While he didn’t know exactly why this girl was so important to the big boss, he could tell within seconds of meeting her that she was indeed special. She had presence.

  “We will talk after your bath and dinner.”

  He nodded to the maid who led the girl away. She was the downstairs maid, the older woman he brought with him from Mexico. She knew everything about him and his life. Even more than his wife. He trusted the old woman with his life. She would make sure the girl was taken care of until the delivery time.

  Once the girl had eaten dinner and bathed, he ordered her brought to the living room.

  She came in, her dark eyes flashing with something. Was it anger? Or fear?

  He nodded toward the fireplace. “You may stand in front of it if you are cold. It feels quite delightful.”

  She didn’t answer, simply shook her head slightly.

  “I want to go home.” Her words were firm.

  “It’s time for bed. We will talk again in the morning.” He sighed. He’d tried his best. She was a stubborn thing. But soon she wouldn’t be his problem anymore. He nodded to the maid, who took the girl’s hand and led her to the stairs.

  He heard the girl’s protest from the other room and then heard a slap followed by the girl crying. Then it grew silent as the door closed.

  A tiny part of him felt bad, but the girl would have to learn. She was not in charge.

  27

  I waited until I saw Lila’s plane lift off before I got back in the Jeep.

  I had a few hours to kill before I could confront Carnegie. I’d promised I’d wait until she was safe. The livery driver had instructions to call me as soon as he picked the girl up. Then I would act.

  The best use of the next few hours would most definitely be recon and surveillance.

  Carnegie’s neighborhood was high above the rest of the city with spectacular views of the bay. It looked like one of those neighborhoods where there were rules for what type of lawn you could have and what color the trim on your house was. It was a safe place for an American cartel member to blend in. There was freedom in conformity. Nobody would give him a second look as he pulled his black SUV with the dark-tinted windows into his four-car garage, not getting out of the car until the garage door slid closed. Not revealing what might be in his trunk—a cartel flunky who had fucked up, a gang member who had dealt drugs in the wrong neighborhood, or a little girl trying to escape the tyranny of a third-world country.

  It was a home that could fit an entire basketball court, bowling alley, home movie theater—or even a swimming pool—in its basement.

  I wondered if the nice neighbors knew they had a monster living in their midst. I wondered if they invited him to barbecues and laughed with him at block parties. I wondered if his wife and kids suspected that he was bad fucking news? I wondered if they knew that his lily-white ass was owned by the cartel.

  I kept an eye on his house, but never got closer than six houses away. I suspected he had a bevy of surveillance cameras keeping tabs on everything in 360 degrees.

  It was nightfall by the time I got the call from the English driver I’d hired. “The chicks are in the henhouse.”

  I nearly laughed out loud. “Thanks.” The driver was recommended by Tony, which meant he was used to dealing with criminals. And people like me, I guess.

  For a second I wondered if I’d done the right thing. I’d handed Lila a lot of money. That money would’ve gone a long way to help the homeless through Ethel’s Place.

  But Lila had convinced that me showing up at his location would come directly back to her. It would be a death warrant on her head—but that didn’t mean it was true. She could have lied. But it was all good. At the very least, I’d tried to help a woman escape an abusive situation and get a new start in life. What she did after that was not on me. I’d already paid for one stripper to start a new life overseas before. That payoff had gone south. She’d taken the money and stayed in the states, endangering my life that time. Really screwed me over.

  But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t try to help another woman. I wouldn’t allow myself to become bitter and jaded that way.

  Knowing that Lila was safe in Europe meant it was time for me to move.

  28

  As soon as I got out of my car, I knew I looked suspicious. Nosy neighbors would call me in immediately: A woman with dark sunglasses, a black biker jacket, tight black jeans, and black boots? The women who lived here wore 24K gold chains around their waists and stiletto slides with their bikinis, lounging poolside.

  I walked fast, trying to stick to the shadows cast by the houses to the east. Soon, I was on the sidewalk in front of the house directly across from his. I scanned the front windows one last time before I crossed the street and cut toward the side of the house that held the garage. A massive wall and steel gate leading to the side and back yard awaited me. I stuck the toe of my boot on top of a hinge and heaved myself over the gate, hoping a bevy of guard dogs wasn’t waiting for me on the other side.

  I landed in a crouch and stayed that way for a second as I took in my surroundings. I was right on the edge of a massive bank of windows that lined the south side of the house facing a lap pool squeezed in between the house and the fence. I scooted back toward the gate as I spotted movement within the house. I froze.

  It was him.

  He wore loose yoga pants and a tight black T-shirt.

  I watched as he paced and then realized he was holding a cell phone to his ear on the side opposite of me. He held it between his chin and shoulder as he fiddled with a stainless-steel espresso machine. While his back was to me, I darted past the bank of windows and took cover behind what looked like a small pool house. I ducked into the palms and parted a large leafy branch to continue my surveillance.

  He downed an espresso, made another one and then hung up the phone.

  Sitting down at the bar facing the kitchen, he opened a laptop. I crept out from behind the pool shed, holding my gun in front of me. Soon I was directly behind him, the muzzle of my gun trained on the back of his head. I’d never shot through a sliding glass door before. I wasn’t even sure it would work. My heart pounded in my throat. From what I’d learned about this guy yesterday, he deserved a long, painful death.

  As I undid the safety and pressed my index finger on the trigger, a thought struck me. Bulletproof glass? At the same time, his head swiveled, looking toward a part of the house I couldn’t see. I backed toward the pool house slowly and followed the direction of his gaze. A small girl with a head full of blonde curls came rushing into the room. She ran to the man, and he scooped her up onto his lap in a big hug. The girl wore a pink tutu over a summer dress and red sparkling ballet slippers. The man looked up again and a woman swooped into the room in wide-legged beige slacks, a white silky blouse, and beige three-inch-high sandals. Her sleek hair was brushed back from her face revealing giant gold earrings. She set a Birkin bag on the bar and leaned over to retrieve the girl from the man’s arms. She kissed the man on the forehead and then mother and daughter left the room. About thirty seconds later, I heard a garage door opening and the purr of a sports car.

  The man lifted his phone again. Said something briefly and then put it back on the bar.

  A few minutes later, the man stood, stretched, and shrugged out of his shirt. Then he dropped his pants in a pool on the floor at his feet.

  He was naked. He disappeared into a room right off the kitchen and came carrying a large towel. Shit. He was going to swim. He leaned over and suddenly loud music blared from hidden speakers. Some weird modern rapper or something.

  I pressed myself into the small space between the pool house and fence right before I heard the sliding glass doors open. Shortly after, when I heard a splash, I peeked out from the foliage. He was doing laps. Each time he swam to the far end of the pool, turned in a flip, and then swam under water back to my end where he would lift his head for air.

  I tucked my gun back into my back waistband and reached down toward my ankle.

  This time when his head popped out of the water gasping for breath, I grabbed ahold of his hair at the same time I pressed the flat edge of my dagger to his throat.

  He began to laugh. I pressed the blade harder. With the flick of my wrist I could cut his jugular in two. I was crouched at the edge of the pool, one hand holding his head by the hair and the other holding my knife. It wasn’t the most advantageous position. If he yanked his head, he would toss me into the pool with him. Of course, I would slice his neck at the same time I was dunked, but I wondered if he was confident enough to try anyway.

  Then I realized why he was laughing. A large bulk of a man appeared at the opposite end of the pool at the same time I felt a gun between my shoulder blades. The loud music had drowned out the sound of their approach. I stared at the man across the pool from me as I weighed my options—would the man behind me shoot me and risk me slicing a jugular? And why didn’t the man across the pool have a gun trained on me? He nodded toward the house and another man came out, pushing someone before him.

  Rosalie.

  29

  I released my grip on Carnegie’s hair and I let go of my dagger, watching it sink to the bottom of the pool.

  Putting both my hands up in the air, I raised from my crouch. My heart was beating up in my throat, and my face felt icy with dread. I examined Rosalie’s face from across the pool. She acted as if she didn’t recognize me at all. She stared straight ahead, expressionless.

  “You drugged her, you sick fuck.”

  “It makes it easier for them. I do it for them, really. But it does take the fight and the desire to run away out of them.”

  “Does your daughter know you keep other little girls prisoner in your house? Does she know what you do with these girls?”

  “Do not speak of my daughter.” He gritted the words out.

  The slap took me by surprise and sent my head reeling. But I straightened and smiled at him.

  “Bring her downstairs,” he said to the men.

  The man put his forearm around my neck and marched me toward the sliding glass doors. I smelled a minty aftershave. My attacker from the garage.

  “How’s your foot?” I was pretty sure I’d broken at least a few bones in his foot. He responded with a light punch to my kidney that knocked the air out of me for a few seconds. As we passed the bar counter with the open laptop, I saw that it was showing live camera footage of the pool outside. The bastard had known I was there the entire time.

  The man with the aftershave, marched me down a steep flight of stairs to the basement. It wasn’t a basketball court or a movie theater. It was a gym, though, filled with hula hoops and gymnastics mats and climbing ropes—most things an elementary-school aged child would enjoy. When the steel door shut behind me, the gorilla with the gun on me leaned over and punched in a code and another steel door swung open.

  In the gym area, he pushed me against the wall, holding me with a forearm around my neck as he took away my two guns and my dagger.

  Then he ordered me through another door. This entryway opened to another flight of stairs dipping steeply downward. A second subterranean basement. A bunker. I wondered if it was worth running down the stairs and hiding somewhere below, but not knowing what I was stepping into kept me from doing so. At the bottom, the stairs opened up to what could only be described as a second home that mirrored the one on the first floor above. As the door above us sealed shut, the man directed me to the kitchen area. “Sit.”

  Instead of sliding glass doors leading to a pool, this kitchen had a thick wall.

  I heard voices and then a door opened. Three girls with dark hair and olive skin piled out and then jumped when they saw me. They froze, eyes trained on me.

  They were all about Rosalie’s age.

  I waited, afraid to speak, worried I would spook them more than I already had.

  The man shoved me into a bedroom and closed and locked the door behind me. In an instant, I was searching for a way out. There were no windows, no cracks in the brick wall, no closet. Just an enclosed square.

  No furniture except a bed and small nightstand with a lamp on it. Nothing I could use as a weapon. I jumped when the phone on the nightstand rang. I stared at it. For one, I hadn’t seen a phone like it in my life. Only in the movies. A black, old-fashioned phone. For another, um, who would be calling me?

  The door flew open and a gray-haired woman glared at me and waved her hand at the phone.

  “Oh, it’s for me?” I said and glared back. The woman waited for me to scoop up the receiver before she closed the door.

  “I am giving those girls a better life.” It was the man from upstairs.

  For a second I stood there. The idiot had just showed his Achilles heel. His statement told me a few things: he was not the head guy in charge; he questioned what he was doing even if he wouldn’t admit it to himself; he was trying to justify his behavior to me which suggested he wanted my approval? Or something.

  I remained quiet, wondering if he would reveal more.

  “Do you think if someone took your daughter away from you, they could provide her a better life?”

  He laughed. “That’s absurd. I’m giving her a dream life. The American dream life. She will want for nothing.”

  “Except for a father.”

  “I am her father.”

  “Well if you’re dead or in prison she won’t have a father.”

  He didn’t react, but I could sense his seething. His control was admirable.

  “That is why you will never leave my house. As soon as the last three girls are delivered, we will shut off the ventilation system to the subbasement quarters. I will send down a bottle of my finest tequila to make it more humane. You can numb yourself with alcohol, and it won’t be quite as bad. After all, I’m not a monster. You forced me to do this. You came into my home. My home where my daughter lives. Just remember, you created this. This was all your own doing.”

  “Let the girl go.”

  He was silent.

  “What do you want from me?” I asked.

  “I don’t need your permission to get what I want from you. I take what I want when I want, and I will take you before you die.”

  “Let the girl go and I won’t fight you.” I’ll kill you after but only after the girl is safe.

  “I don’t negotiate. I take what I want when I want it,” he repeated.

  “It would be better my way. I guarantee you it would be worth it.”

  “I have some business to take care of, but you can expect my visit tonight. Be ready.”

  He hung up.

  I tried the door to the bedroom again. Locked.

  30

  He dialed the number for the big boss.

  “I’m pleased to see you are a man of your word, Garcia.” el jefe said.

  Despite years of asking the big boss to call him, Carnegie, Garcia couldn’t help but draw back his shoulders in pride. “You can count on me.”

  “When will you make delivery?”

  “First thing tomorrow morning, unless you would like it to happen today.” The man held his breath waiting. He hoped it would be morning. After speaking to the Italian woman, he had other plans for this evening.

  “I will tell her to expect you in the morning around breakfast. You are personally delivering the shipment yourself, correct?”

  “Yes. I would not let anyone else handle something of such importance.”

  “Good. I don’t want any of your men to come with you or to know where you are going. Do you understand? This is a solo mission. I will text you the room number at nine o’clock. Be there in the resort parking lot at that time, ready to move.”

  “You can count on me.”

  The big boss was silent. An icy chill ran across Carnegie’s scalp. He waited but the line remained silent.

  “Sir?”

  “Don’t be late.”

  The line disconnected.

  Carnegie stared at his phone for a few seconds. Had he blown it? Is that why the big boss had told him to go alone? And to not tell anyone where he was going? Was he going to be assassinated as soon as he handed over the girl? He had fucked up. People working for the cartel had been taken out for less serious mistakes.

  His wife and daughter would be home in a few hours. He called downstairs.

  “The other two girls just left. The delivery is going smoothly,” his man reported.

  “Take the rest of the day off.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He waited until he heard the man driving away before taking a leisurely shower. After, he shaved and put on cologne. He stood in his walk-in closet and tried to decide what would be sexier—a bathrobe? Tight jeans and a cashmere sweater? A Boss Hugo suit?

  The suit won. It made him feel powerful and manly and in control.

  As he admired himself for a few seconds, he paused. The suit might get dirty, might even get ripped. The Italian looked like a spitfire. He saw it in her eyes. She might be a wildcat. But he was bigger and stronger than her. He was confident that physically she was no match for him. He might get a scratch or two that would be awkward to explain to his wife, but the Italian had bigger problems. She might cause a flesh wound, but he might accidentally kill her if she fought back. He’d been told he didn’t know his own strength.

  Well, again, like he’d told her—it was her fault. She’d come into his home. There were laws about that. The law said if someone broke into your home—if they were within your home, not just in the doorway—you were justified in murdering them. It was trickier if they were standing in the doorway, he’d been told. It was better to wait until they were actually inside all the way.

  This woman had jumped over his fence, had trespassed onto his property, so he would be justified in killing her, right? If not, it didn’t matter, he would make sure that if her body was ever found it could never be traced back to him.