Rever glanced over his shoulder, a wide smile on his face. “You better, asshole. This was all your idea. If it fails, I’m blaming you.”
He didn’t wait for my response. He shot the deadbolt on the door. The wood splintered, and I shaded my face, protecting my eyes from the flying debris. With his gun in front of his body, he kicked the door open. Following his lead, I slid my gun out of the holster.
Emanuel stepped out of the shadows, his gun drawn. “What the hell are you two doing here?”
“Put your gun down before I put a bullet between your eyes,” Rever said, his voice cold as ice.
The veins on the side of Emanuel’s neck pulsed with anger. “Ignacio is going to kill both of you.”
“We’ll take our chances with Ignacio.” I pulled the trigger of my gun and successfully shot him in the foot, immobilizing him.
The gun slipped from his hand, and he stumbled forward onto one knee. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“You know,” I started, “after I talked to you last week, I had an epiphany.” I tapped my gun against my thigh.
“You’re crazy,” he growled through clenched teeth.
“All this time, you were pretending to be Ignacio’s faithful servant without any ambition for more,” I continued, ignoring his words. “Then, I realized you not only wanted more, but you were also actively manipulating Ignacio and Juan to consolidate the resources of the two most powerful cartels in this region behind you. Only Ignacio and Juan were too stupid to see you for what you are.”
“You’ll never prove anything,” he taunted, reaching for his gun on the floor in front of him.
Pop!
I shot his hand.
“You piece of shit. You’re going to kill me.”
“He’s right,” Rever said, his voice eerily flat. “You shouldn’t toy with him before we get him to the torture room. If he loses too much blood, we’ll have to let him recover before the fun starts, and I’m in the mood to see lots of blood. I have so many plans for him.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m an immediate gratification type of guy. Maybe we could do it here.”
“Nah. We have better tools at the compound. We should wait.”
Emanuel grabbed a knife from the inside of his pant leg. He lurched forward and it flew through the air in slow motion heading for Rever.
“Rever, watch out,” I screamed, but it was too late.
The knife plunged into Rever’s shoulder. He staggered backward, falling to his knees. His eyes widened, and his lips parted. I charged forward, tackling Emanuel. His head cracked against the tile floor. My legs straddling his waist, I wrapped my hands around his neck. Emanuel clawed at my arm, but I didn’t feel anything. I wanted to strangle the life from his body second by second. His lips turned blue. His eyes bulged. His legs twitched. A haze of red filled my vision as I summoned the specter of death with my bare hands.
“That’s enough,” Rever grunted. He pulled the knife from his shoulder and tossed it on the floor. Blood oozed out of his wound, staining his white shirt.
“No.” I tightened my hands around his neck. “He helped Juan Alvarez abduct Hattie. She could’ve been killed.”
Rever slid a pair of handcuffs across the floor. “Yeah, well, we need to get a confession before you kill him. Otherwise, we’ll never get Ignacio to do what we want him to do.”
My body sagged, and my grip on his neck loosened. “Fuck,” I yelled, slamming my fist into the wall behind me. White dust coated my knuckles.
“Don’t worry. You’ll get the chance to do whatever you want with him,” Rever said, cupping his shoulder. Blood seeped through his fingers.
I spat on Emanuel’s face and flipped him onto his back. I snapped one ring of the cuffs around his wrist and the other around the iron stair railing.
“Take my car keys,” Rever said, dangling them from his fingers.
I snatched them out of his hand and started moving toward the front door.
“Text me when you’re out front and get the duct tape out of the glove box.”
“I’m on it. See you in a few minutes.”
“Hurry the fuck up. I don’t want to get in a gun fight while you’re gone.” His hardened gaze drifted across the room. “I have to find some bleach to clean this mess up. I don’t want it to look like we murdered someone in here.” He chuckled at his own joke. “That’ll come later. Much later.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Hattie
Sunlight streamed through the edges of the dark brown wooden blinds. I stretched my arms over my head, rolled onto my side and inhaled. Even though weeks had passed since Ryker had slept in this bed, I pretended I could smell his scent. Honestly, it smelled more like laundry detergent than anything else.
“You’re awake. I was afraid you planned to sleep until lunchtime,” Noah said, tapping a magazine against his thigh. A slim bar of light slashed across the sharp angles of his face, making the lower half light and the upper half dark.
“I was tired. I didn’t go to bed until late.” I scooted up to the headboard. “Speaking of which, have you heard from Ryker?”
“No.” He glanced to the side, his eyes distant. “Nothing.”
I eyed him somberly, wishing I could ignore the persistent stabbing in my chest. “But you’ve heard something, right?”
He scrubbed his hand down the side of his face. “Just that there are some internal power struggles going on inside the Vargas Cartel.”
I buried my hands in the sheets. “You’re scaring me. What does that mean?”
Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees. The rolled up magazine dangled from one hand. “I don’t have all the details.”
“What details do you have?”
“Emanuel, Ignacio’s right-hand man, disappeared a couple of days ago. His apartment was covered in blood. Nobody knows if he’s alive. Rumors place Rever and Ryker in the area around the time he went missing, but that doesn’t mean a whole helluva a lot.”
I cringed. “Do you think they killed him?”
“If they haven’t killed him, they will soon.”
My mouth dropped open, and my gut heaved. “Seriously? Why would they do that?”
“I don’t know for sure.” He exhaled, unrolled the magazine and held up the cover for me to see it. “On a different note, we did it.”
I scanned the glossy cover. Senator Deveron had his head bowed, and dark sunglasses covered his eyes. A blurb on the left-hand column in bright yellow print said, Senator Deveron funded by Mexican drug cartels.
I jumped out of bed and snatched the magazine out of his hand. “I didn’t believe they’d actually do it.”
Noah stood. “Go to page ten.”
I flipped open the magazine and scanned the story. “This is so good. They didn’t hold back at all.”
“Nope.”
I closed the magazine. “So what happens now?”
“We sit back and watch the show. The mainstream media has picked up the story. It’s only a matter of time before he’s forced to resign.”
A warm glow trickled through my veins. For the first time in two weeks, I could finally breathe. “Do you think he’ll go to jail?”