“Yes, I would just tell her what was coming or what was ordered. It was all happening anyway.” He tried to shrug it off like it didn’t matter, but he couldn’t stop his grimace or the way his muscles jerked and danced. “So I got paid twice. They didn’t know about the European connection, and if there was ever an issue with payment, I could just shift the cargo to a different cartel.”
“How nice for you.” Thankfully, he didn’t act like I was serious. I wasn’t sure if I could deal with that.
“She paid for information, sometimes for me to slip other things in. I didn’t have to acquire it. I was always just the broker, the money manager, that was it.” Defeat hung around him. Not enough.
Nowhere near enough.
“So you contacted this Infanta?” Bones asked, his cold tone a snap that landed another blow on Sinclair.
Sinclair looked at him then at me, misery in his eyes. “Yes.”
“What did you tell her?” I wanted the words. “And is she still alive?”
“I don’t know about the second,” he said and his eyes went wide. “I really don’t know. She disappeared. One day she was there, the next she was gone. We took care of any questions at the office and then let it go. It was so much easier than I thought it would be.”
The son of a bitch had the audacity to sound amazed by the simplicity of it all. He made my sister disappear and he was impressed by howeasyit was.
Ihatedhim so much.
“So no, I don’t know. I assume she went out with one of our shipments. We had three that week.”
Three.
Thatweek.
Three shipments. Three cartels. A cabal moving human lives around like cargo and this whimpering disgrace of a man who traded those lives like they were just numbers on a board.
And Amorette had stumbled into their spotlight. Her grit and determination had put her into this man’s crosshairs and he turned that spotlight onto her to stop her. He couldn’t even fight his own battles cause my sister would have kicked his ass.
But no, she hadn’t stood a chance.
But I wasn’t letting that be the end of her story. Not when I had the truth in front of me. Not when Sinclair still had more to give.
I stepped closer.
“We’re not done,” I told him.
The way Sinclair whimpered at those three simple words gave me no joy.
“How did you contact her?” I asked. “Infanta.” The name scraped out of my throat like broken glass. “How did you reach her?”
Sinclair jolted, shaking his head before the words even formed. “I—I didn’t! Not directly. It was always different—different phones, different couriers, burner emails, coded drops—never the same twice. They didn’t trust anyone to have a pattern.”
“Remember,” I said.
His panic spiked, eyes rolling white. “Ican’t—I’m telling you, I can’t—there were too many?—”
“Every single one,” I told him. “Start listing them.”
Before he could wheeze out another plea, a sharp buzz broke through the room.
Ignacio convulsed in his chair, strangled on a curse as both shock collars fired. The jolt ripped through him hard enough that his heels scraped against the floor.
I didn’t look away from Sinclair, but I saw it in the corner of my eye—Voodoo lowering the remote, face unreadable.
“Don’t move,” he told Ignacio, voice almost bored. “It would be better for you not to draw our attention.”
Ignacio froze, panting shallowly, sweat running in rivulets down his temple.
