“Go through that fence and run to the next block and get the hell out of here.” His eyes burned darkly.
“Michael, why—”
“Just do it!” he ordered. “Go as fast as you can. Don’t stop. Don’t come back. Just run, Maggie. Run.”
He pushed her away, madder than she’d ever seen him.
She stumbled and looked back at him. “Michael! I have to—”
“God damn it! Go!”
She lunged, grabbing his shoulders. “Listen to me!” she screamed. “I have to tell you something—”
“Just go!” He shoved her toward the fence again, but she braced her legs and refused to move.
“No,” she insisted, digging her sneakers into a crack in the wet asphalt. “Not until you tell me what’s going on.”
He took hold of her shoulders and squeezed so hard his fingers dug into her bones. “Get the hell out of here right now. That’s all you need to know.”
Lights from a car illuminated his face, and he forced her down, behind the car.
“Michael, stop it. Why are you doing this?” Tears mixed with rain, stinging her eyes and cheeks.
Headlights illuminated the lot and his eyes flashed as he nudged her once more toward the fence, then vaulted away.
Slowly, she rose in shock, staring after him as he ran full speed to the warehouse. She saw him shake out of the jacket he wore and drop it to the ground, revealing another jacket underneath. With yellow letters on the back . . .
FBI.
Oh God. Oh God, no.
He stopped, looked over his shoulder to where she stood, and even in the darkness, in the distance, she could see him saying something. To her? What was he saying?
Then there was light and noise and the world seemed to explode. Spotlights poured blinding whiteness over everything, drawing a gasp from Maggie as she faltered backward.
She spun and lunged for an opening in the fence, her sneakers splashing into puddles, her legs almost buckling as she tripped over gravel and cracks. Rain sluiced over her face, into her mouth.
A gunshot cracked and voices cut through the deafening rain.
“FBI! DEA! Get out of the truck! You’re under arrest!”
Four, five, six more gunshots, staccato and deafening.
She slowed, stopped, and pressed her hands to her chest to ease the pain of her heaving breaths. She had to see. Had to. Grabbing a strip of wood along the top of the fence, she hoisted herself up, blinking into the rain and lights and chaos.
Men surrounded the delivery truck, guns drawn. One of them yanked open the door and pulled Jorge out. Then Stephan on the driver’s side. More men swarmed the warehouse. In the flood of light, she could easily read the large yellow letters on their backs.
Her heart dropped right down to her toes, leaving a black, empty hole in her chest. Michael had betrayed them all. He was a fed. A narc. A liar.
She clung to the fence, her hair plastered over her face, her lungs bursting, her heart breaking as the ugly truth hammered down on her as hard as the rain.
One of the agents threw Jorge on the ground and clamped him down with a boot and gun to the head. Two more ran into the back, pistols straight out and ready to shoot.
Agents and cops poured out of the warehouse, first with Carlos in cuffs, then Ramon, his long black hair streaming wet in his face, spewing obscenities as he tried to jerk free. An ambulance screamed into the parking lot, blue lights flashing; then the paramedics were running into the warehouse.
Where was Michael?
Frozen, she watched in horror as they took a stretcher inside. Minutes dragged by until they came back out, carrying Michael. As the stretcher passed Ramon, who was cuffed and slammed against the side of the building, he turned and spat on the body.
“Cabrón!” Bastard.
At the ambulance, they covered his face with a sheet. Closing her eyes, Maggie let go of the fence and dropped to the wet ground. Her stomach rolled, the nausea caused by something other than what she’d suspected for the last few weeks.
He’d used her. He’d played her. He’d strung her along, made her think he loved her, all the time coaxing information that she got from her boyfriend. All the time making her believe he cared.
She was nothing more than a way to get to Ramon, and through him, to El Viejo.
Thank God he was dead—otherwise she’d go to jail for killing him herself.
Ramon was right. Bastard.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the fortune. The universe spoke to