Angeles. But now she couldn’t. Now she had to go to Mexico and listen to her dad and his stupid mistress Portia go at it day and night because they were horny dweebs. And she didn’t like Mexico. She liked California. Or Texas. Or Washington. Or anywhere else in the United States where there was fun and money and people to give both to her. Where people had the money to buy the drugs that her family brought in.
Used to bring in, she reminded herself.
She liked life a lot better when she could do anything she wanted.
How dare those cops come in and kill Donny. She’d liked him. He worshipped her. She remembered how Joseph had worshipped Nicole. Of course, Joseph was a lot smarter and meaner than Donny, but Elise would rather have a cute dumb guy do her bidding than a smart ugly guy.
One of her phones rang. It took her a second to fish it out—she had three burn phones. One she should probably toss because it was how Clara and Donny called her. That wasn’t ringing; she threw it out the window.
It was the pink phone and she smiled. Daddy!
He wasn’t going to be happy … but she didn’t have to tell him everything. Yet.
“Hi, Daddy!” She sounded as cheerful as she could be.
“It’s Travis.”
“Oh.”
Travis was okay. He’d been around a long time.
“I just texted you our location. This job has gone south real quick. Jimmy was supposed to meet us two hours ago.”
“What happened? Where is he?”
“He went for a meeting with this guy named Colton and his partner, the moneybags. He didn’t come back and I can’t reach him on his phone.”
“What about getting paid?”
“Don’t know.”
She looked at the text message. “Where’s Montgomery?”
“Texas.”
“No shit, how far from San Antonio?” She was nearly to Austin.
“Couple hours. Maybe three.”
“See you in three—”
“Be careful here, this guy has fucking armed soldiers patrolling and I’m getting a real bad vibe.”
“I’m always careful, sugar.”
She ended the call. She wasn’t concerned about any of that. She would assess the situation and could play any part she needed. Seductive slut, or sweet innocent schoolgirl. She’d know exactly what to do when she met Mr. Moneybags himself.
She typed the address into her GPS. Two hours, thirty-one minutes.
She started cruising, then saw a sign for food. She was starving.
Everyone could just chill. She needed to eat, she needed to sleep, and then she’d decide whether to go rescue her dad … or maybe just drive down to Mexico, kill the bitch who was screwing her father, and relax by the pool until her daddy got there. She could just say she didn’t know where Portia was, she wasn’t here when she arrived, act all innocent and whatnot.
Her dad was usually good at getting out of his own messes.
Chapter Forty-nine
EBANO, MEXICO
EARLY SUNDAY MORNING
Kane and Jack waited until Dyson arrived at the safe house and then he and Ranger escorted Peter Blair to the border. Jack couldn’t wait to get him into the system, and hopefully they’d lose him somewhere in a maximum security facility. He had no guilt that Kane had lied to Blair about letting him go. They had at least enough evidence for the feds to make a run at him, and if they failed to make the case, Kane would follow through on the whisper campaign to discredit him.
As soon as they left, Kane and Jack headed to Ebano. They didn’t trust Blair, not 100 percent, but they had confirmed through another source that Portia Ortiz owned a club in the small tourist area. Ebano wasn’t even a town—it was a community across the lake from Santiago. Hotels, resorts, restaurants, a few estates. She lived in a spread in the hills with a view of the lake. They couldn’t easily get the property records, but assumed that Hunt owned it under a shell corp or a fake identity.
The Santiago area, southeast of Monterrey, was relatively safe compared to other areas of Mexico. They prided themselves on their tourist trade, so it benefited them to keep crime low through an active law enforcement presence. That presence might hinder them from grabbing Hunt when he arrived. Jack wanted to do this quick and efficiently.
They watched the house for an hour early that morning, before the sun came up. No movement, but that wasn’t surprising. According to Kane’s contact, Portia Ortiz worked at the club every night. She was well-liked and had grown the business over the last two years.
Interesting, Jack thought. Two years