The Vargas Cartel Trilogy (Vargas Cartel #1-3)(89)

“No need to fall on your sword, Evan. Like I said, I don’t want anything from you, except for you to leave me alone.” I slammed the door behind me without looking back, enjoying the jarring finality of the sound. I wished I could believe this conversation would be the end of Senator Deveron and Evan’s meddling in my life, but I wasn’t a wide-eyed, gullible woman who believed in fairy tales, unicorns, and the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Not anymore.

A toxic mixture of melancholy and fury wrapped like thorns around my chest, twisting and twisting until I couldn’t breathe. I had always known there was more to Ryker than his front as a campaign bundler. He was intimately familiar with the inner workings of the Vargas Cartel. He knew how to use a gun. He knew how to fight dirty. Part of me hoped if I ignored reality, it’d go away. We could ride off into the sunset and pretend none of it existed. A big happily ever after, but I guess people didn’t get those in real life. Real life was full of half-truths, disappointments, and out-and-out lies.





Chapter Fifteen




Ryker



I was so sick of this shit. This was it. My last job. When my business cell rang at six o’clock in the morning, I didn’t want to answer it. I wanted to stay with Hattie. Fortunately for my * client, I never quit in the middle of a job before, and I refused to start now. It’d leave the possibility of another enemy, and God knows, after the fallout with Senator Deveron, I had one more enemy than I needed already.

I parked my car one block from the gym where Representative Houser exercised from six to seven thirty every weekday. His routine never varied, which benefited people like me. I always cautioned my clients against being too predictable. It gave bad actors openings to take advantage of you.

I grabbed the black baseball cap from the passenger seat and put it on, pulling the brim down low enough to disguise my features on any cameras. I walked around to the side of the building where Representative Houser exited the building. I didn’t understand why he didn’t use the front door, but I refused to question my luck.

Representative Houser opened the door, his head down staring at his phone. What a jackass. For someone over his head in backroom deals, he should pay more attention to his surroundings. Backroom deals had a way of going bad quickly, at least in my experience.

Before he turned the corner to the parking lot behind the building, I wrapped my arm around his neck from behind him, eliminating the possibility he’d get a good look at my face.

“What the hell?” he yelled, scratching my arm.

“Shut the hell up and listen.” I removed my gun from the holster under my coat and pressed it into the side of his head with my free arm.

“What do you want? My wallet is in my back pocket. Take it and leave me alone. I won’t call the police.”

“I don’t want your f*cking wallet.”

He elbowed me in the side, and I rammed him face first into the brick wall. “Try that again, *, and you’ll have a lot of explaining to do when you show up at work tomorrow with a black and blue face.” I was tempted to do exactly as I threatened. He wouldn’t be the first member of Congress to make up a story to explain getting the shit beat out of him as a result of his double-dealing.

“Don’t do it. Don’t hurt me,” he said, sniffling like a f*cking baby. “Just tell me what you want.”

A dark, bitter laugh escaped my mouth. “I’m definitely going to leave you with a few bruises, but if you cooperate, all of them won’t be on your face.”

“I’ll cooperate.”

“Then, why are you planning to vote for the cyber security bill tomorrow?”

He groaned. “Tell them I’m sorry, but I changed my mind. I can’t help your client. I’m getting too much pressure.”

I grinded my gun against the back of his head and tightened my arm around his throat. “It doesn’t work that way. You took their money.”

“I can’t do it.” He shook his head. “I’m getting squeezed from both sides and I need to go with my conscience.”

“You don’t have a conscience.” I banged his head against the wall again. Blood splattered on my shirt, and the metallic odor flooded my senses. Fucking hell. I’d have to burn this shirt. “You solicited and accepted bribes from both sides.”

“I didn’t,” he protested, spitting a mixture of saliva and blood near my feet. Asshole. “I would never do that.”

I punched him in the kidney. He’d be lucky if he weren’t pissing blood tonight. “Don’t lie.”

“I’m not. I promise. I changed my mind. It’s as simple as that.” He repeatedly nodded, as if his word meant something. It didn’t. He had his head shoved so far up the * of corruption, he couldn’t see the truth if it kissed him on his shit-stained lips.

“So the hundred fifty thousand dollars that mysteriously landed in your Cayman Islands account five days ago was just a coincidence?”

“How do you know about that?”

“You accepted a bribe to kill this bill from one of the top cyber security firms that also happens to have one of the most infamous hackers on its payroll. Figure it out, dumbass. A few clicks of his more than capable fingers and he uncovered everything. It took him less than thirty minutes.”