He nodded and left the room. If he’d been in a playful mood, he might have teased us about our sleeping arrangements, but a hit on a cash house was a big deal. The fact that the Reyes boys were onto our locations wasn’t a good thing, and Sloan would be spitting bullets about it. No doubt Jamie had taken the brunt of Sloan’s temper.
Cillian and I moved without a word. I left him to get dressed and brush his teeth while I did the same in my room. As soon as I had cleaned up and was in a suit, I went downstairs where Cillian, Jamie, and Corbin were waiting. With one nod to them, we moved out together to a black Ford SUV, and the driver set a course toward the cash house location. We stayed quiet. I took the time to gather my thoughts about everything going down. The Reyes Cartel wasn’t an enemy to take for granted. They were lethal and smart. From what I’d gathered, Joaquin Reyes was calculating. Thejefe, Thiago, hadn’t put his cousin in charge just because they were related. No, Joaquin had a clever mind and that was terrifying.
It was easy to fight a man fueled by weapons and death, but one who used his brain? That was much more difficult.
“What does Sloan want us to do with Joaquin?” I finally asked. It was an answer we needed to know. He’d sent us here to take out Joaquin, that much was for certain, but I needed to knowhowandwhen. Right now, we were sitting on our hands and playing tit for tat—one place of business destroyed for another.
“Honestly? Blood. Lots of blood.” Jamie turned to look at us from the front passenger seat. I sat in the back between Corbin and Cillian. “And I’m suspecting Sloan’ll want Reyes blood. The underlings won’t do.”
I nodded.
“So, why don’t we go straight after those bloody hairdressing salons then?” Cillian grunted out.
“We will, but we need to find Joaquin first. Figure out the collection schedules. I got word that he personally picks up cash from one of the salons. We need to find out which one and when.” Jamie sighed and ran a hand over his head.
“We followed him for two weeks. The guy fecks around with whores. That’s the most fun we’ve seen him involved in.” Cillian rolled his eyes and glared out the window at the passing buildings.
“Did he know we were in town before we hit the distribution point?” It wasn’t much of a question, rather me thinking out loud. Reyes had spies who whispered in his ear. No doubt there was someone watching our every move.
“We’re nearly there,” Jamie said over his shoulder.
A few minutes later, the driver pulled the SUV to a stop, and we got out of the vehicle. It was chaos. People crowded around police tape that had been set up to prevent anyone getting closer. From what I could see, the building was a mess, with bullet holes damaging the brown brick walls and shop windows. The cash had been housed in a laundry service—not very original, but sometimes easy was best. The view of the inside was bad. Barely anything had survived the attack, with the furniture at the front of the shop blown to bits. I kicked at a piece of rubble on the ground.
“Feck,” Cillian breathed out.
I stepped back and walked behind the swarm of people, trying to get a better look. A cop frowned at me, and I offered him a fake smile that made him look away. The other guys didn’t follow me, but that was fine because separately we could cover more ground and find out information before the detectives and cops got too suspicious of us.
It was a shame I didn’t have Fallon with me. He knew how to charm people into telling him the gossip—in part, because he was actually interested. Talking to strangers wasn’t my forte, but it came with the job. I stopped beside a curvy woman with red curls and bright, curious blue eyes. The moment she noticed me smiling in her direction, she giggled.
“What’s happening here?”
“There was a shooting,” she whispered, as though it was a big secret. “Some guys went inside at about three or four in the morning and shot up the place.” She frowned. “They’re saying it’s a drug den.”
I held back a snort. She clearly had no idea what a drug den was. With a nod, I moved around to someone else, an older man with a shiny bald head and bushy mustache. He knew about as much as the woman, though, and I was getting nowhere.
“Drugs, huh? That’s just ridiculous. The DEA would be here if that was the case, don’t you think?”
I froze at the words, my spine going straight, and slowly turned toward the man who had spoken. Joaquin Reyes. I’d suspected some of the Reyes soldiers would be here, but I’d never expected him. I’d heard Joaquin talk enough while stalking him to know his voice.
He was a handsome man who stood slightly taller than me in a cream suit. With short brown hair and a well-trimmed beard, he fit in with a lot of the Miami crowd. He didn’t wear a tie, opting for the top buttons of his light blue dress shirt to be open, showing off his chest.
“I wondered about you.” He grinned, shaking his finger at me. “I saw you once, near a taqueria I like to frequent. I remember looking at you and thinking there was something off about you. I get a feeling sometimes, and you made the hair on my arms stand up. Now you’re here again. A Killough man.”
“I have a name.” I turned fully toward him and crossed my arms. “You can call me Aspen.”
He nodded and stroked his chin. Behind him were two men, and I suspected inside their black jackets were guns, ready for when they needed to defend their boss. “I guess you know who I am.”
“Yeah, I do.” I gestured over my shoulder with my thumb. “What was this?”
He laughed. “I think you know. This was me making a point.”
I stepped in closer, and his guards did, too, their gazes watchful, but Joaquin didn’t flinch. The man had balls of steel. “You made yourpointwhen your cousin blew up our salon in New York City. Now, you’re pouring fuel on the fire.”
He sent me an amused smile, barely able to contain his laughter. “Cousin? That wasn’t Thiago’s idea,Aspen, that was all mine. Although, Thiago thought it was a fucking amazing plan.”
I gritted my teeth, anger flaring inside me. “Yourplanhurt the boss’s pet. He’s a friend of mine.”
Joaquin’s eyes flashed. “Too bad it didn’t kill him.”
