Chapter Three

Music blared from the secluded house, so loud that the thump of the bass reverberated in Carlos’s chest and covered the thud of his cane on the concrete as he walked to the front door. The aging bungalow was set back a long way from the road. Spanish moss gleamed a pale, ghostly gray in the moonlight as it hung from the gnarled branches of the cypress trees that surrounded the property and arched over the low roofline, giving it added privacy. The location was perfect for their needs.

Out here there were no neighbors, no passersby to nose around and spoil the fun.

Going by the amount of noise coming from inside, his guys were having one hell of a party, and he wasn’t going to miss out on a night’s entertainment. They’d carried out his most recent orders perfectly, executing three traffickers who had tried to screw him, so he didn’t mind them letting loose for the next couple days. He felt perfectly safe here. This backwater area out in the Louisiana swamp was so isolated there was little chance anyone would find him even if they were out hunting him.

Still, one couldn’t be too careful. His list of enemies was longer than his erect dick, and he wasn’t taking any chances. Not when he’d finally started living the kind of high-roller lifestyle that had been denied him until a few months ago.

The smell of booze and pot hit him the moment he opened the front door, mixing with the underlying stench of B.O. and piss. He wrinkled his nose in distaste and shut the door behind him while his two bodyguards stood outside on the covered porch. He didn’t mind the boys having fun, but getting wasted to the point of no longer caring about personal hygiene was gross.

In a room off the run-down foyer that looked like it hadn’t been touched since the early eighties, four of his enforcers were sprawled out on the peach-and-green sofas and scarred hardwood floor. Each had a naked woman on their lap, one wearing a slave collar to signify that she wasn’t there willingly. When Carlos met her frightened gaze, she cowered away from Javier and tried to cover her naked breasts as she lowered her head, shame etched into her face.

Carlos ignored her and stood facing his men. He’d lost several of his best guys over a year ago when they’d been killed by DEA agents up in D.C. Those who remained weren’t nearly at the same level as the dead men, but they were good enough, loyal, and enjoyed what they did.

The four of them called out to him with the joyful tones of the sloppy drunk—or the wasted high. “What are you lazy fuckers up to?” he said in Spanish over the music, unable to keep from grinning. From the looks of things, they’d been partying for quite a while already. The room was full of ashtrays overflowing with discarded weed buds, along with empty beer cans and liquor bottles.

“Reaping the rewards of working for you, boss man,” Javier said, his gold front tooth flashing as he grinned. One arm locked around the cringing woman’s shoulders, he squeezed her naked breast and laughed when she tried to slap him away. “She’s new. You know I like ‘em feisty.”

She was pretty enough, tits still firm, decent body. They could get a good price for her with their next shipment. Along with one very special addition.

Carlos flapped a dismissive hand at them as he turned away, his mind on other things. “Carry on.”

He was here to check that special addition in person. Had driven all the way here from Tallahassee just to see her.

In the kitchen, he found his head enforcer next to the fridge, helping himself to a massive burger in one hand, and a bottle of beer in the other. Stone cold sober, as usual. It’s why Carlos had made him head enforcer. Carlos had enough to do without having to babysit his guys.

Carlos nodded at him and shouted over the music. “Antonio. How’s it going?”

“Good, patrón,” he answered, stuffing his mouth full.

Carlos surveyed the rest of the open concept great room that looked as shabby as the rest of the place. Six more of his guys were in the living room and kitchen. Three of them were busy entertaining the whores they’d picked up, one was mostly out of view as he fucked a woman in the corner, and the last two were snorting coke at the kitchen table.

He wrinkled his nose again. He enjoyed his booze, fine cigars and liked to party with the best of them, but he never touched dope. Ever. He’d seen too many stupid assholes ruin themselves by partaking of their product and getting hooked. It always ended the same way. Either in self-destruction, or a fellow enforcer sent to end them.

The guys doing lines at the table were taking a huge risk in getting addicted on that shit, especially given how potent their labs were making the stuff, cutting it with poison like fentanyl, which could easily kill someone in small concentrations. They liked to live life on the edge, riding the razor-sharp between getting high, and turning into yet another junkie created by their product. A tightrope very few could walk without falling off.

Not Carlos’s concern. It was Antonio’s job to monitor them. If any of their men got hooked and could no longer be trusted to carry out their duty, he alerted Carlos, and they were dealt with immediately.

But people throughout North America were looking for a more potent high, and the old stuff wasn’t cutting it anymore. For the cartel, the trick was finding the tolerance threshold that the average human could handle. Culling the herd with overdose deaths was okay to a point, but it made no business sense whatsoever to kill off every potential customer who tried Veneno coke or heroine. Making it strong enough to hook them on the very first try, but not kill them, was the key.

Again, not his department. His job was to expand the cartel’s territory and eliminate the competition wherever he found it. By whatever means necessary.

As for his men…

Carlos swept his gaze over the great room once more. The couple in the corner must be near finishing, because there was a lot of thrashing going on now. A shrill female scream pierced the racket blaring from the speakers of the ancient stereo and a lamp fell, smashing to pieces on the floor.

He sighed inwardly, feeling like an old man in the midst of a wild frat party. Even though he was only thirty-four, he felt ancient compared to these guys, most of whom were in their early twenties. As long as they did their jobs when he gave them orders, Carlos didn’t care what they did in their spare time, or with whom. They were a means to an end, rabid dogs he’d brought to heel and kept leashed with the lure of money, product and free women.

In exchange, when he needed something done he unleashed them, and they reverted back to their natural state. Soulless killers, every single one of them. So sadistic it made people’s blood run cold. And he was the only one who could control them. If that changed, he had them put down. Simple. Every one of them knew the rules, and the arrangement suited Carlos perfectly.

He turned back to face Antonio, growing impatient. “Where is she?”

Antonio shoved the last bite of burger into his mouth, chewed it fast. “Out back.”

“Alone?”

“Yeah. She tried to escape the other night and damn near made it, so we’ve been training her to be more obedient ever since.” He flashed a satisfied grin. “She’s a slow learner.”

Carlos grunted, his fingers flexing around the head of his cane, that familiar, deep ache shooting through his leg. “I want to see her.” This bitch had nearly ruined him and he wanted to see her suffering. “Show me.”

He followed Antonio through the living room, past the naked couple collapsed in a heap in the corner, and out onto the back porch. The brain-numbing noise of the music muted once the back door was shut.

As they walked across the grass of the private backyard, Carlos glimpsed the outline of a wooden shed tucked amongst the trees near the rear fence. Even though it was eleven at night the humidity was high enough to have him sweating by the time they reached the outbuilding.

At the base of the wooden steps, Antonio switched on a flashlight, illuminating the heavy chain and padlock on the weatherworn door. He unlocked it and shoved it open.

The smell of hot, stale piss nearly made Carlos gag. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket to cover his nose and mouth as he peered inside. His eager gaze followed the beam of light to where it revealed a naked, dark-haired woman lying on a filthy bare mattress in the middle of the floor.

She was chained to the floorboards by a metal collar around her neck. They’d hogtied her, hands and feet bound together behind her with rope.

Couldn’t be too unbearable, since she appeared to be asleep. Then again, they’d probably drugged her with something. “Wake her up,” he ordered, his heartbeat drumming in his ears.

“Hey,” Antonio said gruffly, stalking over to nudge her bare leg with his boot.

The brunette stirred and raised her head slightly. Her features were distorted from the bruising and swelling, but it was definitely her.

Victoria Gomez, the Mexican-born reporter from Houston who had not only exposed him, but almost cost him his life when a rival cartel had targeted him because of a story she’d broadcast. Three of Carlos’s best men had died in the shootout trying to protect him, and every day the pain of the healed bullet wounds in his right leg reminded him of the suffering she’d caused him.

“Wake up, bitch,” Antonio snapped in Spanish.

The woman cracked one dark eye open, the other swollen shut. It took a moment for her bleary gaze to focus on them, but when she did she glared up at them with such hatred and malevolence it sent an involuntary shiver up Carlos’s spine. Excitement blended with the buzz of warning at the back of his head.

Seeing her bound, naked and helpless sent a rush of power through him. She was the victim now, and deserved everything they did to her.

He took a step forward, intending to bend down and grip her jaw between his fingers so he could stare into her eyes, but his foot slipped on something. Looking down, he saw the wet sheen on the old wooden boards near the edge of the mattress and nearly gagged before he jerked away from the puddle of piss.

“For Christ’s sake, clean her up,” he snarled to Antonio, retreating to the doorway.

Disgusted, he limped down the steps and wiped the bottom of his shoe on the grass. Fucking nine-hundred-dollar Italian leather, and now he’d have to throw them out. No way he’d wear them again, now that they’d been tainted by that bitch’s piss.

When he turned around, Antonio had dragged a hose out from behind the shed.

Standing in the doorway, his chief enforcer opened up a jet of cold water on the bitch. She shrieked and ducked her head to try and shield her face, but that was all she could do to protect herself.

Antonio held the flashlight in one hand as he continued to hose her down from head to foot, leaving her dark hair plastered to her head and naked body gleaming on the soaked mattress. Carlos’s dick hardened and a bolt of excitement flashed through him. Even half-starved she had a body on her that would net them thousands.

He would use her before they sold her, once his men had enjoyed her for a while, but not now. He would never touch her when she was so filthy and repulsive. When he was ready for her he’d have her scrubbed clean first, waxed, her makeup and hair done up, and wearing some sexy lingerie he could cut off her with the blade he always carried with him.

More blood surged to his swelling cock as he imagined the expression on her face when he pulled the knife out and advanced toward her while she was bound and helpless. It had been a long time since anything had excited him half as much.

When she was prepared the right way, and tied to a bed in some luxury hotel in New Orleans, then he could savor every tiny cringe as he unwrapped her, enjoy her terror and loathing as he did whatever he pleased to her. Whatever pleased him.

Only after he’d taken his fill would he sell her, so that he could have his revenge and show her the price for exposing him, plus make a profit on her.

And if she died before that happened, it wasn’t the end of the world. One less loose end for him to worry about.

Smirking as Antonio finished hosing her down and shut off the water, Carlos stalked back up the steps, his cane loud on the wood in the enveloping silence. The bitch wasn’t so gutsy now, soaking wet and shivering in her miserable prison, pinkish rivulets of blood trickling down her wrists and ankles from where the rope had cut into her flesh during her struggles to free herself.

“That’s better,” he said, standing at the edge of the waterlogged mattress to tower over her. He liked seeing her helpless and shivering. Not so brave now—

She whipped her head around and spat at him, the wad of saliva landing with a revolting splat on the toe of his left shoe.

He clenched his jaw as primal rage roared through him. No one disrespected him that way. No one. He took a menacing step toward her, cane raised, ready to bash her sneering face in, then stopped at the last moment because of the look on her face.

Acceptance. Relief.

He saw it in her eyes. She knew he was going to kill her. Wanted him to use the cane and put an end to her torment.

His hand shook on the cane as he sucked in a shuddering breath. He refused to end her torment so easily after what she’d cost him. He wanted her to suffer a lot more yet before she eventually died in some hovel of an Asian bordello when her pimp decided she no longer was worth the cost of keeping her alive.

A slow smile curved his mouth, and he reveled in the first hint of fear that crept into that dark, bruised eye.

“Get Javier,” he said softly to Antonio. “Might as well not let her go to waste, now that she’s all clean again.”

Pivoting on his heel, he limped back down the sagging wooden steps and across the overgrown lawn, the music from the house getting louder and the rage-filled screams from the shed growing fainter behind him.