Page 16 of Killer Secrets (Tempting SEALs 5)

Killing agents was something Ian preferred not to do, but when a man had the barrel of a gun aiming in his direction, he did what he had to.

"I have to head back to town this morning." Ian glanced at his watch and grimaced. "I'm meeting one of our lawyers at the casino. One of our Miami clubs seems to be losing a tidy little profit. I want to know why."

"Why did you not have him come here?" Diego stared back at him in angry confusion. "You do not go running like a hound to the underlings, Ian. They come to you."

"Good idea, pop." He sneered. "Let's just throw a party for all of them so they can scope out our security and hit the house in the dead of night. Why the hell do you think so many of your friends end up dying in their beds from an enemy bullet?"

Diego's expression flickered with anger. "I am aware of the risks to this life. I have lived many years and survived many attempts against mine. We are Fuentes. We do not hide and we do not scrape to those beneath us by observing their rules. They come to us."

"And Sorrell has managed to turn some of your most loyal associates his way simply because of your arrogance," Ian snapped. "Let's not make this harder than it already is. I'll be back in a few hours. Until then, try to stay out of trouble."

Diego hated nothing more than being talked to as though he were a child, and though Ian tempered it, there was nothing he delighted in more. He was afforded very few pleasures in this little game he was playing and he took them where he could.

"Should I consider myself under house arrest while we are at it?" Diego burst out angrily as Ian made to leave the room. "You will not tell me who I may or may not invite into my house."

Ian shrugged. "Invite them all for all I care. I don't sleep deep enough for anyone to slip into my room unawares. You do, though. I'd remember that."

He opened the doors and stepped into the foyer before Diego could say more.

"Mendez, have Deke and the others join us outside," he ordered the waiting bodyguard. "We have a lawyer to meet."

Ian strode through the marbled foyer to the front door, almost grinning as the houseman rushed to open the wide doors ahead of him.

He stepped onto the sunlit portico, gazing at the ferns, palms, and swaying greenery that surrounded the large circular driveway and sheltered the paved road that led from the gated entrance. The entire property was enclosed by a ten-foot stone wall that Ian had had wired for security. Guards were posted around the property, and the additional training Ian had insisted on had paid off several times when attempts were made to slip into the estate.

He was vulnerable and he knew it. Shoring up his defenses and inspiring loyalty throughout the Fuentes networks was imperative now. He needed men who were loyal to the heir of the cartel rather than the cartel leader himself. Soon, Ian would know every dirty little player, every scumbag assassin and petty drug dealer Diego possessed.

He would know the whores, the pimps, clubs, and owners and which location yielded the highest sales. He was gathering the names of political buyers and sellers as well as those within the law enforcement community that not just Diego, but a dozen other drug kingpins, were blackmailing.

By the time he brought Sorrel and Diego down, there wouldn't be a secret of Diego's that Ian didn't know. And that brought satisfaction. If he lived to achieve his objective, then two fewer drug-dealing terror-selling sons of bitches would cease to breathe air.

He should feel a measure of guilt, he was sure. Diego was after all his father. The same father whose wife had nearly killed Ian's mother, as well as Ian. Who had been responsible for the most terrifying night of a ten-year-old boy's life. The night his mother had lain bleeding to death in his arms.

Because of Carmelita Fuentes. Because Diego was a drug-dealing slime pit with more enemies than friends and hands so bloodstained Ian could smell the stench of them anytime he was around the other man.

And soon, his own hands would carry the same stench, Ian thought with a sigh, as Deke pulled a white Range Rover to a stop in front of the villa.

Rather than driving this time, Ian stepped into the back seat, accepted a briefcase from Mendez, and opened it as the doors closed and the vehicle drove way.

The fourth bodyguard was in another Rover behind them, providing backup and an additional vehicle in case this one encountered any unforeseen accidents. In this business, Ian had learned to expect the unforeseen.

DIEGO WATCHED AS THE ROVERS left the estate, a frown on his face, his jaw clenched with worry and concern as Ian left the protection of the estate. He worried, a sign of old age perhaps. Each time Ian left, Diego feared it would be the last time he saw him.

"El Patrón." Saul entered the breakfast room, closing the doors behind him and facing Diego with an inquisitive expression. "You sent for me?"

Saul was old. His shoulders were stooped, his dark eyes a bit dull, his face creased with age. He had been Diego's father's most trusted advisor. At Carmelita's death he had returned to Diego's s

ide.

Diego nodded slowly. "Have you learned anything from our sources?"

Ian had eliminated the spy in the U.S. government that Diego had drawn closest to him, Jansen Clay, but there were others, much more important contacts, who relied upon Diego as much as he relied upon them.

"No teams are being sent for him, as you requested." Saul stepped to the sideboard and prepared himself a plate of fruits and sweets. "There are reports that Durango team, the friends he fought with, have protested this action vociferously, especially the one known as Macey, but they are being contained. Orders have gone out to watch his actions only, and to learn what he has planned. It seems the Americans are more concerned with your promise that Ian will eliminate Sorrell than they are with capturing a traitor." Satisfaction echoed in Saul's voice, as it did in Diego's heart.

"The boy, he takes too many risks." Diego sighed. "He goes now to meet with lawyers rather than having them come to him. As though he dares Sorrell or the other cartels to strike at him."

"The other cartel leaders are learning to stay out of his way, Diego. As with yourself and the Americans, they merely watch him."

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