Chapter SIX
FOR LUNCH, ROBERTO hopped on his bike and drove to the diner that was his regular noontime hangout. Brad usually met him for lunch. Roberto didn’t completely dislike Brad, he just didn’t respect him. Oh, he wasn’t all bad, the guy actually loved his wife and kids, but he looked the other way when his brother-in-law, Cruz, did things. Terrible things. And Brad had a tendency to need to talk, to get things off his chest. Since Roberto needed to know things, he pretended to be the man’s friend.
However, he hadn’t spotted Brad this morning. So today, Roberto might be getting a reprieve from pretending. He stepped into the small hole-in-the-wall café and started to his regular back booth. One step later, he stopped when he spotted the man sitting there. It wasn’t the balding, almost forty-year-old big guy at the booth.
Cruz, owner of the construction business, DeLuna’s partner, and all around badass, sat in his place.
The man motioned Roberto over.
A bad feeling curled up inside Roberto’s gut. Had his cover unraveled? How?
His footsteps faltered. Had someone found out he wasn’t who he said he was? He considered leaving. Then reconsidered. This could just be a test. Besides, if he died getting justice, so be it. That had been his plan in the beginning, hadn’t it? Get revenge—even if it was the last thing he did on earth. Funny how lately he’d started thinking more about living than dying. Sometimes that felt wrong.
He plopped in the booth across from Cruz, who now stared at his phone.
“Where’s Brad?” Roberto motioned to the waitress to bring him coffee.
Cruz looked up, and his dark gray eyes held a chill of evil. This man had no conscience. Roberto had heard that Cruz kept a count of the people he’d killed. Everyone should be proud of something in their life.
Roberto had met a lot of career criminals in his last two years. Few of them shied away from murder when confronted with the right situation, but none seemed to relish it as Cruz did. He suspected DeLuna was the same. Actually, he knew he was.
Talk was that Cruz and DeLuna were two of a kind, grew up in the same neighborhood, pulling off petty crimes since they were ten years old.
The old adage Birds of a feather flock together came to mind. But he thought of a better one—Just like mass attracts mass, shit attracts shit. Not that Roberto had the overwhelming need to take Cruz out. It was DeLuna he wanted.
Still, the karma points he could earn from taking out Cruz would secure his stroll through the pearly gates.
Cruz set his phone down. “Brad had business in San Antonio.” The man continued to stare. Roberto’s brain worked overtime trying to figure out what Cruz wanted. Roberto had seen the man around a lot, but he’d never shown a personal interest in Roberto.
“Brad thinks highly of you,” Cruz said.
“But you don’t trust Brad.” Roberto leaned back into the booth.
“I didn’t say that,” Cruz said.
The waitress, Rosie, placed a cup in front of Roberto. “You want your regular?” She smiled. Tall and blond, she wasn’t hard on the eyes. But she proudly wore a pin with a picture of her husband and kid. And she’d put a number of men in their place who’d tried to order a slice of her instead of pie.
“That’ll be fine. Thanks,” he said.
Cruz cleared his throat. “You’re not going to take my order?”
She frowned. “You said earlier all you wanted was coffee.”
“Maybe I changed my mind.”
Her mouth pursed as if about to give Cruz a smartass comeback, but then she seemed to think better of it. Smart girl. She recognized trouble when she saw it.
“What would you like?” Her words sounded forced.
“A piece of apple pie.” He seemed to purposely stare at her breasts. “And whatever else you might be offering.” Sleaze oozed from the man’s voice.
Roberto clamped his jaw shut to keep from telling Cruz not to be an a*shole. Still frowning, Rosie left without saying a word. Yup, taking Cruz down would be doing the world a favor.
“Okay,” Cruz said, still staring after Rosie’s ass, “I admit it. I don’t trust Brad’s opinion. I like Brad. He’s married to my sister. But he’s about as smart as a dull rock.” Cruz picked up his coffee, staring at Roberto over the cup’s lip. “You, on the other hand, I haven’t decided if I like.”
“Because I’m better looking than you? And I know the difference between a whore and a woman trying to make a living?” He looked at Rosie to make sure Cruz understood what he meant.
Cruz’s cold stare grew colder. “You getting some of that?”
“No,” Roberto said.
“Then why do you give a shit?”
“I got a soft spot for waitresses. My mama was one.” That was the truth.
“A mama’s boy?” Cruz smirked.
“Until she died,” Roberto answered with pride.
Cruz frowned. “The guys tell me you mostly keep to yourself. Except for Brad.”
“I like my own company.” Roberto took another sip of coffee, hoping he hadn’t blown it. “I didn’t think playing nice with others was part of the rules around here.”
“Guys also say you don’t act like your average Mexican.”
“Could be ’cause, like you, I’m not Mexican.”
“De dónde eres? Where’re you from?”
“Born here. My mom was Venezuelan. Like you,” he pointed out, hoping to win brownie points. “My dad was a gringo who didn’t hang around.”
Cruz’s shoulders squared off. “How’d you know I was Venezuelan?”
“The accent. Maracaibo, right?”
Cruz didn’t seem to like talking about himself. “You spend time on the inside?”
“Nah.” Roberto had considered lying about that in the beginning, but decided too many lies could get you in trouble.
“You got a record?”
“Nope.”
“Who’d you work for before me?”
“Odd jobs. Mostly in construction.”
“You got company names?”
Roberto pitched out a few. The same ones he’d checked into when he filled out the application two years ago. It had taken him that long to get this close to DeLuna. He hoped like hell this wasn’t as far as he got.
“Funny, all those guys are either dead or out of business.”
“Who did you work for before you got your own company? Bet most of them are the same.”
Roberto could see Cruz’s mind working, then realizing Roberto was right.
“I hear you earn your pay on the job. That you’re good at this. Brad says he goes to you for advice on things.” Cruz touched his phone as if waiting for a call.
“This isn’t my first rodeo.” Not that Roberto thought Cruz cared how anyone performed in his construction business.
Nevertheless, it was true. He’d spent his entire adulthood working construction and was a year away from graduating with a bachelor’s in architecture, when his life went to shit.
Cruz stared. “So what convinced a law-abiding mama’s boy to come work for me?”
To slit the throat of the guy who runs the illegal side of your operation. “Never said I abided by the law. I just haven’t gotten caught breaking any.”
“What did you not get caught at?”
“Nothing too bad. Sold some weed. Had a thing for nice cars for a while.” Unfortunately, both of those were true, too. But they were also before his mom got cancer and he turned his life around to help her get through the last year.
Cruz didn’t look convinced. “So you’re that good.”
“Maybe I’m just lucky,” Roberto said.
“Better lucky than good.” Cruz leaned back and they sipped their coffees in silence for a few minutes. “You interested in some overtime?”
“Depends,” Roberto said.
Cruz’s phone rang. He picked up the cell. “Yeah?” His expression soured. “Motherf*cker! How does this keep happening? DeLuna’s gonna see red. You find out who’s behind this or it’s gonna be your ass on the line.”
Roberto turned his cup in his hands and pretended not to listen.
“Really? He called you?” Cruz said into the phone. “Who?” Pause. “Did she give him the number? Seriously, I’m telling you that kid was up to something in Austin. And his sister is a piece of shit.” Cruz closed his eyes and continued to listen.
“Fine.” Cruz hung up, lurched up from his chair, and frowned down at Roberto. “Come by the office this afternoon.” He stormed out.
Roberto watched him leave, and his chest filled with a sense of success when he put two and two together. The San Antonio deal was supposed to have gone down early. And it must have gone down bad. Or good, as he saw it.
Sooner or later, DeLuna was not only going to see red, he was gonna slither out from whatever hole he’d been hiding in to fix things himself.
Parts of the conversation played in his mind. Who was the kid and sister Cruz referred to? Could it be Leah Reece and her brother?
Couldn’t be, or at least it wasn’t likely. He believed what he’d told Austin. Leah Reece and her brother had nothing to do with DeLuna.
“Let me guess,” Rosie said. “He’s not coming back, is he?”
Roberto looked up. “Nope, but leave the pie, I’ll pay for it. I’ll eat it.”
She frowned. “You don’t want this one. I had the cook spit on it.”
Roberto grimaced. “Remind me to never piss you off.”
She set his meat loaf plate in front of him. Her free hand came to rest on her hip. “You know, my mama used to say you could judge a person by the company he keeps. If my mama’s right, then I’m wrong about you.”
He picked up his fork. “That’s just work.”
“Construction?” she asked suspiciously.
“Yup.” He forked some mashed potatoes.
“Hmm…” She studied him as if questioning her judgment. “Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask you about that stray cat you rescued from the Dumpster last month. Did it ever find a home?”
“Last I knew, the vet was still caring for it.”
“Did they give him the snip-snip?”
Roberto frowned. “Probably.” He tightened his thighs at the thought.
She continued to study him. “Do me a favor?”
“What’s that?”
“See if you can’t take that a*shole who just left here in for a neutering.” She turned and walked away.
Roberto smiled. Maybe it was Rosie’s blond ponytail, the touch of determination in her tone, or maybe it was the question about the cat, but he thought of the blond vet assistant. He’d thought about her on and off a lot this last month, but even more since he’d told Austin about her yesterday. Which he regretted. Of the three Only in Texas detectives, Austin came off as a rounder, and Sara… Roberto hesitated, to remember for sure if that was her name. But yeah, that was it. Sara didn’t deserve some rounder working her over.
Sure, he didn’t know her well enough to say what she deserved. With the little time he’d spent with her, knowing her wasn’t possible. But she was one of those people you met and, oddly, they felt familiar. Not as if you knew them, but in that déjà vu way. Or maybe it was just because the first time he’d seen her she was bottle-feeding a tiny two-week-old kitten and talking to it in that sweet voice; he’d found her so damn refreshing. A nurturer, a damn sexy nurturer.
Then, when Leah Reece didn’t respond to his attempts to get info, he’d happily turned to her assistant. Turned to her a little too eagerly perhaps. The next day, he dropped back in with the pretense of checking in on the cat and asked her to lunch. She’d been a breath away from turning him down, but he put on the charm and she fell for it.
Wanna see the true love of my life?
He remembered the look on her face—hesitant but determined—when she asked him that over their one and only lunch. He’d nodded. She’d pulled out her wallet and passed him a picture of a brown-haired, brown-eyed little boy. Her tone, the way she studied Roberto across that café’s table, told him it had been a test. Would he recoil at the idea of her having a kid?
Staring right into her blue eyes, he’d had to work hard not to let his true feelings show. Not that he would have recoiled. Just the opposite. That was when he saw more than a pretty face and a source of information.
Having been raised by a single mother, he’d known he was the reason his mom hardly dated. He couldn’t help respecting a woman who put her child first.
Respect. The feeling made his lungs feel too big for his chest. He should have been able to handle respect. Then he realized, it wasn’t so much respect making him uncomfortable that day. It was respect mixed with his other feelings.
It was the thoughts of how her lips had looked so damn soft that he’d wanted to touch them. Of how he’d wanted to ask her to let her hair down so he could see what it looked like falling around her shoulders. He wanted to know what those blond locks would feel like.
She wasn’t the first woman he’d been attracted to lately. But she was the first he’d both respected and lusted for since… since DeLuna screwed up his life. And feeling it now, just felt… wrong. Disloyal.
Rosie placed a piece of apple pie in front of him. He looked up, almost too lost in his thoughts to react.
“You wanted a piece of pie? This one’s spit-free.”
“Thanks.” His cell rang. He half expected it to be Austin again, but his phone readout stated unknown caller.
He almost let it go to voice mail. Then decided against it.
“Hello?”