Chapter Nine
The next morning, while Leland was in the bathroom doing his take-forever grooming ritual, I shot off a fast text to Jena Garret.
Two words: Call me.
I didn’t need to type more to get her attention. That I sent it from my burner cell to hers said everything.
As pleasurable as the night had been—and it been fucking epic, even the after moments submerged in quiet talking before sleep—my suspicions of Leland and the worry over his true activities in Mexico hadn’t been anywhere close to forgotten.
A few good fucks post his supplication not to investigate who put out the contract hit on him, on anyone’s scale, wouldn’t be enough to stop a man from finding out who was trying to kill his partner. If Leland thought he’d succeeded in getting me to stand down, he was wrong, though I wasn’t going to correct him.
Just because we were a couple didn’t mean we did everything the other asked us to. Evidenced by how Lee withheld information from me and ignored my request to boot the Ramoses from our home, and my disregard of his requests this morning by making task one talking to Jena.
Quid pro quo, and all.
Though I didn’t really look at it that way because, hell, I was in the right: protecting my man and child. And he was in the wrong: not telling me what the fuck was truly going on with his business endeavors.
Colombia?
Colombia?
I rapidly searched the Black Star confidential database of geopolitical issues and hot zones. Who were these men Hector Ramos had taken on as partners? I sensed solving that was the first step in solving who was trying to kill Lee.
There was a long list of threats and warring criminal elements to choose from spreading from the southern US border through Central America, but none of them jumped out at me as one I could connect with the cartel.
I leaned back against the headboard, closed my eyes, and tried to zoom in on a memory. That phone call with Jena Garret when I lived in Montecito before I agreed to accept the bodyguard job from Lee.
What was it she had said?
It hadn’t been in the file of information she’d sent me.
It had come my way later by phone.
I brought up on screen the coordinates of Lee’s travel, hoping to jar the memory. America, Europe, Asia—my eyes locked—the Middle East.
Jena’s warning flashed through my head: “And here is the troubling part. Ramos is vying for control of the entire region, and there is an intense cartel feud going on right now. In two years they’ve taken control of all the territory north of Mexico City. They are highly armed. Highly financed. Well organized. Highly brutal paramilitary butchers. They are the kind of men who give cartels a bad name. They have ties to your friends in the Middle East. You need to stay clear of this one, Graham.”
Oh, fuck me.
Hector’s new partners were part of the influx into Latin America of the bad elements from the Middle East. Leland was working night and day to close a deal that included cutting out Hadji.
Fuck.
When I heard the sink turn off in the bathroom, I slapped shut my laptop and sank back against the headboard, clutching my skull. No wonder there was a contract hit put out on Leland. These were not men you fucked with. The thug element in the sandbox was indescribably more dangerous than your garden variety cartel.
My eyes shot open. And why the hell would Lee want me to stay clear of this? The Middle East was in my wheelhouse. Fuck, the only thing in Leland’s skill set was mixing cocktails and being charming. I was the expert on the warring factions of the world—well, as much as anyone could be—and the CIA’s preferred contractor to deal with them. Lee didn’t even know how to use a gun.
Instinct on target. It was worse than Lee lying to me. It was an all-out nightmare. There was no other word for it. Only an insane man wouldn’t put his foot down with his partner and haul his ass north ASAP…
“OK, what are you thinking about?”
I shifted my gaze to find Leland standing close to me, the bathroom door open and steam rolling out. He leaned over and gave me a full-tongue lusty kiss, and when he pulled back his eyes glowed as if he was unaware my thoughts held my body elsewhere to the point I barely felt his lips.
I altered my expression to something I hoped was casual and shrugged. “Nothing. Just trying to rally to get out of bed.”
He laughed and sat beside me. “If only that were true I would be fucking over the moon this morning. But nope. You look very serious, Graham, and that’s never good. And certainly not good after a night like last night.”
“Ah, your mind goes to sex fast. And it seems you’re the suspicious one today,” I stated nonchalantly and swung my legs around until I was sitting shoulder to shoulder with him. “You out of the bathroom finally? I need to rinse off and get moving.”
“Oh.” His mouth made a charming O with that. “You’re pissed off I hogged our bathroom again. You know, we’re allowed to be in there at the same time.”
“You run the water too hot. Too much steam. And you take up so much space at the vanity you crowd me at my sink.”
He pouted—attractively—but his gaze sharpened. “There’s something you’re stewing about that you don’t want me to know.”
“No. I want you to learn to be more considerate. I have a schedule, too. Just because I only take five minutes in the bathroom in the morning doesn’t mean it’s OK to leave me only three.”
I stood up and stretched my neck to the right and then the left and I could feel him studying me.
“We’re full of complaints today, now aren’t we? Do you want to talk about it?”
I checked my cell.
Saved by the clock.
“No time.”
“OK, that’s fair, but annoying as hell. Start something but don’t finish it.”
I turned back from the bathroom door, hitching a brow. “I guess it’s true. All couples do eventually morph into each other. That’s your MO not mine.”
Lee smiled at me for that one and I wasn’t sure if he was going to let this brewing argument go. I closed the door behind me before he could say anything else or probe further.
Switching on the shower, I shook my head. I wasn’t the only one who could feel when things weren’t right. Leland had the instincts of a bloodhound for all he appeared to roam the earth half absent-minded. Being able to read me wasn’t always a bad thing in a partner of mine, made the conflicts come to a head faster, and kept me from chewing on things overly long in silence, but no, not today.
This clusterfuck I needed to think through. While the impulse to bug out of Mexico City was the strongest one in me, I wasn’t sure it was the right move today. Lee had entangled all of us in something more dangerous than even I suspected it to be, and extraditing ourselves from here would require careful planning and handling.
You just didn’t ditch the cartel. And as for the Middle Eastern twist—those fuckers followed you if you didn’t cover your tracks well.
Fuck, I wished Jena would call. I needed to know pronto who the hell was fucking up my life. I didn’t doubt that Jena had full intel on the cartel alliances, though I was irritated she hadn’t given me the complete skinny.
My friends in the Middle East.
Could be any of a hundred groups.
Way to be vague enough not to be useful, Jena.
I stepped beneath the dual streams and stood there letting the water hit me. It was imperative I didn’t tip off Lee on how much I’d piece together until I had a full picture of exactly what I was dealing with. And it was equally necessary not to convey my high alert status. The threat level was red, but I had to live like it was green until we got out of here. Then I’d come back and deal with these fuckers. Permanently.
I grabbed the soap and started washing my junk. There was no doubt that eventually I’d be dealing with Lee’s associates my way. Not if he meant to make a deal that cut out Hadji. Nope, they wouldn’t forget that. These men fought wars centuries old. They carried a grudge fucking forever.
I was more convinced than ever that Lee didn’t have an accurate assessment of what he was dealing with here. If he did, he wouldn’t have made the move or started negotiating with these men.
Misguided. Optimistic. Arrogant. Philanthropist.
The kind of wrong thinking that sent men like me for decades into hot zones to save their asses. Clearly Leland hadn’t learned you couldn’t make a good deal with the devil. The best you could do was stay clear so you didn’t have to shoot them.
I made fast work of washing my hair, turned beneath the showerhead one more time to get the shampoo out, then shut off the water.
After toweling off and brushing my teeth, I bypassed shaving, dressed, and hotfooted it to Ella. Master suite empty. Lee must have decided to let the a.m. bickering go.
Good.
I exited the tunnel that connected the safe rooms and my eyes widened in alarm. Princess suite empty. No bueno.
Fuck. I couldn’t seem to catch a break anywhere and I wondered how Ella had gotten the armed security door open. That required follow-up later. I couldn’t risk her getting out at night and roaming the house unguarded with the Ramoses here until I decided our action plan.
Shit, maybe I should hole up in her bedroom while she slept. It was what I’d fucking intended to do before seeing Leland waiting to do me.
Damn it.
I hurried out of her room and was halfway down the hall when Lee’s laughter rolled from the kitchen. What greeted me as I stepped into Leland’s overly appointed chef’s space—yeah, the man loved all things culinary and it was reflected in the high-end shit everywhere that I only half knew what its uses were—should have taken the edge from my mood.
In front of the Italian side-by-side double range with its freaking convection and steam oven that I couldn’t even figure out how to use, Lee had our housekeeper, Rosa, in a sloppy bear hug and was rocking her affectionately.
“No, no, no, Rosa,” Lee chided. “I’m preparing breakfast this morning. I’ve been gone a long time and my man is angry with me. And look what you’ve done. You’ve forgotten and salted the huevos. No salt for Graham.”
She swatted him with her spatula. “I have already told you. You stay away from my stove and my skillet.”
“Don’t pretend you don’t love it when we cook together.”
She crinkled her nose with an aggravated shake of her face close to his before letting loose a fast stream of Spanish that made Ella erupt in giggles from her spot at the kitchen table.
My partner being a pest might have made me smile except in my line of sight there was Emilio camped on a barstool at the center island. A hideous reminder that this wasn’t one of our quiet mornings of old, and as much as I despised the jerkoff and having Emilio present for the a.m. chow, finding him there was mildly reassuring and confirmation that at least Lee had hired a body man who took the situation seriously.
Shit had gotten real here, no matter how Leland behaved.