Blood smeared over my arms as I caught him from crashing to the top wide step.
“What happened?” Fear clawed up my throat that someone from the Bratva must have spotted him. Maybe he was trespassing, trying to reach me. And they’d shot first before questioning who it was.
All this time, no one but Enrique had tried to reach me. My brother hadn’t, but if the Bratva guards recognized Enrique as one of the Garcia Cartel, they had to have suspected something was wrong. That a threat was too close for comfort.
“He was out at the last handoff site,” Dean said, rushing up from parking an SUV out in the front. He ran until he lowered to his knees, too. “We were out doing a run for more chips.”
“From the shipments,” I said. “The latest shipment in through San Diego.” Of course I knew what he was talking about. I’d been involved in mapping that route with the team.
Dean nodded, wiping sweat from his brow. “Yeah. He was there.”
I shook my head, holding Enrique upright so he wouldn’t slump down further. Blood oozed from a gash on his side, and I didn’t hesitate to grab a bunch of his shirt and press it to the wound, compressing the bleeding. “No. That wasn’t something my brother would have risked going for. The Cartel sells for distribution to the north. He wouldn’t have risked exposing the men and the runners over the border like that togetsomething from that direction.” All the contraband the Cartel passed on to buyers like the Bratva were things that were sent from further south, like Colombia.
“Something was off about it. The men at the docks were using the Cartel runners as a stand-in or something.” He winced as he shifted his weight from one knee to the other. “I don’t know. And he was in the back of a car, beaten like this and left to die.”
I frowned, not following. The Cartel never invaded on the turf near the coast like that, over the border. It was far too risky. But clearly, the policies had changed. Arturo was switching up how he wanted things to be done. And it was exposing one of the oldest and most loyal runners to be hurt.
“He realized we were with the Bratva and he asked to see you.” Dean stared me down. “I didn’t know if he’d live long enough, but we hurried back.”
I volleyed my gaze between them. “No other Cartel runners were there?”
Dean shook his head. “No. They had all left. I couldn’t make sense of why they were there to begin with. This handoff had nothing to do with them.”
“Out… Out…” Enrique couldn’t get it out.
“What?” I leaned over, keeping my hand on his wound. There was no hope. He wouldn’t make it. He was too far gone.
“Outsourced. Sometimes, there’s outsourcing. Of runners. As favors.”
I narrowed my eyes, furious about this news. Arturo wasn’t just messing up the Cartel. He was actively ripping it apart. To “loan” out one of our own? What was he thinking?
“Did you get my messages?” he asked in a desperate tone.
“Yes. Yes, I did, and I tried to contact you again to understand more.”
He tried to shake his head. His eyes stayed closed from the slight motion, but his cracked and bloodied lips parted as he spoke again. “The phone… Lost.”
He’d lost the phone? Or was it taken? I wanted to scream and demand to know what was going on!
“He’s going to destroy what’s left of the Cartel, Carina,” he said, his voice croaking so horribly. After a spell of coughing up blood, he cleared his throat. “He’s been hiding and holding out. He’s been withholding.”
“Withholding what?” I panicked, feeling like I was racing against time for answers. It broke my heart that he was dying, but I couldn’t save him. No one could. All I could do was get hisdeathbed message and try to deliver on whatever he needed to convey to me before he was gone.
“He’s been withholding information,” he whispered. “About his new ‘partner’ he found.”
“Who?” Dean asked, still leaning in and listening.
Enrique shook his head again, slower than before. “I don’t have… name. I don’t know his name. But he’s been influencing him.”
“From where? Where is this partner located? Where did they find the Cartel? Or did he look for— How did this happen?” I licked my lips, hating to ramble and hating to even speak when I needed to listen to all that he could tell me. “Since I’ve been gone?”
“Years.” He coughed again, cut off by the action. “It’s been happening for years,” he said. “He’s been holding back information and lying to you for years, Carina. All those times you questioned him, he felt cornered and trapped and lied. He’s been trying to make his own mark for so long and he’s been trying to hide it all from you.”
Red-hot anger lanced through me. All this time. For so long, he’d been ruling and lying to me when I checked on things that didn’t add up.
He’d already gone rogue and had seen me as nothing but interference he didn’t want to answer to. And that could only confirm that whoever he was partnering with or wanting to do business with now wasn’t good.
“Make his own mark?”
