Page 78 of Twin Deception

“That’s your problem. This has nothing to do withme.” Anger rose hotter, and I wanted to scream it. “I cut ties with you. This is your problem, not mine. This is…herproblem. Not mine!”

All I wanted was to live my life free from his corruption and evil. To start a future with a family of my choosing.

“Do you think I give a fuck about you?” He shook his head and laughed. “I don’t give a shit about you. I never have. I wouldn’t have reached out to you. You just happened to be noticed and those idiots thought you were Graciella. I don’t know, with how you’ve let yourself go, but it’s working out in my favor and I’d be a fool to ignore the opportunity for the Cartel to feel like they canget an eye for an eye from Graciella killing that idiot they call a leader.”

He watched me as I sat there silently. Dread built, and I struggled not to panic.

“Now they can just see ‘her’ get killed. In broad daylight.”

My jaw hung open. “Wait.Youput the hit on me?”

He nodded. “Why not? Let them kill you and think they’ve gotten her. Then a few months later and a little plastic surgery, she can slip right back into doing business as usual with me. Then she’ll never be bothered again.”

Blood drained from my face and I felt myself go numb.

He was sacrificing me to spare the twin sister I never knew I had.

29

MIGUEL

Rueben tried to put out the fights more than he tried to help me not get killed. Cartel members were notorious for infighting. Loyalty was supposed to be reserved for the big boss, not each other. And with me being there—seemingly in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong woman—there was no way I could win here.

Too many of them ganged up on me, fighting and shooting. Another bullet hit grazed my skin. More fists and feet hit me in punches and kicks. I stood my own, not falling or letting myself be taken down, but I couldn’t escape. I couldn’t knock them all out or hit them all with my gun.

It was mayhem, and in the middle of it, they took her.

I’d failed my woman. They’d taken Isabel. My sweetheart was gone.

Rueben finally called them all to stop. He somehow got them to stand by and listen to me after I yelled and repeated that they were wrong.

“That’s not her!”

Rueben held the men back, perhaps realizing that he could benefit from whatever he could learn here. That if the woman I was with could bring in a hefty reward for him, or if he could prove the others had taken the wrong one.

“That wasn’t Graciella!”

“It looks like her,” one man said.

“Nah. I don’t remember no tattoos,” another said.

“That was Isabel Flores. Now tell me where they took her!” I grabbed the front of one man’s shirt and lifted him with my fist ready to slam into his eye socket.

“Fuck. That wasn’t Graciella? That’s who the hit’s on.”

“She’s got a sister.”

“Thatlookedlike Graciella.”

They all could figure this shit out later. On their own. All I knew was that they had my woman and I had to hurry after her to save her.

Rueben took mercy on me, realizing too late that there were two women in Louis’s family. Not just this Graciella that Louis seemed to use for business deals, but also Isabel.

They’d targeted the wrong woman.

Mywoman.

Rueben got a tracker from one of the thugs who’d driven off with her, and I didn’t wait. I didn’t stop. With a parting promise that I wouldn’t come back out of my early retirement and kill him if he cooperated, I left following the tracker for one of the men who’d dared to take Isabel.

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