The Vargas Cartel Trilogy (Vargas Cartel #1-3)(35)

Dario scoffed. “You’re wrong. Unlike Rever, I’ve moved steadily up the ranks, working as a lookout, record keeper, plaza boss…and now it’s my turn to be the head of the cartel. Do you think you can swoop in and take control like you didn’t abandon us years ago to sell your soul to the highest bidder?” Dario took a half a step forward, his gun pointed at the dead center of Ryker’s chest.

“I had my reasons for leaving, none of which are your business.”

Dario shrugged. “You’re right. As long as you’re a good boy and disappear again, I don’t give a shit about your reasons.” Dario held out his hand. “It’s four to one. You’re outnumbered. You won’t win this time. Hand me the gun and make this easy. I don’t want to kill you. Ignacio won’t like that, but I will.”

Ryker paused. Tension buzzed in the air, swirling around us like a category five hurricane. “No. Not happening.”

Dario took another step forward. “You can hand me the gun and live another day, or you can die now, and the animals can pick at your carcass until you’re unrecognizable. It’s your choice.”

“Back the f*ck up and leave. You’re involving yourself in things you don’t understand.” With his gun trained on Dario, Ryker wrapped his arm around my neck and pulled my ear next to his face. “Gun. Ankle,” he whispered before shoving me by the top of my head to the ground.

Dario laughed coldly, and ice crystallized inside of my veins, freezing my hand on Ryker’s ankle. “No, you’re the one who doesn’t understand what’s going on here.”

Ryker pressed his leg into my hand, and I inched my hand up the inside of his pant leg never taking my eyes off Dario. I didn’t understand why Ryker trusted me with a gun, but the mere fact that he did told me we were in a world of shit.

Ryker waved his gun. “Dario, what do you want? What’s really going on here?”

“This is my territory now,” Dario spat, waving his gun from side to side.

“Oh really? When did that happen?” Ryker’s voice sounded deceivingly nonchalant, but from the short time I’d spent with Ryker, I knew he was waiting for the right instant to strike.

When I had the heavy metal grip of the gun in my hand, I released it from Ryker’s ankle holster. For a split second, I considered injuring Ryker, but then I’d be left with Dario and his murderous crew. Something told me they were infinitely worse than Ryker.

“I’m staking a claim on this territory. It should have been mine from the beginning anyway,” Dario said, his dark eyebrows slashing downward, his eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. “Rever’s gone, and everyone realizes Ignacio won’t be around for long. I’m next in line, not you.”

“Don’t you think you’re getting ahead of yourself?”

Dario pulled the grungy handkerchief from his mouth, exposing the lower half of his face. A sinister scar ran the length of his jaw line. “All the more reason to strike while Ignacio is down,” Dario taunted.

In one fluid movement, Ryker raised his gun and pulled the trigger. A small burst of air raced over my skin. Almost instantly, Dario’s body fell to the ground right next to me—his dead, lifeless eyes staring back at me, a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead.

Ryker charged forward, kicking one man in the knee, and a sickening crack vibrated through my ears as the man tumbled to the ground wailing in agony. Without pausing, Ryker swung his gun to the right, sending a volley of shots into the chest of another man. By the time he turned, the remaining gunman had a gun pressed to Ryker’s temple.

“No,” I screamed, surging to my feet. My entire body trembled, and the gun nearly slipped from my clammy hands. I managed to hold it in front of me—my legs spread wide, two hands cupping the grip, and one finger hovering over the trigger.

The gunman’s eyes blazed like the fires of hell as he studied me. He wasn’t a tall or heavy man, maybe five foot six and a hundred and sixty pounds, but evil rolled off of him in dark, ominous waves, scorching my skin with their intensity.

Time froze in a dreamlike haze as sweat trickled down the side of my face and dripped from my chin. My heart galloped erratically in my chest. It was now or never. If I didn’t shoot first, the gunman would kill Ryker, and I’d be next. I sucked in a deep breath, and an unnatural calm settled through my body, infecting my mind with lethal focus.

I can do this.

I can do this.

I can do this.

My gun safety class freeze-framed in my mind. I pulled the gun slide back until I heard a bullet click inside the chamber. I aimed my gun at his chest. I inhaled and squeezed the trigger. The shot exploded from my gun, and I stumbled backward, tripping over a rock and tumbling to the ground. The bone-rattling impact caused the gun to fall out of my hand and skitter across the dirt.

When I opened my eyes, I saw the clear blue sky with a dusting of white, fluffy clouds. My muscles aching with lactic acid and the toxic remnants of my adrenaline surge, I strained my neck to the side as vomit rushed from my mouth in a sickening swell.

“Hattie?” Ryker crouched down next to me, an assault weapon dangling from his shoulder.

“Is he dead?” I whispered, as tiny, unrestrained tremors tore through my muscles one after another. The world around me moved in waves…in and out and back again.

“He will be in a few minutes.”