Lupe almost reached Francisca's apartment.
He had delivered the information to Rafe. Tomorrow he would meet with the young Norteño gang member who could supply him with the last pieces of information to pass along to Rafe. Life was good. The night was still young, and the thrill of his love for his girlfriend overshadowed his natural caution.
Lupe was only half a block away, deep in the thought of snuggling up close to his esposita, when a warning raised the hackles on his neck. The limousine appeared out of nowhere, its windows tinted so darkly Lupe could not see inside. He did not need to.
He had no doubt who drove the black sedan. Who sat in the backseat. Though he had no reason to believe his cover had been blown, he felt irrational fear as he fingered the Guadalupe Virgin's medallion.
The driver's door swung open. Gabriel Santos climbed out and rested his giant's hands covered in expensive leather gloves on top of the car. "Hola." The single-word greeting sounded ominous to Lupe's guilty ears.
"El jefe," Lupe said, "¿Porqué está usted aquí?" But he was very much afraid that he knew why Santos was here, so close to the home of the woman he loved.
"Consiga en el coche." Get in the car.
Lupe did not dare disobey Santos' command, so he quickly slid into the back seat.
At first he thought there were two passengers in the back. He smelled the distinctive cologne and knew one of the occupants was Diego Vargas, El Vaquero. The other person sat in the middle, but his head slumped forward and his limp hands dangled between his legs. Lupe feared to look at either of the men and kept his eyes drilled to the back of Santos' head as he pulled the car onto the street.
They drove in silence for thirty, forty minutes. Lupe lost track of the time. His only thoughts were of Francisca. He pictured her waiting for him, a bowl of salsa and chips on the coffee table, the television tuned to her favorite show. Waiting. But he was not sure he would return to her this night.
He desperately wanted to ask the name of the third man.
Abruptly the car stopped and Santos reached up to turn on the dome light. Lupe glanced involuntarily toward the person beside him like a man drawn to a fatal car crash. Jesús Novato, the young Norteño.
His face was a bloody pulp, but Lupe recognized the tattoo on the left side of his neck, a red X4, fourteen. Home-grown, a prison tat. He glanced at the hands between Novato's knees and saw the missing fingers and the dark stain that covered the groin of his jeans.
¡Madre del Dios! Lo castraron. Lupe would never see Francisca again. Nor his beautiful baby boy. They would castrate him too.
Fueled by the unaccustomed liquor, Bella had babbled about her family's immigration from Zihuatanejo, Mexico, before she was born, of her three older brothers and sisters and the family's difficult adjustment to life in North America.
After two hours of conversation and coffee – no dancing – her loose-tongued chatter revealed that she had three older sisters, one who'd died at a young age. Died, she'd told Rafe, although in her heart of hearts she believed Maria was still alive somewhere.
Frivolous chatter between strangers. Neither had revealed a last name.
All the while, she'd escaped in the swirling emeralds of his eyes slashed through with tiny black flecks like angry cuts. Sharp and probing, the eyes were a strange contrast to his coppery skin and short thick lashes. A wide scar bisected his left eyebrow and gave him the roguish look of a pirate. A rush of pheromones flooded her as his gaze wandered to her mouth and lingered there, then dipped to the cleavage that spilled from the juncture of her breasts.
By contrast to her, she realized, he'd revealed almost nothing about himself. Which was fine because all she wanted was a few hours of casual flirtation.
Breaking off from his steady gaze, she glanced around the bar. Consuelo and Anita gave her the sign it was time to go. For all their urging, they had no intention of letting their baby sister go home with a stranger. Not that she would, even though she quite liked Ashraf, call him Rafe, long A.
Isabella, she'd said in turn, call her Bella. No last names.
Which was exactly how she wanted it.
She liked his wry sense of humor and gentlemanly manners. And there was the assurance of his badge which he'd flashed early on. They were practically comrades in arms, she thought, but of course, she didn't tell him that.
A part of her almost wished he hadn't revealed that he worked for the government. Although, in truth, she'd hardly glanced at the badge.
Was he FBI, CIA or…? Some triple-letter acronym. And Bella didn't want to know which one.
What she really wanted to know was if he were as sinewy and muscled as he appeared beneath the fine white shirt and the expensive gray suit. If his skin were as cool and smooth as it looked. His fingers lay on the table top, long and dark, strong and capable looking.
She imagined all kinds of clever things those hands, those fingers, could do. Involuntarily, she ran her tongue over suddenly dry lips. A delicious chill ran up her spine.
"Are you cold?" Without waiting for an answer, he scooted around the booth, removed his jacket, and draped it over her shoulders. He lingered there, his arm draped around her body while her fingers caressed the expensive wool. She wanted to savor every moment of the evening with this exciting man.
She stared at the cup of coffee in front of her as the caffeine hit her brain. Her eyes lowered, she pulled the jacket closer around the deep red of her dress.
What now? How would they end this delightful seduction? She wished she'd paid better attention to Romance 101 in law school. But, no, discovery motions and appellate court cases had always been more interesting to her than socializing. But now, in spite of knowing next to nothing about Ashraf, call me Rafe, she wasn't eager to leave.
He placed a warm hand over hers and smiled a flash of brilliant white. Her eyes flickered toward the bartender, a rotund, heavily-bearded man who used a gigantic bar mop to wipe down the backsplash. With swift, efficient movements, he stacked clean glasses beneath the counter and restocked the liquor section.
Rafe's eyes followed Isabella's. "Looks like we've closed down the bar." He smiled, noting the dwindling number of customers. "And your sisters are waiting for you."
He hesitated, naturally cautious. "Unless you want to get the hell out of here," he added. He ought to put her into a cab and send her on her way, safe and sound, toward the secure arms of her witchy sisters. "My apartment's a few miles from here," he offered instead.
She laughed a silver bell sound. "Is this the part where you offer to show me your etchings?" She sidled closer to him, her lips hovering inches from his mouth, her thick straight lashes shadowing her pale skin.
He opened his mouth to speak, but impulsively brushed his lips across her cheek, inhaling her clean scent. Beneath his mouth he felt the jump of the vein at her temple and the steady thrumming of her pulse beneath his hand. Any thought of putting her in a cab flew out of his mind.
"There are many things I'd like to show you," he whispered in her ear, "but not one of them is an etching."
He slid from the booth and took Isabella's hand, leading her past the bar where the bartender hardly acknowledged their leaving. That casual lack of interest should've sent a warning jiggle to the back of Rafe's mind, but they arrived at the sisters' table and introductions were made while the gentle scent of Isabella's perfume banished all thoughts of the bartender and his shifty eyes.
"I'll walk you to your car," Rafe insisted.
The sisters left first while he and Isabella followed at a discreet distance. Outside, in the balmy air, typical southern California weather, he removed the jacket from her shoulders and slung it over his arm.
The dark alley stretched to the right side of Stuckey's, flanked on one side by an over-sized industrial bin and a large flat of crates on the other. The alley was strangely clean, with only the slight odor of ocean some miles to the west.
Rafe glimpsed the light winking through the faint mist at the other end where the sisters had already disappeared. He felt the cool, smooth grip of Isabella's fingers inside his hand and the gentle knocking of her hip against his thigh. Just the swish of her dress against his pant leg aroused him, and the next moment, the mere touch of his hand to her bare back sent a rush of blood to his groin.
Halfway down the alley, he swung her around, trapping her against the cool brick of the building. He hesitated, hoping he hadn't misread the cues he'd gotten all night. The rough texture of the wall grazed his palms as they pressed the wall on either side of her head.
Without a word of protest, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and ran her fingers through the hair at his neck. Her body quivered against him as he brushed his lips across her warm mouth, tentatively, then with greater urgency. Another electric jolt of desire ran through him as their tongues met and danced in an urgent mating rhythm.
His jacket dropped unheeded to the ground as he ran his hand down the side of her dress, reached the short hemline, and explored upward along the smooth curve of her thigh. The sound of her groan fueled his desire. He pinned her to the wall, feeling himself grow harder as he ground his body into her, trying to relieve the tension in his groin. The improbable thought crossed his mind that if he threw her to the ground on the hard cement beneath their feet, she'd open herself to him with the same fever that gripped him.
Brain addled with passion, he suddenly remembered himself. Who he was, and why he was here. He halted his rigorous assault on Bella's mouth and cursed himself for being so caught up in the taste and smell of her that his mind ignored everything around him.
Every other sensory image.