Earl closed his eyes and shook his head as the door to the plane was closed, “Afraid not, Miss O’Connor.”
The Mexican guy pulled a gun and put it on his lap, giving me a look that shook me to my core. Oh no.
“What?” All the air left my lungs.
“Ferranos have enemies,” the slim black guy working on Earl’s arm said, glancing up at me, “a lot of enemies. The fiancée of Tommy Ferrano is an extremely valuable commodity.”
“Earl?” Why did I keep looking to him? I thought we’d sort of bonded over tea. There wasn’t much of any conversation or anything like that but he’d had kind eyes. He’d been sort of nice to me. He was working for Tommy’s enemies? Was Tommy dead after those gunshots? He glanced in my direction, pain on his face.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked.
“Mexico,” he answered.
Oh no. I’d heard stories about Mexico. Heck, Tommy had warned me about human slavery in Mexico. I closed my eyes, dread filling my veins.
“No more questions. Buckle up!” said the Mexican man, “Behave and you can sit there in the comfy seat. Act up and you’ll be tossed in a sack with tape over your mouth!”
I was handed a bottle of water, which I accepted with trembling hands. The guy with the first aid kit continued to clean up Earl’s arm and the Mexican guy disappeared into the cockpit. I was petrified of what could be coming next.
Tommy
Earl’s first shot missed me by miles and I knew that was just a warning shot because he was an ace with that gun and if he wanted me dead I’d be cold by now. The second shot knocked my gun right out of my hand. I wasn’t hit. I was fine but Marco was dead. I shook my head. Marco was a good guy, wife and three kids. Fuck! He was supposed to be at home with his family, not here 5 hours after his shift had ended!
I’m a pretty good shot, too. When Earl had Tia against him the only safe place for me to shoot for was his head, since he was more than a foot taller than her. I aimed for it but caught his shoulder instead. The guy’s built like a refrigerator and had Tia on his left side so I had enough clearance to aim for his right side. It wasn’t enough to take him down. Then I tried to shoot out the tires on the getaway car but I missed and hit the hubcaps instead.
He’s worked for us for fourteen years and he was one of the ones who actually taught me to shoot, for fuck sakes. He’s been solid enough that he made it to the inner circle. The inner inner circle. He was trusted. I trusted him with her, for fuck sakes. I don’t understand what’s happened, why it happened, don’t know who he’s working for, and where he’s taken her. But I’ll find out.
We only bring men into the inner circle who have families. It’s a collateral thing. It increases the chances they’ll stay loyal because they have a family at stake and their families are brought into the fold. But Earl’s wife died of Cancer last year and his son died in a motorcycle accident three months ago. He’s a man with nothing to lose. If he hadn’t been solid all the way he’d have been put somewhere else but I had no reason to doubt him. I’ve known the man since I was a kid.
I floored it over to Pop’s. When I walked in, the family was around the table and they all looked up at me, shocked. I know it’s because my face was fucked up from Tia and in addition to that I was disheveled and dirty. I ran my fingers through my hair, “Pop, Dare, need a minute.”
My sisters, their husbands, and Lisa went back to eating but there was awkwardness in the air. “Uncle Tommy!” One of the girls bellowed from the table. I gave my little niece a forced smile and headed out of the room.
As much as Tessa and Luciana have big personalities they know when to keep their mouths shut. My attitude must’ve shown this wasn’t the time to start on me with questions.
We stepped into Pop’s office, “Your brother told me she beat you up. I didn’t realize just how much.”
I shook my head and shot my brother a dirty look, “Earl took Tia in a black
74 to 76 Grand Prix. I got a picture of the plate with my phone. I shot him in the shoulder. He shot Marco. Dead. We need to move. Now.”
Smirks evaporated. As I was swiping the screen to get to the photo I’d snapped, my phone started ringing and it was a blocked number.
I answered, “Ferrano.”
“Your girl is on a plane. South. 3 hours we’ll call with demands.”
Mexican accent.
“You fucking touch her you’d might as well kill her because I won’t want her. You hear me?”
Dial tone. They couldn’t know she meant anything to me because they’d definitely rape her.
“Mexico,” I said to them and now we could at least narrow it down. Dare brought the girls’ husbands in. Both guys, Jimmy who was Tessa’s husband and Eddy, Luciana’s husband worked for us. Jimmy was on our security team. Eddy ran a restaurant for us but he was solid and could double as security, if needed. He filled them in.
Three hours later I was out of my mind, sick about it, but I knew who had her and I knew what they wanted. Juan Carlos Castillo. They wanted us to relinquish an ongoing arrangement where we were being paid a kickback for every drug deal through a certain drug shipping lane in a small Mexican town near Morelia. We didn’t dabble much with drugs and I didn’t even know about this deal but Pop said it was recent and that we were barely involved but were getting a decent kickback for almost no involvement. We had other non-drug business down there so he said we had people and we had a safe house to work from in order to deal with this. I was a little put off by this news but didn’t have time to process that. I just needed to get her the fuck out of there.
The only thing that made sense was that she would be held in one of two places there. The cartel’s leader’s compound was huge and pretty near impenetrable. He also had a vacation house in a mini compound near Chacala. Luckily, we had men who spied for us in both compounds so we’d soon know where she was. If she was in one of those two locations, we would know about it soon enough, through our contacts. By the time night fell, I was on a plane heading toward Morelia.