Texas Hold 'Em (Smokin' ACES) - By Kay David Page 0,62
he held a machete. He spit in the dirt and glared at Gloria. Dread rolled through Santos’s gut.
“Take a good look, my friends. Here she is.” He shook her head viciously. “This puta won’t be with us after today!” The crude insult echoed against the walls, along with the nervous laughter of the watching men.
Rose cut her eyes toward Santos and whispered, “Is that Ortega?”
“I don’t think so. Our only photos are worthless, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have a limp.”
Rose’s mother reached up and held onto the man’s wrists, trying to alleviate the pressure of his grip. “You’re making a huge mistake,” she said from behind gritted teeth. “When he finds out you’ve treated me like this, you’re a dead man.”
The man wasn’t Ortega. Santos didn’t know if he should feel relieved or angry. Both, he decided. Relieved, because he hoped this man might not be as bloodthirsty as Ortega so Gloria stood half a chance. And anger, because it meant he still didn’t know where Ortega was.
Jerking her to one side, the grinning man held out his arms without letting her go and waved his knife, looking up at the men and hooting. “I’m a dead man?” he laughed. “If anyone here is dead, it’s you, La señorita Rubia.”
“Let me go.” She pulled against the man’s relentless hold, her fingernails biting into his wrists and leaving a bloody trail. As the men began to laugh, he spit out a curse and transferred his grip on her hair to the other hand. Lifting the hilt of the blade above Gloria’s head, he brought it toward her temple, then froze as a deep voice slashed through the laughter.
“Basta!”
Santos jerked his eyes upward. The speaker was standing right above the spot where he and Rose were hiding, on one of the balconies facing the courtyard. Santos couldn’t see him, but if his voice was any indication, he was the one in charge. All the other men turned to look as if pulled by the same string. He jerked Rose closer beside him.
“That’s enough of your stupidity, Manuel,” the voice overhead ordered. “Release her.”
The man with the machete turned slowly, a defiant glint in his eyes. Santos could see he didn’t appreciate the scolding—if he didn’t answer it in kind, his authority was in jeopardy. His men would no longer respect him. He kicked at something beside his feet and a cell phone skittered into the open, spinning to a stop.
“My ‘stupidity’ found this phone on her, jefe. Are you still sure you want me to let her go?”
Santos heard a hammer click back, and so did the man standing in the courtyard. Panic filled his expression, then he simply crumbled, a neat round hole centered on his forehead. From the back of his head, blood splattered out across the bricks and Gloria, as well. His knife clattered to the ground, coming to rest beside the phone. To his amazement, Gloria scrambled for the blade, and then stood up without sparing the man a second glance. Did she know the shot had come from the balcony?
A cry of alarm sounded suddenly from the roofline. A single guard had turned, and was pointing over the wall. “Men coming! Federales! And more…los motos!”
The courtyard erupted into confusion that quickly segued into chaos. Clattering down the stairs, the guards surged toward the gate, their haste making Santos and Rose dive behind a stack of firewood pressed against the nearest wall.
They were barely in place when a deafening blast blew a gigantic hole in the exterior wall, sending a shockwave through the men running for the gate. The ones nearest the wall filled the air with strangled screams while those who still had time pivoted and tried to escape the way they’d come. Another explosion followed, and trapped between the killing zones, they spun in terror, caught between that noise and the roar of the motorcycles that were coming. A wave of federales poured through both openings.
The pandemonium grew instantly worse, the sounds of rapid gunfire breaking out in every direction. Before he could stop her, Rose ran for the inner courtyard, fighting through the bloody craziness, pushing to the center of the courtyard, where she fell to her mother’s side.
Santos joined her a second later. Gloria was sprawled on the cobblestones, a streak of dark blood painting a crooked path between the bricks.
…
Rose didn’t know what to do. She was afraid to move her mother and afraid to leave her alone. When Gloria opened