Hard Target: Elite Ops - Book One (11 page)

Shit.
His Ruger wasn’t there. It was still sitting on Anna’s bedside table next door. He been so distracted by the derailed sex, he’d forgotten to pick it up before he left.

Hell, his dick might just be the death of him.

He swung back into the hallway flattening his back on the wall beside the doorframe.

What was he going to do now?

Chapter Eleven

L
ELAND STOOD WITH
his back against the wall, considering his options. Someone had been in his room since he’d moved Anna next door. They could still be there.

He wasn’t sure
who
this whole kidnapping thing was about. Him or the Mercados? But at this point what else could the kidnappers possibly want?

A chair creaked in the gloom behind him, and he caught the familiar whiff of distinctive cigar smoke. Letting out the breath he’d been holding, he peered around the corner to see a cheroot’s glowing tip in the darkness.

“Hosea Alvarez, what the hell are you doing here?” Leland flipped on the light and shut the door behind him as he stumped into the room, relieved and pissed at the same time.

“Is that any way to greet your best informant?” The voice was heavily accented and cocky. Just like Hosea.

“I repeat. What are you doing here?” demanded Leland.

“Just checking on my amigo and stopping by to give a little friendly advice on a mutual acquaintance.”

“How did you find me?” asked Leland.

With his ear to the underbelly of crime in the city, Hosea was a gun-for-hire for those on the shady side of legal activity in Dallas. He’d previously worked for the Vegas, but after a stint at Huntsville he’d found less lethal and more legal ways of making money. Leland suspected the man knew where the bodies were buried for more than the Vega cartel.

He had been one of Leland’s best informants for the past five years. While they weren’t exactly friends, he certainly trusted Hosea more than his other sources.

“After the events of the evening, your location is not exactly uncommon knowledge. A little bird told me where to find you. I gotta say: As a safe house, this place sucks.” Hosea shook the ash from his cigar into the empty scotch glass from earlier.

Leland ignored his purposeful jab and focused on the important information in Hosea’s commentary. “Ernesto Vega’s people?”

“Surprisingly, no. It wasn’t anyone connected with Ernesto. At least, not any longer. Besides, now that they’ve seen how your testimony went at trial, I don’t believe the Vegas are inclined to harm you. In fact, Ernesto wanted me to offer you a job. He thought you might be looking for one after today. I don’t think he was completely joking.”

“Right.” Leland snorted. No way he’d believe that.

Ernesto Vega would just as soon ice Leland as look at him. He’d cost the cartel too much in lost product. Ernesto’s brother Cesar had threatened to kill Leland’s extended family the last time he’d busted a shipment.

Leland had gotten that comforting tidbit directly from a Vega lieutenant in custody. Just another reason to be grateful he was single. “Not sure I buy that, Hosea.”

“Believe it. The man is truly grateful for what you did.”

Hearing that made Leland sick to his stomach. “I wasn’t testifying for the Vega cartel.”

“I know but it turned out that way and they don’t forget those they owe. Ernesto has this thing about pay back, the good and the bad.”

“Cut this bullshit. Who told you where to find me?”

“Someone who does not necessarily have yours or Ernesto Vega’s best interests at heart.

“They’ll have to get in line to be on that list.”

Hosea smiled. “Regardless, I thought you should know. This man is no one’s friend.”

“Who we talking about?” asked Leland.

“Juan Santos.”

Leland froze. “What the hell?”

“One of your favorite people, no?”

Leland snickered sarcastically to hide the white-hot fury welling up inside him at the mention of the snitch whose faulty information had destroyed so many innocent lives. “Oh yeah. Juan’s a great guy.” He let the sarcasm go at that.

Hosea Alvarez was an informant, just like Santos had been. Except Hosea’s information had always been good and had never lead to a fiasco like the Colton raid. Leland wasn’t going to air the DEA’s dirty laundry with him. Even though the man probably knew more about Santos’s involvement with the Colton disaster than he should.

“Is Santos still working with Tomas Rivera?”

“Last I heard, but who knows anything about Santos for certain. The man is certifiable. I saw him earlier this evening.”

Leland listened without interruption, focused on hiding the tension in his face.

“Your name came up,” Hosea continued. “You’re famous, you know. Being on FOX and all that shit.”

Leland rolled his eyes.

“Santos told me where you were.” Hosea’s tone changed. “That concerned me, so I decided to check on you myself.”

“Why would Santos care to know my location? It doesn’t make sense.”

Leland wasn’t working the Rivera cartel. There was no reason for Tomas Rivera or his informant to be interested in him. Leland’s own dubious cable-news fame aside, multiple other DEA agents were assigned to the Rivera cartel.

“Can’t tell you that. Rivera has taken over most of the territory in Eastern Mexico and is in the process of moving his operation across the country and further into South America. Maybe your work on the Vegas pulled you into some of Rivera’s areas and you didn’t realize it.”

Hosea took a long drag on his cigar, and Leland waited him out. Taking a seat on the edge of the bed, he took the weight off his ankle.

The excruciating irony here was that Tomas Rivera and many of his men were once members of the Mexican Special Forces, tasked with taking out the Vega cartel. The US had even trained Rivera’s brigade in techniques to aide in the “war on drugs.” But that was all from the distant past.

Before Tomas decided it was more profitable to sell drugs for the Vegas than to stop the spread of cartel violence, with their superior training and brutal tactics—Tomas’s men, along with Ernesto and Cesar Vega—quickly became the most feared cartel in Mexico until they had their own falling out and parted ways.

“Do you know why the Riveras and the Vegas quit working together?” asked Leland.

Hosea usually had the scoop on everyone, but this time he shrugged. “The details have always been pretty sketchy to me. Maybe some kind of family thing? You do know that Tomas is married to Ernesto and Cesar Vega’s sister, right?” said Alvarez.

Leland felt his eyes widen in surprise. “What? No, I didn’t realize that.”

Hosea nodded, happy to be telling what he knew. “Yep. Carlita Vega married Tomas Rivera, must be over twenty years ago. I was barely more than a kid myself and had just started working for the Vegas.”

How did Leland not know this? He’d been working the Vegas for five years. The length of time Tomas had been married sort of explained it. A completely different group of agents was investigating back then, but still. A family connection like that would certainly have been noteworthy.

“This was way before Tomas left the Vegas,” continued Hosea. “Hell, Tomas and Ernesto were closer than Ernesto and his own brother Cesar for a long time.”

“Any idea what happened?”

Leland had known Tomas was married but didn’t know the wife was Vega’s sister and he was sure no one currently at the DEA had ever heard a whisper of it either. Why the hell hadn’t that information been in the case notes?

What else did he not know?

His informant shrugged again. “I was in Huntsville when whatever happened to break up that alliance went down. All I know is that the families don’t work together now—not ever.”

Leland’s laugh was mirthless. “Well, whatever the reason, it’s a good thing for the DEA.”

Alvarez nodded with a bleak smile. “If the Riveras and Vegas ever join forces again they’ll be all but impossible to stop.”

Leland shuddered inside. God knew it was hard enough now to keep the cartels in check with the two families working separately. He stared at the smoke curling from Alvarez’s cigar. The hotel management was going to have a fit over that, but he wasn’t about to complain.

“Word has it Tomas was behind that Mexican journalist’s murder last month,” offered Hosea.

Leland raised an eyebrow. The journalist in question and his wife had been tortured, disemboweled and hung from a bridge in the middle of Boca del Río last month, all because of a story written about the Rivera cartel. Leland wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Juan Santos had been part of that grisly scene.

Hosea continued to study him through the cigar haze, but Leland didn’t want to share the dismal thoughts running through his mind. “I still can’t understand what Santos or any of the Riveras would want with me,” he said. Up till now, Tomas Rivera and Juan Santos had been someone else’s headache.

“Hell, I don’t think it matters whether you understand the why of it or not. According to what I heard, Tomas Rivera’s got a serious hard-on for you. I’d watch my back if I were you.” With that Hosea stubbed out his cigar and stood to leave.

It was a little late for “watching his back” where Zach was concerned. Did any of this have to do with the boy’s disappearance, or was Santos’s interest all a separate issue having to do with Leland and his work with the DEA?

Kidnapping the boy simply because Leland’s recent testimony had inadvertently benefitted Tomas Rivera’s enemy, Ernesto Vega, seemed a stretch as a motive, even in the über-vindictive world of cartels.

Nothing made sense, unless . . . “Do Rivera or Santos have any dealings with Max Mercado of Mercado Tequila?” Leland asked, still aching to confirm that he himself wasn’t the cause of all this misery for Zach and Anna.

Hosea tilted his head. “The Tequila King? Don’t know. Rivera has his fingers in a lot of different pies these days, all in the name of diversification. Santos works for whoever pays him the most.”

“Mercado’s boy disappeared tonight from this hotel room. I want to find out if the kidnapping is related to me or to Max Mercado.”

Hosea homed in on the blood on the Formica tabletop. “Kidnapped?”

Leland nodded and something changed in Hosea’s eyes. Less lethal employment wasn’t the only reason he’d quit working directly for the cartels. Leland suspected the man had problems with their methods as well.

“I’ll poke around. If I find out anything, I’ll let you know. Certainly puts Santos in a different light though, doesn’t it?” Hosea headed for the door.

Leland stood up. “Keep the boy’s disappearance to yourself.”

Hosea stopped in front of him. “What boy?”

Leland pulled his wallet from his back pocket. Information always cost money, even when the gift horse showed up of his own accord. Remarkably Hosea shook his head.

“I like working with you, Leland. You’ve always shot me straight. Consider this my good deed for the day. Be careful, my friend, and get the hell out of this hotel.”

Chapter Twelve

W
HEN THE DOOR
opened, Anna wasn’t sure if she’d been asleep for fifteen minutes or five hours. She bolted upright in bed to see Leland carrying a computer backpack and a garment bag over his shoulder. His shirt was unbuttoned, a different one than he’d been wearing earlier.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said. “It’s not safe.” His soft accent contradicted the urgency of his words and actions as he went straight to the bedside table and retrieved his gun.

She squeezed her eyes shut before answering, hoping she was dreaming. When she opened them again, he was studying her. Embarrassment from their earlier encounter washed over her even as his emerald-eyed gaze sent a bolt of awareness straight to her lower belly, the tightening sensation shocking her as much as his words.

The stark fear and the zap of lust warred inside her, the fear barely winning out. Yes, this was real. She’d been so focused on making Leland feel obligated to help her with Zach, she’d ignored the attraction that now threatened to engulf her.

“What else can these people possibly do? They have Zach. They can’t expect to get their money if I’m out of the picture.”

She heard the acrimony in her tone and recognized it for what it was. Chagrin over everything that had happened earlier, fear of the situation and her dependence on him—all poor reasons to take her uncertainty out on the man trying to help her.

“The people I’m worried about have nothing to do with the kidnapping.” He didn’t look at her as he moved to the window and stared past the curtains into the night.

“What do you mean?”

“This has to do with me, Anna. Some very bad people know I’m here. It has nothing to do with Zach’s disappearance, but we have to get out of here now.” He turned to face her again.

“How do you know this?” She stood on autopilot, slipping her feet into her shoes.

“An informant of mine just showed up next door. I’m DEA, remember? He came to warn me.”

“What did he say?”

“I don’t have time to explain it all now. Once we’re safe I’ll tell you. Let’s just get it together and get out of here.”

She opened the lid of her suitcase. What did this mean? Something was niggling at the back of her mind, but she couldn’t tease it out. Fear was creeping in, overriding all rational thought.

“We won’t check out,” he said. “We’ll just leave through the back exit.”

“Where are we going? I have to get the cash tomorrow.”

“I know.” He stared at his phone, obviously reading a text. He tapped a few lines on it before replying. “It’s a safe place, I promise. But let’s take your car. It’s less likely anyone knows what you’re driving.”

That made sense. If anyone was just cruising the parking lot looking for him, they’d assume he was still here if his car was. She handed him keys and retrieved her toiletry bag from the bathroom to stuff in her suitcase.

“Wait. Why do I need to leave? If I’m not the one the bad people are after, seems I might be safer on my own.”

He looked up from his phone. “Do you really believe you can get your son back by yourself?”