Chapter 1
Viviana Moreau tugged the skintight, gold lamé sheath dress over her curvy hips. With a naughty giggle, she thought that if she had paid by the yard for the outrageous garment, it would be the least expensive dress she’d ever worn. The strapless gown relied on her bosom to hold it in place. Fortunately her lush breasts, surging over the top, seemed up to the job, if barely. Ending a few scant inches below her firm, toned bottom, there wasn’t much more of the dress below the waist than there was above. Bending over to shove first one foot then the other into the five-inch hooker heels she bought to compliment the shocking dress, Viv winked at her reflection in the full-length mirror.
Tossing her wavy blonde hair over her shoulders in a cascade of shining glory, she congratulated the smiling woman. Face it, if anyone could do “slut on the make,” she could. God knew she had enough practice. Although Viviana admitted that tonight she may have outdone herself. Given the cesspool of humanity she was about to enter, it was just as well she was flying solo on this mission. She had convinced Travis Jensen, her uptight, by-the-book squad leader, that he could protect her better from the outside than from within. Particularly since she fudged the truth a tad when she had assured him that their captain had signed off on the undercover operation.
Surveying her risqué appearance, Viviana knew that neither Lieutenant Travis Jensen nor Captain Oscar Michels would have agreed to let her walk out the door dressed the way she was, much less enter a literal den of thieves—make that drug dealers. Which, she conceded with a dispassionate shrug, was just what she was about to do. Shoving at what should have been legitimate concerns about the propriety, let alone the riskiness of the venture she’d undertaken, Viv congratulated herself that she’d made it to Belize without incident. And, except for the fact that she wasn’t exactly authorized to be here, she was closer to taking down Martinez Flores than she’d ever been.
Ignoring the third and increasingly concerned message from Lieutenant Jensen insisting that she return his call, Viv allowed herself to revel in her afternoon adventure. Determined to sample the world-renowned diving cliffs in Belize, she’d made her way to the one closest to the snazzy resort she was staying in. An avowed adrenaline junkie, Viviana didn’t know what was more exhilarating—diving naked into the glass-like pool twenty feet below or clambering buck-naked up the hill to collect her abandoned cover-up. Granted, the filmy garb wasn’t much cover, but it allowed her a smidgen of decency as she scampered back to the elite resort.
An appreciative shiver rocketing through her core, Viviana admitted that the most exciting element of the forbidden escapade was realizing that her outrageous stunt had been observed. As she had yanked the scrap of gauzy material over her wet, bodacious body, she saw him across the ridge. At first she thought the tall, dark-haired man with designer shades hiding his eyes was a figment of her overblown imagination. After all, what could be more enticing than being spied on by a man who was sure to be a handsome stranger? How could he not be? All tall, dark voyeurs had to be handsome as well as dangerous, right? Acknowledging that ninety percent of the men staying at the resort were affiliated with the Muñoz cartel, Viviana hoped that her voyeur was an interloper. Merely a fellow risk-taker, planning a cliff dive of his own. She had snickered at the thought, wondering if, like her, the watcher would make the dive in the full Monty, sans clothing. She hoped for his sake he did. Her naked leap had hit a solid level six on her ten-point orgasmic thrill guide.
Hearing the insistent buzz from her cell phone, Viviana hauled it out of her purse. The name on the caller ID confirmed that her luck had run out. It was one thing to ignore the persistent messages from her overwrought squad leader. It was quite another to ignore her captain. Assuming a nonchalance she was far from feeling, Viviana planted a smile on her face, hoping that its cheeriness would gravitate to her voice.
“Good evening, Captain Michels. I’m delighted—”
“Goddammit, Moreau! Don’t even try. I’m telling you, Detective, this time you’ve gone so far off the reservation, it would take a goddamned fucking cavalry to bring you back.”
Viv interrupted. “Sir, I understand your concerns, but—”
“Damn you, Viviana. You do not understand. If you had any idea how truly angry I am with you, you’d know better than to try to sweet-talk me. All I want to hear from you, Detective, is that you decided to take an unauthorized vacation to Belize to work on your suntan.” Ignoring her attempt to break in, her clearly irate supervisor continued, “What I do not want to hear is that you had the audacity, against my direct orders, to follow a man you are convinced is Martinez Flores to a high-level meeting of the Muñoz cartel!”
“But, sir, he—the man I’m following—is Martinez Flores, and you are correct, he is at a meeting with the Muñoz cartel.”
“I will not ask you how you know that, Sergeant Moreau. I will only ask what the goddamn fucking hell does it matter if your mystery man is Flores or Genghis fucking Khan? I told you specifically, in the clearest language I am capable of, that you were to let go of your death wish and stay the hell away from that dangerous asshole.”
Viviana took a deep breath and risked his escalating anger. “Please, sir. Let me speak. You know I have been tracking Flores since the botched raid in Tucson. When I saw him in that dive in Tijuana, I knew I not only had a chance to avenge the death of two of my fellow officers but also to bring down an international criminal.”
“Since I specifically told you that under no circumstances would I sign off on such a harebrained, dangerous mission, you intended to do that how, Detective Moreau? Head for fucking Belize and take the drug dealing felon down all by your itty-bitty self? Once again, against my direct orders?”
“I…I know you weren’t exactly in favor of my plan—”
“Goddammit, Viviana!”
“Sir, listen to me, please. Give me a chance to explain. I know I’m taking a chance, but we both know that the man I’m tracking is Martinez Flores. Moreover, I’ve managed to work my way into his inner circle. I promise you, he hasn’t recognized me. He doesn’t know that I’m a cop. How could he? He thinks I’m a bar slut on the make.”
Her commander’s aggrieved sigh was audible. “I do not want to know how you convinced him of that, Detective Moreau…”
Given it was the first thing he’d said to her without yelling or swearing, Viviana pressed her minimal advantage. “Please, sir, hear me out. Yes, I should have gotten your permission. And I shouldn’t have implied to Lieutenant Jensen that you had approved the mission.”
Not wanting to throw her squad leader under the bus, Viviana chose not to tell their captain that after Viviana had recognized Flores in Tucson, she and her squad, with Jensen’s permission, began tailing the known Muñoz cartel honcho. When Viviana overheard Martinez and his buddies discussing the meeting in Belize, she begged her squad leader to let her go. After underscoring the obvious dangers, Lieutenant Jensen had put his hands up in defeat. With a discouraged groan, he muttered, “And if I forbid you to go, Detective Moreau?”
Mick O’Reilly, her partner, had guffawed. “Hell, Lieutenant, why bother? You know damn well no matter what you say, she’ll go anyhow. Leave it to our blonde bombshell to figure out a way to turn your tentative nod into full-scale approval.”
A week later, Viviana sent Lieutenant Jensen a selfie of her boarding the plane to Belize. Sending a picture of Flores standing among a group of Hispanic men, Viviana then texted him, assuming she had his support with a “minor” overstatement. “It’s a good thing I have your permission, Lieutenant. It looks like the conclave in Belize is attracting more cartel big shots than we knew.” With a smiley face emoticon, she added, “Don’t worry, Lieutenant. I’ll keep in touch. You know you can count on me to be careful.”
After a rancorous, hour-long call with Captain Michels and a nearly silent Lieutenant Jensen, Viviana managed to convince her irate captain that it would be more dangerous for her to abruptly leave the secret rendezvous than to stay. Still furious with her for disobeying his orders and promising retribution when she returned, Captain Michels agreed that Viviana’s best chance of coming out of the mission alive was to keep the undertaking off the official books. Before he closed the call without so much as a good-bye, Captain Michels warned Viviana that if she and her miniscule team weren’t back in San Jose in three days, he truly was going to send in the cavalry—in the form of the DEA, FBI, ICE, and every other goddamned agency he could rustle up.
With a hard sigh, Viviana tried to put the challenging conversation behind her. Tonight was going to be difficult enough. She needed to be at the top of her game. Thinking about the disgusting cartel member she’d managed to suck up to, Viv gave an aggrieved snort. Damn, the least her uptight captain could acknowledge was that she’d pulled off a major coup. After all, how many San Jose PD detectives had managed to work their way into what could be a major meeting of the Muñoz cartel? Make that one: her.
Granted, she had to latch on to a truly despicable man in order to attend the meeting. Grimacing at the thought of the oily playboy she was now forced to treat as a man she couldn’t live without, Viviana called on her well-established repertoire of slutty, come-on behaviors. Her never-fail antics had worked with every man she’d ever used them on. The struggle for Viviana in her undercover roles was that the men she had to suck up to were often the scum of the earth, as despicable as they were dangerous. And she admitted that Martinez Flores ranked among the most dissolute. He was disgusting, boorish, and looked at her with ill-concealed, lascivious intent. It was clear that he thought she was as loose and lewd as her practiced routine implied.
Viv sighed. Keeping Flores at bay wasn’t going to be easy. She had insisted on having a suite of her own, but to no avail. She fully understood that an evening of hardcore drinking, coupled with the belief that women were good for one thing and one thing only, made her vulnerable to the overtures of the obnoxious drug lord. Besides, it wasn’t as though she could get help from any of his colleagues. As a whole, the dangerous men shared Martinez’s view of women, especially women who looked and acted like Viviana did.
Taking one last glance at her reflection in the mirror, Viviana confirmed she looked as hot as her wanton role required. She tucked her trusty balisong blade in the stealthy sling on the inside of her thigh. She would only use the vicious blade as a last resort. To keep Flores at bay, she relied on the dreaded monthly curse, the age-old subterfuge of women the world over. In the event that menstrual blood wouldn’t stop Martinez, she slipped a couple of Fentanyl pills in the inner pocket of her purse. Dropping the high-powered opiate in his fourth or fifth glass of bourbon would ensure that Flores would never know what hit him. Viviana would be able to breathlessly assure the disgusting man, struggling awake the next morning from a drugged sleep, that she’d never been fucked as thoroughly or as outrageously. It would never occur to the pathetic man that she was lying. After all, in Flores’s mind, he was a virile Lothario. Women should be so lucky that he’d chosen to fuck them.