to his forehead. I’ll remind him of all the times he cheated me out of Angel’s money before I pull the trigger.
The bar in the seedy part of Monterrey hasn’t invested much in the way of safety for their patrons, but the outside of the bar isn’t exactly welcoming either. There are no flashing neon signs like you’d see on a bar in the States. There isn’t an open sign in the single window. They don’t want strangers showing up, and that’s what caused such curiosity when I arrived two weeks ago.
My presence in the bar was noticed by the locals and regulars. Pirro saw me as a chump, someone who would be easy to cheat out of money. He was right, in a way. I allowed it as much on day one as I did tonight. I wanted him to see me as someone he could control, someone who would do what he demanded and not ask questions. I pretended to be afraid of him, and it was harder than I ever could’ve imagined. Angel said this job was more dangerous, but I didn’t take into account that he meant because losing my fucking temper on those assholes would be a test I was most certainly going to fail.
I want to kick the trash can out front, but it would only draw more unwanted attention in my direction. I might have wanted to be on their radar the second I stepped into the bar, but now I need to become a shadow. I need to be able to follow Pirro from this bar tonight, back to the place where he runs the day-to-day operations for Raul Cortez.
I’m fairly certain the man doesn’t work for the gun and drug running side of things. Not with the way his eyes looked over every woman he saw in a way that made me feel like he was calculating the money he could get for each and every one of them.
The sound of shuffling feet hits me a second too late for me to elbow my assailant in the gut. I blame Pirro and his uncanny way of making my temper flair for the mistake.
Getting mugged outside of this shitty bar would honestly just be par for the course with how unlucky I’ve been lately.
This guy is going to be incredibly pissed when he finds nothing but empty pockets.
But instead of him patting me down or demanding I give him money, I feel a fucking prick in my neck. It isn’t a robbery but an abduction.
I know who has me before I hear his raspy voice in my ear.
He curses at me in Spanish. Although I understand him calling me a fucking idiot, I’m a little regretful that I’ve spent so many years working jobs around Mexico and South America, and I haven’t been bothered to fully learn the language. Learning to speak Spanish when all I ever do is shoot people has seemed like a waste of time up until this point. As my body fights the drugs in my system, I find that it would really be helpful with where I’m going.
I wasn’t able to infiltrate the Cortez cartel the way I wanted, but at least this will put me on the inside.
I can’t help the sinking feeling that I may have bitten off more than I can chew, that this has no way of ending with my survival.
Chapter 3
Ayla
I shove my hands into the front pockets of the robe Pirro allowed me to wear.
The women they’ve brought in aren’t exactly calm, but they’d be less calm if they saw a line of women standing there naked. There’s a good chance they’ve already been hurt, have already had to survive untold horrors before getting to this point in their journey, but women that are a hundred percent combative are extremely hard to handle. The men are well aware that they’re out numbered five to one, but they also know we’d never conspire to overthrow them. We have too much to lose, too many others to worry about than just ourselves. If it were only about us, those of us standing to the side as they urge the crying women to form a straight line, we’d be in shallow graves out back like many of the ones that had nothing to lose.
