Chapter Twenty
The following morning, Enrique slouched in his swivel chair at Rubén’s office conference table.The scent of leather furniture and peppery cigarillos clogged his nose, and the walnut-paneled walls shrank smaller by the minute.As his boss presided over the council meeting, Enrique glared at the mounted portrait of Ovidio Lozano—the tyrant who had raised Jacobo into a beast of the highest order.A waste of life.
Lourdes’s self-loathing and tears had left a gaping, bleeding hole in his heart.The pain in her words, the trembling of her body, and the shame so evident in her scrunched face butchered him.How the fuck could he make things better?It’s not like he could go back in time and plant a bullet in Jacobo’s head.
“Enrique.”Rubén frowned at him from the head of the table.“Are you listening?”
Barely,he bit back.Rubén had been droning on about Ibarra’s royal fuckup in assigning the wrong man to the transport detail.Blinking fast, he shifted in his chair.“Of course, jefe.”
“Right,” Rubén drawled and flicked a pillar of ash from his cigarillo into a crystal tray.He cast his gaze toward Santiago and Domingo.“Our lawyer is throwing up roadblocks and delaying paperwork with the police while Ibarra is slowing things down from his end.Unfortunately, not every cop in the city is on our payroll, so both men are facing opposition.A detective even tried to get a warrant for my home.”
Jolting upright, Enrique flattened his hands on the tabletop.“And?”
The jefe smirked.“A judge denied it.”
Santiago laughed and scratched his blond scalp.“Did you blackmail or bribe him?”
“Blackmail.”Biting his cigarillo, Rubén leaned back in his seat and drummed his hands on his stomach.The rings on his fingers clinked softly together.“The judge would do anything to make sure his wife doesn’t find out about his affairs.”
“That’s my favorite part of this gig—extorting cowards.”Santiago grinned and scooted his chair back from the table to cross his legs.“There’s nothing more exhilarating than a grown man breaking the law for you all because he’s scared shitless of his woman.”
Rubén snorted, blowing smoke from his nostrils.“You’ve never been married.When Drina is in a rage, I’m tempted to lock myself in the barracks.”
As laughter rebounded, Enrique crossed his arms over his chest.“Let’s get back to business.If you guys keep jerking around, I’m leaving.”Which was fine with him.Lourdes had joined him at the hacienda to spend time with Drina, but now, he needed to kiss her senseless more than he needed his next breath.
Rubén’s eyes narrowed, the green specks in the brown depths flashing.
Santiago and Domingo shared an arched glance.
“Fine,” Rubén bit out.“Tell Santi and Domingo what you told me, about your plan to frame Officer Sanchez.”
“It’s Lourdes’s plan.Don’t say otherwise.”She deserved credit when credit was due, especially after everything she’d been through.
“Fuck, Enrique.Relax.”Santiago downed a mouthful of his steaming coffee.“What does she have to do with any of this anyway?”
Exhaling a harsh breath, he confided that he’d taken his wife to the Warehouse where she witnessed the interrogation and devised a plan to get the cartel out of hot water.
“I’ll be damned.That girl is something.”Chuckling, Santiago slapped his knee.
“Speaking of Lourdes...”Domingo trailed off as he rummaged through the pockets of his bulky leather laptop satchel.“The restricted number that texted her has been disconnected, but I narrowed the approximate location of where the messages were sent from through cell tower pings.It originated somewhere within the tolerance zone.My guess, Chicas Asesinas.Zayas’s man took the photos, so he probably sent them straight to her instead of playing middleman with his boss.”He slid Lourdes’s cell toward Enrique from across the table.
“What happened to the cop’s body and the money laundering equipment?”Santiago asked.
“Dissolved in a vat of acid.”Enrique slipped the phone into his pants pocket.That was one detail he didn’t look forward to telling Lourdes if she asked.And knowing her, she would at some point.“The vans involved in the heist have been crushed in a junkyard.”
