Page 13 of Till Death Do Us Part

“Cut the lights.”

He turned off the headlights and slowed. The sliver of moon and thousands of stars overhead did little to light the way. My blood grew warm in anticipation, the way it did whenever I was on the verge of a fight. Some men may take that sensation as a cue to run. Not me. My hands itched for my guns and knives. I wanted to find the motherfuckers who dared to mess with us and make them pay.

Maybe we’d let one go—with his dick in his pocket—to take a message to his fellow Russians. Don’t fuck with the Roríguez cartel. If you do, you’ll never fuck again.

Em slowed the car even more. “Look out there on the road.”

“Looks like fresh tire tracks.”

He turned my way with a grin. “Ready to fuck up some Russians?”

“Si, amigo.”

The two of us worked well together. We’d known one another most of our lives. The Ruiz men were some ofmi padre’sbest soldiers. UponPadre’sdemand for me to spend more time in the States, it made sense that I’d be stationed near one of our highest-producing operations.

We drove the next mile in silence, our windows down. Our vision and hearing were on high alert. Bugs and reptiles filled the air with sounds as our eyes adjusted to the darkness. This was whymi padrewanted me in the States. Emiliano was a fucking good soldier. So was his cousin Nick.Mi padretrusted the Ruizes to do their jobs. Emiliano’spadre, Andrés, had spent his life making our organization wealthy.

That was the problem.

The more we made, the stronger we became, and the more of a target we were. It wasn’t only the Russians who were fucking with us. It was also the Taiwanese. Truth be told, we weren’t one hundred percent certain of who we’d find when we located our stolen merchandise.

Em cut the engine. About five hundred yards away were lights—bright lights. In the middle of fucking nowhere, they had to have a generator to produce that kind of electricity. There were only a few reasons why anyone would need that much light way out here. One was that they were counting the bales of cocaine. The second was one that caused me to remove my gun from my holster—a human-trafficking drop.

Quietly, we both got out of the car, crouching low to the ground.

With a nod to one another, we moved slowly and steadily through the underbrush at the side of the road, going toward the fucking lights. There was little chance that they’d be able to see us in the darkness. Their damn lights could illuminate a fucking baseball stadium.

I reached out, stopping Em’s progress at the sound of muffled crying.

Fuck.

His gaze met mine as we both pulled a second firearm from our arsenal.

The sickening feeling I’d had was right. This wasn’t only a place to count their bounty of drugs. This close to the border, these assholes also had women and probably children. It was too easy for the coyotes to seduce immigrants forced to stay in encampment sites inMéxicowith promises of the land of the free and all the other bullshit. Only freedom wasn’t the destiny of these people. It was servitude.

The Roríguez cartel made our fortune in drugs. We weren’t boy scouts by any stretch of the imagination. That said, we didn’t traffic humans. Shit like what we were seeing would be blamed on us, and that had to stop.

Depending upon the age and physical characteristics of the smuggled people, they would be sold either as sex slaves, prostitutes, or domestic help. If they didn’t speak English, there was an even better chance they’d never get away with their lives.

Em and I lifted our faces, counting our adversaries. He held up four fingers. I did another scan. Four was all I could count. Four men. The other people were sitting tied together on the ground with gags in their mouths. I wasn’t sure how many hostages were present. Currently, they weren’t our concern.

Once we killed the motherfucking smugglers and thieves, we’d worry about the cargo.

The four men were speaking in Russian, laughing, and busy counting the bales—ourbales. No doubt that they had money signs dancing in their heads. It would be the last fucking thing they had in their heads, well, other than our bullets.

We nodded to one another, our heads bobbing in rhythm. On the count of three, we both stood. From about fifty feet out we were both scarily accurate with our shots. The women screamed as the four men systematically fell to the hard-packed ground.

Em and I hurried forward, our guns still out and ready.

A collective whimper came from the smuggled people. The women were dressed only in their bras and underwear. The few men or boys were wearing only boxers. Despite the earlier heat, the night had brought dropping temperatures. They were shivering. Of course, the blood spatter from their kidnappers dotting their exposed skin could also be a cause of their trembling. Wide eyes looked up at us as Em and I checked the pulses of the four men. One of mine had a weak pulse, nothing another bullet couldn’t fix.

The blast echoed through the dark expanse of desert-like terrain.

“How many?” Em asked the bound people. He asked again in Spanish.“Cuantos hombres?”

It was a thin woman to the side who answered.“Cinco.”

Fuck.

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