Page 89 of Cartel Viper
This isn’t puppy love by any stretch. And this isn’t just heat of the moment, deathbed confessions either. I can tell it’s more than that. It’s so much more.
We have a reprieve from anyone following us for the moment. I hear Elle speaking to Enrique, but I miss some of it, as I remain lost in thought. However, I snap back to the present as we pull up in front of a house.
“Grab the bag, Madeline.”
We’re here.
We don’t drive toward the garage, but we’re as close as we can get on the street in a gated community. I suppose someone could assume the car belongs to someone else who lives on this street. It doesn’t directly tie us to Elle’s old house.
I realize Elle didn’t live far from the neighborhood she and Enrique live in now. She moved into his home. This neighborhood isn’t as lavish as his. It’s more like the one I grew up in, definitely more than just comfortable, but not mansions.
There are trees on one side of the house that provide a measure of privacy from her neighbor. I follow her to a side gate, uncertain what she holds up to the security box. She doesn’t enter any code, but I hear it unlock. She pushes it open and shuffles me through. She closes it with barely a click. We move together. She with her gun raised facing forward, and me twisting to look behind us. She leads me over to the back door before she pulls out a lock-picking set from her purse.
She’s fucking Mary Poppins of cat burglars.
Who knows what she’ll pull out next? She opens the back door and freezes. I hear an alarm system beep.
“Stay here.”
She keeps her voice down, but I realize hearing the alarm system reassures me no one else is home. She hurries to the keypad on the wall between the kitchen and living room. She enters something that must bypass the code the new owner’s set. I can’t imagine how she would have theirs. The beeps stop for a moment. Then I hear three more as she somehow resets it. She comes back over to me.
“If it stays off, it’ll send an alert to the owners. I just needed it off long enough to set it to the perimeter rather than the internal sensors.”
I nod. It makes complete sense, but I don’t know what to say, having just broken into a house for the first time. She’s had her phone cradled against her shoulder since we got out of the car, so she continues her call.
“Enrique, we’re in. I’m taking her to the basement. You know I’ll lose the call once I’m down there.”
“Do you have jammers with you?”
“Yes, I’ll set them up in the basement outside the panic room.”
That shouldn’t surprise me since Drew kept cell jammers in the house too. That’s the least alarming thing I’ve heard so far.She hangs up with Enrique as we head down to the basement. I watch her pull a small device from the gun bag I’m carrying. She sets it up outside the door to what looks like a basement pantry or storage closet. We go in, and she flips a light on. The room is empty with nothing on the shelves.
“You said this was a panic room originally.”
“Yes, my boys and I made it when I moved in. When I sold the house after Enrique and I got engaged, we remodeled it to make it look more like a storage room than anything else.”
“Why did you even need that?”
“There’s stuff in my past you’ll learn about in time. But you should know I’ve been Mafia adjacent my entire life.”
“Mafia adjacent?”
What the fuck does that mean?
Chapter Twenty-Five
Maddy
“I know that’s vague, Madeline. But for right now, it’s best if that’s as much as I tell you.”
My brow furrows at that. Elle doesn’t trust me. I’m not family yet, so she won’t tell me anything more. I get it. But it certainly leaves far more questions than answers. The best I can do is nod. There’s nothing to sit on in this room now, so we both lower ourselves to the floor. I tilt my head back and close my eyes for a moment as I catch my breath and try to regroup.
“Madeline, I don’t know Drew, but I know of the O’Sheehans. I know that family’s reputation. Do you know what I mean by that?”
I shake my head, dreading whatever’s coming next. There’s been entirely too much revealed to me in the past few days. My head feels like it might explode if I learn anything else. Perhaps I can figure out more about Elle from whatever she shares now.
“I just told you I’ve been Mafia adjacent. You must know by now that means a specific type of family.”
