The Nightlife: San Antonio

  Her hand flew to her mouth. She couldn’t believe she was wearing this sparkling cocktail dress, dancing like a fool in front of everyone, while the television was blasting her photo all across the city. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me? Why am I wearing this ridiculous outfit, so everyone who sees me notices? Are you trying to get us caught?”

  She was digging into his arm hard, and he winced. He pried her sharp claws away from his forearm. “I just wanted to have this time with you before …”

  “Before what?”

  “Before we left. Before there was no more time to enjoy ourselves.”

  “I can’t believe you’d be so foolish as to take me out dancing with a city-wide manhunt going on.”

  “Okay, maybe it was foolish …”

  “Maybe?”

  He kept pulling her out the door, into the parking lot, to the truck, and opened his passenger door for her. “I guess it’s time to get you out of this city.” He didn’t look very happy.

  “Yeah, finally.” She hopped in and shook her head, not understanding what the hell this man was thinking. She’d have to keep a sharp eye on him in the nights to come, make sure he didn’t pull something this stupid again. She looked in the back seat to verify he’d already packed his bag. At least he’d done that much.

  He drove off into the traffic downtown, and circled around. Just when she thought he’d turn right, towards the highway, he turned left. She held her tongue, waiting to see what he was doing. No one likes a passenger seat driver.

  When he turned left again and parked at a city parking lot, she knew something was very wrong. “What the fuck are we doing, Adrian?”

  The look on his face struck her heart like a hammer. Dios mio, he’s turning me in to the police! She scrambled for the door latch to get out and run, but he grabbed her.

  “Whoa, calm down. It’s not what you’re thinking!”

  She elbowed him, caught a grunt for satisfaction, but he wouldn’t let go. “So what is it, Adrian? What are we doing here?”

  There was no one else around, no cop cars, no people, only the lights illuminating a stone-tiled plaza in front of an old Spanish mission. She recognized the place, the infamous Alamo.

  He hugged her tight and breathed in her scent. “I made a call for help. A friend.”

  She didn’t like the sound of this at all. She had no friends, except Adrian, and he was proving to be surprisingly stupid. “What do we need anyone for? Hit the highway. Go! That’s what we need to do.”

  “Not in this pickup. I’m making sure you get to the coast with no problems. I’m not taking any chances.”

  That sounded better, but her gut disagreed. Something about this deal was not right, not at all.

  “So why didn’t you tell me earlier? We have to trust each other, Adrian. No secrets.”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t want to ruin our evening.”

  Too late for that.

  With a sigh, he tapped the digital clock on the dashboard of his truck which read 11:59 p.m. “Time to go.” He checked the load in his pistol, slid the clip back in, and handed it to her. “Keep this, just in case.”

  She took it, yet again having nowhere to put it in her ridiculous cocktail dress. “I thought we were meeting a friend?”

  He checked the load in his second pistol and slipped it behind his shirt, into the waist of his jeans. “Yeah, well, you never know.”

  God, this man could be so maddening!

  He kissed her once more, slow and delicious, a complete contrast to her roiling stomach that told her everything here was definitely not okay. He broke away, with a hand on her cheek. “Give me one more, real quick.”

  She frowned, not understanding his meaning, but then he turned his neck aside, baring himself for her. Her teeth were in agreement, one little bite wouldn’t hurt.

  They embraced and each got what they wanted. She made it quick, and licked away the leftover blood, to seal the pinprick wounds. Her venom was a potent drug that could both hook Adrian, and help him heal.

  She caught movement out the corner of her eye and let go of Adrian. Her pistol automatically swung up in the man’s direction. “Him?”

  Adrian clicked a switch, dropped the passenger window and leaned over her. “Are you ready to do this?”

  Crenshaw had his hands up. “Everything’s ready to go, but she can’t have that, dude. We ain’t doing business like that.” He pointed at her pistol.

  Adrian slowly pulled her gun hand down, but every instinct she had told her to keep it on Crenshaw. “What’s he here for, Adrian? I thought we were just trading vehicles?”

  Adrian slipped the gun from her hand and tucked it under the seat. “Yes, you are.”

  “Please tell me you explained this to her.” Crenshaw rolled his eyes. “You didn’t?”

  Adrian opened the passenger door and let it swing wide. “This is the best thing. You have to understand that it wouldn’t have worked out any other way. Crenshaw’s getting me an attorney. I’m going to make sure this mess is all cleared up. Then, maybe I can go see you, wherever, in the Caribbean or something.”

  She shook her head, a terrible pain in her chest and a sickness that went all the way to her bones. Her throat constricted up tight, she could hardly breathe or speak. Dios mio, he didn’t understand, not at all. She took his hand desperately and choked on her words. “Adrian, we can never be separated. You don’t know the nature of our connection. You could die!”

  She saw the alarm in his face as her words struck him like a slap to the face.

  Crenshaw pulled on her right arm, trying to urge her out of the truck. “Come on, girl, we gotta get moving.”

  She reacted with a backhand slap hard enough to knock him back two steps. “Don’t touch me!” She growled, feral, claws out and teeth down. “I’m not going anywhere without Adrian!”

  Crenshaw wiped the blood from his nose. “Oh hell no!” He pulled a pistol from inside his jacket and pointed it at her. “Don’t fucking move, or I’ll do you right here. I can deliver you dead or alive, and I really don’t give a shit which way it goes.”

  Adrian had his pistol over her shoulder, pointed straight at Crenshaw. “You piece of shit. I trusted you! Is this your idea of helping me?”

  “Sorry, dude, she’s got a half million dollar price on her head.”

  “Guess the whole racial hatred thing doesn’t make a damn bit of difference when it comes to doing business.”

  “Got that right. Don’t have to like ‘em to take their money. Some big-shot from south of the border is paying a pretty penny for this little wetback, and you’re money ahead to just let her go, Adrian. I’ll throw ya a bone, man. I’ll give you twenty grand to pay for your attorney. How’s that for a deal?”

  She itched to gut this fool who thought he could take her alive. He obviously wasn’t aware of the full extent of La Reina’s reputation. It was well known in the Mexican cartels that La Reina killed anyone who challenged her, with her bare hands.

  From the driver’s side of the truck came a knock on the window. “Put it down, now.”

  A big white guy with a baseball cap and a goatee had a large revolver pointed against the window, right at Adrian’s head. Oh, Adrian, what did you do?

  In the world of cartel and mafia, no one is ever what they seem. Loyalties change with a stack of hundreds, and no one deals with people outside of la raza, the race. The cartels of Mexico were constantly at war with each other, and the Colombian cartelitos were the same, but none of them trusted anyone who wasn’t from their own country. The gringos were never to be trusted. Never.

  Adrian had no idea he was stepping into the middle of a battlefield, a turf war just as bloody as anything the Middle East had ever seen. She’d survived this war by being a ruthless, cunning, Ice Queen, her master’s cutthroat voice in her ear, telling her who to kill, when to kill them, who to manipulate, and when necessary, who to torture for information.

  The asshole threatening her bloodslave tapped on the glass
once more when Adrian didn’t budge. “Put the gun down, or I put you down. Right now, dude.”

  Crenshaw grinned at her, the smile of a predator right before he eats his meal. “Adrian, I didn’t plan to hurt you, bro. We’re gonna take this problem off your hands and solve it once and for all. That woman controls distribution from Colombia to Chihuahua, and straight across the border. You don’t have a clue who she is or what’s she’s done in her life. You know what it takes to be on top in the Mexican Mafia? Death, torture, mutilation. These people will boil a man alive. No shit. They’re murderers and terrorists, every one of ‘em. You can look it up in the Homeland security website, I ain’t lying.”

  “Well, since you put it that way, murdering, drug-pushing, white-trash, racist bikers sound so much better than drug cartels. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  She felt his tension, his unwillingness to let her go under these circumstances. The fool would rather die than see his mistake bring her down. “Adrian, I’ll go with them. Please, put the gun down.”

  She slid off the seat to stand before Crenshaw, blocking Adrian’s shot.

  “Goddammit!” He dropped the pistol, a look of pure fury on his face. She’d never seen him so angry.

  “Smart move, girl. Ain’t no reason to get him killed.” Crenshaw held the gun steady on her as two more men joined him, pistols pointed at her.

  Crenshaw signaled his friend with his gun still aimed at Adrian. “Let’s do this, boys.” He eyed her with a wink. “Start walking, slow and easy, no sudden moves.”

  The guy behind Adrian walked around the truck and shot out his front passenger side tire. “Stay here, boy. Don’t get no stupid ideas about following us.”

  Adrian cursed quietly.

  The man joined her and the gang as they all circled her, guns unwavering. She walked at the pace they set, casually, towards a black van that was hiding in the shadows across the street. With four men holding guns on her, she began to wonder if maybe they did know her reputation. One glance over her shoulder told her that Adrian was a powder keg. If these men did something to her in front of him, he’d surely explode, and probably get himself killed in the process.

  Oh, Adrian, why didn’t you listen to me?

  * * * *

  Chapter 19

  Adrian held up his scope to watch them load her into a black full-size van as he counted down the seconds until he could do something, anything. “God, I’m such an idiot!”

  As soon as they drove off, he spun down the spare tire from under the back of his truck and rolled it over to the front passenger side. Three minutes later, sweating furiously from the Nascar tire-change routine, Adrian leaped into the cab of his truck to dig through his backpack and take inventory. Three full clips for the Berretta, one full clip for the Glock, one army issue knife, his bullet-proof vest, and only one box of spare 9mm rounds.

  That would have to do.

  He peeled out and hit the highway. He could hardly believe he’d been so stupid. The truth had been in front of him all along. Crenshaw had never quit the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas. Gang membership was for life. “I should have known! Fuck!”

  He could already feel need creeping back into his bones. The need for her. This must be what cigarette smokers feel, stuck on an airplane and unable to light up. Her words rang clear in his mind, replaying over and over, “Adrian, we can never be separated. You don’t know the nature of our connection. You could die!”

  Never. They could never be separated.

  Adrian figured he had about an hour at most before they killed her or handed her off to someone else. He needed to get his ass in gear. Find her. His mind raced through all the possibilities until one idea gelled.

  The Last Resort.

  There was a biker bar over on the east side where they might have taken her, The Last Resort. The place actually doubled as the local Aryan Brotherhood clubhouse. Crenshaw never mentioned it, but Adrian had picked up more than one ambulance call at that bar. One of the beer-bottle-over-the-head incidents had this guy talking up a storm about the AB, his Harley, and a string of government conspiracy theories, while Adrian cleaned him up.

  If they didn’t take Sam there, someone at the bar would know something. Somebody was gonna talk, one way or another. All Adrian’s old military habits returned … too easily. His heart pumped hard at the path that rolled out in front of him.

  “I didn’t want to do this. God, if you’re there, if there is a god, you know I didn’t want this. I tried, God, I really tried to be a better man.” He shook his head as he missed the exit and sped up to the next one so he could flip around and backtrack. “I guess it wasn’t meant to be. I’m never going to be the good guy. She told me to accept who I am, and she was right.”

  Adrian’s time in Iraq had made one thing crystal clear. Good guys don’t finish last, no, that was a fallacy. They never finish at all. The good guys went home in a body bag.

  Time to accept who he was, and be the man he was meant to be – a soldier, a killer, and if the shoe fits, a sociopath. The new rules of engagement? Kill ‘em all.

  Although time seemed to stretch, slowing down to where each second took forever to pass, it was only a few minutes later when he pulled into the back alley behind The Last Resort. He wanted so badly to just go right through the front door, start taking motherfuckers down, left and right, until someone talked, but that wasn’t the way to handle this.

  For the first time ever, he had an emotional investment, and it was driving him to the edge. He’d never cared this much about anyone or anything before her. Samantha had gotten inside his head, his soul, and his need for her was screwing with his ability to function with some detachment. He’d never felt so fucking attached in all his life.

  Breathe in through the nose, out the through the mouth. Clear the mind. Focus!

  The manager. That’s who he needed, someone in charge. He stripped off his dress shirt, strapped on his bulletproof vest, and slipped his leather jacket on over the top. He crammed a pistol in his right jacket pocket, and one behind his back. He paused in the open door to his truck, thinking of the things he would need to do. He tried not to think about how much he would enjoy it.

  Fuck that. “This is gonna be fun, and I’m not holding back. Never again will I hold back.” She wanted him to be who he was, and that’s exactly what he planned to do.

  He saw the L-shaped tire iron on the floor-board and a grin split his lips. When there’s no baton to be had, a tire iron is the next best thing. It’s actually better in some ways.

  He stepped into the bar, tire-iron inside his jacket sleeve, the curved end nestled in the palm of his hand. The place was dead, apart from a pair of losers playing pool and slurping on a shared pitcher of beer. He didn’t have time to handle this discreetly, but better there were only two, rather than a bar-full. Whatever they planned for Samantha, it was going down right now.

  He went straight to the bartender. “Are you the manager?”

  The guy grunted, and stroked his goatee. “For tonight.” He squinted at Adrian. “What do you need?”

  “I got a few questions.”

  The tire-iron slid out into his hand and swung around into a crushing blow to the side of the man’s head. He went down with another grunt. Up and over the counter, Adrian landed on the biker with both feet, one in his stomach, the other in his groin.

  His squeal of pain indicated he’d probably be shitting blood for a week, assuming he was smart enough to talk and survive the next few seconds. The man’s hands came up in defense, a poor defense against a tire iron. Adrian smashed right over the top of his arm, crushing through clavicle bone.

  The clavicle doesn’t take much to break, but it sure hurts like a motherfucker. The guy was spitting as he howled in pain. Adrian let him catch his breath, as the two pukes on the other side of the room ran up to the bar. “Are you fucking crazy?”

  The pistol in Adrian’s left hand stopped them from getting any closer. “Leave, now. Walk out that fucki
ng door if you want to live.”

  The first one held up his hands. “I’m gone.”

  The second one watched his friend bail then followed suit. “You got it man. Don’t shoot, we’re leaving.”

  They headed straight out the door and didn’t look back.

  Adrian’s pistol swung down to the man beneath him, pointed directly at his head. “You got ten seconds to tell me where she is.”

  His face went through a few seconds of shock and finally settled on recognition. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Adrian’s pistol dropped to the biker’s thigh and shot him. The man shuddered and screamed, trying to grab at Adrian’s legs, trying to reach for his own leg. A stream of obscenities flowed. Adrian gave him a few seconds to let it out.

  “This is the last time I’m going to ask. Where did they take La Reina? Speak now if you want to live.”

  The biker did not hesitate. “She’s at a warehouse on the east side!”

  “Address.”

  Crying, the barman’s hands shook as he stuttered, “I don’t know! It’s on Rittiman. They got her there, I swear! You’ll see some bikes out front. It’s the white building next to the HEB warehouse, you can’t miss it!”

  That seemed about as good as it was gonna get, but wait … “What are they planning to do with her?”

  “Oh shit, man, I don’t know. It’s a meeting. They’re meeting somebody.”

  That would have to do. Adrian smashed the tire iron down across the top of the man’s skull with a sickening crack. His head flopped over to the side and his hands dropped. Out cold.

  Breathing heavily with the adrenaline rush, Adrian jetted out the front door and around to the alley, to his truck. The pool players had vacated the premise, entirely. That scene went about as well as it could have, but the warehouse was going to be messy, very messy.

  He looked forward to it.