Chapter Seven
For the second time that day, I drew a line in the sand. Someone had to. Lee sure as hell wasn’t thinking sanely. That was glaringly obvious as I stared through the kitchen window.
Ella lounging about poolside with the cartel?
On my watch?
Hell no.
Damn, Leland.
This stopped now. Even if I had to forcibly rip her from Lee’s hands then move from the master suite to her bedroom as a 24/7 wall between her and the Ramoses, that’s what I intended to do until Lee sent our unwanted houseguests on their way.
Mission. Tactical plan. Objective. Achievable.
I moved at a clip through the kitchen doors and ran straight into Emilio—again. That dipshit hadn’t figured out getting in my way a second time wasn’t a good move. And he didn’t know an even worse move was blocking me from Ella.
“Get out of my fucking way,” I said through clenched teeth.
His dark brown eyes locked on mine. “I have to frisk you, señor.”
“Put a hand on me and I’ll break it.”
Whether he would have backed down—and I was pretty sure by how he was sweating from my staring at him that he would have—I’d never know for sure. Lee decided to be Lee again.
“Emilio, behave yourself, baby. He’s with me, remember? I thought we’d clarified that in the foyer.”
Baby?
No. Fuck no.
I hated that term of affection that rolled too frequently from Leland’s lips, but it didn’t mean I’d stand for him calling another man by it. It punched me in the gut the same way it had when he’d called his ex-husband, Jamie, baby in front of me.
I ran Emilio in a more thorough glance, noting that he was a semi attractive man. Adequate build. Tall—Lee liked tall men—and Hispanic sultry. In dim light, he could be mistaken as a Latin, less handsome version of me.
An emotion I didn’t expect—a hint of territorial anger and jealousy—stiffened more my already rock-hard shoulders. Perhaps I needed to clarify the issue of Emilio with Lee along with the long list we still had to get through.
Unbeknownst to me, they’d been traveling together three months. Lee and I certainly hadn’t shared a bed enough in recent days to sufficiently appease our libidos. Maybe Emilio was a body man in more ways than one.
Irrational suspicion—no doubt. But you thought shit like that, whether it was in your nature or not, when your partner failed to mention he was spending most of his time with an attractive man in his twenties and jetting the globe with him.
That the jerkoff continued to pin me with his eyes like a junkyard dog even after Lee had called him off didn’t help matters.
I brushed past him, and thankfully the FNG didn’t make a move to stop me. I’d have hated to pound the fucker in front of Ella.
Lee gestured with an arm. “Come, Graham. There’s a vacant chair next to me. Why don’t you join us? We’re done with our business for today and about to have cocktails.”
Unsmiling, I hovered over the circle of men filling the chairs around the blue-tiled waterfall. “It’s three in the afternoon, Lee. A little early for me to start drinking.”
He smiled with flamboyant amusement and made a flutter in the air with his hand. “This is Mexico, baby. Lighten up. It’s never too early for a cerveza here.”
Given the company he was keeping and the contract out on his life, one would have expected him to be more prudent in his decisions. But, damn, the man lived with flare and recklessness even surrounded by cartel members. His nerve—at times a virtue, particularly in the sexual department—seemed to have no off switch.
“I’ll pass.” I held out my hand to Ella. “You know the drill. Homework. Now.”
That she didn’t immediately climb from Leland’s lap was my second slap since leaving the kitchen. From her being my shadow to forgotten in less than five minutes. Worse, how she looked like a girl on Christmas morning cuddled up against her dad’s chest warned me there was no way to evac her out of the hot zone without creating a scene. Not that I gave a fuck what the peckerwoods thought, but it would be awful for Ella.
Lee’s eyes twinkled. “We can be flexible with the schedule today, can’t we, Graham? Ella’s homework will still be there in an hour. Indulge a little. Sit. Have a drink with us?”
His amber eyes sharpened on my face and were no longer smiling. That last part—Sit. Have a drink with us—wasn’t a request and ran my spine like a nail. An order, unmistakable since I knew him well. Oh, we would discuss this one later. The issues list just kept growing.
Reluctantly, I settled beside him.
His beatific smile rose to his face as he reached out for my hand. “There. Isn’t this lovely?”
Lovely?
Not my word for it.
I shot him a glare that should have been received as a resounding no. But if Lee noted my displeasure it wasn’t revealed on his face.
He squeezed my fingers once, tightly, smiled at his guests, and promptly launched into conversation in Spanish with Hector Ramos—who was parked too close to Ella for my comfort—entrenched on his right.
I crossed my arms and stared forward, pretending not to understand them—though Lee knew I did. I spoke nearly as many languages as he did thanks to my career in the military—and took advantage of my forward observation post to size up each man.
I knew more about them than I was sure they were aware of since I’d received a thorough CIA briefing on each of these men from Jena Garret before departing the States with Leland to take on the Mexico assignment. But I’d never seen them before. I wouldn’t have known them in a crowd if I’d bumped into them. For some reason, as thorough as Jena’s file sharing had been, it hadn’t included pictures.
It was strange I was just noting that.
These were known cartel members high on the CIA watch list by the vast amount of information in their files. Shouldn’t there have been pictures? There were always surveillance photos in the reports. Hell, in Iraq the high value targets had been pictures on playing cards.
I shrugged off my momentary curiosity over that—I’d deal with it later, since, after talking to Jared, a phone call from me to Jena was on the agenda about her part in keeping me out of the loop of intel about Leland—and returned my focus to the men.
Alberto Ramos struck me as a ruthless killer. He didn’t possess even a meager wash of having been civilized. His heavy-featured face held the arrangement of a man held out of the inner circle and decision making who was just itching to get in. Young gun in the cartel looking to make his mark was my assessment of him. And the way his darkly lusty eyes followed Lauren as she handed me my drink betrayed that he believed he was a catch and ladies’ man—not.
Octavio Padilla was more interesting to study. Mid-thirties, moderately attractive, and appeared on the surface a respectable man, though that pretense was thoroughly useless. Even smartly dressed with his stylishly cut hair and manicured fingernails it didn’t take effort to spot him for what he was. Though he did try to conceal it. Not surprising since he was the figurehead owner of Grupo Azul. He was just there to provide a cover of legitimacy for the cartel’s enterprise and to manage their money.
From my peripheral vision, I watched him watch me. His gaze slowly ran down my torso and paused a bit longer than it should have at the zone between my thighs. Hmm? Gay? When his roaming attention moved back to my face he licked his lips—hell yeah, he was into cocks not box, and undoubtedly assessing what I brought to the bedroom. I made a more thorough assessment of his attributes since Lee spent a hell of a lot of time with Octavio.
I set down my cocktail on the table and was about to stand up—I’d had enough of this and it was past time to get Ella out of here—when Hector’s purring voice in my ears hit the pause button on my body.
He leaned into Lee’s chair and said sotto voce, “Ah, now I understand why you yell at Emilio over him and why you kept us waiting all afternoon in the courtyard for you. He is the new Richard, no?”
Lee choked on his drink but had the poise to hide it behind his glass, while it was an all-out battle for me not to show these men I understood them.
“No. He’s Ella’s manny,” Lee replied in a voice not quiet enough that I didn’t hear him.
Oh no, he didn’t.
Not only had he thrown under the bus my importance here—and to him—he’d done it in an insulting manner.
It would have been impossible to maintain the farce of not comprehending them if Ella had been able to translate that. Thank God, even after a year in Mexico she didn’t comprehend a word in Spanish.
Hector threw back his head and cackled. “Ah, you are losing your charm, my friend. A man like that would be in my bed.”
“Who says that he isn’t?” Lee purred and they both ran their gazes over me as they laughed.
I was seeing red after that and couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Not after pretending I didn’t understand them and not wanting to lose the advantage of that.
“I miss Richard,” Hector lamented. “Those were good days. None of this nasty business interrupting our pleasure. It is a shame what happened to him.”
Lee’s mouth pursed. “Yes, it is.”
“We had fun, the three of us, but then things were simpler for us before all the nasty interferences in my country by your government.”
“We did, indeed,” Leland said.
“Your new employee. The manny. Is he fun—”
Fun? Oh, hell no.
“— and would he join us like Richard used to in the old days? We had glorious times together before that unfortunate bullet.”
My eyes burned from the effort to remain locked on the waterfall and not reach for my gun to shoot our three cartel guests right here on the patio. The pounding of my heart in my chest was painful and my arms shook from the force of keeping them crossed at my chest.
Had Lee fucked this repulsive man? My partner had enjoyed variety before me—evidence of that: Jamie—and was unpredictable in his tastes. But Hector Ramos? Jesus Christ, if I was translating correctly, they’d had a ménage with Richard Meyers.
And what the fuck did Hector mean by join us? Present tense. Not past. Was Lee still fucking him?
“Oh, Hector,” Leland crooned. “If only he would. But no. He is very American. Very provincial. Gays north of the border are absurdly straight.” He laughed at his pun then pouted dramatically. “It’s why I can’t resume our former relationship completely as you’ve wanted us to. He keeps me on a very short leash, my friend. And I am hopelessly enamored with him. It would not be good at home for me if I didn’t give him his way with some matters.”
Molten lava blasted my veins from that one. I should just shoot them and be done with this. Leland would get his corporation. Ella would be safe. I wouldn’t have to tolerate them. Three shots. Problem solved before the ice melted in their cocktail glasses. That was one tactical plan that would achieve my goal promptly.
Shock and awe.
Houseguests gone before dinner.
Clenching my jaw, I dismissed the impulse since I was fully aware my thoughts and emotions were whirling out of control.
Hector’s despicable eyes fixed on me with a leering smirk. “For him I would give him his way in all things, my friend. He is magnificent. Even better than Richard. Where do you find these men? The best I can do is Octavio. Not that I don’t love him, but he is no Richard and no Señor Manny.”
As they laughed, it didn’t soften my anger at Lee that he’d adroitly made it clear in that clever way he did all things that he hadn’t been unfaithful with Hector. Small consolation after the affront of being forced to listen to them. There’d been enough galling insults in five minutes of conversation that Leland was lucky I hadn’t wrapped the leash around his throat yet.
“The good ones are definitely harder to find,” Leland said then lifted Ella, put her on her feet, and turned to me. “Take Ella to start her homework, Graham. You’re right, as you always are. I shouldn’t interfere with the schedule.”
That elicited another smirk from Hector.
“No, Daddy. Wanna stay with you,” Ella protested spiritedly.
His face moved close to hers and he shook his head, making his lion mane of golden hair dance. “Behave or you’ll get us both in trouble with Graham, Ella Bella.”
Ella sent me an angry stare, but didn’t move from in front of Leland’s chair. “You won’t leave again, will you, Daddy?”
“No.” He kissed her on the forehead. “Now get out of here and let me get back to work. I’ll see you at dinner.”
Over my dead body if these men were at the table.
“Come on, Ella,” I stated firmly, holding out my hand to her, and purposely avoiding Leland’s gaze.
Relief coursed through my veins when she finally slipped her hand into mine and I could get her out of there. But as I guided her back into the house, I was numb, the way the body felt from the shock of an IED detonating near you.
Another Leland surprise.
Another unpleasant, wholly unexpected discovery: Leland had had a thing with Hector Ramos in the past, and Hector Ramos had known FBI agent Richard Meyers.