Page 3 of Reckless Woman
I come with a scream.
He follows with a curse.
I open my eyes to find his fixed on the old farmhouse in the distance. When he lays my exhausted body down on the hood, he’s still hard inside me, but the rest of him is lost to the past.
Talk to me, Joseph…I bled myself for you. I opened every wound. Why can’t you do the same for me?
The metal is burning hot against my bare skin. I push up on my elbows as he slips from my body, my legs tumbling from around his waist.
This time our silence is a never-ending question.
“Did you live here?” I blurt eventually.
His jaw clenches. “Not for long.” He fixes his zipper and winches his belt back together. Darkness passes over his face, and I see the anarchy in his self-control. “But this is where I’ll come to die.”
Chapter Two
Joseph
Carlos Gomez Junior won’t be making his dinner reservations tonight, or on any other night, for that matter.
The writing’s been on the wall for over an hour now, and it’s not just me who’s itching to underline it in crimson. The guy won’t stop fuckingtalking,and the more shit he spews, the bloodier and more protracted his death is going to be.
Give me the order, Dante, and let’s get the hell out of here.
I drank too much last night. My head is pounding out beats like a drum and bass track on acid. From my position by the door, I catch the Colombian’s eye—watching in frustration as it slides away with a measure of disinterest.What the hell is he waiting for?On any other given day, Gomez Junior would be gathering flies on the parquet flooring already. It’s unnatural for a predator like Santiago to delay the killing blow, unless he’s started playing with his prey again…
Since the birth of his daughter, he’s been tamer in that respect—shooting to kill, not wound and torture. But after what went down in Colombia recently, I’ve sensed a shift in him.
Sadism and carnage are back on the menu.
Dante Santiago is slipping back into old habits and enjoying the fall.
“Naturally, I’ll be taking over all of my father’s old processing plants, señor.” Gomez Junior leans back in his chair to puff on his complacency and his cigar, but the smoke encircles his throat like a hangman’s noose. Words delivered with a shit-eating grin carry no conviction around here. Add in the fact that his father held a gun to Anna’s head a couple of months back, and he’s a walking, talking death warrant as far as I’m concerned.
“Is that right?” Dante’s fingers start drumming lightly on the table.
“Rest assured, señor, my loyalty is with you.Onlyyou. I will not be repeating my father’s mistakes.”
“That’s good to know.”
Low murmurs rise up from the other occupants sitting around the table. Everyone can sense Santiago’s growing displeasure, except the one man who really needs to start paying attention.
There are eleven here today. They’re all that remains ofLos Cinco Grandes:the five cartels of the Colombian drug trade, whose kingpins were either killed off, or incarcerated recently. These men are close relatives and loyalists, whose only hope of monetary survival now is to take the knee to the newly resurrected Santiago cartel.
Not Gomez Junior, though.
He’s been stinking up the place with self-importance from the minute he walked in, making it known, loud and clear, that the only kneeling he’ll be doing is in front of his girlfriend’s pussy.
That’s not even the worst of his crimes. He’s ignoring Dante’s niece, Viviana. She’s sitting to the right of him: a fierce diminutive brunette who is quickly earning herself a reputation as a true, no-fucks-given Santiago. Gomez Junior hasn’t spoken one word to her, either in deference or greeting, despite the fact that she’s just claimed the crooked crown of heading up Dante’s organization here in the South.
Dante clenches his palm into a fist, flips it over and taps the back of his wedding ring against the table’s surface. “What about the distribution links to New York?” he asks idly.
“Latest shipment arrived yesterday evening, señor. It’s waiting in cargo for Señor Sanders’ men. As expected, there were no problems in transit.”
“Are you sure about that?” Viviana’s clear voice is like a breath of fresh air in a room muddied with gruffness and testosterone. “Yesterday, I discovered that twenty percent of the shipment had been skimmed off before it reached port. Word on the street is you cut a deal with the Mexicans in New Jersey, and we’re providing the fucking retainer.”
If there’s one thing guaranteed to put a bullet in your skull, it’s forming an allegiance with Val Carrera’s Mexican cartel.