People screamed.Glass shattered.Metal crunched.
A gut-wrenching scream split Rascón’s lips.
He whipped back and plummeted to the sidewalk.His gun skidded toward a lamppost.Blood oozed from the holes in his chest and shoulder.
“Oh, God.No!”She scrambled to Rascón’s side just as someone gripped her arm with fingers stronger than steel and yanked her back.“Stop!Let me go!”She swung her purse and knocked her attacker upside the head.
The masked man groaned and ripped the bag away to toss it on the ground.
“Help!”She struggled and punched with all her strength, hitting his armored vest.
The van jerked to a stop at the curb.
Her attacker pinned her against him as he strong-armed her toward the vehicle.His stench of cloying cologne invaded her nostrils.Dios mío.Diego!She’d know that smell anywhere.
Two more masked men jumped out.
“No, stop!”She kicked a man in the shin and hit another across the head before they dragged her into the van.She collapsed on the carpeted floorboard.Ow!Pangs shot through her legs.The door slammed shut behind her.Then someone cracked something sharp against the back of her skull.Agony skewered her.Vision winking, she fell into a cavernous pit.
Oppressive darkness swallowed her whole.
****
Enrique saved the spreadsheeton his office computer and snatched his phone to text Rascón.The man was supposed to check in with him once he and Lourdes were on their way to the penthouse.Her appointment ended at four o’clock, ten fucking minutes ago.
—Where are you?—
He added Lourdes’s number to the message, pressed Send, and brought up the tracking app on his phone since Domingo had installed a tracker in Lourdes’s new watch.
A map of Hermosillo filled the screen with a little red dot moving through the city streets toward the highway.
His stomach lurched.Lourdes—rather, the tracker—was heading out of the city.
He called Rascón.Silence stretched for endless minutes until the call finally connected.
“Rascón, what the hell is going on?You were supposed to—”
“This isn’t Rascón,” a woman blubbered on the other end of the line.“There’s been a shooting.A drive by.This phone has been buzzing on and off.I found it in the man’s pocket.Rascón—is he tall and kinda handsome, covered in tattoos?”
The air froze in Enrique’s throat.He coughed hard and cleared the passage.“Don’t know about handsome, but the rest sounds right.Is a woman with him?A slender brunette in jeans and a beaded blue blouse.”
“She was here.Some men grabbed her.Tossed her into a van.Oh, God.It’s awful.People are dead all over the sidewalk.The man, Rascón, is still alive.He’s been shot twice, once in the chest.The paramedics are working on him.”
Focus, Ricky.Think.Don’t break.He doubled over.Bile soured his mouth.“What else can you tell me about the men who took my wife?”
“Your wife?I’m so sorry.”She blubbered harder, wheezing into the phone.
Enrique grabbed his sleek earpiece from the desk drawer, jammed it into his ear, and switched controls from his cell to the other device before he stuffed the phone in his pocket.“Stay calm.What’s your name?”he asked into the microphone as calmly as he could.
“Marisol.”
“All right, Marisol.Breathe.Tell me everything you remember.”
“I-I was h-hiding behind a food cart,” she replied, hiccuping.“A masked man in black jumped from a van.The woman fought him so much that two other men hurried out to get her inside.”
He hit a discreet button inside the drawer.Aclickresounded, and the panel on the side wall slid open, revealing his weapons stash.“Make and model of the van?”He threw on a ballistic vest, cinched it tight, and slung a shoulder holster over it.Then he crammed an assault rifle, a pair of handguns, a few knives, two grenades, and several loaded magazines into a worn green duffel.
“Oh, Lord.I’m not good at that kind of stuff.It was an older van, a work vehicle.Black, scratched, dented on the side.The left side.Tinted back windows.”
