Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96206 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96206 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
“After I check in with the bosses, I’ll have a conversation with Valeria. She might have some idea where Victor would hole up or take Laila.”
Actually, that was a great idea, and Trees was kicking himself for not thinking of it. “Yeah. Good. Thanks.”
“I’ll be back. Call me if you find anything. In the meantime, keep it together. We’re going to find her.”
Trees sure as hell hoped so. After less than a week with Laila, he had no idea how he’d ever live without her again.
Yeah, he was so in love he was fucked.
In the distance, he heard Zy drive off. Trees clung to hope—that his buddy would get Valeria to cough up something helpful, that one of his scans would turn up a needle in a haystack, that they would uncover anything that led them back to Laila.
Six hours later, he still had nothing because that’s what Valeria knew. That’s what his scans showed. That’s the communications he’d received from Laila’s abductor. That’s how much hope he had left.
Florida
“Laila, your scheme isn’t going to work,” Victor snarled as they approached the garage on the outskirts of the racetrack shortly before dawn the following day.
Her heart stopped. Had Victor already figured out she was playing him? “I do not know what you mean.”
He huffed. “This scam to take Geraldo Montilla’s Ferrari… If I want to unseat him, stealing his car does nothing except piss him off.”
She let out a silent sigh of relief that Victor hadn’t caught on to her ploy. “My plan will achieve everything you want while making him come to you—if you do not mismanage this. But in order to take down Montilla, you must first send him—and everyone—a signal that you are a force to be reckoned with. Stealing his most prized possession will do that. After all, he paid fifty million dollars for it.”
“Fucking insane.” Victor shook his head, as if he could not fathom spending that kind of cash on a mere car.
“The money for such toys will soon be yours.” If Montilla does not kill you first. “You simply have to find the cojones to take it.”
“You already know how big my balls are.” He glared her way. “But poking the bear will only make Montilla angrier and more difficult to overthrow.”
She pretended to heave a long-suffering sigh, but for once, Victor’s logic wasn’t totally wrong. Very little else he’d said since they’d left Trees’s house and driven all night down the highway before finally reaching this Florida racetrack had. At least he’d lived up to his word and kept his hands to himself. She could probably thank the guns she kept constantly at hand for that.
“Montilla will not recognize the threat until it is far too late. He will fixate on the loss of his precious car. He will devote his resources to recovering it. While he is distracted, you will make your next moves to dominating the cartel.”
“Using that bargaining chip you keep talking about?”
“Exactly.” Either Victor would kill Montilla while rescuing Kimber or the Edgingtons would follow him in and handle them both. Either way, her family would be safer.
Victor merely grunted as if he wasn’t convinced. “I need to know more about it.”
“After you have stolen the car. The bargaining chip I speak of will be of no use until Montilla’s attention is diverted. Then… Well, you are more ruthless.” That might be true. “And smarter.” But that wasn’t. “You will succeed.”
In trying to fabricate a supposed plan for Victor to take over Tierra Caliente, she’d read online that the driver Montilla hired for this classic car race yesterday had fallen hours before the start and broken his arm. Montilla had been forced to withdraw his 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO from yesterday’s competition. It seemed likely the drug lord would transport his ridiculously expensive car and fly back to Mexico today, so she and Victor had only this small window of opportunity.
They tiptoed closer to the garage that housed the prized vehicle. When Victor peeked around the corner of the storage unit, he quickly reared back, plastering himself against the side of the building. “Fuck. There are two armed guards standing outside. We did not plan for that.”
A problem she hadn’t foreseen…and probably should have. “Are they male?”
“Yes. And big. I will have to kill them.” He reached for his gun.
That horrified Laila. The last thing she wanted was for anyone else to be hurt.
She grabbed Victor’s arm and held him back. “We cannot leave bodies. That will alert the local authorities and bring attention we do not need. Let me handle them. Once they are distracted, you take the car and drive it to the U-Haul. Then it will be yours.”
He scowled. “You will distract both of them? At once?”
“How many times did I handle you and Hector together?” she snapped, then wished she’d held her tongue. She didn’t want to remind him of all the times he had violated her. She also didn’t want to remind him of his dead brother. Being careful and strategic was key.