“He doesn’t speak English,” a man said.
I slipped into a tiny hotel room. Reyes appeared beside me. Angel on the other side of the room.
Uncle Bob seemed to be holding the entire place hostage. A total of nine men. Nine. And they’d been in the middle of a meeting, by the looks of it.
“Yes,” Uncle Bob said. “He does.” Then he aimed one of the two guns he had drawn at a man in his early fifties. Bad haircut. Hideous mustache. Like something out of a seventies discothèque. “And I know why you’re here.”
“Dutch,” Reyes said, drawing my attention to a table.
I stepped over and took a peek. There was a briefcase open with a stack of papers inside. And on top was a surveillance photo of yours truly.
Oh, no. This couldn’t be the same people. I looked at Reyes. “This can’t be the same people.”
“Robert killed them, but they could be from the same crew.”
“He doesn’t know what you are talking about,” the speaker of the house said.
“Sure he does.” Uncle Bob put his best grin forward. “Charlotte Davidson.”
The man Ubie was most interested in let a smile slither across his face. “Is that her name?”
“Doesn’t matter. You aren’t leaving here alive.”
“I think we might, my friend.” The man started to stand.
Ubie tightened his hold on his gun.
The man raised his hands in surrender and sat back down. “I think you came here not expecting so much”—he spread his hands, indicating his cohorts—“company, no?”
“I knew exactly what I was getting into, Valencia.”
“I think maybe you are lying.”
“I think maybe you are nervous.”
I had never seen Uncle Bob so determined. So … furious. It radiated out of him. Hot waves of anger.
“See, I’m the one who killed your little crew two years ago.”
The man stilled, clearly not expecting that.
“They knew about her. They were going to get her for you. I found out, and, well, this is my town. I don’t like it when Colombian drug barons try to steal women and eat them.”
“My men knew about the witch?”
Witch?
“They did.”
Witch?
“Certain people in certain crowds know about how she has some kind of extrasensory perception.” Uncle Bob chuckled. “But trust me, they don’t know the half of it.”
“How did you find out we were here?”
“The State Department keeps tabs on people like you, El Tiburón. Of course we’d find out you came into the country.”
“I did not come through the normal routes.”
“You were smuggled in. I know. I have contacts.”
“But maybe I am not here for this Charlotte.”
Ubie didn’t even acknowledge that with a comment.
The tension in the room ratcheted higher with each passing second. One man would ease toward a gun on a dresser, and Uncle Bob would shoot him a warning glare. Then another would lower one hand toward a gun in his holster. Same story. Different caliber.
But they would get the best of him and soon. He couldn’t keep up the standoff for long. What the hell had he been thinking?
“I’d like you to know, I’m actually doing you a favor,” he said. “Charley’s husband is the son of Satan. He would’ve done much worse.”
The man remained impassive, but I felt his pulse skyrocket. In hunger. He wanted to eat Reyes, too. Fucker.
I turned toward my husband and startled at the look of rage on his face. Pure, unadulterated rage. “Reyes, they couldn’t have killed you, anyway, right? It’s okay.”
He all but gaped at me. “You think I’m worried about me?”
No. Of course he wasn’t. “But they couldn’t have killed me, either.”
“There are worse things than death.”
Oh. Crap. That didn’t sound promising.
In a sequence of events that was so fast it took me by surprise, guns from every corner of the room were drawn.
I could barely get out the words Be still before several fired.
Bullets slid through the air, two from the guns Ubie held, slowing to a complete stop. He was fast. I’d give him that.
He stood frozen to the spot. Not because I’d stopped time, but because he was shocked and confused. I’d stopped time but kept him in the loop. Then Reyes and I materialized so he could see us.
He noticed me out of the corner of his eye, dropped to his knees, and swung his gun around way faster than I’d thought him capable. A defensive maneuver that left me completely impressed. But he paused, his gaze fixating on me. His brows slid together in disbelief.
I rushed forward. “Uncle Bob,” I said, patting him to make sure a bullet hadn’t hit its mark. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“Charley?” He glanced from me to Reyes and back. Then he scanned the truly frozen occupants of the room. “What are you…? I don’t understand.”
I knelt beside him. “What were you thinking, coming here?”
“I … what are you doing here?”
“I had Angel watching you.”