The bedroom had gone silent again, and JD kicked the guy on the ground to make sure he was definitely dead before turning to me.
“You good?”
“Yeah, just a scratch,” I said. I was wearing a bulletproof vest, but that didn’t stop a bullet to the shoulder, and I reached up to touch the blood oozing out. JD helped me out of the porter’s jacket I had put on and pulled up the sleeve of my shirt.
“Just a graze, you’re good.” He turned at the sound of footsteps coming from the bedroom, and a smile rose to my face as Moose walked out with a younger cartel member in his grip. He threw the man on to the sofa, next to the bloodied bodies of two other men.
“This him?” I asked, stalking forward as a single shot went off in the bedroom.
“That’s him,” Moose agreed.
I stood in front of the son of Rafael Vargas and shook my head. Mateo Cruz Vargas was just a kid, really. Couldn’t have been more than twenty-one, and yet he had caused so much death and destruction.
I swiped a hand over the coffee table in front of him, clearing a space for me to sit. “So, you’re the fucker that killed his own father?”
He lifted his chin at me, his mouth twisting into a sneer. “I did what I needed to survive.”
A chuckle escaped me. “Killing your own blood was to survive?”
“You have no idea.”
A low whistle escaped JD. “With friends like that, who needs enemies.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Swampy said.
“What do you want?” Mateo asked, sounding almost bored. “Money? Power? I can get you routes, women, money…”
“Routes?” I said, stroking a hand over my chin. “Routes is what I’m interested in.”
He shrugged. “I can do that. We have many. Pick a country and your poison and I’ll make it happen.”
I turned to look at the others and smiled. When I swung back to look at Mateo I sighed. “You’ll make it happen for me. I like that, though I do wonder, do you have anything in the Colorado region?”
His expression remained impassive, but I saw the small twitch at the corner of his mouth. Yeah, he wasn’t so tough once it was just him.
“Maybe, I don’t know, somewhere passing through the Hale Ranch?”
He tore his gaze from mine and began scouring the room, looking at us all. When he opened up his mouth to speak, a shot fired from somewhere and he jerked back, blood oozing from the single bullet hole in the center of his forehead.
I swung around to look at Confessor.
He was standing stock still and glaring at Mateo. Smoke curled from the barrel of the gun
“What the fuck?” Moose snapped, shoving him.
“He was pulling a gun,” Confessor replied.
I looked at where Mateo’s hand was buried into his side, and when I pulled it free, I saw it was wrapped around the handle of a small silver pistol.
“A thank you woulda been nice,” Confessor replied.
“Jesus, Confessor! Couldn’t you have aimed for his fucking hand though?” I yelled.
There was so much that I still didn’t know. So many questions I needed to ask. And you don’t kill the fucking kingpin and not suffer any consequences.
I stood up, dragging a hand down my face. I was irritated, but what was done was done. There would be a fallout from this, but maybe we could build better relationships with the cartel now. Make it work for us and keep it away from Rowan.
I shook my head and turned to look at Confessor. He was a grumbly old bastard and had never apologized for a single thing in his entire life, but he had the decency to at least look sheepish.
“I was just tryin’ to help. Can’t fucking win,” he grumbled, and stalked away with a shake of his head.
In the distance, sirens could be heard heading our way, and we took that as our cue to get out of there.
