Stripping Her Defenses (19 page)

“We need to go, Chavez. And we need to leave them alive so the Feds can get what they need out of them.” His order to Arturo was firm.

Arturo nodded his head and then fired four rounds so fast no one would have been able to stop him. I was a little shocked Arturo would so blatantly go against orders when he had been the most obedient soldier out of all of us. The sounds of two criminals now screaming in pain was my only relief. He hadn’t killed them, at least.

Looking over, I watched as the blood spurted out from their legs, leaking down to the floor of the van beneath their flailing bodies.

He’d shot out their kneecaps, just as he’d done to Medina’s driver.

Arturo walked up to Jaxon, his face blank, waiting for our Commander to reprimand him.

Jaxon surprised us all when he slapped Arturo on the shoulder and said, “At least we don’t have to worry about them getting away now. Declan, put some tranq darts in those three to shut them the fuck up. Their whiney ass screaming is going to make my ears bleed before we get out of here. Now, let’s boogie before the cavalry arrives, boys.”

I’d always respected Commander Jaxon Wall. How he had dealt with Arturo and whatever demons the man was obviously battling was only one of the reasons why.

~~~

“Let’s have a chat, shall we?” Declan murmured as he straddled a chair in front of a bound Medina.

We were holed up in a foreclosed house Uncle Sam had given us the coordinates for in Jean Lafitte, Louisiana. It was roughly forty-five minutes from where we’d taken Medina, and now the rush was on to get him to talk. We had a bird waiting for us at nearby Alvin Callender Field, the Naval Air Station.

The tranq darts we had used on both the DEA agents and their subjects would knock them out for another three hours. However, we didn’t have three hours to wait for Medina to come around. Wyatt had hooked an IV up to him and then injected Narcan into his line. The bound man went from unconscious to wiggling and screaming through his gag in minutes. Now he was glaring at Declan over his gag.

“I guess you’d like your gag taken off now. Seems only fair since I want to chat and all. You going to do anything stupid like scream?”

Medina shook his head no, but none of us believed him.

Arturo was standing directly behind Medina’s chair out of sight with his Ka-bar knife in hand. Baker loosened the piece of cloth that had been used to gag him, and as soon as it fell down around his neck, Medina threw his head back and opened his mouth to yell. All he got out was a strangled short scream before Arturo’s knife was digging into the side of his neck again, breaking the surface and causing a small trickle of blood to start flowing.

Declan ‘tsked’ at Medina’s actions. “Thought you were smarter than that. Oh, well. Now, let’s move on. The Rivera Cartel has been a bunch of busy little bees, Julio. By the way, you don’t mind if I call you by your first name, do you?”

Medina didn’t answer.

“Anyways, we don’t want to know everywhere y’all have been buzzing, though. We only want to know about one little thing. The women.”

Medina’s eyes glittered with rage and determination. He wasn’t going to be easy to break. It would be interesting to see how Dec handled this.

After a few moments of silence, Declan sighed. “I’m trying to do this the nice way. You really don’t want me to go about it the unkind way, do you? Help me out here, Medina. We already know your group has been kidnapping women all along the south and selling them into slavery. All we want to know is to who you’re selling them to.”

Medina gave a humorless laugh, and then his heavily accented voice said, “Fuck you, pendejo.”

“Was that supposed to hurt my feelings, Julio? If it was, let me tell you, I’m crushed. Why don’t you make me feel better and tell me what I want to know?”

Arturo dug his blade a little deeper, near the carotid artery, and Medina winced. Our captive was sweating now, figuratively and literally, yet his mouth was set in a stubborn, mulish line. I didn’t think it would be moving of its own accord anytime soon.

Looking over to Dec, I marveled a little at his look of absolute patience. If given an unlimited amount of time, Declan could talk anything out of anyone. He had a golden tongue and an air about him that, after time spent in his presence, made you want to tell him things. This was one of the reasons why my brother was a player. He could talk a nun out of her panties. It was also what made him one of the best interrogators the Navy had ever seen. I didn’t think he was going to be able to talk Medina into giving us what we wanted, though.

We didn’t have time for Dec to talk Medina around. We needed to get our info, get to the air field, and get the fuck out of here. By the look on his face, my brother already knew we were going to have to move to the drastic measures now, instead of giving Medina any more time to stay clammed up.

Declan sighed as he stood up from his chair. With a feigned sense of sadness on his face, he told Medina, “I swear I tried to do this the nice way.”

Dec pulled out his pistol and slowly screwed a silencer onto the end of the barrel. Medina, the dumb fuck, watched my brother with a gleam in his eye, as if he thought it was all a front and Dec wouldn’t do anything. He even laughed when Baker put the gag back in his mouth. Then, Dec pointed his gun to Medina’s left foot, which was tied by his ankle to the chair leg, and fired.

Medina screamed behind his gag until Declan reached over and slapped him in the face so hard he shut up out of shock.

“How about now, Julio? You want to tell me what I want to know now?”

Medina didn’t say a word, probably because he was damn near hyperventilating due to the pain.

My brother didn’t wait longer than thirty seconds for him to respond before he then shot Medina in his right foot.

Once again, Dec asked, “How about now?”

Medina was still screaming in agony behind his gag when Dec pulled the trigger a third time. That bullet tore through the lower half of his left leg, and then Dec immediately shot him again through the lower half of his right leg.

Medina was screaming like a banshee at this point, tears rolling down his face and snot leaking from his nose, soaking into his gag.

“How about now, motherfucker?”

Medina nodded his head up and down so hard he looked like a giant-sized bobblehead.

Arturo reached up with his free hand and tore the gag off.

“Lazaro Sandoval,” Medina croaked in agony.

“Who is he?” Declan questioned.

Medina moaned in agony as Arturo’s knife started digging into his neck again. “Mob.”

“Do I need to start shootin’ more holes into you, Julio, or are you gonna give me what I want?” Declan raised his gun, aiming at Medina’s thigh this time, but stopped when the man started begging.

“Wait!
Wait
!” Medina screamed. “Sandoval is the head of the Cuban mafia. I was supposed to meet him tomorrow at the docks south of Bayfront Park!”

Declan growled, “What time?”

“One in the morning,” Medina wheezed.

Declan looked up to Jaxon, who gave him a nod. This part of the job was done. It was time to move on.

Declan then looked over to Baker, who had been patiently waiting in the wings during the whole interrogation. Dec jerked his head over, indicating Medina was all his.

I watched as Bobby Baker stalked over to stand in front of Medina, who was now back to crying at one glimpse of the murderous look on Bobby’s face.

When Arturo removed his knife from the man’s neck and got out of the way so he wouldn’t be in the line of fire, Medina started begging and pleading for his life. Baker ignored those pleas and stuffed the gag back into his mouth.

Pulling both of his pistols out of his double holster, Baker aimed the weapons at Medina’s lower gut. “This is for Laura and Belle.”

Simultaneously firing both guns, Baker first shot one in the lower gut, and then kept firing as he moved his pistols in an upward trajectory to Medina’s shoulders. It was eight shots in all, hitting his gut, stomach, and then lungs. No immediate killing shots, although a death sentence, nonetheless.

Baker looked at all of us. “Let him bleed out. He deserves it.”

As we started to file out of the house into the three car garage where all of our vehicles were parked, I heard Baker say to Medina, “Adiós, asshole.”

Chapter

18

Kara

In less than a week, I’d run into my ex-husband, whom I had left high and dry, had my studio vandalized, all of my equipment destroyed, and now, I’d apparently been shot at with multiple automatic weapons. This made for a super shitty week of epic proportions.

The only highlight of said super shitty week was turning the negative aspects of Riley showing up into positive ones by the means of apologizing for my actions that contributed to the ending our marriage and reconnecting with the man I loved. The same man who was now storming through the door, wearing a look on his face that could kill.

Well, if he wanted to kill somebody, he could join the damn club. I’d formed it hours earlier after I heard Hammer inform Ice that we’d been shot at by something along the lines of AK-47s. Then, when the two of them continued talking as if I didn’t exist at all and started talking about the possibility that this could be tied to ‘Sullivan’s shit,’ I promoted myself from creator of the ‘I’m Gonna Kill A Bitch’ club to the fuckin’ president.

I’d spent the last twenty-four hours wondering what kind of crap Riley had put himself in the middle of that people would shoot at me with automatic rifles. At least no one had come after me personally when I had been a Navy
seal
wife. All I had to deal with then were my husband’s long absences and loneliness. Now I had to deal with bullets?

Oh, hell no!

So, while I watched Riley storm towards where I sat on the couch in Ice’s office, I mentally counted down all the ways I could hurt him. I could kick him in the nuts. No, I might get over being mad at him and want to use those nuts later. I could hit him upside the head with a frying pan. No, again. If I did get over being mad at him and wanted to use his nuts, I would want to look at something pretty while he was fuckin’ me. That meant not messing up his pretty face.

That’s when it hit me. I could break his legs with my baseball bat! While he was laid up in my bed healing, I could use the time to calm down. Then, when he was halfway healed, I could climb up and ride him like a rodeo queen when I got horny while staring at the pretty face that I didn’t bash in with my frying pan! That idea worked.

Still thinking he was storming straight to me, I jumped off the couch, ready to give him a piece of my mind, but Riley didn’t stop when he reached me. No, he wrapped his hands around my waist, lifted me off my feet and then turned and set me down so I was behind him. Then he turned back around and faced Ice and Hammer as if he had moved a lawn ornament out of his way and not his wife.

Or ex-wife.

Whatever.

I slapped my hand on his back to get his attention, but he ignored me, addressing both of the men who stood in front of him in a scary voice I had never heard him use before.

“Was it your shit that shot up her studio?”

Wait. What?

He was asking Ice if it was his fault I’d been shot at. I thought it was Riley’s fault! What the hell was going on here?

“None of the Regulators’ business has ever touched Kara, and nothing ever will. Can you say the same, Sullivan? You come to town, and suddenly she’s got holes in her wall where her head had been only seconds before.” Ice’s voice was a low, deadly growl. I shivered from top to toe, and it had absolutely nothing to do with the visual he had painted.

“What about the man the police picked up? He saying anything?” Riley asked.

“Our sources say he clammed up. Won’t say a word,” Hammer replied.

I heard a frustrated growl come from Riley. “You know who he is? Maybe recognize him?”

This time, it was Ice who replied testily. “We’ve got a name from a source, but no details. My boys are already huntin’ that information down. What are your boys doin’?”

This was bullshit.

Riley had tried to treat me like the helpless little woman by shoving me behind him. Well, I might not know how to fire an automatic rifle, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t look out for myself or bust somebody in the head with my baseball bat! I wanted to at least know what was going on and not be talked about like I wasn’t standing in the damn room.

Looking out from around the black, T-shirt covered back in front of me, I saw Hammer standing there, appearing as though he was ready to spring into action at any second. Ice was the complete opposite. He was leaning against the front of his desk with his arms crossed over his chest, almost as if he didn’t have a care in the world. I didn’t need to see Riley’s face to know what he looked like; every muscle he had appeared to be tense and vibrating with anger.

In other words, I was in the middle of a bad-ass alpha man argument, which was sort of like a ticking bomb—it could explode at any given moment.

Having zero patience for this since it was my head that could have exploded the day before, I stepped around Riley and stood sideways to keep both men in my line of sight and then screamed, “Well, if it’s not Ice’s shit, and it’s not Riley’s shit, then somebody needs to figure out
whose
shit it is! The only holes a girl wants in her head are usually the ones she puts in her ears. Since my ears are already pierced, I’m not fond of the idea that someone might want to put holes anywhere else in me!”

A hard tug on my elbow had me colliding with Riley’s body. His fingers wrapped around my chin to turn my face towards him. His eyes roamed over my features, and then his face softened, causing butterflies in my tummy. I could be in the middle of a war zone, and I’d still get flustered, all warm and gooey on the inside, if Riley looked at me like this. Like he thought I was a treasure and he was the person meant to cherish and protect me.

“Calm down, babe. If it’s not connected to Ice, then I’ll figure out what’s going on because it sure as hell isn’t anything that has to do with me.”