Page 89 of Wild Angel

I walk around the table, my shoes smearing maggots into the grouting. Leaning closer, I look past the writhing, decomposing flesh around Doc’s throat.

“Strangulation,” I tell Vito.

He makes an unhappy sound, but I think that’s because he’s investigating Doc’s wife. “Slit throat.”

We don’t bother with the kids. They were afterthoughts. Plus, I’ve seen enough dead children to last me a hundred lifetimes.

Nothing can desensitize you tothat.

“You’re right,” Vito says, ashing his cigarette on one of the dinner plates. “Even Diego isn’t this fucked in the head.”

Diego Ortega, Capo of the Bogota cartel, is a few years younger than me—his father was shot and killed in a raid about five years ago.

And Vito is right. He’s a goddamn sadist, but this isn’t like him. He likes things messy and loud and explosive. He’d have blown Doc to pieces with a car bomb, not set up some sick mockery of the Last Supper.

“We have to get this cleaned up,” I say, reaching for my phone. “Call your guy down at the mortuary and set up an autopsy—”

My hand brushes my shirt.

Fuck. I keep forgetting I left my goddamn jacket at the villa. I snap my fingers at Vito, who’s walking around the open plan living room. “Phone.”

He turns, cigarette dangling from his lips as he holds open his blazer and reaches inside for his phone.

We both freeze at the click of a safety being turned off.

Moving just my eyes, I stare at the hallway where a thirty-something woman with strawberry blond hair in a tight bun on top of her head is holding a Beretta on me.

My men searched this place before we arrived.

This woman must have been hiding somewhere…but where? And for how long?

“Who the fuck are you?” I demand, dropping my hand. She can see I’m not packing—unless I stashed a little Walther CCP in my sock.

“I’m the one asking the questions,” she snaps back. She’s wearing pale, torn jeans with a splotch of blood on one knee, and a black long sleeve shirt. No jewelry. No watch. As plain and ordinary as can be.

Pale green eyes switch from me to Vito, and then back again. “Caesar and Vito Domingo.”

When neither of us says anything, she steps out of the shadows. Her hand is tight around the weapon, but her arm is trembling. Nerves, or anger?

I lift my hands, and Vito is quick to follow suit. “Obviously we didn’t kill them,” I tell her.

She sneers at me. “But you know who did.”

Vito starts shaking his head, and is about to say something when the chorus toI’m Sexy and I Know Itblares out of his blazer pocket.

The woman’s arm jerks, but thankfully she controls her trigger finger else I would have had a fucking hole in my chest.

“Put the safety back on,” I tell her, dropping my hands a little.

“My gun, my rules. And get your hands up!”

“Okay, relax.” I lift my hands a little higher.

Vito reaches for his phone. The gun swings to him. He grits his teeth at the woman. “If I don’t answer, they’re gonna come inside.”

The woman’s eyes flicker between us, an obvious battle waging in her mind as she tries to decide to believe us or not.

“Tell them you’re busy.”

---