Beneath the Secrets Part 3(16)

“My father taught me to shoot when I was a young girl,” Kara explained as they moved forward and she settled into a chair. “He believed a woman is supposed to look like a lady but be capable of biting like a shark. He was a fisherman.”

“I read that in your file,” Mendez commented, glancing up at Blake, clearly noticing he hadn’t sat down.

Mendez arched a brow. “Problem, Mr. Wright?”

Hiking his hip on Mendez’s desk, Blake crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Yeah. I tend to get testy when people send me out to the sharks to get eaten. If the same people you suspect of stealing drugs from you are running your trafficking operation, you don’t think that it’s important to tell me?”

“I hired you to find out who is skimming drugs from me. Have you?”

“Funny thing about that,” Blake commented dryly. “The same people I suspect of stealing your drugs almost got you put behind bars last night for trafficking. They’re greedy with your drugs and careless with your business. This shit is way deeper than the pig hole I thought I was wading in. I need facts to continue forward, and I need more money.”

“You do have a profound way with words, Mr. Wright,” Mendez observed, disdain in his voice.

“So I’ve been told,” Blake commented and the only disdain he had was for this man and his cronies. “More money and more information, or I’m out.”

“What did you do with the women?” Mendez asked, shifting the conversation.

“I sent them far away and told them that everyone they ever knew or might know in the future would be slaughtered if they ever said a word about what happened to them.”

“And why not kill them?” he queried.

“I don’t do bloodbaths. Dead bodies come with complications I don’t need.”

Mendez pursed his lips. “I want them dead.”

“Find them and kill them. And good luck. I’m damn good at hiding what I don’t want to be found. Almost as good as I am at finding what others don’t want discovered.”

His eyes bored into Blake’s for several seconds before his attention turned sharply to Kara. “You aren’t offended by the females being sold off by our organization?”

“It’s not my job to judge,” Kara replied coolly. “It’s my job to protect the organization.”

“And why would you be that loyal?” he questioned.

Impressively, Kara didn’t so much as blink. “Because I’m tired of being poor and struggling. I want more.”

Mendez leaned back in his chair, his expression unreadable. Seconds ticked by, which Blake used to envision slamming the man’s head against the desk. He couldn’t help it. He believed dreams could come true if you visualized them often enough.

Finally Mendez spoke. “You’ve caught the attention of my boss, Mr. Wright. He’d like you to meet with him this evening, and since Kara has proven so effective by your side, she’s to attend as well. You’re to be at the docks at nine o’clock. A boat will be there to pick you up. The location, as you can imagine, will be undisclosed. Please dress appropriately. My boss is a very powerful man. He deserves to be treated as such.”

By the time Mendez shut his big yap, Blake had enough adrenaline pumping through him to fuel a jet liner. He was a hair from Alvarez, so close he could taste him, but he had to play this cool. “My time is money,” Blake said. “Why would I attend this meeting? What’s in it for me?”

“More money and more opportunity than you ever dreamed possible, Mr. Wright.” His phone buzzed and Evelyn said, “Your lunch appointment is here.”

“Send her in,” Mendez replied, pushing to his feet, and addressing Blake and Kara again. “Nine o’clock. Be there.” The door opened. “And now, if you’ll please be on your way. I have another meeting.”

Blake pushed off the desk. “Maybe your boss will shoot straight with me.”

Mendez’s lips twitched. “He definitely shoots straight, Mr. Wright.”

Unease slid through Blake at the subtle threat beneath the words he couldn’t let go. “I guess that’s why he’s had a long and prosperous life.” Blake turned away from Mendez, ending the conversation, following Kara toward the door. A twenty-something blonde in a red dress, with deep cleavage, entered before they could depart, sashaying toward them, a “come and get me” look in her eyes. Apparently Mendez’s lunch didn’t involve food.

Blake and Kara exited the office and headed toward the lobby. When they entered the elevator neither of them spoke. Blake stood there, thinking of how close he was to killing Alvarez and he expected the hunger for vengeance to expand and grow inside him, but it didn’t. This meeting with Alvarez that should be a long desired victory was a bittersweet triumph for one reason and one reason only. Kara. Everything he’d been living for the past two years, everything he’d thought he wanted, had transformed. Those things had become her. He wouldn’t lose her to Alvarez. He couldn’t let her go to this meeting.

Once they were inside the truck, Blake knew he had one shot to get her to agree to stay behind. Staring straight ahead, unable to look at Kara and control the emotions the past created, he said, “Her name was Whitney. We were on a task force together targeting Alvarez. Word came that Alvarez wanted a trilingual translator and there were only a handful of agents that met the criteria, and only one of those was available.”