“Dios mío.”She breathed heavily.“Did your men get the equipment back?”
“They did.”Enrique veered around a pothole and steadied the vehicle.
“Thank goodness.The loss of the equipment will render the forensic reports null and void.Who’s Ibarra?”
“The detective in charge of the shooting and arson cases.He’s a good guy.A friend of the cartel.”
“I see.It’s always good to have police officers in your pocket.”She rubbed her stiff neck and stared out the back windshield as the city skyline faded from view.Her stomach roiled with the implications of Enrique’s confession.She settled back in the seat and faced him.“A money laundering charge would send you to prison.Rubén, too.The Lozano Cartel could fall apart.”
If that happened, smaller, more vicious cartels would move in and raze everything in their path.Right now, the status quo was well-balanced, like two sides of a coin.Dark and light.Yin and yang.A federal conviction of two top-ranking narcos would destroy that fragile peace.
“It would take more than that to dismantle the business, but youareright.Things would change, and not for the better.”He drummed the wheel.“Now, will you stay put?”
She nodded, though she had no intention of doing so.The rogue police officer had set Enrique tearing through the city and countryside.She wanted—needed—to know why.
He pulled off the highway onto a winding dirt road.
Pebbles kicked up and dinged the undercarriage.Dust plumed from the spinning tires.
“Carajo,”he cursed under his breath and choked the wheel.Traveling deeper into the craggy hills, he switched from one road to the next and kept changing gears.
The deep, shimmery shadows of scattered cacti, shrubs, and gnarled stick trees stretched across the vast sienna expanse in the waning sunlight.
Under better circumstances, she’d love to bring the desert beauty to life on a canvas.
In the distance, a massive one-story complex covered with rusted metal panels dotted the land.
As they drew near, the barbed wire fence encircling the dusty property glinted in the light.He pulled alongside a narrow raised platform in front of the gate, rolled down both the driver and passenger windows, permitting heat into the car, and tapped a code into the electronic keypad.A beep resounded.The gate slid open with a metallic screech and clanked shut once they crossed the threshold.
He parked beside two dingy SUVs near the main wall and killed the engine.“Welcome to the Warehouse.The federales would pay any price to know its location.”
Her stomach twisted.To the untrained eye, the building appeared abandoned.She knew better.The Warehouse served as a combined storage facility and torture house—a hotbed of criminal activity, suffering, and death.
She dragged her gaze back to Enrique.“This place is in the middle of nowhere.With all the switchbacks, I couldn’t find it again if I tried.”
“Good.I’ll be back within the hour.”Once he stuffed the key in his pocket, he pressed a soft kiss on her lips and then climbed out of the car.He strode toward the bulky metal door and raced his fingers across a mounted panel.One piercing beep later, he entered the building.
The door slammed shut behind him with a deafening bang.She sucked in great gulps of warm desert air.So close.She was so damn close to breaching the barriers of his world.No half-measures.She wanted in.And damn it, she was getting into that building.
****
“What the fuck happened?”Enrique snapped at Lieutenant Muniz.
Suspended from a lofty ceiling beam by a thick metal chain, the bleeding policeman trembled with his arms shackled above his head.His bare feet barely touched the floor in the middle of the bleak, cavernous room.Crimson smeared his skin and torn uniform while soaking through the bandage on his stomach and shoulder.His head hung low as he wheezed.
What a coincidence for Muniz and his men to string up the cop the same way Enrique had Lourdes at the club.The sight of the man sickened him.Sullied his memory of the erotic, angry fuck he’d shared with his distrustful wife.Cristo.Lourdes tried his patience.
Warm, muggy air slicked sweat across his skin.Despite the Warehouse’s outward appearance, it flaunted enough high-tech cameras and sensors to keep the devil at bay.
The pinch-faced lieutenant glared at the officer and back at Enrique.“Everything was fine and on schedule.The police van took the detour, and we ambushed it.Three cops were there.All but one stood down.”Each syllable scraped out of him like gravel on steel.He rubbed his scarred throat and glowered again at the officer.“This fucker popped two of the guys before I could fucking blink.I shot him twice.He went down.I was damn tempted to snuff him right on the sidewalk, but I figured you’d want to question him.”
“Got that right.”Enrique stared off toward the side of the building where Rascón doctored the injured men.
Two other enforcers stood guard around the facility at strategic points, as if an assault was imminent, though unlikely as fuck.
“Flesh wounds,” Muniz informed.He flicked his gaze toward Rascón’s patients and back to the cop.“All we’ve been able to get out of him so far is his name—Alonzo Sanchez.”
“He’s a rookie, obviously.”Enrique sneered at the man’s ashen baby face.He couldn’t be more than twenty or twenty-one.So damn young.If there was one thing Enrique hated, it was a life cut short.Even a policeman’s.“I trusted you to handle this, Muniz.I said no dead cops.What did you do?You shot a fucking cop.”
