I grinned at him. “Thanks, father.”
He rolled his eyes and then took off with the rest of them along the wall, heading north. Luisa, Diego and I turned and ran along it to the south. Once we came along a tree that would be easy to climb, I swung myself up there until I dropped onto the wall, Diego and Luisa staying below.
Flattening myself, I brought out my binoculars and took it all in.
Travis’s old complex was larger than I remembered. The pretentious asshole had it built in the same style as a French estate and had been terribly out of place at the time. Now, since the property had come under my possession and I hadn’t been here in many years, it was looking more natural, like it belonged. The jungle had reclaimed it and vines had begun to grow up the sides of the sprawling house, resembling an ancient relic instead of the palace it once was.
The pool was black with stagnant water and leaves, the pool house was gone, collapsed under the weight of vines. A helicopter sat on the landing pad but I couldn’t be sure if it would start or not. After I’d taken over Travis’s cartel – albeit briefly, before his loyalists splintered off and formed a new version of the Zetas – I’d only stayed up here for a few months. I’d come and go into Mexico all the time but it was the only place I felt secure enough to start building a new empire.
Everything was pretty much as I had left it, which made me smile because if the outside looked this bad, this inside had to be pretty disgusting. I wondered how Esteban liked it, holing up inside a rotting palace filled with shit, mold and snakes.
Because, now I knew for sure he was there. In fact, I could see him right through my binoculars. He was in the kitchen, staring out the window at nothing, a cup of something, coffee maybe, in hand. For a moment he almost looked human, but I knew I shouldn’t be fooled. That was the man who betrayed me. The man who killed my sister. The man who made my own wife flinch whenever I touched her.
That was the man I was finally going to kill.
I gripped the binoculars hard in my hands, trying to calm my heart and stop myself from just rolling off the wall and sprinting toward him, guns a blazing. But I was too far away and I knew one of his men would try and pick me off by then. I could already see two of them patrolling the outside, one with an AK in his hands, the other with what looked like a sledgehammer. I had no idea what he expected to do with that if someone approached (throw it?) but I knew if I could get my hands on it, I would have a lot of fun, especially if it were between me and Esteban.
I jumped back down the other side of the wall between Diego and Luisa. “He’s there,” I told them. “We need to keep moving and come up the back. He’s got a patrol set-up.”
Luisa’s eyes flashed beautifully. “Did you really see him?”
I gave her a nod. “In the ugly flesh.”
She gave me a vicious little grin but didn’t say anything else. She didn’t need to.
We ran along the wall until it curved to the west and then used another tree to get ourselves over the wall. Luisa was more difficult because of her shoulder but she managed to do it, grinding her teeth from the pain.
The back of the property provided the most coverage and was pretty much a tangled forest between the wall and the pool. We slid through it, going from tree to tree as we moved forward, making sure to stay as hidden as possible. We all had guns, which was a good and bad thing. Good because we’d be protected, bad because the sight of Luisa holding one always made my cock hard as concrete. She knew this too, which is probably why she was avoiding looking at me. It was as distracting as sin during a time I didn’t need any distractions.
When we got to the last shrub that offered a bit of coverage between us and the house, I told Diego that as soon as we heard the ambush begin, he would run straight ahead and start picking off any of the patrollers. Meanwhile, Luisa and I would head for the helicopter.
“How do you know if it even works, it’s a pile of rust,” Luisa whispered as we all kept crouched down.
“It doesn’t matter if it works or not. Esteban is a chickenshit. That’s the first place he’ll head. And that’s where we’ll be waiting.”
Suddenly the air erupted into gunfire. It was bedlam at the house.
It was time to go.
Diego nodded at me then leaped out from around the bush and took off toward the mansion. I cautiously poked my head over the leaves and watched him go, shooting as he ran at a few of Esteban’s soldiers who were spraying bullets into the air. Diego was one of the best marksmen and he took them down without missing a stride.