The Perfect Stranger (LOS SANTOS Cartel Story #2) Read online

  “Why aren’t you in there?” A voice sounded from the shadows and seconds later a face emerged. It was one of the girls from the club who had not participated in the earlier exploits.

  “Can you not hear it?”

  She paused, her tired face dropping slightly as another scream broke through the night. “I don’t need to hear it. I’ve lived it,” she said sadly.

  “Then why are you here?” I studied the girl. She was pretty. There was something unique about her look that made her interesting. She was a mix, with maybe a hint of Italian in her.

  “Gabriel doesn’t just own that club. He owns everyone in it, including me.”

  “So how come you’re out here and not in one of those bedrooms?”

  She dropped her hands from her stomach and without hesitation she lifted her dress high. Just above her panty line sat a neat caesarean wound that was still fresh.

  “Gabriel doesn’t want to fuck someone in this condition, even if it’s his.”

  “What’s his? The baby?”

  “Me and baby.”

  My head spun. “So you two are—”

  “Together? You can call it that if you want.”

  I shouldn’t have been surprised. This wasn’t your everyday situation. This wasn’t a normal environment.

  “Don’t look at me like that.” She sat on one of the pool recliners opposite me and looked every bit the broken woman. The woman who had nowhere else to go. “He looks after us in his own ways. Brought me in off the street after my parents kicked me out. Gave me everything I ever needed. I can turn a blind eye to… this.”

  As if on cue, another terrified scream traveled outside and her eyes closed longer than usual.

  “Better her than me,” the girl said with no remorse. She was an empty shell of a person.

  “What’s he doing to them in there?”

  She looked up through her lashes, a weak smile playing on her lips. “You wanna know?”

  “Not really, but I feel like I should know.”

  “One day you’ll see.”

  “I’ll see?”

  “It’s not always behind closed doors. He doesn’t care who watches. He acts when he has the urge, and sometimes that urge can be in front of an audience.

  I didn’t answer. I needed to speed up this mission somehow. I needed Luis Santos.

  “You aren’t like the others,” she observed.

  “Thank you.”

  “That’s not necessarily a good thing.”

  My brows raised in question.

  “You need to be like them in order to survive this.”

  The next morning, I entered the kitchen and caught the object inches before it hit my face. Gabriel laughed as I stared at the dragon fruit.

  “Reflexes are strong for an early riser,” he quipped.

  This was late for me, and I felt like shit. On the other hand, despite an all-night bender of coke, alcohol, and abusive sex, Gabriel looked fresh faced and ready to start the day.

  I looked to the bench where Gabriel was preparing breakfast to see it covered with more dragon fruit.

  “What’s with all this?” I asked, pointing.

  “Payday, brother.”

  “Someone paid you with dragon fruit?”

  “Something like that, but not quite.” He sliced through a piece of fruit, the halves falling to the side, one landing on the tiled floor. “I have a shipment leaving the docks around noon. Your flight leaves around ten, and you’ll have a good two hours to inspect the shipment.”

  “What am I looking for exactly?”

  “I have a shipment of dragon fruit destined for the States. Sixty boxes of them. Each one must be counted, double and triple checked. I want you to wait until that ship leaves port. If anyone goes near it, take them out.”

  I digested the information and contemplated the importance placed on the fruit. “You’re moving coke through dragon fruit?”

  “One of my ways. Can’t put all your eggs in one basket.”

  “And this doesn’t raise suspicions?”

  “Why should it?”

  “Because it’s coming from Colombia!”

  “This is my sixth such shipment of this product, one even reaching as far as Singapore.”

  “That’s quite the risk. How much is this run worth?”

  “Over fifteen million dollars.”

  I exhaled sharply, the gravity of the situation bearing down on me. I didn’t trust Gabriel enough to believe he had my best intentions at heart. And he barely knew anything about me to trust me with his fortune. It was very likely it was a setup, and I would have to walk straight into it.

  Gabriel placed the knife down, slowly, steady, studying my reaction to his request.

  “I have nothing to be concerned about do I, Antonio?”

  “Can’t think why you should.”

  Again he waited, looking for any tell-tale signs.

  “That’s not all.” He continued, “I need a particular situation taken care of.”

  “Turn off the highway and head up the 61.”

  “Boss wants us to go straight to the docks,” my driver Anton replied short and curt.

  “I know what he wants, but I’m telling you to make a stop.”

  He was a man of rules and right now he was pissed to be breaking them.

  “What’s the location?”

  “The club.”

  He threw a sideways glance at me before turning back to the road.

  “You wanna stop for a lap dance?”

  “No, I don’t want to stop for a lap dance. I will need five minutes at the most.”

  “Straight shooter.”

  I ignored the jibe. I didn’t need him off-side, and I certainly didn’t need him reporting his suspicions.

  Ten minutes of silence later, Anton stopped the SUV at the club’s entrance. Blood stains still remained on the ground where Andrews had been shot. The two security recognized and greeted me when I walked in. One frowned slightly at my presence, minus Gabriel, but said nothing. I followed the path down the hall bypassing the strippers already in full swing for their morning clients and spoke to Clara, the hostess.

  While warm and friendly, she was confused to see me there alone.

  “Welcome back, Mr. Suárez. How can we be of service to you today?”

  “I’m here to see Ana.”

  “Is Gabriel also joining us?”

  “Maybe later.”

  “Oh, right. Well, come with me. She has a client in ten minutes. I can push him back if you like?”

  “No need,” I assured. “I’ll only be five minutes.”

  She giggled lightly, and I realized then how my meager ‘five minutes’ would have sounded to her experienced ears. We approached the entrance to the wing containing the ‘show’ rooms. The entry door was locked and guarded by the biggest of the security. I couldn’t make a scene. I needed everyone to think it was business as usual.

  The hostess gestured to the room Ana danced in and left me to it. The room was dark, but I found my way down to the chair and waited. Having been alerted to my presence and the expected client, Ana wasted no time.

  Taking my hand, she led me into the glass box before greeting me.

  “You’re back!”

  Her face was freshly made up and the dress she worse had a split all the way to her bronzed hip.

  “You look gorgeous,” I smiled warmly.

  Under the warmth of the soft lights, she blushed. “Thank you.”

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said. Were you serious yesterday about helping?”

  “Of course.” Her eyes came alight with opportunity. Opportunity to see the Santos family brought to their knees. She was no supporter, years of witnessing and receiving abuse had taken its toll.

  Retrieving a burner cell from my pocket, I held it out. “I don’t want you to do anything that puts you in danger, Ana. All I want is for you to contact me whenever you hear word that Luis Santos is heading back to the club, or when he reque
sts you to join him.”

  “What will you do?” She took the cell and gripped it tight.

  “I’m going to end him so everyone else can start living.”

  The docks were heaving with activity. Containers were being loaded, everything from small tugboats to container ships were being piled high with produce ready to hit the open seas. Some would be making a path to Asia, others to the States.

  “Over there.” Anton pointed to where boxes of dragon fruit filled with cocaine awaited. I scanned the crowd of workers all focused on their tasks so they could make their breaks and shipping deadlines. I was still playing it safe, determining that this could be my first real test by Gabriel to prove my allegiance. Then again, it could also be a way of stinging me if shit went south.

  “Can I help you?” a thick accent greeted me belonging to a sweaty, overall-wearing man.

  “I’m here to check the shipment before it’s loaded.”

  “Doesn’t trust us, hey?” He almost looked offended. “The Mariner. I take care of everything coming in and going out. Including everything for Santos.”

  “Well, Mariner, I’m just here following procedure.”

  Was I?

  The man seemed inconvenienced by the holdup and I wondered why, given that this sort of thing should have happened before, on a regular basis. Unless, of course, this was a sting.

  “Go on then.” He gave a dismissive wave of the hand.

  Taking extra precaution, I filmed the boxes as I moved around them counting each one. As I kept tally, I wondered if this batch of cocaine was made from my father’s coca crop in La Balsa. The boxes were labeled with a landscape motif as the logo. To customs, they looked legit.

  I counted sixty boxes, and satisfied with the evidence, I messaged Gabriel the footage.

  My job here was done, and as my cell vibrated in my hand from an incoming call, something else became far more pressing than a shipment of dragon fruit.

  The number belonged to Ana.

  I instructed Anton to pull into a space down a road opposite city square.

  “I’ll be ten minutes.”

  “Where are you going?” His frustration was evident.

  Ignoring, I closed the door and navigated the busy square looking for my destination. It was twilight and people were looking for dinner.

  Across from the bronze bull sculpture, and next to the ice cream parlor, the custom-built sculpture came into view and within seconds I was at my destination. Walking through the front door of the restaurant, I bypassed the tables and curious staff and entered the kitchen. It was organized chaos as food was being prepared and chef’s demands sounding every second. Through the dull tones I saw a splash of red.

  Ana.

  She sat at the back of the kitchen dressed in jeans and a red sweatshirt. Her hair was pulled back and she wore only a smear of lip gloss. She looked the best I’d ever seen her. That was until I noticed her worried eyes.

  “What’s happened?” I asked, gently gripping her shoulders until she straightened.

  “Gabriel came in soon after you left.” She bit her lip anxiously.

  “What did he want?”

  “I’m not sure to be honest. He just sat and started rambling on about how much his father relies on the discretion from his employees. That those who talk or engage with spies face a public and humiliating death.”

  “Does he know about the phone?”

  She shook her head, her brows creasing together. “He said he had just come from having to show someone the importance of being quiet. I don’t think it was necessarily directed at me but thought you should know.”

  “It was.”

  Ana looked grim and I began to worry I had placed her in a very real danger. Perhaps the glass box was bugged. Perhaps it was just Gabriel’s paranoia. I hadn’t been working for him long and he was still testing the waters as far as my allegiance went.

  “But we’ve hardly spoken. Only when he practically dumped you in the room.”

  “It’s a possible set up. Ana, I won’t see you again. So far he doesn’t know about the cell or about me meeting you just now. He only knows of yesterday and possibly this morning, and that was with his permission. He’s waiting for us to slip and for that reason we need to stop. Your safety is paramount. I can source information in other ways that won’t affect you. You will only see me when I’m accompanying Gabriel. Hopefully, that should quell some of his suspicion. Did he say or do anything else?”

  “He demanded a show and then left.”

  “Okay… just go about life as normal. Only contact me if you know you’re in danger.”

  She nodded, wrapping her arms around my neck. I returned the embrace while sending a silent prayer she would be safe.

  “I’m leaving the club,” she said, her hands resting on my chest. “When I can make my escape. Carlos, my cousin…” she pointed to the chef, “…said I always have a job here.”

  “Do it when you can. When it’s safe. And don’t look back.”

  I kissed her cheek and was almost through the door when her voice stopped me. “Maria Rosa,” was all she said.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Maria Rosa was Luis Santos’s wife. I don’t know for sure, but it might be the name of his yacht.”

  Gabriel was nowhere in sight when I arrived back at the mansion. Making use of the free time, I Googled the Maria Rosa. There was a brief mention of the yacht in an online maritime magazine for the world’s most luxurious vessels. And indeed, it was luxurious. Blood money had been used to pay for this overindulgence. So many lives destroyed, so he could sail the open seas living off the grid, while others raped and pillaged on his behalf.

  Closing the laptop, I headed out into the open long grassed field at the back of the house, away from any wires that might have been hidden. I dialed Zero’s number. After four rings, he answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Can you talk?”

  “Ahhh…” He knew it was me, and he also knew that he shouldn’t be speaking to someone like me. There were ears everywhere in the agency. And wherever ears couldn’t go, taps always did the trick.

  “Sort of.”

  “Just answer yes or no, and don’t draw attention to yourself.”

  “Okay.”

  “I need you to find a trace for a super yacht called Maria Rosa.”

  “Okay.”

  “It belongs to Luis Santos.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Find a pay phone and call this number showing on your cell then delete it. I can answer your call any time of day, but will most likely be in the same position you are in now. Understand?”

  “Yes.”

  I paused, no longer able to avoid the important issues.

  “Does the agency have men looking for me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is there a bounty?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is Jase okay?”

  “No—”

  “What?”

  “I mean, yes… kind of… not really.”

  It was pointless asking him to elaborate. “Do they have him under surveillance?”

  Zero laughed like it was a stupid question. Probably was. “Yes.”

  “And you?”

  “A little.” There was a muffled sound like someone was covering the receiver on the other end. “Don’t come back,” Zero hissed into the phone. “You’re their next poster boy for the enemy of the state. Wherever you are, stay there. Gotta—”

  Before he could finish, the call ended.

  What he said came as no surprise. I expected it to be the case, I just didn’t think it would be tackled with such vehemence.

  I was now faced with two evils. To be headhunted by my own people, or be stuck in a country where if I stood out of line even once, I would be buried in a shallow grave.

  “I need you to stop by the club.”

  I listened for any hint of betrayal in his voice. Gabriel was a good actor.

  “Okay, what for?” I was c
asual, eating my breakfast as my boss watched me closely. He too was watching for any sign of weakness.

  “I have a client dropping off some product. I need to test its purity before I approve production.”

  “Okay. His name?”

  “Frederico. He’ll be in at midday.”

  He was cold. Stoic. Not an inch of his usual humorous self.

  “Something wrong?” I dared.

  It was eight in the morning, and he poured two glasses of Tequila, sliding one across the table toward me. I watched as the liquid sloshed over the sides next to my bowl. I wasn’t enthused about chasing my cereal with a Tequila shot. He downed his in one attempt, his face twisting into a scowl in the aftermath.

  “My uncle is on a war path.”

  My wide eyes met his and I swallowed hard to remain cool. It was the first real time Gabriel had initiated a conversation about Luis Santos.

  “Oh?”

  “La Balsa was a fuck up.”

  I gripped my spoon, knuckles turning white. This was also the first time he had addressed La Balsa since the night of the brothel when I killed Colonel Gregorio.

  “We lost a whole army and the people have regained their land. What’s left of it.” He laughed at the end and I wanted to hurl my bowl at his smug face. “The crop was only weeks out from harvest, too. We have suppliers waiting, and our backlog is growing. La Balsa was supposed to be the payoff. I should never have left that useless fucking Gregorio in charge.”

  “It’s done. Your uncle will have to think outside the square.”

  His smile reached ear to ear, a pitying look in his eyes. “You haven’t had the privilege of meeting him yet. When you do, you’ll understand. La Balsa was on my shoulders, and as soon as I turn my back armed with the guarantee that everything will be sorted, the whole town gets blown up and the rebel army slaughtered.”

  I wanted to tell him that it was his rebel army who ‘slaughtered’ the people of La Balsa including my father. I wanted to tell him that it was the rebel army who had raped my mother on my last visit to La Balsa all those years ago. I wanted to tell him that he positioned Colombian against Colombian for a war they had no right in fighting.