He looked to me and I saw my own hate reflected in them. “I’ll take care of her,” he said. “You get Esteban. He’s the one who did this.”
He didn’t have to tell me that. I already knew. He’d done this and who knows what else to my wife, showing off for the world to see. Now, he’d discarded her here, alone in the dark, to die.
I wasn’t put away in Puente Grande just so that he could try and take over the cartel. I was put there so I couldn’t protect the one thing that mattered to me. I was put there so I and the whole world would see just how far he would go.
And he succeeded.
I couldn’t protect her.
I failed.
But I would do what I could now, while I could.
I gathered up strength, burying my sorrow and shock in some cold, hard place inside me. I knew Diego would keep his word.
I turned and ran back down the hall, slamming on my earpiece as I went.
“Where are you?” I yelled into it, shooting at someone just as they had come out from the burning hallway at the bottom of the stairs. The man fell with a yell and I ran past, heading for the back of the house.
I heard Evaristo’s voice crackle in my ear. “Front lawn. Be careful, your own men are around the corner and they shoot first, ask questions later.”
I’d forgotten he was tracking me. I shoved the back door open and ran across the grass, heading toward the koi pond and staying low so that neither friend nor foe could get a shot. “I found Luisa,” I said, surprised that I could say her name without my voice cracking. “Diego is with her. I want Este.”
“I want him too,” Evaristo said. “But he’s not here.”
“That’s not fucking good enough!” I yelled just as someone took a shot at me from the roof, the bullet missing me by a few feet and going into the pond.
What a terrible shot, I thought as I turned to look.
And there he fucking was.
Esteban was standing on the roof, alone, gun in one hand, his body lit by the lights below.
His other hand over his eye.
No wonder he missed, the fuck could barely see.
I didn’t have to tell myself to shoot back, I was already pulling the trigger but a deafening roar filled my ears and I was shoved to the grass by a gust of whirring wind that whipped my shirttails.
I rolled onto my back, gun raised in time to see a Lama helicopter slowly rising from the other side of the pond, hidden by a clump of trees that I knew Luisa used to hide behind.
Luisa.
The image of her was burned in my brain.
The vicious ugly burn on her delicate skin.
I bellowed in anger and tried to get to my feet, to get a clear shot of Esteban but he was already running to the edge of the roof, ready to hitch a ride, while the chopper was now fully warmed-up and flying toward me, the guns of the men on board taking fire.
“He’s on the roof!” I managed to yell to Evaristo before I rolled away. I went right into the pond, swimming deep into the reeds and lily pads that would provide cover. Bullets plunged alongside me.
My leg exploded in a bright explosion of pain and that’s when I knew I’d been hit, but I still had to stay under. I stared up through the murky water at the lights of the chopper as it continued on its way, stirring the pond into waves, heading now for the house.
I burst up through the water, gasping for breath, and wasted no time in climbing out of the pond. Esteban was so close to getting on the helicopter. I ran as fast as I could with my damaged leg, trying to get a shot but they only hit the rotors.
Esteban leaped, making it on board and the chopper quickly pulled away into the night.
“Motherfucker!” I screamed.
I tapped my ear piece but the water had ruined it. I tossed it away in anger and then limped around to front of the house, cautiously approaching as I was sure the war was still going on.
Thankfully, the battle had been in our favor and while many of our men were dead, we were still the last ones standing. The gunfire and mayhem was over.
“I saw him get away,” Evaristo said gruffly as he saw me staggering around the corner. “We had a rocket launcher ready but it stuffed fucking up at the last minute. Piece of fucking shit.”
He was mad. Really mad. And that’s when I knew he was legit. He wanted Esteban as much as the rest of us did. It must have been eating at him all this time to know that it was his own government assholes that made the deal with him.
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter, we’re getting him. Now. Every day after this. For the rest of my life, we are getting him. I want his head on a fucking plate.”
Evaristo exhaled angrily and then eyed my leg. “You’re shot.”
“It happens,” I said, not willing to dwell on it, not now. With the adrenaline still running through me, I could ignore the pain. “We need to deal with Luisa first.”
He snapped his fingers and his main man, Paolo, came over. “Get this place cleaned up,” Evaristo ordered him. “Find a place to burn all the bodies.”