Manipulate (Deliver 6)

“Vera Gomez,” he whispered.

Her heart stuttered. “What?”

“Your sister.” A macabre smile pushed through his agony-soaked expression. “She smuggles them for me. All the pretty little girls.”

Her breath stopped and restarted as her mind tried to separate the information. “You found her? She’s alive? Wait… She works for you? She would never—”

His mouth formed words, but no sound came out. His eyes lost focus, blinking slowly as he stared at nothing. Death moved in, stealing the answers she desperately needed.

“Where is she?” She slapped his slack face, knocking his head to the side. “Answer me!”

“With…” His tongue lolled in his vile mouth, dying with his words. “Your brothers.”

He fell silent. No breath. No movement. Eyes glazed and unseeing.

Dead.

Hector La Rocha was dead, and her sister was alive.

Vera’s alive.

A sob of relief burst from her throat. She gulped down the next tearful exhale and pushed to her feet, teetering and stunned to the bottom of her stomach.

Vera was smuggling children? She was the one Martin and Ricky were looking for? And the Mexican military…

They arrested Tula because of mistaken identity.

Vera wasn’t mixed up in this. She would never do anything to harm innocent people.

She couldn’t think about this right now. Blood was everywhere, trailing a gruesome path from the record player to his prone body. It splattered her black shirt, coated her hands, and clotted in her hair.

She needed to get out of there.

Racing to the sink, she scrubbed off the evidence. Clothes, skin, hair—all of it received a furious rubbing until only a few damp spots remained on her shirt.

She didn’t spare a glance at the body as urgency propelled her to the door. The scariest part wasn’t over.

She still had to walk out of Area Three without raising suspicion. With any luck, Hector’s death wouldn’t be discovered until she was on her way to the United States.

The corridor would be busy at this hour. The moment she stepped out there, she would have to put on her game face. Business as usual.

A few deep breaths helped her steady her hands. Then she opened the door.

Garra and Simone stood a few feet away. Their conversation fell silent, and both heads turned in her direction.

She glared at them—because that was what she would normally do—while reaching behind her, blindly trying to find the handle and close the door.

In two long strides, Garra was in her space. His hand went to her cheek, and he pulled back a red-smeared thumb.

“What did you do?” he whispered angrily.

Her fingers caught the door behind her, pulling it closed as Simone crowded in, pushing it open.

“That’s blood.” Simone examined her up and down before angling his head to see into Hector’s cell.

Her stomach dropped, and her knees wobbled.

The body lay around the corner, but the goddamn evidence was on her face. She couldn’t talk her way out of this. She needed to run.

“I got a bloody nose.” She tried to squeeze past them, but multiple hands caught her arms and dragged her back inside.

The door shut with finality, closing her in and sucking all the air from her lungs.

“Get your hands off me!” She kicked and thrashed as they hauled her toward the crime scene. “Let me go!”

And there it was. Hector’s body lay in a pool of red, eyes open, with a hundred mangled knife wounds in the abdomen.

“Holy Mother of God.” Simone stared at the bloody corpse, stunned. Then his tawny face turned red-hot. “You did this.”

“Garra.” She twisted in his arms, prepared to beg for mercy from the only man in Jaulaso who might actually listen. “Please, let me explain.”

His nostrils flared, and his fingers bit into her back.

Desperation drove her hand to his hair. She gripped hard, touching him for the first time as she put her face in his. “Please, don’t hurt me again.”

Something moved in his eyes, a soft pulse at the centers, that seemed to humanize his entire expression. He opened his mouth to speak, but his attention darted to Simone behind her.

As she turned, Simone drew a large knife from his boot and lunged for her.

She had no time to react before Garra shoved her out of the way. She landed on her back beside Hector’s body, her breath frozen as Garra crashed into Simone.

They went down in a tumble of fists, rolling across the floor with the knife swinging around them. She scrambled back and dug in her feet to run. Until her gaze snagged on the blade beside Hector’s leg.

She didn’t think beyond the need to kill Simone. He’d held the flashlight, watched the violence. He needed to die.

With a surge of adrenaline, she grabbed the knife and spun toward the fight.

Simone was bigger, stronger, and had the upper hand as he flipped Garra onto his back and fell on top of him. She saw her chance and raced toward them.