Roxanne turned in the mirror, trying not to laugh at her reflection. “This is ridiculous. I don’t look anything like you, Valentina. This black wig looks hideous on me.”

Juanita answered for her. “All that red hair has got to be kept under wraps, so the wig is a must, I’m afraid. Besides, you’re closer to her size than I am. I’m thicker where it counts, baby.” She smacked her own ass to emphasize her point, much to the amusement of the group.

“Yeah, you’ve got curves in all the right places. We all know Latin men like a little junk in the trunk.” That sent the girls into another fit of laughter.

When Valentina turned toward the door, she saw Victor standing in the doorway glaring at her.

“You. Come here.” He crooked his finger and she glanced apologetically back at her new friends before walking over to him. He took her by the arm and pulled her into his chest, pressing her back into the wall, uncaring that they had an audience. His hands hungrily roamed her curves as he buried his face in her hair and inhaled deeply.

“I don’t like this, baby, not one damn bit. It would kill me to lose you.”

She wrapped her arms around him, the urge to fight pushed aside for the moment in favor of clinging to this man. For the first time, she was glad for the tracking device he’d placed in her shoulder. At first, she’d thought it was a little over the top -- okay, a lot over the top -- to go to such an extreme. But the longer she was with the Ramirez family, the more she became convinced that drastic times called for drastic measures. If any family lived on the cusp of danger it was this one. Better safe than sorry was quickly becoming her new motto.

“I’ll be back before you know it.” She nodded in Juanita and Roxanne’s direction. “I think we both know how lethal those two are. I’ll be safe with them. I don’t want you worrying.”

“It comes with the territory,” he said gruffly as he continued nuzzling her neck and smelling her hair. “There’s no way around it in this life.” He kissed her. He couldn’t help but wonder if it would be the last time he did. He pulled her back by her shoulders, looked down at her for a long moment, then leaned down and pressed his lips softly to her forehead. There was more emotion in that tender gesture than most people shared in a lifetime.

“Mom,” he said softly, his eyes not leaving Valentina’s face, “I’m entrusting you with my whole world. Guard her with your life.”

“You know I will, son.” She stood on her tiptoes and kissed her son’s cheek.

“If that bastard harms one hair on her head or anyone else’s – even if it’s just a wig,” he said with a glance over at Roxanne, “I will hunt him down and there will be nothing left but scorched earth when I’m done.”

“Understood,” his mother said with a nod. “All right, ladies, let’s get this party started. We’ve got a stalker to catch.” There was that look again in Juanita’s eye, the look of take-no-prisoners. Valentina wasn’t dealing with soap opera beauties anymore, now she was in the cartel and these women might be beautiful, but they were also deadly femme fatales.

The women hurried out to the SUV to beat the rain that was beginning to come down. Roxanne slid into the backseat and sent a snarky look up front as she buckled her seatbelt. “Keep it between the ditches, Juanita. Remember last time.”

Juanita huffed as she started the car and pulled away from the house. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m an excellent driver.”

Roxanne smiled benignly and looked out the window.

“So, how can we be sure he’s going to follow me?” Valentina looked back and forth at the women from her seat up front.

“He’ll have to, you’re a compulsion—he won’t be able to resist giving in to his stalker nature,” Juanita replied confidently. Valentina wondered how she knew so much about stalker behavior. She knew one thing for sure: Victor was teaching her more about obsession than she’d ever wanted to know.

Valentina grabbed onto the handle above the car door as Juanita took a hard turn. Maybe Roxanne was onto something. All Valentina knew was that she was ready for this whole stalker nightmare to be over. She couldn’t help but wonder who the stalker was. The hardest part of it all was the guilt—feeling like she had done something to spur on the mental meanderings of a crazy man. How could she know if she’d done anything wrong when she didn’t even know who he was? Another sharp turn had Valentina clenching the handle again and pressing a hand over her churning stomach.

“Hey, can you pull over up here and let me get something to drink? No offense, but riding in this car’s like being on a rollercoaster and my stomach feels a little queasy.” They’d been riding for about thirty minutes and though the neighborhood wasn’t dangerous it was right on the edge of a dangerous part of the city.

“Uh oh, Juanita, sounds like you might be a grandmother sooner than you thought,” Roxanne teased.

Juanita jerked her head to the side like it was on a swivel as she gave Valentina an assessing look. Roxanne, however, wasn’t so subtle. She reached over the seat and squeezed Valentina’s breast, hard.

“Excuse me?!?!” Valentina squeaked indignantly as she swatted Roxanne’s hand away.

“Are they sore?” Roxanne asked with a frown as she leaned back in her seat.

“Are what sore?” Valentina hissed.

“Your tits, of course! Are they sore? Need me to check again?”

“No! No, I do not need you checking…that. Ever. What is with you people?”

“You’ll have to forgive Roxanne, she doesn’t see the need to mince words or waste time, especially when it’s something important,” Juanita said.

“So, answer the question,” Roxanne insisted. “Are they?”

“Well, I hadn’t thought about it, but not really. I mean, a little but that’s normal around your period, right?”

“Hmm,” Juanita sighed sadly as she watched her prospects for being a grandmother evaporate. “You might be right. So does that mean you’re on your period?”

“I am not discussing my period with the two of you!” Valentina exclaimed, her cheeks flaming pink as she looked anywhere but at the two women.

“That sounds like a no. It sure ain’t a yes. Interesting. So, you’re late?” Juanita probed. The woman was relentless; Victor came by it honestly.

“Fine, yes, I’m late but only--”

Mayhem. It was absolute mayhem as Juanita and Roxanne squealed and high-fived across the back of the driver’s seat, sending the SUV swerving just enough to have Valentina covering her mouth.

“--but just by a couple of days,” Valentina quickly added as Juanita righted the car in the lane and put on her turn signal. “It’s probably stress. God knows there’s been no shortage of that over the last month. Let’s pull over and just chalk it up to nerves, okay? I’ve got a lot going on.”

“True, true…” Juanita said serenely as she pulled over into a parking lot next to a convenience store. They got out and headed into the store. “Wait a minute.” They stopped and watched as Juanita went back to the SUV and grabbed the keys, locking the car as she looked around cautiously. Usually they didn’t have to worry about such trivial details because her security detail handled all of that, but today they were on their own. Better safe than sorry.

The women walked into the store, not noticing at first that the young guy behind the counter was staring at them. Valentina turned in his direction, asking, “Do you have a restroom?”

He stared, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. When he finally replied he didn’t answer her question right away. “I know you,” he blurted. He pointed at her as if it would remove any doubt from her mind.

“So you’ve seen me on television? In reality, you really don’t know me.”

“She’s right,” Roxanne agreed, as she opened a pack of licorice, chewing on the black gooey substance which in turn was turning her tongue and teeth black to match her wig.

“Well, I just mean, you know, I recognize you. I’m a huge fan, Miss Vargas. I love watching you on TV so, yeah, I guess I feel like I know you.”

“Maybe that’s why you’ve got a stalker,” Roxanne muttered to Valentina, revealing the evidence of black licorice.

“Your teeth are black,” Juanita said with a grimace. Roxanne ignored her and continued chomping on the candy, fascinated by how easily Valentina had the poor guy stuttering and blushing.

“Do you have a restroom?” Valentina asked again.

“Oh, yeah, wow, sorry. Right back there.” He nodded toward the back and shamelessly watched her ass swaying as she walked away in her tight jeans and five-inch stilettos.

“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” Roxanne’s voice cut through the cashier’s fantasy, her black teeth gleaming ghoulishly under the store’s harsh lights.

“Fuck, yeah. Oh, sorry. I mean, yes…yes, she is. I’m a huge fan. I’ve been watching her ever since I first saw her a year ago. I’ve even learned some Spanish because of her,” he boasted.

“Hey! What the fuck is going on out there?!” Juanita shrieked.

Roxanne and the cashier watched in horror as Juanita ran out the door. Two young men were bent down by the SUV trying to pop the lock on the driver’s side. They took off running before she got to them. Fuming, she returned to the store, disgusted with herself for letting them get away.

“Yep…” the cashier said, nodding his head like what had just happened was a common occurrence. When Valentina returned from the restroom, he was telling Juanita and Roxanne what he thought the guys had been doing. “Probably a gang initiation. They sneak into the backseat of a car and kidnap a woman, then they take her back to the gang to prove they pulled it off and it’s their ticket into a life of crime—gang style. They, um, rape the woman in front of the gang to make it official.”

“I hate to even think about what happens to those poor women—that’s terrible.” Valentina reached into the small purse she was carrying and withdrew a business card. She flipped it over and wrote her cell number on the back. She handed it to him and couldn’t help but smile at the goofy grin on his face. “Call me if you see those guys again—not for anything else though. Seriously, if I start getting calls on this phone because of you, my fiancé will come down here and kick your ass.”

Even as his smile waned he took the card, carefully placing it in his wallet. “I’ll call you if I see them again, Miss Vargas, but I wouldn’t count on it. I ain’t never seen them before and I’m pretty good with faces, plus they were wearing Narco Polos”—

“What’s that?”

“Jerseys with the horseman-with-a-stick emblem.”

“I read something online about that,” Roxanne said, her teeth now clean of the black licorice she’d been eating.

“Yeah,” the cashier continued, “I even talked to the owner about stocking them. They’re popular with Sinaloa cartel, so popular that they can’t keep them on the shelves; something about seven high-ranking drug cartel members being locked up over a three-month period, all wearing them in their mugshots.”

“Charming. Wow, you know a lot,” Valentina noted with a coy smile.

“I read a lot, you know, during the middle of the night when no customers are coming in. It gets so lonely.”

Valentina plopped her carbonated drink and a sleeve of crackers on the counter with a thud, telling him to take the licorice Roxanne had eaten out of the money she gave him.

Juanita smiled at the sight of the crackers on the counter, having visions of a little Victor running around and wreaking havoc. For now, though, she had more important problems to deal with: like finding two wannabe gangbangers who were stupid enough to think she and her girls were targets for a kidnapping.

“Girl, I knew you’d do this.” Roxanne shook her head. She’d already guessed Juanita would go looking for the guys. She’d wasted no time beginning to scout the streets as soon as they got back in their vehicle.

“Well, it pisses me off that they got away. I can’t go home not knowing if that was a random kidnap attempt or not. It could be Sinaloa cartel stalking her, we just don’t know right now.”

“That’s true,” Valentina chimed in as she munched on a cracker. “You can’t be too careful.”

“You just worry about my grandchild,” Juanita said slyly.

Roxanne laughed as she turned around in her seat and looked at Valentina, who had decided to sit in the back this time so she could lay down if she needed to. “Judging by the way you’re wolfing down those crackers to settle your stomach, you most definitely have a Ramirez bun in the oven.”

“Nothing would make Victor happier. Speaking of Victor, could we please not mention the issue of the Sinaloa cartel? I’ll never get out of the house again if he thinks I’m in danger. I’ve had such a great time with you two tonight.”

“There’s never a dull moment when Roxanne and I get together,” Juanita said as she cast a concerned look at Valentina in the rearview mirror.

“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna puke. You’re looking at me like you’re worried. Shouldn’t you be looking for the two wannabe kidnappers?”

“I’m multi-tasking. Like right now, those two in that alley look suspicious.” She abruptly turned into the alley before her passengers could object.

“Hey, baby, hey…” A working girl called out to the SUV, not realizing three women were in it. The deeper they drove into the alley, the more congested it got. A junkie sat against the wall, stabbing at his arm for a non-existent vein due to years of drug abuse.

“Bingo…” Juanita said softly. The two men in the popular jerseys turned out to be drug dealers selling vials of crack to junkies who were oblivious to anything but getting their next hit.

“Getting out of here is going to be a bitch, Juanita.”

“I’m backing out of here, I’m not getting stuck up in this nightmare.” True to form that’s exactly what she did and other than a couple of people slurring expletives in her direction for almost hitting them, which was an exaggeration, she was able to clear the alley.

Valentina was caught up daydreaming and looking out the window when she spotted another black SUV. “Well, I’ll be damned. Hey, guys, is that Agent Turner following us again?”

The girls gasped as they looked in the direction she was pointing in. A man sitting with the window rolled down stared at them and Valentina recognized him. “What?! What the hell is he doing here? He’s supposed to be in Guatemala.”

“Who is it?” the girls asked in unison.

“It’s Luis Jimenez.”

“Wait a minute. Isn’t that your old agent?”

“Yes. Or no. Maybe I’m seeing things.”

“Or maybe that son of a bitch followed you here. He could very well be the stalker. Believe me, stranger things have happened.” Juanita’s voice sounded grim and remote, almost as if she were talking to herself rather than her passengers.