Page 62 of Married with Blood
“In an hour.”
I’d take whatever heat I had to from my brothers to let her come with me. Carina was too much of an expert to leave at home.Should anything go wrong on the way to the handoff or at it, she’d be just the person to offer a fix on the spot, under the pressure of a deadline and time constraint because runs were always prone to obstacles in the field.
Challenging Arturo’s reach was the first step in figuring out whether he had to be eliminated, but when we headed out into the desert less than an hour later, I wondered if I was subliminally challenging Carina, too. This was the initial action of testing out how her brother had fallen out of our good graces, if we would see the Cartel as an enemy to eliminate and fight or if Arturo could correct his actions and redeem himself for why our weapons were lost.
Will she choose me?
Or her past?
Is she under the impression she’s failing her father and the memory of him?
Or is she willing to move forward with me?
Halfway toward the location, Carina became more alert.
I was driving, following Dean in another car. Another vehicle was behind us, the van that would be loaded up. She sat up straighter in the passenger seat and furrowed her brow.
“What’s wrong?”
“We’ve passed two scouts already.”
I frowned, pissed, annoyed, and amazed all at once. Later on, in hindsight, I bet gratitude would fit in there as well.
Two scouts?
Where?
I hadn’t noticed anything, and I wasn’t exactly new to this. When I first started as a soldier for the Bratva, just like my brothers and cousins had, I was expected to be on the frontline for a while. I rode along on runs and assisted in transactions. Supervising this branch of the Bratva hadn’t changed anything. I knew what to look out for.
“That truck back near that first gas station,” she reported. “That was one of the Cartel’s.”
“Where was the other?” I asked, focusing on the road.
“That broken-down car we passed several miles ago.” She glanced at me, concern written on her gorgeous face. “That one wasn’t the Cartel’s, though.”
“Whose was it?” Knowing who was ordering lookouts would make a difference.
She shrugged. “Independent, maybe.”
In other circumstances, it seemed like a stretch for her to guess—based purely on passing them by—that someone could be placed as a lookout on a smuggling route. But this was Carina. Miguel Garcia had practically trained her himself, according to what she’d told me. He’d shown how she was a daddy’s girl in a working sense.
She lifted her hand and rubbed the back of her neck. “I’m not sure that’s a good sign. If the Colombians don’t trust this deal because of how suddenly you’d made the request or what.”
“Report it to Dean.” He had to be aware of the eyes on this road, and he’d relay the information to the man driving our van.
Before she finished texting, she cursed as we passed another derelict truck abandoned on the side of the highway. Itlookedlike a broken mess of rusted metal that had given up on another mile of driving. I noticed her frowning at it quickly enough that I could spot what had really made her study it.
A man was lying in wait on the other side of the truck. He wasn’t down low to fix the car, but with a phone out and a scope up at his eyes.
He was watching the route.
But was it Arturo or the Colombians?
It used to be that we’dknowthis part of Mexico was fine for us to pass through for business. Under Miguel Garcia’s rule, we could count on a friend in this area. Now? With Arturo at the helm—and ArturowithoutCarina there to advise him?
“This feels like a setup.”
Carina didn’t object, not completely. “It can’t be a setup.Youinitiated this. You made the request with the Colombians. Yes, it was sudden, but still legitimate. The surveillance on this route does seem like a setup, though.” She caught my attention for a second, pausing in telling Dean and the others about the observations so far. “They could be setting you up to getbackfrom this handoff.”
