Page 3 of Vaquero
The voice he’d thought he’d heard wasn’t hers, either. It was just the wind moaning over the waves, luring his broken heart with the only thing it had to offer. Cold and final death. Like Bianca’s. Like Tomas’. That was all. In her passive-aggressive way, she’d reached behind her and she’d taken the tiny boy Julio still loved with her.
Dulce Madre de Dios!This was a hard decision. Stay and die? Leave the only family he had left behind? Paloma and Pagan. The men who called him brother. Chance and Kruze Sinclair. McQueen Sullivan. Rick Santiago. Or live, when he couldn’t seem to find any reason to. Rescue other poor, defenseless children. Find a way to breathe around the hole in his heart.
Julio cast a lingering glance over his shoulder, back to where Paloma’s humble little home stood beyond the sandy berm and those gently waving grasses. Back to where she and Pagan were no doubt happily getting busy. Back to where another life might just be starting, if Pagan finally had his way. Julio hoped he did. The man wanted a family more than any man Julio had ever known. Except for him. Only Julio wanted his family back.
But that wasn’t going to happen, was it? He’d lost the right to ever be called lover again.
Husband.
Daddy.
Then Sullivan made it worse. “It’s Oz, Goddamn it. Oz is hunting Duncan and those kids while we’re wasting time talking. You go in now, you secure Duncan and his orphans. Then you wipe Oz’s ugly ass off the face of the earth once and for all. You hear me? With extreme prejudice, by hell.”
Oz.
With that one word, the Earth stopped spinning. The tumultuous waves of the great Pacific ceased crashing. Even the seagulls overhead held their peace. All creation sucked in a combined breath, waiting on Julio’s answer.
He’d frozen, but not in terror. Julio wasn’t afraid, not of Oz, nicknamed after the‘great and terrible’deceiver from the movie,“Wizard of Oz”.Oz, as in Orlando Zapata, the sadistic baby brother of Domingo Zapata, the diabolical spawn from Hell who’d kidnapped and tormented Bianca and Tomas until they’d broke.
If anyone needed to die, it was Oz. Domingo Zapata, too. But, for the moment, he was untouchable, locked away in a top-secret private facility north of Deadhorse, Alaska, alongside the former governor of Oregon, Mick Tennyson. It had taken every last shred of Julio’s restraint not to kill Zapata back then. It would’ve been easy, and he would have done it. No one would have blamed him.
But the memory of his son had stopped him from exacting righteous judgment on Domingo. Pure, sweet Tomas hadn’t asked for the life sentence he’d been given. Neither he nor his father could’ve foreseen the trials he’d had to endure. Julio refused to add the burden of a revenge killing on that small soul’s shoulders. He’d strived to be an honorable father. Had even accompanied Zapata the day he’d been locked forever away.
A man could die in there. Julio hoped Domingo would. Then, and only then, could the need to strangle Zapata with his bare hands until his ugly face turned red, then blue, fade away. Julio’s fingers clenched tight at the thought of that bastard’s black eyes rolling back in his head when he gasped his last wicked breath.
It was hard to breathe. Even now, Domingo Zapata was still killing him.
“I’ll do it,” Julio blurted before he gave himself more time to think.
“Well, good,” McQueen replied, as if he’d known what Julio’s answer would be all along. “Check your email. I sent an encrypted file with what details I know now. You’ll fly out of Houston. Be there by seven tomorrow morning. Locate and hook-up with former US Army Corporal Duncan as soon as you can. I’ll send coordinates where to find him.”
“Sir, may I ask how Duncan knew to call you?”
“He didn’t. Duncan sent word to an Army Ranger I know. Asked for help. Said Oz is after his kids. Don’t know how many. Only know Oz is behind the disappearance of hundreds of adults and children in Minas Gerais, Brazil. He forces them to work his mines. Kills those who refuse. He’s a bastard. Keep your sat phone charged. I’ll forward more info as I dig it up. Be safe.”
The connection ended. Julio sucked in a lungful of the contrary winds blowing off the Pacific. Swallowing hard, he pocketed his cell. Bianca would have to wait.
