Tito balled his fist. Of the Undesirables, Tito had both, brains and brawn. His brains usually worked in full gear; smart with computers and machinery but his fists were registered lethal weapons. If his anger mixed in, everyone needed to watch out. In one quick swoop Tito grabbed Javier by the front of his dingy undershirt. “Your girlfriend was thrown in the slammer yesterday because of you.”
Javier paled, “You’re lying. Hannah is back in Tallahassee. I left her at the corner of my cousin’s where her aunt could find her.”
“She’s now with a maniac hell bent on sending her into the slave trade. Is that what you want?”
Young dark eyes pleaded to Dante. A twinge of guilt made him reach out and pull Javier back into the seat, but then he realized Javier spent the night in a jail cell like Hannah and yet he didn’t have a mark on him. No one intimidated him like they did Hannah. “There’s a reason you’re still alive. You know something.”
“Whatever, no I don’t,” Javier’s voice now threatened to quiver. “Where is Hannah now?”
“Like my partner said, some guy wants to sell her. You’ve heard of the white slave trade?” Dante dipped his head and glanced down at the gold band around his finger. Why did he still have it on? Because he made a promise, albeit a drunken hazed vow in front of his cousin, but Dante promised to honor and protect Harley. She had her reasons for withholding the truth about Hannah, but they’d work it out later. Right now he planned on keeping her family safe—his family. “Think, Javier. Time is wasting.”
“Why’d you come here, to Villa San Juan?” asked Cole.
“Hannah told me about her family’s place here where I could hide out after I shot up Alfaro’s place.”
“And why’d you shoot up his place?”
“I told you, he was with the dude who took Gaston.”
Tito slammed his hand on the dashboard again. “Damn it. Get his ass out of my backseat. He can’t tell us anything.”
“For your information, we don’t know where either Alfaro or the guy who took Gaston is,” Dante leaned across Javier’s lithe frame and popped open the back door. “Good luck with that.”
“Wait!” Javier cried. “I want immunity?”
“Immunity?” Dante laughed. “What’d you do wrong?”
“I want you guys to put me in the witness protection program, me and Hannah.”
“No way,” Tito bit out, “tell us what you know.”
“Gustavo Marina,” Javier announced with a cryptic smile.
“Who?” asked Tito.
“Not who,” Cole said, “the marina by the docks.”
“So we got what we want,” Tito turned back around to the steering wheel and looked out the review mirror. “Kick his ass out.”
Javier clung to the door-frame. Cars whizzed by honking at the opened door. “I can take you. Just promise you’ll get protection for Hannah.”
“Without a doubt,” said Dante calmly. He loosened the push on Javier’s shoulder.
“Okay-okay, Gustavo and I might have overheard the guys talking about meeting up at the marina. There’s a shipment worth a fortune in one of the containers. We planned on robbing it.”
“You idiots thought you could rob one of the drug cartels?” Dante’s upper lip curled hearing the stupidity. “What in the hell did you think you were going to do with whatever you found?”
“Sell it.”
“What?” the three agents asked.
“We figured whatever they had must have been worth something. So we were just gonna hijack them, like a ransom. I wanted to give Hannah the wedding of her dreams.”
“You’re a bigger idiot than you look.” Tito pulled back into the traffic and made an illegal u-turn toward the marinas without making sure they were buckled or if the doors were even closed. Dante went back to hanging onto Javier’s shoulder. Finally, the turn slammed the door closed.
****
Harley sat in the backseat right next to one of America’s Most Wanted with the sound track of AC/DC’s TNT pounding in her brain. Dante Rossi infiltrated her brain once again with his heavy metal hair bands, but she had to admit she felt like a total bad ass. She’d single handedly gotten close to the crime boss without so much as a warrant, orders, or even her own weapon. She merely did what her Jenny said she did, and tattled. Unfortunately Bobby Marchette was not her assignment.