Exposed (5 page)

Sometimes he thought it might be kinder to tell her the truth about the things he’d done, which would surely kill her. She wouldn’t have wanted to waste away like this. But he couldn’t let her go. Couldn’t bear the thought of losing the only human connection he had left in this world.

Julia regarded him for a long moment, her clear, sky blue eyes so beautiful he couldn’t look away. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Been busy with work.” So many scumbags to kill, so little time.

She nodded. “Well, it’s good to see you.” Without another word she got up and began gently manipulating the joints in his grandmother’s gnarled fingers, her hands and wrists.

Bautista watched her, drinking in the sight of her, fit and graceful. He loved watching her move, with total surety. It alarmed him a little, how much he liked being around her. He’d thought he was dead inside, that he’d long since lost the ability to care about someone other than his grandmother. Over the past few months, Julia had proven him wrong.

“So,” she finally said, casting him a sidelong glance with a little smile that made his heart kick. “Are you ever going to ask me out?”

He stared at her for a moment, at a loss for words. He’d known they were working their way to this point for a while now, but he didn’t date. Ever. Had no interest in it.

He never let a woman in, except for a fast round of sex. He gave the whole wham-bam-thank you-ma’am thing new meaning. On the rare times he wanted to get laid he found a willing woman and fucked her, then walked away. They never knew his name, never knew anything about him.

And neither does Julia.

A tendril of shame curled inside him, shocking him. He’d learned long ago how to ignore the occasional twinges from his conscience, something that rarely happened anymore. But now his conscience pricked at him like sharp needles.

Julia didn’t know about the blood staining his hands, his soul. She thought he was a devoted grandson and an upstanding, successful businessman who drove a Lexus and traveled frequently on business trips.

She didn’t realize what he was capable of or what he did to earn the small fortune he was sitting on. That his victims usually begged for death before he gave it to them. That he
enjoyed
the release of it. And for some reason knowing he was lying to her made him feel…rotten inside.

Looking at her now, for just a moment he let himself imagine what it would be like to have a normal life. To get out of this game, start over somewhere and be able to do simple things like date if he wanted to.

The thought was far more appealing than he’d imagined it would be. As was the image of Julia sitting in a chair next to him on a white sand beach in the Caymans, where all his money was safely accumulated in accounts listed under various shell companies.

Virtually untraceable, at least to him, unless someone knew about him and exactly what they were looking for. He had enough to live ten lifetimes on and keep his grandmother here with the best care he could offer for the rest of her days. The trust he’d set up ensured she’d be taken care of if anything happened to him. A likely scenario, given his line of work.

Money didn’t drive him anymore. Maintaining his reputation, and power, did.

“Well?” she prompted, raising one eyebrow as a smile tugged at her lips. “Unless…wait, is that my foot I taste in my mouth? If so, just forget I said anything.”

He shook his head, not wanting her to feel embarrassed. She was wonderful with his grandmother and he liked her. Enjoyed being around her. She made him feel alive inside when he’d been ice cold for so long. “You don’t want to go out with me.” She deserved better than a liar and a killer.

She blinked, her smile fading. “I don’t? Why’s that?”

“I’m not good enough for you.” Not even close.

Her eyes stayed on his, steady and eerily knowing somehow. As though she could see past his polished exterior to the darkness inside him. There was no way she could know, yet every once in a while something about the way she looked at him roused his suspicion.

Which was crazy. He’d checked her out thoroughly in the beginning. She was a twenty-six year old accountant who’d recently relocated to Miami from Tampa, and now volunteered here in her spare time. Not even a parking ticket to her name.

“I think that’s up to me to decide,” she said softly.

For the life of him he didn’t know how to respond. He knew he should get up and leave, or say something abrupt to take the warmth from her eyes.

But he couldn’t do it. Him, the trained assassin, unable to hurt this woman’s feelings. It made him want to laugh at himself.

“So. Dinner? Whenever you can squeeze me in,” she added.

He couldn’t help the involuntary twitch of his lips. As close to a smile as he’d given in memory. It felt weird as hell. “I can’t,” he heard himself say.

Rather than pout or get angry, Julia merely measured him with that direct stare for a long moment. “Then how about I give you my number in case you change your mind?”

He already knew where she lived, but didn’t say anything as she recited her number. Her persistence, her confidence even in the face of his rejection, made him like her all the more.

Still maintaining eye contact, Julia rounded the foot of his grandmother’s bed and started toward him. He stiffened as she approached but didn’t move as she reached for his hand. Her fingers curled around his, cool and soft. So fucking soft.

“I hope you’ll change your mind,” she murmured, then withdrew her hand and headed for the door. She paused there to shoot him a smile over her shoulder before disappearing into the hallway.

Heart pounding, he glanced over at his grandmother, felt the smile spread across his face.

Guess I’m not dead inside after all
, abuelita.
Maybe there’s hope for me yet
.

Chapter Four

Wow, this guy was a real prince.

Just when she thought she knew all the ugly things involved with this case, something worse surfaced. Marisol shook her head as she read through the latest information she’d compiled on Diego Fuentes. Men like him were the reason she’d wanted a job with the U.S. Attorney’s office in the first place, so she could help put them away forever.

She’d known he was the worst of the worst in the drug trade, but uncovering all his dark deeds was a constant eye-opener. In addition to his drug trafficking empire, she’d found at least some evidence that he’d also been involved with weapons smuggling, and two witnesses willing to testify claimed to have info on possible human trafficking as well. Selling women into sexual slavery in South America and the Caribbean.

That part turned her stomach more than anything.

As the biggest kingpin of the drug scene in the Gulf region, with his empire stretching south even into Mexico and parts of the Caribbean, Fuentes was also responsible for the murders of at least twenty-three people over the past four years.

Those were just the cases they could confirm. Marisol and her team had some evidence of dozens more. Fuentes never did the dirty work himself, of course, always having subordinates carry out the hits instead. Still made him guilty as shit.

She blew out a breath and pushed away the legal pad she’d been scribbling notes on, preferring to write things out longhand before typing them into a proper document in her computer. They definitely had enough evidence to have a jury reach a guilty verdict on the racketeering and trafficking charges. Finding people willing to testify against Fuentes in court was proving far more difficult.

She had three meetings with potential witnesses lined up next week, including one down in Key West. And now that Fuentes was behind bars, his so-called “lieutenants” were having a full-out turf war. Willing to kill each other and anyone else who stood in their way from taking over Fuentes’s role.

They all knew the U.S. Attorney’s office was trying to cut a deal with Fuentes, trying to get him to roll over on his lieutenants in exchange for a reduced sentence. Now all the lieutenants were scrambling for more territory, more power.

More murder victims were turning up every day across Miami and south Florida, the sudden increase in body count courtesy of the cartel’s lethal enforcers. Dangerous men who lived in the shadows and didn’t think twice about taking out a rival.

She looked up at a soft knock at her door. Her assistant, Emma, stood there, her caramel-brown hair wound into a sleek bun at the back of her head. “You about ready for a break yet? I ordered us some lunch,” she said, pushing her black-framed glasses up higher on the bridge of her nose.

“Yeah, that sounds good. I’m starving.” With this kind of workload she’d been pulling ridiculously long hours over the past few weeks, and it was only going to get worse leading up to the trial itself. “Did you confirm the meeting with Clancy next week?” The key witness had insider knowledge about Fuentes’s financial activities, and hopefully, some evidence on the human trafficking so they could bring charges.

If that happened, they’d want to put him on the stand to nail Fuentes on those counts. Whether or not they could make it happen remained to be seen.

“I talked to him again this morning. We’re still on for Monday at nine.”

“Great. Just let me finish up this last file and I’ll join you in the staff room.”

“Okay.”

Marisol typed up her hand-written notes into the document she’d prepared, then saved it and shut down her computer. Grabbing her purse, she took out her phone to check for messages. Emma was under strict instructions not to forward any phone calls to her desk unless it was urgent and directly involved in the Fuentes case, and Marisol always silenced her phone when she was working. Too many distractions otherwise.

And speaking of distractions, there was Ethan’s number on her display, along with several texts asking her to call him. She’d been too tired to talk to him last night after she’d dragged herself home from the office just before midnight, and too busy today.

She had a voicemail too. Punching in her code, she waited for it to play back.

But it wasn’t Ethan’s smooth, deep voice on the other end. An electronic, synthesized voice spoke instead.

Marisol Lorenzo, you are in serious danger. Stop working on the Fuentes case now, before you and people you care about get hurt. You’re being watched. This is your only warning
.

The message ended abruptly.

She disconnected, a wave of cold suffusing her. Barely anyone had her cell number outside of her close friends, family and coworkers. Had someone involved with Fuentes’s network tracked down her cell number? It wouldn’t be that hard to get her number and given her job she’d known something like this might happen with one of her cases.

Concerned, she left her office and went straight to her boss’s. Frank Escobar sat behind his massive, antique walnut desk, poring over a thick stack of files before him.

He glanced up at her when she shut the door behind her, and frowned. “You okay?”

She nodded. “You got a second?”

“Sure.” He leaned back and indicated one of the leather chairs in front of the desk.

She sat, crossing her legs at the ankle and slid her phone onto the desk. “I just found this when I checked my messages and thought you should hear it.” She played it for him.

His dark eyebrows crashed together at the end of the first sentence, and the frown became a full-on scowl by the time the message ended. He looked up from the phone, his deep brown eyes intense. “Who sent that?”

“I don’t recognize the number. But it’s a Miami area code.” And if someone had taken the time to digitize their voice, then they had to be using a burner phone.

Frank picked up the phone to examine it himself. Still staring at the screen, he reached for the landline on his desk and dialed out, holding the receiver to his ear with his shoulder. “Agent Lammers, it’s Frank Escobar. Something’s just come up and I want you to look into it personally.”

Marisol stayed put while he outlined the message, gave a brief overview about the case they were working on. Not much needed to be explained, because the detective would know all about Fuentes and they’d worked with him quite a bit on the case already.

While listening to him, she ran through a list of possible suspects in her head. People they’d contacted about the case, witnesses they were trying to secure for testifying. Dangerous people with even more dangerous connections.

And they’d singled her out personally. Maybe because she was a woman and new to the job? Did they see her as the weak link on this case? The thought made her feel even colder.

“Great. See you in twenty.” Frank hung up, settled his gaze on her. “He’s heading over now with a couple other guys. They’ll take your statement, start looking into who it might be.”

She let out a relieved breath. “Good.” Although her line of work didn’t gain her a lot of friends in the criminal underworld.

Frank grunted. “It’s probably nothing. Not the first time we’ve gotten threats around here,” he added with a smile. “Rarely leads to anything worse.”

Well it was the first time she’d ever been threatened directly, and she didn’t like it. Being mentally prepared for this possibility and facing it for real were two very different things. “I’ll feel better once it’s been investigated.”

“Of course, of course,” he said. “Come on. Let’s go eat while we’re waiting. Don’t say anything to the others.”

“I won’t.” No sense upsetting everyone until they knew for sure if the threat was credible or not. She didn’t have much of an appetite but followed him to the staff room where the other assistant attorneys and staff were gathered. Today it was Mexican, picked up from a place just down the street. Marisol forced herself to eat half her chicken burrito but barely tasted it.

Special Agent Lammers and his team arrived right on time. Emma glanced at her with wide eyes when she saw them but Marisol didn’t say anything as she headed back into Frank’s office with them.

The FBI agent was a solidly-built man somewhere in his mid-forties. He listened to the message on her phone, gathered some more background information from her, then started asking more pointed questions.