Page 111 of Devious Lies

One absolute certainty. And it goes for everybody.

You fuck with a Viper, you get bit. And no one walks away from that.

Matteo Sanchez is about to be wiped from the face of the planet. How he goes will depend on what I find.

He better fucking pray I find her whole.

Unmolested. Safe and sound.

I can’t believe she was taken right off the street. Anger fills me and I know I am being irrational.

But I’m mad at everyone.

At the driver, who wasn’t at his post.

At my girl for walking off alone. At me for not being there.

At this piece of shit I’m about to kill.

It’s a waste of energy and I force myself to stop. Fact is, she is gone. Taken. He has her.

And I am going to get her back. I have to.

Fear pierces my heart, and it’s sharp as a hollowed bullet.

Motherfucker just took her. Like a flower. He just plucked her from the street.

My mind is made up. I exhale and it ends in a rolling hiss.

I'm going to kill Matteo Sanchez.

There is no sanctuary for him.

Today, the absolute destruction of the Sanchez cartel has been etched in stone.

I already have my team moving to push them out of all their legal businesses.

Dozens of tips and files are being sent to the authorities. And leaks of Sanchez’s involvement with drug and arms running have been sent to the local authorities.

Their putrid little existence is over.

This is their end.

They just don’t know it yet.

It all starts now.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE-MARIA

Matteo drags me past a dirty entryway and opens a plain wood door to what looks like a storage room.

But it’s an apartment. Or it would be if people lived there.

I see cardboard boxes and wood crates. There’s a ceramic vase on a table with some packing straw and the thing is all cracked.

A man is digging inside, and he’s removing bundles of what looks like sugar.

But it’s not.