Page 341 of The Black Trilogy

Nick paused next to me and jerked his head towards the stairs. I nodded my agreement. As we got halfway to them, a muffled boom shook the house, originating from the opposite end. Nick glanced at me, and Nate quickly came on the radio to confirm his team was okay. I shrugged and carried on walking.

“Keep going. We haven’t come this far to give up now.”

It was the right decision.

We found Hector Ramos in his bedroom, crouched in front of a safe, stuffing paperwork into a duffle bag.

His eyes widened as he saw us, and he reached for the gun on the floor next to him. Nice try, estúpido. I shot it out of his hand before he got it halfway up. A couple of fingers went with it. The bullet kept going through his balcony window, and the acrid smell of smoke drifted in through the hole the shattered glass left behind.

Under normal circumstances, I’d have been professional and just killed the man, but this was too personal. I stalked over to him, leaving Nick to watch the door. Hector collapsed back on the bed, clutching his hand and muttering curses. What a drama queen.

I stopped out of arm’s reach and looked down at him. “Why?”

A fleeting flash of recognition lit his eyes, but after calling me a mujer loca, which I took as a compliment, he fell silent. So I shot him in the foot.

“I said, why? Why did you kill Charles Black?”

He let out a howl of agony before fixing his gaze on me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Did he think I was stupid? His knee went next.

“All that time you thought I wouldn’t bite back? Well, I was just sharpening my teeth.”

He simply glared.

“And then you tried to kill me. Do you have a death wish?”

Oh, if looks could kill… But they couldn’t, and he clenched his jaw in an attempt to control the pain.

“Why didn’t you stay out of our business?” he asked. “I warned you enough times. You left us no choice.”

“I didn’t even know I was in your business, you idiot. Your threats were so vague, I had no idea what I could and couldn’t do. Then you were dumb enough to send fourteen men to my home. Fourteen! You might as well have shot them yourself and saved the airfares. Put that together with killing my husband in front of me, and you know as well as I do I couldn’t let that go. And my question is why?”

His face hardened, and I was about to shoot him in the other knee when he started laughing. “You’ll never know.” He laughed harder, as if it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. “You’ll. Never. Know.”

Forget the knee. I shot him between the eyes, the brain spatter vastly improving the appearance of his ugly bedspread. Parrots were so last year.

Nick stared at me as I gathered up the papers that were so important to Ramos and stuffed them into my rucksack.

“Don’t look at me like that. He deserved it.” I had a quick poke around in the open safe. The rest was all cash and drugs, and I didn’t care about either.

“Poor guy didn’t know what he was up against.”

“I’m the black freaking widow, Nicky.” I finished rummaging and straightened up. “Chop chop, no time to waste. We still have two Ramos brothers to find.”

He shook his head and followed me out, informing the rest of the team over the radio of Hector’s not-so-sad demise.

We didn’t see another soul in the house, at least until we reached the lounge. There, we found Dan slumped in an armchair with a pistol in her hand as Jed bandaged up her leg. Blood oozed through the dressing as he twisted the tourniquet tighter.

“What happened?”

He pointed at a dead guy sprawled across the floor, an assault rifle lying out of reach beyond him.

“That guy came out of nowhere and hit Dan before we could get him.”

“How bad is it?”

“The bullet missed the bone and artery, but there’s still a lot of blood.”

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