Rodriguez ignored his cousin. He stared out the windshield from his seat to the right of Drew for a long moment.
“Are we going to do this or what?” Miguel asked from the bench seat behind Rodriguez.
Rodriguez nodded and then opened his door. The gunman on Drew’s left also opened his door, and then the men in the front did the same. They all flooded out and soon the warehouse was full of men with guns leaving only her with Juan behind her to her right, and Dunlop behind her to her left in the SUV. Juan leaned forward. “Too bad about the money. I would have liked to get paid before I kill you.”
It had been Juan who had suggested they tape her mouth. He was probably worried she was going to rat him out, and given Rodriguez’s mood, he’d probably kill Juan whether he believed her or not. No point taking the risk.
Drew hated having her mouth taped and wanted to curse Juan out, but she couldn’t, so she slowed her breathing, hoping to make her mind work to find a way out of this situation. Unfortunately, she just kept coming up empty. There was nothing she could do. She just had to trust her brother and her former lover. She closed her eyes and sent up a prayer that they all made it out of this alive.
Juan’s phone went off, jarring her out of her thoughts. “What?” he growled into the phone.
Thank God these guys weren’t trained operatives who used ear buds, otherwise, she wouldn’t have heard what was going on. “We’re good to go. We have a line of sight on every cartel gun. Say the word, and we’ll take them out.”
Drew stayed frozen. Juan’s phone was so close she could hear every word. She tried to make sense of it. Rodriguez must have extra people in place that the cartel guys don’t know about. Her heart sank to her knees. It was as she suspected. The cartel was planning on taking out Rodriguez, and he was planning to preemptively take out the cartel shooters. This was going to be so much worse than she imagined.
And she had no way to tell anyone.
CHAPTER 26
Cross watchedRodriguez through his scope. The man was putting on a show of being calm, but Cross could see the sweat shining on his face. He was anything but calm.
“Tessa, you bitch,” Rodriguez snarled, “I’m gonna enjoy killing you when all this is over.”
“Lovely to see you too, Octavio.” She sent him a sneering smile, then turned to the other guy. “Miguel isn’t it? I remember you. Aren’t you Hector Belasco’s guy?” She shook her head. “You must really be in trouble, Octavio. Belasco sent in one of his top guns.”
Rodriguez sneered. “Let’s get this done, bitch.”
Tessa smiled. “Did you bring the money?”
Rodriguez snapped his fingers, and one of his henchmen held up a bag and unzipped it. The bag was full of money.
“Good,” Tessa said. “You can throw it over here and give me Drew. Then I’ll give you the keys to the truck.”
The man next to Rodriguez, Miguel, did not seem happy. Was the money a surprise to him? Maybe. Cross was not pleased about any kind of surprises at this point. Even the tiniest surprise could sink the whole exchange.
“To confirm, the guy on the right, Miguel, is cartel. I recognize the tattoo on the back of his neck,” Patch commented from his perch on top of the semi.
“He didn’t seem pleased when Tessa mentioned money,” McGuire added. “I think Rodriguez has been keeping secrets.”
“I got that impression too,” Cross agreed in a low voice, “Miguel’s not a happy camper.” Cross kept his cheek pressed to the stock, scope fixed on Rodriguez’s face. Miguel shifted his stance, weight forward, eyes flicking to the bag of cash and then back to Rodriguez. The kind of look a man gives when he’s deciding if it’s worth killing the man beside him.
“Cartel boy’s finger just brushed his trigger,” Patch murmured through the earbud. “Prepare for fireworks.”
Cross’s jaw tightened. “Tessa,” he said quietly, “be ready to move.”
She gave the barest nod without looking toward him. “Drew first,” she called out, her tone light, almost mocking. “I’m not negotiating for my health here. Bring her out, and you can have your shipment.”
Cross waited, body in that oddly relaxed yet tense state, ready for anything. Would Rodriguez try to take out the cartel guys here or wait until he had the shipment and take them out from the rooftops as they drove out? Considering the men he had on the roof, that would seem like the plan. He only hoped it was true. Being in the middle of a firefight between two cartel factions was dead last on his list of things to do.
Rodriguez’s mouth twisted. He jerked his chin at another man, who disappeared behind the door to the SUV and then reappeared a moment later, yanking Drew forward by the zip tie around her wrists. She stumbled, hair falling into her face, and Cross’s pulse kicked hard against his throat. The tape over her mouth made his gut churn.
The gunman bent down and cut the zip ties on Drew’s feet, but left her hands tied and the tape over her mouth.
Miguel took one slow step closer to Rodriguez, the tension rolling off him thick enough to brush against Cross, a hundred yards away.
“Something’s about to break,” McGuire murmured.
He wasn’t wrong. The way Rodriguez’s eyes flicked between Tessa and the man beside him was a clear sign their alliance was hanging by a thread. A single wrong word, a single twitch of a trigger finger, and the whole thing would go to hell. Whatever the plan was, it looked like it might be falling apart. Judging by the sweat now staining the front of his shirt, panic was blooming in Rodriguez, and Miguel seemed to have a hair trigger.
