For the first time, Manuel’s eyes lit up with an emotion I could only describe as giddiness. I opened my mouth to ask him to explain when the door to the dank room opened, and a faint click of a light switch filled my ears moments before brightness flooded the four walls.
“Hello, Eden.”
The moment my eyes adjusted to the shock of the light, they settled on the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life. Almost as tall as Manuel, but with legs that seemed to extend well beyond her waist, she glided into the room, a halo of thick, shiny black hair flowing down her back. Her skin stretched flawless across her face, framed by deep set, penetrating, brown eyes that captivated me from the onset of their glare.
Her familiarity unnerved me. “How do you know me?”
“Marisol, this is Valentin Carrera’s whore.” Manuel motioned dramatically from the woman, back to me, then gave me a wink. “Eden Lachey, meet the beauty and brains of this operation—Marisol Muñoz, my sister.”
* * *
After our little introduction, Manuel and Marisol literally left me hanging while they called a family meeting in the corner of the tiny room. Satisfied with their communication, Manuel nodded and pulled out his gun, shooting through the chain above me. I cried out in relief and pain when I hit the floor. Without a doubt, I knew I had a few broken ribs and most likely a cheek fracture. The way my chest rattled from the wet cough, I wouldn’t be surprised to find a collapsed lung.
If I ever made it to a hospital.
A heavy boot in my stomach had me flipping onto my back with stars in my eyes. “Get up.” Manuel’s hand jerked me roughly off the floor and onto my feet. “We’ve got a party waiting for you downstairs,” he snarled, freeing my hands.
Val.
The logical part of me prayed I was wrong, and he was safe and out of their sadistic hands. Yet the weak and needy part of me ached to hold him again.
Turning over my shoulder, I threw a cold stare at Marisol Muñoz as her brother dragged me down the darkened hallway. “Why are you doing this?”
She looked at me as if I’d just asked her to explain quantum physics. “Money, darling. Valentin Carrera has it; I want it. You think I spent six years studying with my nose in a book at the University of Guadalajara to be stuck in an office somewhere?” A high-pitched laugh bounced off the walls. “Hell no. What this cartel has lacked since my father’s death has been intelligent direction. No offense, dear brother.”
Manuel shrugged and raised a quick eyebrow in her direction before snapping my arm toward a closed door.
“The Muñoz Cartel could never overtake Alejandro Carrera because the men in my family lacked strategic planning and intricate follow-through—something that required the long-term patience of a woman. You understand; right, Eden?”
“Sure,” I replied, rolling my eyes in the dark.
As all three of us reached the closed door, the smile on her face morphed into an arrogant sneer. “The men in my family have always lacked patience for anything. They want everything now, now, now. But I told them, ‘bide your time and watch Carrera. He’s not as inhuman as you think. Eventually, we’ll find his weakness. When we do, take it. Carrera will come to us.’ You’re his weakness, Eden. We women, we’re powerful creatures. In our lifetime, there will always be one man who will die for us.” She stared at me and ran a painted red nail down my tangled hair. “No man is immune to our power—even the almightyLa Muerte.”
“I told you, Valentin Carrera—”
“Congratulations on being the woman who brought down the giant.” Opening the door, each Muñoz sibling grabbed one of my arms and faced me forward. With a shove from each of them, I didn’t even have a chance to touch the first few steps before I tumbled head first.
My toes barely grazed the tip of the fifth or sixth stair as I fell down the entire flight, darkness and light intermingling with intolerable pain. After what seemed like a never-ending fall, my broken body hit the concrete floor with a sickening thud as they slammed the door.
“Help…” It was all I could manage as the wet cough overtook me again, my mouth filling up with so much blood, I had to turn my head so as not to choke.
I have to get out of here or I’m going to die.
Crying out with every move, I dragged myself into a kneeling position, every pull of breath into my lungs, feeling like a hundred daggers stabbing me at once. As I crawled toward the center of the room, a voice broke the ragged silence.
“Eden…”
It took every concerted effort I had to lift my head and focus. The moment I did, the pain in my chest and limbs dulled compared to the searing, ripping apart of my heart.
“You,” I whispered, wishing Manuel Muñoz had killed me when he had the chance.
Chapter Thirty-Two
VAL
After pacingfor twenty minutes in an alley behind the district attorney’s office in Houston, my phone finally rang. “Harcourt, tell me you have it.”
“I can do better than that,” he replied, his voice anxious and short.
