Page 106 of Pulse

“You didn’t make it easy. You chose the shittiest motel in existence and paid cash.”

Tomás shrugged. “It served its purpose.”

Tomás. Fuck, he never would have thought. “Why?” Pulse asked because he couldn’t think of anything else. When the cartel came down, the kid could have walked away and lived a safe and satisfying life.

The younger man snorted. “Come on, Max. The feds might not be rocket scientists, but they don’t hire idiots. You know why. It’s simple. You destroyed my fucking family.”

“Your family ran the most violent and deadly drug cartel we’ve ever seen,” he said, gun trained on Tomás. “You hated what they did.”

“You spent years with my goddamn family.” His voice broke as he spoke. “Fucking years. My family welcomed you. Accepted you. My father loved you like a son!” By the time he finished, he was red-faced and screaming.

“It was my job, Tomás. Countless lives have been saved since the takedown of the cartel. Your father murdered anyone who looked at you sideways. Thousands of fatal overdoses were directly linked to the Del Rios Cartel’s supply. My job was to save lives, and I did it well.”

“Too bad one of those lives you saved wasn’t Camila, huh?”

Shot fired.

Direct hit.

It felt like acid being poured into a fresh wound.

“Camila wasn’t supposed to be there that day, Tomás. I did everything in my power to keep her away. I tried every damn day to get her to move away from your family. I showed her pictures that gave her nightmares and begged her to move somewhere safer. The risk of arrest was always high, and the risk of a war with rival cartels even higher. But Camila loved the lavish lifestyle your father provided. She loved the mansion and fancy cars. She loved the diamonds and envious stares everywhere she went. No, she didn’t directly work for the cartel, but she benefited as much as anyone from the suffering of others. Even still, I did everything in my power to keep her alive and will regret her death for the rest of my life.”

“Your regret doesn’t mean shit to me, asshole. My father and brother are behind bars for the rest of their lives, and my sister is dead. The government seized every fucking dollar. I was left with nothing.”

That wasn’t entirely true. Tomás had a trust fund he’d been scheduled to receive when he turned eighteen, only three months after the cartel’s takedown. The US and Mexican governments, working together, decided to leave that money for seventeen-year-old Tomás as a sort of twisted consolation prize for the loss of his family. Financially, he was set for life.

They should have considered his emotional security as well.

“So, this is all one big plot of vengeance against me? Seems like a lot of effort when you could have just hired someone to shoot me in the head.”

Tomás snorted. “There’s that arrogance you feds all have, thinking you’re the center of the goddamn universe. You’re just the first domino to fall, Max. I’m taking down the agency one evil operator at a time.”

A conflicting mix of sadness and satisfaction warred within Pulse, giving him a familiar heaviness in his chest he’d battled with for months after leaving the DEA. Tomás had to be stopped.There wasn’t any way to let him go free. The man couldn’t be bargained with or bought off. Hatred had invaded his cells and ruled his life. Not only was he a direct threat to everyone Pulse loved, but he would topple an entire government agency if allowed to leave today.

Still, part of Pulse took no joy in ending the young man’s life. He’d become collateral damage in a war he should have been shielded from. Another life destroyed by violent cartel life.

“So what’s your plan here, Max?” Tomás asked with a smirk. He still had the towel covering his junk and stood dripping all over the thin carpet. “Shoot a DEA agent in cold blood? One who is down here specifically investigating your club? You think my superiors don’t know where I am? The second I go off the grid, the entire agency will be so far up your club’s ass they’ll be peeking out your mouth.”

“Give me a little credit.” Pulse stood. “Like you said, the DEA doesn’t hire idiots. No, Tomás, that’s not how it will happen, although you are right about some of it.” He took a step closer. The way Tomás frowned as though unable to fathom a way out of this for Pulse had him grinning. The man wasn’t as clever as he thought.

“I am going to kill you.”

“You’ll never fucking get away with it.”

“I promise you, I will. You think you covered your tracks so well. You think you scrubbed your history so clean no one could ever find a link between you and the Del Rios Cartel. I mean, hell, you passed the government’s most invasive background check. But you’d be wrong. Or maybe my guy is just that good. You see, right now, as we speak, your immediate supervisor, his supervisor, and so forth until we reach the tippy top of the DEA, are receiving an email with very detailed background information on their hot-shot young agent.”

Blood leached from Tomás’ tanned face, leaving him with a sickly pale hue. Fuck, it felt good to have the upper hand, finally. To know Talia would be safe and his club could continue to thrive.

Pulse waved his gun with a flourish. “Things like who your father is, who your brother is, what you’ve been doing with the money the government generously let you keep when the cartel was dismantled. I think they’d give me a damn medal for shooting you, frankly, but they’ll never know it was me.”

Tomás’ mouth flopped open and closed like the large fish Pulse had caught a few months ago out in the Gulf.

“You see, as we’re talking, my club is waiting for my signal. As soon as I’ve… done my thing…” He smirked and wiggled the gun. “They’ll be here to assist with cleanup and to transport your body to New Mexico.”

The flash of fear in Tomás’ eyes hit Pulse’s blood like a caffeine surge.

“That’s right,” he said with a chuckle. “My sources are so good they even found out you purchased your father’s old property in New Mexico. Your body will be there, surrounded by more proof of how you’ve resurrected the cartel these past few years. A nice present for the DEA, all wrapped up with a pretty bow.”

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