Page 16 of Fast Justice

Hijo de puta. The Guadalajara operation was one of his biggest, taken from Ruiz after he’d been captured. Manny had modernized it, spent a few million giving it extra security and camouflage and hired the leading drug mixers to produce his trademark product—Asian heroin cut with just enough carfentanyl to ensure addiction, but not kill the majority of its users.

Dead users meant fewer customers and less demand for his product. Manny was okay with some risk in his business dealings and didn’t mind the body count his drugs racked up as long as he created more addicts than he lost.

Now it was gone, and he’d have to scramble to replace it somewhere new before supply was completely disrupted.

“Call Montoya.” His chief enforcer. “He’ll deal with it.” Ruiz wanted war? Manny would snuff out his pathetic resistance in the most brutal way possible. Brutality was the only language an animal like Ruiz understood. How the hell was that stupid fuck attacking him from the inside of a U.S. prison, anyway? Manny wanted every last one of the bastards still loyal to Ruiz dead. As for Ruiz, it would take time to get to him in a U.S. federal prison. But it could still be done.

“All right.”

Manny punched the end button and stomped on the brake and clutch, simultaneously cranking the wheel to the left, swinging the Jag around in a tight 180 that made the tires squeal. He gunned it, heading back to the house. There was a phone number hidden in his office safe there, one he’d never used before. The only contact number he’d been given forEl Escorpion.

He’d held off on calling it after Oceane and Anya had fled because Manny’s position in the cartel was new and a little precarious as he was still proving himself. He’d gone to great lengths to downplay to cartel insiders the seriousness of what had happened, spreading a rumor that Oceane and Anya had merely gone on vacation after the attack.

El Escorpionhad a ruthless reputation, though neither Manny nor anyone else in the cartel had actually met the organization’s leader. If you embarrassed the cartel in some way or did anything to make him question your loyalty, you and your family were wiped out on orders fromEl Escorpion.

The only exception was Ruiz, who’d been taken alive by the Americans, and now that bastard was a continual thorn in all their sides.

As soon as he got into his office Manny would call that number because things had gone too far. It was time to bring in whatever assets he could to get Oceane and Anya back, then destroy Ruiz’s lingering grip on this country.

Today was the beginning of the end of this turf war.

****

Fernando Diaz paused with the bite of huevos rancheros poised halfway to his mouth when the ring of a phone came from down the hallway. The only landline in the entirehacienda.

All conversation at the breakfast table ceased instantly, his mother, wife and two young children staring at him expectantly. They all knew what the phone signified, though not all of them knew what it was used for.

Wiping his mouth with a crisply pressed linen napkin, he pushed his chair back and stood. “Excuse me for a moment, darlings.”

As usual, his mother’s light footsteps sounded behind him on the tile floor as he headed out of the kitchen and down the hall to the locked office at the end.El Escorpion’sprivate domain.

The phone continued to ring as he looked into the retinal scanner installed beside the door and pressed his right hand to the keypad so it could read his palm and fingerprints. Seconds later the elaborate electronic locking mechanism flipped open. The door snicked open.

Pushing it aside, he strode for the desk, looked back at his mother as she shut the door and stood watching him. She raised a silvery eyebrow at him. “Are you going to answer that?”

A call at this hour meant bad news. He’d had his fill of that lately with Ruiz and was tired of dealing with infighting bullshit.

He picked up the receiver, hit a button to put the conversation on speaker so he wouldn’t have to relay everything to his mother afterward. She might be in her seventies, but she was still as sharp and nosy as ever. The line was heavily encrypted, the technology updated weekly to avoid hacking attempts by the Mexican and American authorities.

“Yes?” A state of the art program would synthesize his voice so it couldn’t be identified by any computer systems. Or so he was assured.

“It’s Nieto.”

“Manuel. What can I do for you?”

Fernando listened as Nieto described what had happened with his daughter and former mistress. Or current mistress, Fernando never had understood the nuances of their complex relationship.

“It’s Ruiz,” Nieto said flatly. “Has to be. I don’t know how he’s doing it, but his network is still active.”

Fernando met his mother’s stony gaze, noted the telltale set to her jaw that he knew so well. Carlos Ruiz had been a pain in the ass and a proverbial thorn in the cartel’s side for too long. Fernando had mistakenly thought that being locked up in an American prison would end the problem. “You have permission to go after what’s left of his organization, and the cartel will back you up if necessary.”

“Thank you. I truly appreciate your support in this.”

Fernando liked Manny. Far preferred him to the likes of Ruiz, and yetEl Escorpionwas far too wise and experienced to fully trust any of the cartel’s lieutenants. “You’re welcome. But make no mistake, Manuel, the organization will not tolerate any further risks to its operations. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“Good. Now I’ve got to get back to my family.” He ended the call, set the receiver back into place and looked at his mother again.

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