Page 4 of How Much For A Broken Heart?

“There’s a car seat, but it’s empty, and we don’t see human remains inside.”

As the cops asked questions, and Molly arrived, a new panic took root. My mind raced, thoughts tumbling over each other. Where was Annie? Had someone taken her? The heat, the flames, the lifeless bodies of her father and Max—all of it paled in comparison to the cold dread that settled in my stomach.

Annie was gone.

Ran for her life? Wandered away?

Or taken by whoever had killed her dad.

Chapter Two

AUGUST

Two years later

I wasn’t surprised to see that my fellow cartel lieutenants Eli Brennan and Colter Diaz had gotten here first, which made me the final member of the unholy triad left to run this ship, just as I’d planned, but not without a shit-ton of collateral damage.

I heard the shouting before I saw them, rounded the corner expecting them to be killing each other, but it was Eli doing all the shouting, and Diaz sprawled in his chair as if he didn’t give a shit. One day, those two would take each other out, and I was going to be there to watch it.

The final two.

And then, whatever shadowy figure running all of this would be mine alone to kill.

In the dimly lit back room of an abandoned warehouse, where the cartel often held its impromptu meetings, I found Eli pacing like a caged animal. The news of the arrests had reached him, and his usual easygoing demeanor was nowhere to be seen.

“Three gone!” Eli’s voice was a strained whisper, his hands running through his curly hair in agitation. The air was thick with tension and his temper.

I leaned against the cold wall; arms folded. “It’s a big hit,” I acknowledged, keeping my voice level. In this line of work, staying calm under pressure was crucial, but inside, I felt a pinch of satisfaction that my intel had gotten three of the cartel’s lieutenants off the street, along with a significant number of lower-level assholes.

Three arrested. One dead. Two more to go.

And the boss. Whoever that was.

Eli stopped pacing and turned to face me; his eyes wild. He was always the one who panicked, and how the hell he’d lasted this long in the organization, I didn’t know. He was far too quick to put a bullet between someone’s eyes when his back was against the wall. He’d take himself down one day by not thinking rationally, and it would be me who did the killing.

“Someone’s ratting us out,” he snapped. “It’s gotta be. There’s no other way the feds could’ve gotten to the others.”

The possibility that he’d think there was a rat had crossed my mind, too—a mole in the organization would spell disaster and have fingers pointing at me, and I’d had to consider all angles before jeopardizing my mission by giving Sanctuary the names and the authorities the means to get to them. “Then, we need to be fucking careful,” I snarled the rehearsed words, then pointed at him. “You’re all friendly with Charleston PD, was it you?”

Eli bristled, confronting me, shoving at my chest. I stumbled back as if I’d lost balance—best to let him think he could get the better of me.

“I’m not a narc,” Eli growled.

“Well, one of us is responsible.”

Eli’s frustration was palpable. He slammed his fist against the wall to the side of my head, and I fake-flinched. “If there was a plant, and it comes back that it was one of ours, then it’s us who’s gonna pay.”

He wasn’t wrong. Each lieutenant in this organization—the three of us who were left—had a group of foot soldiers, and yeah, some of them had the potential to be turned.

Ask me how I know.

“They even got Mason,” Eli added. “He’s not just another grunt; he’s been part of this the longest, and he knows more than any of us. If they break him, fuck, we’re dead. All of us.”

Mason was the lieutenant of the Cooper River Cartel with the most seniority and for the longest time, I considered he might be the boss, but I disproved that after fucking him like his closeted ass begged, then, digging out information before adding him to the list I gave to Sanctuary. He wasn’t the boss—he might have been the longest-serving lieutenant, used that to control some of the others, but he was lowly, like the rest of us.

The implication that Mason might talk hung in the air.

Diaz shook his head, about the only thing he added to the conversation, his ever-present Sig cradled in his lap and his cruel eyes fixed on some point in the distance. Diaz was the most dangerous lieutenant. He planned and killed with military precision and strategic thinking, cruel and vicious, he ran the gun side of the business.

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