And your brother. They were both devastated by your ‘death.’ Did you think about that detail when you killed the man you left in your house?”
“They know the truth now.”
“But they didn’t then. I was there when we found that hacked up body. Your brother was shattered. He’ll never forgive you for that.”
Enrique’s eyes darkened, and Rose thought about one of Silas’s favorite maxims. The truth hurts.
She didn’t stop. “If you don’t care about them, that’s your business, but Ortega disappeared tonight. Did your plan take that possibility into consideration?”
“Then I accomplished my goal and proved my point. He didn’t have the cojones to stay here. I’ll be in charge, and he will not be returning.”
“Your goal is going to end up with you in prison. I knew you were involved in this from the very beginning, and my guys will figure out I was right. You’ll be very, very sorry when that happens.” She shook her head as if to correct herself, her voice hardening. “Actually, you’ll probably be very, very dead. They get carried away sometimes.”
His fists balled, his body growing tight and still. Had she gone too far? Would she die in this lonely, forgotten spot and be buried in the desert, never to be seen again? She decided it didn’t matter. Santos had been right. Someone had to stop the men who were drenching the border in violence.
“Rio County is mine,” Enrique spat out. “Ortega is the one who will be sorry. If you fail to find him, then I will. He’s the one who should watch his back.”
In the silence of the desert, her voice was quiet and steady. “When the danger is past, the coward gives his warning.”
Enrique made a sound like a hiss and took a step toward her. She ignored it. “Pablo Ortega will face judgment, Enrique. And so will you.”
Chapter Seventeen
Santos had never pushed the Harley to its real limit. But now he forced the big bike past that point as it flew down the dark highway toward Las Lomas. Like a horse commanded to do better, go faster, jump higher, the motorcycle not only responded to his urgings, it surpassed them. The starry sky overhead and the empty road before him added to the impression of speed. On another day at another time, he wasn’t sure he would have been able to control the Harley.
In the distance ahead, Dan’s taillights flashed, and the truck swerved to the right, the vehicle fishtailing to a stop as soon as it was off the blacktop. Santos followed. The hunting guide stumbled from his vehicle, then sprinted toward the gate where he wrestled the chain that secured the heavy barrier to a concrete post off to one side. As Dan worked the lock’s combination, Santos stuffed stainless steel scouring pads in the pipes of the Harley before the baffles. He couldn’t make the motorcycle completely silent, but he could dampen the roar.
Hoping to go undetected, they’d agreed the best route would be to go in through Dan’s lease then cut through the back acres to Las Lomas. If Enrique wasn’t holding Rose there, Santos feared she might already be across the border. He’d called Padilla as he’d raced toward the ranch and told the federale to be on the lookout, but the border was long and dark. There were a thousand places where Enrique could take her over, and no one would ever know.
Santos hadn’t thought it possible for the night to get any darker. As they bounced over the deer lease’s gravel road without their lights on, he realized he’d been wrong. The highway’s reflective stripes had at least given him an idea of where they road was; now the bike was climbing up a barren, rock-filled track not much wider than a sidewalk, and doing so blindly. He dodged a cactus looming over the tortured maze, realizing the bike was heading straight for a pair of massive boulders. Yanking the Harley to the center, he managed to clear the obstacles at the last minute.Then the road leveled out.
A barbed wire fence stretched both ways before him for as far as he could see. In the inky night, a pale yellow light winked dimly in the distance. A mile? Maybe a little less. Dan pulled to a stop, and Santos followed. The only other team member with them, Joaquim, eased his bike in behind Santos’s. He had positioned the remaining ACES at various strategic spots along the ranch’s perimeter.
They climbed off their bikes,