Page 36 of Beat of Love
Rafferty stumbled back to the sleeping bag and settled against the tree trunk. The Sig P365 dug into his spine. With a grimace, he leaned forward and pulled it free, balancing the compact pistol in his palm.
You almost fired it tonight, Trick, old boy.
He hadn’t felt the need to carry since coming home, but the meeting earlier with the DEA had set him on edge.
He thumbed the release and caught the magazine as it dropped free. Then he racked the slide, ejecting the chambered round, which he caught before it hit the dirt. Rolling the bullet between his fingers, a shudder wracked his body. The small piece of lead and copper could’ve ended her life.
You’re not in any state to be carrying.
He pushed the round back into the magazine and set both it and the pistol on the ground beside him.
You’re not alone in the field anymore. And there’s a small army of security watching for trouble.
He leaned his head against the rough bark and closed his eyes. Snippets of the meeting with the DEA agent in Brazil replayed in his mind.
Infiltrated penthouse in Manaus.
Kamila Carvalho not in residence.
Documents found in her office.
Aerial shots of Blaze County.
And Lawson’s Landing.
Rafferty cursed again.
Kamila. Beautiful. Lethal.
Chefeof the Fantasma Cartel.
But he hadn’t knownthatsalient detail when he’d first set eyes on her all those months ago in a bar on the banks of the Negro River in Brazil …
The overhead paddles beat a futile rhythm against the relentless and cloying heat circulating through the rooftop bar. He was on his sixth, or maybe seventh glass ofcachaça. The drink distilled from sugarcane juice tasted vile — imagine a nauseating mix of rum and vodka — but it dulled his senses, and that was exactly his aim.
For so long his soul had burned with revenge.
But now?
Sweet vengeance was a misnomer. A fallacy.
There was nothing sweet about his soul.
There was no sense of relief. Nor accomplishment.
None.
Just the sick taste of self-disgust.
Of shame.
He lifted the drink to his mouth and slugged it back.
And that was when he noticed her.
His eyes widened, and he slowly lowered the glass to the wooden counter.
She was just what he needed.
