Bold Tricks

CHAPTER THREE

I automatically threw up my hands, though Javier barely even flinched. A slender young woman stood on the other side of the door, a large Beretta in her hands aimed right at him. Her eyes hadn’t even left his face to take me and Camden in, but one look at those golden green eyes of hers and it wasn’t hard to see she was related to Javier.

“Violetta,” Javier said calmly. He rattled off a question to her in Spanish with that smooth voice of his. Her gun never wavered, if anything her eyes narrowed even more. Finally she looked over his shoulder and spotted me and Camden. She frowned, lowered the gun and then jerked her head to follow her into the apartment.

Camden and I eyed each other nervously. I don’t know what I was expecting but I certainly wasn’t expecting this, particularly from someone that had to be in their late teens, early twenties. Then again, I guess I was handling guns at a young age too.

We walked into her apartment and Camden slowly closed the door behind us. It was quite large considering how much space seemed to be an issue in this city, with a terracotta-tiled floor, blue and white porcelain accents in the kitchen and large windows that looked out onto the sea of roofs. There was a room off to the side and I caught the sight of a rumpled bed and a large balcony beyond that. There were hair appliances and makeup and clothes strewn all over the place, cementing the fact that Violetta may have had a gun in her hands, but she was still a young girl.

She spun around in the middle of the room and suddenly slapped Javier clear across his face. I couldn’t help but suck in my breath, afraid of what Javier might do. But he merely took it as she started to rant at him in rapid-fire Spanish, throwing up her hands and launching what must have been a million obscenities.

Violetta really was a very beautiful woman, slim-limbed and around my height, 5′6″, with thick and long golden highlighted hair, dark olive skin and full lips, slightly slanted yellow-green eyes. She was wearing a summery dress that was cut short and had applied her makeup with a heavy hand.

When she was finally done, Javier retorted with a sentence or two, still succinct in his own language, and it wasn’t until I picked up on the words Eden White, that Violetta looked toward me.

She frowned and pointed my way, looking askance at Javier. “Eden?”

“Ellie,” he corrected her with a grim smile. “Her real name is Ellie. And she doesn’t speak Spanish, not that much, anyway.”

She stepped slowly toward me, her flip flops smacking against the tiles, and though I was very conscious of the gun in her hands, I stood my ground and looked her in the eye.

She smiled, playful and deceptive all at once. “So you are the famous Eden. You’re the one who broke my brother’s heart all those years ago.”

It took everything I had to keep from rolling my eyes. Of course I had been painted the villain. Of course Javier never bothered to fill his sister in on the fact that he was cheating on me with a woman he’d later end up beheading.

“I guess it depends on what side you hear,” I answered.

She smirked and took another step forward. I caught a whiff of her perfume, freesia and linen. Fresh. Out of place in this smog-filled super city.

“You know, for the longest time I swore I’d kill you if I ever saw you,” she said slowly, her accent barely audible. “I wanted to make you suffer for the pain you caused my brother. But, now I’m older. And I see how Javi is. The only thing I want to do is shake your hand.”

She put hers out for me to shake and I did so, surprised at the strength of her grip. She smiled and jerked it up and down. “I’m Violetta Bernal.”

“Ellie Watt,” I said, returning her smile. I nodded over my shoulder at Camden who was still by the door. “That’s Camden McQueen.”

Violetta looked at him, her eyes widening appreciatively. “Hello, Camden McQueen.” Then they went over to his shoulder. “What happened to your arm?”

“Got shot by the policia,” he said with a grin and I felt a weird prickle surge through me. He sounded almost as if he was flirting with her. I couldn’t help but look over at Javier to see what he felt about all of this. He was watching the three of us carefully; his brow was furrowed and he was slowly running the back of his hand underneath the scruff of his jaw, calculating something.

“Let me get you something,” she said brightly and took off to her room. Through the doorway I could see a flurry of clothes being tossed across the room and within seconds she’d come back out with a large plain black tee-shirt. She placed it in his hands.

“Here,” she said. “Some guy left it here. I won’t be calling him again anyway, so it’s yours.”

“Thank you,” he said genuinely, flashing her his drop-dead gorgeous dimples. Damn, and I thought those were reserved especially for me. “Do you have a washroom I can change in? Banos?”

She smiled and pointed down the hall to a door. Once he disappeared, she put her gun down on mantle and placed her hands on her hips. “Is he your boyfriend? Or are you still with this guy?” She jerked her head at Javier.

I swallowed hard and said, “Neither.”

“Good, I guess,” she said. “Do you know what this asshole has done? Nothing. Nothing at all! He’s been promising to send me money every month and the last check I got from him was, oh, two years ago!”

I glanced at Javier in shock. He was red in the face, sweating a bit at the temples, but not arguing with her.

She looked at him too. “Well, so what was your excuse, hey brother?”

He rubbed his lips together, eying the both of us, before saying, “I was busy. I tried.”

She snorted and walked over to the kitchen, her little ass sashaying. “Puta coño,” she swore. She opened up her fridge. “Do you want a glass of water? A beer?”

It was just before noon and I definitely needed my head on straight but I still said, “Cervesa, por favor.”

“Make that two,” Camden said, coming out of the bathroom. He was looking much better, his hair slicked back with water, his biceps bulging from the shirt that was a bit too snug on him. That, combined with his black dress shoes and tuxedo pants, made him look like a dapper man in black. Well, with a shitload of tats and Clark Kent glasses.

“We don’t have time for beer,” Javier said angrily, watching as she brought me and Camden a Modelo each. He fastened his eyes on me. “You haven’t forgotten about Gus, have you?”

I felt the sting from that and glared back at him while Violetta asked. “Who is Gus?”

“A family friend of mine,” I answered, eyes still on Javier. “Actually, more family than my own family. Travis has him. He kidnapped him in front of Javier.”

She looked at him. “This is true?”

Javier ran a hand through his hair and turned to look out the window. “Someone took him. I’m assuming it was Travis since my own fucking men turned on me just seconds before.”

“So is that why you’re here?” she asked, cocking her head to the side. “To warn me about this Travis?”

He kept staring out the window, at the rows and rows of houses, the layer of muddy smog that blocked us from blue sky. “There is no ‘this’ Travis, Violetta. He’s not a made up character. He’s real. And he will be coming for you.”

Her smile faltered for a second before she noticed I was observing her then it was full of false bravado. “I know all about Travis. I’ve been watching the news.”

“This made the news?” Camden asked, stepping forward. His arm brushed against mine and I tried to ward my mind against the warmth of our contact. “I thought he owned half of Veracruz.”

“Of course it did,” she said, smiling her bright teeth at him. “I’m sure in Veracruz you wouldn’t hear anything, but this is a different state. People here don’t look too kindly on the Zetas and their new leader. It’s been playing all morning, how an unknown cartel attempted to assassinate him at his own party. Most people have been celebrating.”

“Did they mention how one of his helicopters was shot down?” Camden asked eagerly.

“Most people?” I asked at the same time.

She gave us both a placating smile. “I never heard anything about a helicopter. But yes, Ellie, most people. This is a big city, right here, bingo, in the middle of the country. There are ties to all the cartels here. The Zetas definitely have a presence, it’s just not the most … popular one. I have a few friends in the Zetas right now.”

Javier moved so fast that all I could see was a blur of menace and stealth. He grabbed Violetta by the mouth and forced her backward until she was pressed against the door. Camden immediately went for him but I grabbed Camden quickly and pulled him back. This wasn’t his place to interfere.

Javier started swearing at her in Spanish. I picked up a few words but anyone could have figured out what he was so riled up about: the fact that she was fraternizing with members of the same cartel that had her parents and sister killed. For the first time I saw fear in Violetta’s eyes, shame and anguish. I reached forward and touched Javier lightly on the shoulder.

“Hey,” I said gently, heart-racing knowing he might turn on me at any moment. “You’re here for her.”

He squeezed her face harder and Violetta’s eyes looked to me. In this moment of fear, she finally looked her age.

“Javier,” I warned.

He loosened his grip and lowered his head so his hair hung around his face. He grunted, trying to control himself. Finally he let go of her completely and stormed straight to the bathroom where he slammed the door shut.

Violetta rubbed at her jaw, her chest heaving, eyes on the bathroom door. “What is wrong with him?”

How well do you actually know your brother? I couldn’t help but think. I gave her a sympathetic smile. “He thinks you’re in a lot of danger. He’s worried.”

“Does he really think Travis would go after me?”

No way to say this delicately. “He went after your sister.”

She ran her tongue over her teeth. “Beatriz was wrapped up with the wrong people. I’m not.”

“You’re friends with the cartel that murdered her and your parents,” Camden said, playing Devil’s Advocate.

She cocked her penciled brow at him. “Oh, do tell me what else you know, you American boy.”

I placed my hand on her arm. “I think Javier has a right to be worried. We need you to leave the city.”

She gave me a dirty look and shrugged out of my grasp. “This is my home. I will do no such thing.”

Javier came out of the washroom, looking slightly more collected. I’d rarely seen him so short-tempered and never expected it with his own sister. But he’d always described Violetta as the youngest, the bratty one, and I could definitely see that youngest sibling/oldest sibling dynamic coming out. It was a bit weird, actually, to see someone as lethal as Javier interacting with someone younger than him, someone that had the power to bring him down and get under his skin. He cared about Violetta a great deal, that much I could tell.

“Ellie is right,” he said, his voice measured. “That’s why I came. You have to leave, today.”

She rolled her eyes, shook her head and did all the things a girl her age would do when asked to leave the life she’d built on her own. “I don’t think so. No.”

“Violetta,” Javier said slowly, coming up to her. His eyes were locked on hers. “Please. This isn’t an option. You have to go stay with Marguerite or Alana.”

She laughed, loud and dry. “Are you serious? Mio Dios! You have no idea, do you Javier? I haven’t spoken to those witches for the last eight months.”

“They are your sisters.”

“And you’re my brother!” she suddenly screamed. Her face contorted, all control, all the façade disappearing in one second. “You’re my brother and I haven’t heard from you for years! Years! You just left us, all of us! Once Beatriz was gone, it’s like you thought the rest of us died too!”

She pushed him back with one hand, snatched my beer from me with the other and stormed off to the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. So much dramatic door slamming already.

Javier looked pale. I almost felt sorry for him until I remembered he’d been lying to me about sending money to his sisters. How much was the price of his rise to the top? How much money had he kept to himself to ensure he could pay off the right people? Not family, not the people who needed it, but the people who could help him with his single-minded goal?

He rubbed his ashen lips together and went to the fridge to bring out a bottle of water. He drank it back in one go and tossed it in the sink when he was done. The air was thick with tension and humidity and I felt awkward, unsure of what to do or say. One glance to Camden let me know that I wasn’t alone. I hadn’t been prepared to be brought into family drama. Then again, neither of us had been prepared for anything really. Except, apparently, for Camden when he shot down that helicopter. He did that with such ease that it floored me and seriously had me hot and bothered every time I thought about it, no matter how inappropriate the circumstance.

And yeah, standing in my ex-lover’s sister’s apartment was a pretty inappropriate circumstance. I bit my lip and looked away from Camden. Getting turned wasn’t going to help me at the moment and his tight tee-shirt was only making it worse.

I slowly went to Violetta’s door and rapped on it gently.

“Violetta?” I asked. I waited, hearing her stirring inside. I didn’t expect her to want to talk to me and I wasn’t sure why I cared so much about getting her safe. If anything, she seemed slightly untrustworthy thanks to her casual ties to Los Zetas. Well, that and the fact that she was related to Javier.

Suddenly her door flung open and I jumped out of the way as she marched past me to the front door.

“I’m starving,” she announced, taking her gun and stuffing it in her purse. “Which one of you people is going to buy me lunch?”

We all looked at Javier.

He grunted and went for the door, holding it open for us. “Okay, but we aren’t going far and we are going to talk about this, Violetta.”

She rolled her eyes and we followed her out.

Luckily the café she was thinking of was only three blocks away. The air had somehow grown more oppressive while we’d been inside, or maybe it was that I felt heavier after meeting Violetta. I could see this wasn’t going to be easy for Javier and unfortunately if it wasn’t easy, it wasn’t quick and if it wasn’t quick, I was further from getting to Gus.

Though I tried to prevent my brain from going there, I had to wonder what Travis was doing to him right now. There was a cartel leader in the Baja who was infamous for drowning people in vats of acid. I wondered if Travis would do anything so depraved; maybe my leg was just his first little taste. When I had looked at that man, I couldn’t see any trace of humanity in him. He was a shell, a mask, the devil disguised as El Hombre Blanco. Now he had Gus, and he had my mother, and the idea of rescuing them seemed more and more impossible.

“Hey,” Camden said to me, voice lowered, as we walked down the cracked pavement, Javier and Violetta ahead of us. He put his warm hand on the small of my back and I felt both strong and weak at the same time. “How’re you holding up?”

I looked up at him, squinting against the sun that fought valiantly through the smog. “I’m holding up.”

He shot me a smile. “We’ll get to him, don’t worry.”

He could read me like a book.

“It’s just every second that we’re here …,” I started.

“We’ll get him,” he said more grimly, then removed his hand. I couldn’t tell who the “him” was in that sentence – Gus, Javier or Travis? I think if it were up to Camden, he’d get them all in some shape or form.

The café was a busy place, noisy and dark and thick with cigarette smoke. Javier was looking paranoid as he scoped the room and I couldn’t really blame him. But everyone in the café were drinking copious amounts of beer and coffee, ordinary citizens of Mexico City, minding their own business, not even pausing to look up at us.

We were able to squeeze into a small booth near the back, the Bernals on one side of the booth, Camden and I on the other. Violetta immediately brought out a pack of cigarettes and lit one up.

“You smoke?” Javier asked her, looking disgusted.

She laughed. “When did you become so lame? Aren’t you running up a small cartel at the moment?”

His eyes widened then darted around the cafe but she patted his hand and said. “This place is cool, it’s cool.” Then she blew smoke in his face and smiled. “Cool.”

She turned to us and said, “So can one of you tell me what’s really going on here?”

“It’s as he says, he just wants you safe,” I said, avoiding Javier’s eyes. Last thing I wanted was for him to think I was vouching for him.

“Si,” she said, taking another puff. Her eyes darted to him, then to Camden and then back to me. “But why are you here?” She nods at Camden. “And why is he here?”

Oh boy. Javier’s eyes narrowed slightly, daring me to tell the truth.

So I did. I took in a deep breath and launched into it. “It’s a long story, longer than what I’ll tell you. Basically, I knew Camden back in high school and recently returned to my home town of Palm Valley in California. He ran a tattoo shop, was stuck laundering money for his ex-wife’s brothers who have some sort of gang in Cali running guns or pot or whatever. He wanted me to help him escape with the money. I did. Meanwhile, your brother shows up with a fifty-thousand dollar price tag on my head. Goes to Camden. Camden tells me. We go on the run. Javier nearly finds us. Then he bribes my Uncle Jim with the money. My uncle almost turns me over to him, ducks out at the last minute. Javier shoots him in the head.”

This whole time Violetta had been watching me with her mouth slightly open, forgetting her cigarette existed, the ash piling up on the end. Javier looked stone-faced, not even caring what I was telling her, which of course, was the truth.

I went on, my voice strained by the memories, “After he killed Jim, he contacted us and told me that either I’d go with him or he’d hurt Camden’s son, Ben, and his ex-wife. Camden and I went back to Palm Valley and the exchange was made. I went with Javier, Camden got his son and ex back, plus the money your brother was originally offering people. Only, Camden discovered that everything had been a set up. His ex had gone willingly with Javier. She and her brothers planned to take the fifty grand from him afterward and I’m guessing right now that Javier, you, had everything to do with it. That in the end, Camden would never have gotten very far.”

He stared right back at me, unflinching. Camden, on the other, was growing tense beside me. I didn’t need to look at him to know he was shooting Javier daggers, that his strong hands were gripping the edge of the table.

“Anyway,” I said, and brushed the sweat off the back of my neck. Fuck it was hot in here. “Javier’s plan at first was to get me to kill Travis, which I was willing to do … well, I was willing to help him kill him. We ended up here. Then I find out it wasn’t just Travis, but it was my parents too. That they’d been working with Travis and Javier knew this. I was supposed to be his fucking assassin.”

Violetta puffed nervously on her cigarette and looked to Javier. “This true? You wanted her to kill her own parents?”

Javier swallowed hard but didn’t say anything.

“I’m afraid your brother is sick in the head,” I told her, half apologetic.

She snorted. “This much I know.”

Javier cleared his throat. “Ellie,” he spoke softly and folded his hands on the table, “you’re neglecting to tell her the part where I rescued both you and Camden at Travis’s party, saving you from certain death.”

Yes. That part.

I smiled weakly. “I almost forgot. That was after you let them take Gus.”

“Gus isn’t my problem. I never asked for him and Camden to come down here.”

Violetta nodded to Camden. “And why did you come down here?”

“Why do you think?” Camden asked, his voice clipped.

“To get the girl?” She smiled at the two of us. “Which would be very romantic if it weren’t for my brother sitting right here, correct?”

Romantic. I looked at Camden, feeling my face growing hot. I found it romantic. I found it sexy. I found it brave, honest, noble, even dangerous. I found Camden’s devotion to me to fill my soul with a warmth I’d never, ever felt before.

But how could it be romantic, when I could see the hurt and anger in his eyes, his disappointment in me and what I’d done to him. How easily I tossed away his accountability. This wasn’t romantic anymore, this was tragic and it was all my fault.

I didn’t need to say that to Violetta though. She only stubbed out her smoke on the table and said, “Oh, but I forgot, you aren’t with him.”

Camden looked at me sharply.

She went on, “And you’re not with my brother. And yet here you all are. Together.”

“He’s helping us get Gus back,” I said.

She looked at him. “So you keep saying. And me. I’m assuming Javi was too afraid to come and get me on his own.”

Javier sighed and leaned back in the booth. Though her cigarette was out, there was a still a layer of smoke that hung above our heads in the muggy air, the overhead fans doing nothing to disperse it. “I knew you’d be angry with me, Violetta. I thought maybe if you heard the danger from someone else, why you need to leave, you’d listen. You can leave with us, even. We’ll take you where you need to go.”

Okay, that was a new one. As much as I wanted to help her, once again we didn’t have time to drive her around the country, not with Gus’s life on the line.

She looked down at her slender hands. “Do you really think that I’m in danger?”

“Tell us about your friends in the Zetas,” Javier said by way of answering. “Do they know about me?”

She shot him a wry smile. “Javi. You’re not exactly big news down here. I’m sorry. You’ve got the Zetas, the Sinoloa, the Baja, the Gulf. The big boys. The big balls. Then you have a bunch of little ones that no one cares about. You’re one of the little ones that no one cares about.”

“Except for Travis,” I said.

She nodded. “Si. Except for him. Who is now with the Zetas. But even Travis isn’t at the top of the food chain. Maybe in Veracruz he is. But it’s Morales and his family in Nuevo Laredo who really run it. Not many people can take a gringo seriously, no matter how many men he tortured and killed to get to the top.” She cocked her head at Javier. “I’m a bit surprised that you’re not in Travis’s position. I’m sure the cartel would rather have you there than a white man.”

“I have loyalty,” Javier said simply. “To our family. As should you, you who is hanging out with these men like it’s no big deal.”

She shook her head. “Oh, relax. I’m just friends with two guys who do the deliveries, the transporting of the money.” She shrugged. “It’s a good job for them. And no, of course they don’t know who you are or that I even have a brother. You make it easy to pretend you don’t exist.”

He looked grim. “And that may have helped you before, but you can’t afford to take that chance now. I have no doubt that there’s been word about me traveling down the Zeta chain. My cartel might be small, but when it comes to Travis, I’m as big as it gets.”

She raised her hand in the air and snapped her fingers for the waiter, who until now had been ignoring our table. “I can’t talk about this anymore without food.”

The waiter came by and we promptly ordered coffee, beer and food. Though my stomach was growling, I had zero appetite, so just munched the tortilla chips and fresh salsa that came with our drinks. Javier spent the rest of the time trying to figure out a plan for Violetta. Though she was too busy stuffing her face to talk back, I could still see she was going to try and evade this idea for as long as she could. Like her brother, she was stubborn, even in the face of imminent danger.