Page 10 of Everything We Found

“Don’t give me that.” She shoved his shoulder and got out of the car, forcing him to his feet and backward. “I deserve an answer.”

“I don’t have one.” Not one he was ready to give to her just yet. He needed facts first.

“Liar.”

His jaw locked and he tossed the water and towel in the trunk. “I need to make a call.” Retrieving his phone from his pocket, he walked away from the car so it didn’t pick up the conversation and she’d overhear.

Thomas remembered the day everything changed, when his eyes had been opened to a darker, more sinister world. His father, Edgar, had pulled him aside. He’d been approached by the FBI and questioned if he was aware of Phil’s activities. The Hidalgo Cartel was laundering large sums of money through various USA import-export corporations and Donato Enterprises was one of them. They’d bribed Phil into working for them. The FBI sought Edgar’s assistance to report on Phil’s dealings, but since he’d recently been diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, Edgar brought Thomas into the loop. It didn’t take long for the DEA to come into the picture. Their mission was similar to the FBI’s: target and dismantle the Hidalgo Cartel. But they weren’t interested in the FBI’s money-laundering investigation and convinced the agency not to go after Phil just yet. They were after a bigger fish: Fernando “El Carnicero” Ruiz, the leader of the Hidalgo Cartel. AKA The Butcher. Those close to him had nicknamed him for the brutal methods he used to kill his rivals. The signature “H” he’d carve into their flesh before their bodieswere strung up to bleed out like cattle in a meat locker.The DEA wanted to follow the money through Phil to locate and capture Ruiz. With the information Thomas passed along to help with their investigation, Ruiz was eventually arrested and extradited to the U.S. where he was sentenced to life in a maximum-security prison.

Thomas’s contact at the DEA had been Kane Mitchell. He phoned the agent now. It had been years since they last spoke, but Kane answered after the first ring.

“You heard?” Kane wasn’t one for small talk.

“Heard what?”

“I was planning to have you come in.”

“What’s going on?” Thomas asked, looking behind him to find Nadia right there. Their eyes met. What Kane said next should have shocked him. But after what had just happened, he wasn’t the least bit surprised.

“It’s Ruiz. He escaped. He’s coming for you.”

4

NADIA

Nadia was an expert at compartmentalizing and she stuffed everything she wasn’t mentally prepared to deal with inside the locked cabinets of her mind. The pain in her cheek. The knot on the back of her head. The nausea and dizziness. Getting shot at. Her mental anguish was beyond measure and if she let it get to her, she would shut down. She donned a veneer exterior, armor she wore well.

“Ruiz who?” she demanded when she overheard the name.

Thomas held up a hand to give him a moment, then his face contorted into a terrified rage, a state she’d only witnessed him in once before. “How the hell did he escape a maximum-security prison?” he asked the person on the other end of the call. “You don’t know?” He listened for a beat, seething. “Then tell me this, Kane. A very small, curated circle knows where I live. How the fuck did they find me?”

“What do you mean?” Nadia heard the barely audible question coming from his phone.

“A sniper just shot up my house. My friend was hit.” He paused to listen. His hazel eyes met hers and he touched her elbow. “Yes, she’s alive. We escaped, barely.” Another pause and Thomas pulled the phone from his ear. “Do you need to see adoctor?” he asked her and she shook her head. She’d live. The hospital was the last place she wanted to be. She wanted to know what had happened then she wanted to get her car and go home. The soul-crushing pressure to flee from whatever this was would hit her hard once she loosened her grip on her self-control. When she did, she wanted the privacy of her home.

“Agree. We can’t go back,” Thomas said into the phone. He paced away from Nadia.

While he spoke, she typed a string of keywords into her search app and a horror unlike anything she’d ever felt gnawed at her insides. The notorious cartel leader and head hitman captured and arrested almost a decade ago had escaped prison. The headlines already topped the search hits.

Sirens sounded in the distance and they both heard them, their gazes meeting up again. Nadia could tell that Thomas was beside himself, his anger a barely restrained fury as he finished his conversation and ended the call. He walked over to her.

“Fernando Ruiz escaped?” She needed to hear his confirmation despite the dozens of headlines she’d just skimmed.

Thomas nodded. “Apparently.”

“How?”

“Kane didn’t say.”

“Who is Kane?”

Thomas slid his phone into his front pocket. “Kane Mitchell, special agent with the DEA. I used to report to him about Phil.”

Nadia nodded, piecing the past together. It had been years since she read about the Hidalgo Cartel and Fernando Ruiz’s capture along with Phil Donato’s arrest. Thomas’s brother had plea bargained for a reduced sentence. He served his time and was released four or so years ago, around the time James resurfaced.

“Was Ruiz the one shooting at us?”

“Not likely. Kane thinks he’s gone underground. More likely he, or his sons, ordered the hit.”