Prologue
Something was wrong.
He could feel it in his bones, smell it in the air. The minute Esteban stepped out of the run-down tenement apartment building he’d called home these past three years, he’d sensed it.
Something was off.
He had nothing concrete to base it on, except for a gut instinct. The same gut instinct that had helped him survive out here on the cusp of hell, slowly making his way up the cartel food chain, earning trust by seemingly not giving a damn.
It had been a juggling act all the way. The people within the drug cartel had an honor code without displaying a shred of real honor. Moreover, they expected a man to keep his word while they broke theirs with bone-chilling regularity.
Black was white, and white vacillated between nonexistent and a color he couldn’t begin to describe.
But he had managed to navigate these streets, being one of them while standing apart, and all the while sleeping with one eye open.
Although it had come at a great personal cost, he’d bided his time, waiting for the chance to even a score that would never truly be even.
But this thing he was feeling was different. His nerves twisted and tensed; a chill swept along his spine. Every fiber in his body was on high alert, listening intently even though he didn’t know for what.
And then he knew what he was listening for.
Because he heard it: the high-pitched whine of a bullet as it hurtled from its source.
A bullet with his name on it.
Abruptly, he swung to the right.
The bullet couldn’t.
It missed him.
The same gut instinct told him to keep on running if he wanted to live. Confronted with an actual choice between life and death, he surprised himself by deciding to live a little longer.
So he kept on running.
His job wasn’t finished. He still had people to bring to justice. After that, it didn’t matter what happened to him. He was already dead on the inside anyway.
Chapter 1
Brian Cavanaugh leaned back in his chair as he studied the young man in his office. Intense was the first word that sprang to mind, prefaced by very.
His own words were measured when he spoke, as his goal was to put the other man, freshly plucked out of undercover work, at ease.
“The first thing I want you to know is that this is not a demotion—”
It had been an exhausting thirty-six hours, beginning with a nerve-racking leap from the very jaws of hell. Esteban’s surroundings right now—clean, orderly, devoid of vermin—seemed almost surreal. He’d all but forgotten places like this existed.
But he’d chosen that netherworld over this because he had a purpose, a mission. The mission wasn’t accomplished yet. He needed to find a way back. Somehow.
“With all due respect, sir, when someone leads with that, it usually means that it is a demotion,” the man who had gone by the name Juan Dominguez for the past three years pointed out.
The corners of Brian’s mouth curved in apparent amusement. “You mean like when someone prefaces a statement with the phrase, ‘With all due respect,’ he or she usually doesn’t harbor that respect?”
Unable to contain his restlessness, the detective who’d been summoned to Brian’s office continued to pace. His broad shoulders stiffened slightly. “I wouldn’t know about that, sir. In this case, there is a great deal of respect. It’s just that—”
“It’s just that you feel as if you’ve been given a time-out, sent to stand in the corner, while everyone you know is still out on the playground, doing what they please,” Brian guessed, completing what he anticipated were the younger, somewhat disheveled-looking man’s thoughts on the matter.
“Something like that,” the detective murmured. He returned the Chief of D’s look, searching for an opening, a way to reverse what he knew in his gut the older man was planning on doing.
“You know you can sit down in my office,” Brian reminded him patiently. He’d already extended the invitation to the man whose real name, according to the requisitioned file on his desk, was Esteban Fernandez.
Esteban stopped pacing. His tone was polite, with just a hint of defiance, as he asked, “Is that an order, sir?”
Brian had not reached his rank by choosing his battles recklessly. This was not a battle, just a reassessment of a situation. Fernandez could be either a valuable asset—or a loose cannon.
“No, just a point of fact,” he replied calmly.
“Then if it’s all the same to you, sir,” Esteban said, “I’d rather stand.”
“Actually, it’s not,” Brian told him, his eyes holding Esteban’s. “But if you prefer to imitate a moving target, that’s your call.”
Esteban watched the Chief for a long moment. According to what he’d heard, Brian Cavanaugh was considered fair to a fault by the men and women who answered to him and whose undying allegiance he’d earned one by one.
Esteban wavered for a moment, wanting to stick to his guns, an army of one. Then, suppressing the sigh that rose to his throat, he lowered his lean, muscular frame into one of the two chairs that faced the Chief of D’s desk.
Brian smiled. There wasn’t so much as a hint of triumph in his voice as he said, “Thank you, Detective.”
Esteban barely nodded, bracing himself as he waited for the inevitable shoe to fall.
The wait was almost nonexistent.
The Chief of Detectives’ next words were the ones Esteban had been dreading for thirty-six hours, ever since Manny Diaz had opened fire on him. Part of him still didn’t know how he’d survived.
But there was no part of him that didn’t want to go back.
“You’re being pulled off the undercover assignment, Detective.”
Esteban winced.
He’d been preparing for this meeting, for these damning words, ever since he’d been made less than two days ago. That was when he’d been identified as an undercover cop rather than a drug dealer with a growing clientele.
Made or not, he wasn’t about to accept this decision quietly. “Sir, I could still—”
The Chief cut him off before Esteban could waste any more breath, because that was all that it would be. Just a waste of breath. His mind was made up. Not because he was an egotist who enjoyed wielding power, but because he was not about to allow any of his people to risk certain death. Life was far too precious for that.
“No, you couldn’t,” Brian said firmly. His voice was not without compassion as he continued, “You were made, Detective. There is now a price on your head. A price that doesn’t carry the option of ‘dead or alive,’ just ‘dead.’” He leaned forward over his desk, creating an aura of privacy between himself and the young detective. “Jorge Lopez doesn’t like being made a fool of...and discovering an undercover law enforcement officer operating as a dealer right under his nose makes him out to be a huge fool. He wants your head on a pike in order to save face.”
Brian lightened his tone. He didn’t want to strike fear into his detective’s heart, just arouse his dormant common sense.
“Call me selfish, but I’d prefer having your head just where it is. You’re being pulled out to save your life, Detective. As good as you are—and according to everyone who counts, you are very good—you won’t be any further use to us with a target on your back. So, unless you have a death wish, you will accept reassignment as graciously as you can.
“This is a good thing, Detective Fernandez,” Brian continued. “A lot of men who came before you and went into undercover work never got the chance to get out. At least, not alive,” he amended.
Esteban struggled to keep his reaction to the Chief of D’s words from showing on his face. He didn’t want to be gracious. He just wanted to continue doing what he’d been doing: getting rid of scum one drug dealer at a time. It was the only thing that gave purpose to his life.
“Yes, sir,” Esteban bit off, staring past the Chief of D’s head.
Brian heard the animosity in the other man’s voice—could almost feel it. But he wasn’t here to make friends at the expense of a man’s life. Even a single life was one too many.
His eyes held Esteban’s. “You don’t sound as if you believe me.”
It wasn’t that he didn’t believe the Chief, it was just that he had no desire to play it safe, to get out of the game where he risked his life daily, betting that very same life against some pretty steep odds that he would see another sunrise.
“No, sir, I do believe you.” He cast about for the right way to say this. Maybe he actually had a shot at changing the Chief of D’s mind on this after all. “It’s just that—”
“You’re afraid of being bored to death,” Brian said. When Esteban looked at him in surprise, Brian allowed himself a moment to laugh. “I didn’t guess at that, Detective. I’ve been in your place. Granted, it feels like a hundred years ago now, but I worked undercover when I was about your age. In my case, it was to take down a sex-trafficking ring selling innocent, underage girls to the highest bidder. Trust me,” he continued, “I’m familiar with the adrenaline rush that comes from a job well done, a deadly exchange foiled, detection narrowly avoided. Can’t bottle that or find a pill to evoke the same kind of feeling.