Page 11 of Brutal Enforcer

I had never been quite so happy to hear my fiancé’s voice. “Felix?”

“Lyse?” To say that Felix was surprised was an understatement: I had never heard his voice go so high before. It would have been funny if we weren’t in this situation. “Are you okay? Are you safe?”

“She’s not dead, Mr. Suarez,” Omar growled. “That should make you happy enough for now.”

“You son of a bitch!”

Omar tutted gently. “If you listen to what I’m about to say, I promise she’ll remain perfectly safe with me. If you don’t—” He let the threat hang in the air and my stomach twisted sickeningly.

“What do you want, Castillo? If you touch a hair on her head, you’ll live to regret it.” He spat out the question in a way that sounded so much like Apá that I was taken aback. Around me, Felix was always polite in a distant sort of way. He stared too long at times, but overall, he remained a consummate gentleman. But now, he sounded just like any of my male relatives when they were threatening someone.

“You’re a man with connections, correct?” Omar asked, ignoring the threat entirely.It’s not like he couldn’t crush Felix to death with his bare hands, I thought, and I found myself staring at Omar’s bulging muscles. A little tingle set off in my belly.

Felix was quiet for a moment. “What do I need to do?”

“Get the police to back off,” he said. “I want to come home to my family.”

“You’re asking for the impossible. Your face iseverywhereright now; the feds are getting involved in this. I can’t.”

Omar let out a growl that shook me to my core. I cowered away from him, afraid that he would snap. “If you ever want to see Lyse alive again, you’ll make it happen.”

“Don’t youtouchher.”

There was something about the way he said it that made my skin crawl. Omar, however, grinned savagely, like he’d just been handed the keys to the kingdom. “That’s what gets you off, eh,pendejo? You want your little wifey to only ever have you.”

I clenched my hands into fists, my fingernails biting into my palms. “Felix,” I said and didn’t mask the shudder in my voice. Let him think it was my fear of Omar — that was there too — and not disgust. “I need your help. Please.”

“Lyse,” Felix sighed. “Tell me that he hasn’t touched you.”

“He hasn’t,” I promised and glanced up at Omar, who was grinding his jaw. He nodded for me to continue. “But I’m afraid that he will if you don’t do what he says.”

Omar reached out and touched the apple of my cheek with his fingers, and I jumped back as if he’d scalded me. “She’s very pretty, Mr. Suarez. I would hate to ruin her.”

“I need a guarantee that she’ll be safe.”

“I won’t lay a hand on her so long as you do what I ask.”

“I’ll need some way to communicate with you. A number or an email or something.”

Omar scoffed. “Are we going to be texting buddies,pendejo? No, I will contact you in twenty-four hours, and you will let me know whether your precious fiancée gets to come home or not.”

Felix made a noise that was full of frustration and anger. “You have no idea how big of a fuck-up you are,” he said. “Twenty-four hours isn’t enough time to clean up the mess you made. Twenty people are dead or seriously wounded; you’re on camera stomping a man’s face in.”

There wasn’t a hint of remorse on Omar’s face. If anything, he seemed…impressed with the number. I was going to throw up. “How long do you think I can remain civil, Mr. Suarez?” he asked. “I’m not a patient man; you’ve seen what I can do. I have Lyseallto myself. There’s no telling what kind of games we could play together waiting for you to make this go away.” Omar reached out, viper fast, and wrapped his fingers around my wrist. He squeezed until the bones felt like they were going to snap. “Sing for him,conejita,” he murmured, and I yelped.

“Felix, please!”

“Stop, stop,stop!” Felix yelled. “I’ll do it! Give me one week, and I’ll do it.”

Omar wasn’t thrilled with the amount of time, I could tell, but he accepted. “One week; I won’t touch a hair on her head.” Then he shut the phone, cutting off Felix’s reply.

“Will you really not touch me?” I asked in the silence that followed. Last night, my biggest fear was that Omar would throw me off the boat on the way out of Miami. But today?

He looked at me with a storm raging in his dark eyes. “If he hasn’t fixed this in a week, I’m going to kill you, and I’m going to send you back to your fiancé in pieces. Do you understand?”

I swallowed. My throat felt like it was closing up. After watching him brutalize my family at the hotel, I knew it wasn’t a threat, it was a promise. My blood ran cold as the memory of gunshots rang in my ears. If I hadn’t been there with my cousins, if I hadn’t found them first, Omar would have put a bullet in each of their tiny skulls. Of that I was convinced. I didn’t want to die here, alone on this island. I didn’t want my body to be dumped in the ocean. I tried and failed to keep the tremor out of my voice. “I understand.”

He reached out and touched my cheek again. “Behave,conejita.” Then, he was gone, locking the door behind him as he went.

---