Kingpin

  Mariana turned her attention back to John. ‘I swear, he’s going to die of a heart attack before he’s forty,’ she said. ‘You got anything else for me to bank today?’

  John shrugged. ‘Maybe something this afternoon. I just need you to make my regular transfer. Can you put half in this account?’ He passed her a piece of paper with a series of numbers and she wrinkled up her nose.

  ‘I need a name,’ she said. ‘For the banking records.’

  ‘You’ve never needed a name before.’

  She shrugged, picking up a ballpoint pen and twisting it between her fingers. ‘It won’t work if I don’t have an account name to attach to it.’

  John stared down at her, his cheery mood gone. ‘There is no name,’ he snapped. ‘Just make it happen. Wire it.’

  She threw the piece of paper down on his side of the desk, her smile gone, too. ‘New regulations,’ she said coolly. ‘The bank won’t accept the transfer unless I have the name of the bank account.’

  John took a deep breath and tried not to lose his shit. It wasn’t her fault. She was just doing her job. But how the fuck was he supposed to get money to where it needed to go if he had to use a name? Names were dangerous. Even with the fake alias she was using, they could potentially track her down. Shit.

  ‘Look,’ Mariana said, finally meeting his gaze. ‘I can wire transfer if the person can collect the cash on the same day. You don’t need a bank account for that. You call them and give them a code, and they can go to Western Union and take out the money. They still need to show a driver’s licence.’

  John nodded, his frayed nerves cooling somewhat. ‘Thanks,’ he said gruffly, sliding the piece of paper back to her.

  He needed to find a better way to get money to Stephanie. He wasn’t sure how, but he was going to have to rethink the way he supplemented her before it became impossible.

  He thought of Dornan finding out what he’d been doing behind his back, and his stomach knotted. No. He couldn’t allow that to happen. Dornan would never forgive him.

  ‘What’s wrong with your hand?’ Mariana asked, standing up and leaning across the desk to get a better look. Before John could step back, she’d reached out and taken his hand in hers. ‘Did somebody bite you?’ Her dark blue eyes flashed with concern as she looked from John’s injured hand to his eyes.

  Jesus, those eyes of hers were dangerous. You could get lost in them. He couldn’t afford to get lost in anything that belonged to Dornan. He pulled his hand away. ‘It’s fine,’ he said, brushing off her concern. ‘You should see the other guy.’

  She shook her head, opening her desk drawer and producing a small first aid kit. ‘Let me fix that before it gets infected.’

  John shook his head, stepping back towards the door. ‘It’s fine, really—’

  ‘John!’ she said insistently. ‘You right handed?’

  He nodded.

  ‘How are you going to deliver me money every day without your right hand? Come on. Sit down. Here, have a coffee. Guillermo got an extra one.’

  She passed him a Starbucks cup and pointed to the other desk. ‘Sit. If I have to look at your hand for much longer, I might puke.’

  He laughed, leaning against the second desk, his ankles crossed as he sipped lukewarm coffee. It was sugary and strong, just what he needed. As sugar and caffeine travelled to his brain, he started to relax a little. He wasn’t used to anyone taking care of him. His wife was a walking disaster and he’d never expect or want his daughter to take on all the household responsibilities that Caroline ignored, so he did most everything himself. It wasn’t so bad – there was worse, he remembered as he looked at Mariana’s concentrated expression – but it was nice to have a woman take care of him, for once.

  He tensed when she touched a pad of rubbing alcohol to his wound, but didn’t pull away or protest. She smiled slightly at his reaction, waiting a moment before she continued cleaning the wound.

  He couldn’t help it. As covertly as he could, without her noticing, he ran his eyes over every part of her that he could see. She had some sort of make-up on that made her eyes pop, and they looked stunning against her light brown skin and dark silky hair. She was wearing her hair out, and it fell loosely around her face. When she moved, he caught a whiff of her perfume, or maybe it was the shampoo she used. Whatever it was, it smelled of coconut and lime and sex.

  He breathed her in deeply, and she looked at him quizzically. ‘You feeling okay?’

  Oh, he felt better than okay. She smelled so good, he wanted to lean over and take a bite out of her. He smiled. ‘Yeah. Better now. Thanks.’

  His Monday was looking up.

  Christopher Murphy was a blight on my existence: a man I’d not cared to meet and wished I would never have to endure the misfortune of seeing again.

  Sadly, my wish wasn’t granted.

  I saw him exactly once a week, unless he was away on a job. He needed plenty of money stashed, and I was very, very good at distributing the illegal finances for Il Sangue and its associates. Every Sunday afternoon I was expected to give Murphy and Emilio a rundown on the finances for the week. Safety deposit box numbers, bank accounts, the lot. I memorised everything, didn’t write a single thing down that could incriminate anybody. The cartel couldn’t afford to be careless, not when they were selling coke and whores and God knows what else. One surprise raid, and it’d all be out in the open. Most of the money was sitting in offshore accounts, numbering into the millions by now, but it was all blood money.

  When we’d met, Murphy was a federal air marshal, but he’d since traded that job for a better one, as an agent high up the food chain with the Drug Enforcement Agency. Ironically, he’d scored a position with the drug trafficking unit that was supposed to help stop the cocaine flow across the US border, but his real job, the one Emilio paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars for, was funnelling coke from South America onto North American soil. His connections were spread like tentacles through the law enforcement channels that presided over the illegal drug and human trafficking trades that plagued the gulf; and he was making bank.

  He was Emilio’s right-hand man.

  He’d been the one who had brought me to this godforsaken place.

  And now, nine years after I’d returned home one night to find him standing over my father, a gun in his hand and a bored look on his face, Murphy was back in my face. This time he was alone and looking smug as he kicked the front door closed behind him. His gun was on his hip, and he looked smarmy rather than bored. Christopher Murphy was scum dressed in a suit and tie. And he was in my apartment.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, feeling my face fall as I watched him from where I was sitting on the couch. ‘It’s you.’

  ‘Don’t look so excited,’ he deadpanned.

  Guillermo had gone on a run with the club and left me here, a rare event. But sometimes it happened. He’d only left five minutes beforehand. Murphy must have been watching, waiting for him to leave.

  I rolled my eyes, feigning disinterest as alarm began to rise within me. It was Monday night. I never saw Murphy outside of our Sunday afternoon meeting, not unless there was a large amount of money to shift. If that were the case, though, we’d do it at the office under Emilio’s watchful eye.

  Murphy being here in my apartment, alone, could only mean very bad things.

  ‘How’d you get past the alarm?’ I asked casually as I calculated the distance between myself and my gun. As luck would have it, it was underneath the couch cushion I was sitting on. I’d still probably get my head blown off before I’d be able to reach it, but it was comforting to know that underneath my ass was a weapon with six bullets in the clip, each with Christopher Murphy written on it.

  ‘I bypassed it,’ he said, smiling smugly. ‘The perks of working for the DEA. They’ve got all kinds of things to break through your little locks and codes.’

  Great. He now apparently had an all-access pass to the one place I felt safe in the world. I wanted to throw up.

&nbsp
; There was a knock at the door. I froze, my eyes darting between Murphy and the door.

  ‘I’d ask you if you brought a friend with you,’ I said quietly, ‘but I know you don’t have any of those.’

  I stood, mainly because I didn’t want to be a sitting duck. Murphy reached back and opened the front door, while I shifted my balance onto my toes, ready to move quickly if I needed to. I was fucking stupid for not having my gun right at my fingertips! But after nine years you get complacent.

  A figure entered through the front door. A woman. She wore black pants and a gun holster that sliced a criss-cross over her white shirt.

  ‘This your partner?’ I asked. ‘Should have called ahead, Murphy. I would have gotten out the good china.’

  The woman, who’d not spoken yet, eyed me. Judgey fucking eyes they were, too. From her appearance, I could see she had some Latina in her, maybe Mexican. She had long, dark brown hair that was swept up into a messy ponytail and caramel-coloured skin, like mine when I went out in the sun. Her almond-shaped eyes were lined with black make-up, and they were narrowed at me.

  Yeah. Murphy definitely had a type.

  ‘Mary-anna,’ she said, mispronouncing my name on purpose. ‘I’ve heard so much about you.’

  ‘That’s funny,’ I said, my hands burning to grab the hidden gun. ‘I haven’t heard a single thing about you.’

  She chuckled. ‘She’s mouthy,’ she said to Murphy, but looking at me.

  ‘She’s right here,’ I replied. ‘And she’s busy, so if we could get to the point . . .’

  Murphy smiled. ‘Allie, I’ll meet you in the car. Give me a call if that shit-kicker comes back.’

  Allie looked put out. ‘We’ll hear his bike,’ she protested, angling herself so that I couldn’t hear and placing a hand on Murphy’s chest. Only, she was three feet in front of me, and I had excellent hearing.

  A wry grin spread across my face as soon as she touched Murphy. Gross.

  ‘Oh, you two are fucking. Sorry, I’m a little slow tonight. I wasn’t expecting you to let yourselves into my house, Allie.’

  She snorted. ‘That’s Agent Baxter to you, bitch. And this is your house?’ Allie repeated, turning back to me. ‘Really? You own this place?’

  I didn’t respond.

  ‘How many bedrooms?’ she asked, looking around the hallway and lounge room. ‘Two? Three? Still holding out hope that they’ll let you bring your little bastard to live here?’

  My grin vanished. All I saw was red. My fingers tingled impatiently, anxious to wrap them around her throat and squeeze until she begged me to stop.

  Seemed I’d absorbed some of Dornan’s violent tendencies in the past decade.

  As my grin vanished, hers grew.

  ‘You should probably leave,’ I said coolly. ‘Your boyfriend likes to try and fuck me when we’re alone, and I think you’re putting him off his game.’

  There it was. Snap. I could practically see the rage rush through her veins, it was so instantaneous. Her entire demeanour changed, and she lunged for me. Murphy, who’d been silent thus far, reached out and closed his long fingers around the top of her arm, wrenching her back.

  ‘I’m going to kill this bitch,’ Allie said, trying to pull her arm from Murphy’s grip.

  ‘I could have your ass thrown in jail, and your precious fucking Gypsy Brothers couldn’t do a thing about it,’ she seethed. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’

  I snorted. ‘Someone who looks a lot like you, apparently. Funny that.’ Seriously, though. The resemblance was uncanny. We could have been sisters, for Christ’s sake. Eww.

  She lunged again, and Murphy made a growling sound, pulling her roughly towards the front door. ‘Go wait in the fucking car,’ he fumed. ‘I wouldn’t touch this filthy whore if you paid me.’

  I put a hand to my heart in mock disappointment. ‘You’re breaking my heart,’ I said.

  Allie continued to stare at me, trying to kill me with her eyes, and Murphy bundled her out through the front door and slammed it in her face.

  ‘She seems lovely,’ I said, my tone sickly sweet. ‘Has she met your parents yet?’

  ‘My parents are dead,’ Murphy replied stonily.

  ‘What’d you do, kill them for their retirement fund?’ I thought it was funny.

  Murphy didn’t seem overly amused, though. He seemed antsy. I wondered if he was actually worried about what she’d say when he got back to the car. She looked like she’d probably beat him up or something.

  ‘She’s fucking crazy,’ Murphy replied. ‘Lucky she gives good head.’

  I expected him to approach me, to do something, but he didn’t. He walked past the living room, holding a paper bag in one hand, a pair of aviator sunglasses in the other. I reached underneath the couch cushion, quickly locating my gun and flicking the safety off before I hurried into the hallway after him. He strode into the kitchen, dumping the paper bag on the counter as I raised my gun and aimed at him.

  I had a gun now. I was allowed to have a gun, and it was because of Murphy. It was something Dornan had given me, not long after Murphy had tried to rape me on the dining room floor. Murphy had even brought a syringe full of drugs to make sure I complied. Dornan had beaten him almost to death. The only reason he hadn’t was because of John pulling him off Murphy and talking sense into him. Truth be told, I wished that he’d just let Dornan finish the guy off.

  Murphy turned and raised his eyebrows in amusement, tossing his sunglasses on the counter. ‘Oh, put that away,’ he said, pandering, his smile wide but his crazy blue eyes devoid of warmth. He rounded the counter and began opening cupboards and drawers, pulling out cutlery and napkins like he knew the place intimately.

  I didn’t relax my aim. ‘What do you want, Murphy?’ I asked impatiently. ‘’Cause I’m kind of busy right now.’

  He looked around. ‘Busy doing what?’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘Staring at the walls.’

  He didn’t respond.

  I cringed as a streak of blood threaded out of one of his nostrils and down over his lip.

  ‘Did the rest of your brain cells just explode?’ I asked, gesturing towards his nose.

  ‘I get nosebleeds,’ he shrugged, wiping his arm across his face and creating a bright red line of blood on his white shirt. ‘It’s the heat.’ He pressed a napkin to his nose to staunch the bleeding.

  I raised my eyebrows. ‘Uh, I think it’s all the coke you put up there.’ Idiot.

  He looked unperturbed. Satisfied that the blood had stopped, he threw the napkin in the trash and washed his hands in the kitchen sink.

  ‘What is this?’ I gestured to him as the smell of Chinese food hit me.

  ‘Here,’ Murphy said, taking several boxes from the bag and placing them on the bench. ‘I got your favourite. Egg rolls and lo mein.’

  How the fuck did he know what my favourite Chinese takeout was? I was about to issue some witty retort when I swallowed my words. Egg rolls and lo mein was my favourite. Sometimes Dornan would surprise me with it.

  He hadn’t done it in a very long time.

  ‘You brought dinner?’ I asked, my tone scathing. ‘You want to date me or something, Murphy? While your girlfriend waits in the car?’

  He grinned, his tongue sliding across his top teeth as he chuckled. ‘I don’t think you’re exactly dateable, honey. Fuckable? Yes. Dateable? Debateable!’

  He laughed at his own ridiculous joke, and that made me mad. It made me livid.

  Still grasping the gun, I crossed my arms, rooted to the spot in the hallway. Murphy continued to dig through my kitchen drawers, clattering plates and assembling spoons next to each cardboard container.

  I won’t lie, my mouth was watering. I wanted to shoot that motherfucker dead in my kitchen and step over his bloody corpse, just to eat that takeout.

  ‘Eat,’ Murphy commanded.

  I stood my ground.

  ‘Tell me why you’re here,’ I repeated. ‘Tell me why your crazy girlfriend knows abou
t my son.’

  He took his plate, loaded with steaming hot food, and shovelled a spoonful of lo mein into his mouth. Seemed our Murphy was too retarded to eat with chopsticks. No great surprise there. He started walking towards me, towards the living room. Fuck that. When he was within arm’s reach, I raised my gun towards him again.

  I pressed the barrel into his forehead, stopping him in his tracks. ‘I. Will. Shoot. You.’ I said through gritted teeth.

  He didn’t drop his smile, despite the fact that he had a gun to his head, held by one extremely volatile, pissed-off Colombian woman with a tendency to snap and make bad decisions. No, he licked the grease from his lips and stared me right in the eye, calm as day.

  ‘Don’t you want to see your son again, Mariana?’

  I’d like to say his words didn’t affect me. That they rolled off me, unbidden.

  But it would be a lie.

  I backed up, felt the sting of tears building in my eyes. Refused to let them out. He didn’t deserve my tears.

  ‘Get out,’ I demanded. It hurt to talk around the lump in my throat. ‘Take your fucking food and get out of my house.’

  He moved slowly, our eyes never leaving each other’s. I watched, mesmerised, as he pressed his palm towards me in a sign of peace, then ever so slowly reached his right hand inside his suit pocket, balancing his plate in the other.

  I watched, my finger ready on the trigger to take down the son of a bitch if he so much as sneezed. He pulled out a piece of paper. A photograph. And held it up to me.

  ‘I can get you what you want,’ he said casually, like I wasn’t holding a gun to his head.

  My heart broke in an instant as I looked at the photo he was holding up.

  I swallowed thickly. It was him. My baby. Only, he wasn’t a baby anymore. This photo was recent. How could I tell it was my Luis and not just some random kid Murphy had plucked off the street and asked to pose? His eyes. They were like mine, dark blue, and inside them I saw my own soul. I knew without a doubt that Murphy was not bluffing. I knew that he had somehow gotten a photograph of my son.

  My heart started to beat wildly.