Malo - Page 32

“I’m sorry,” she mutters again as I lead her toward the door. The sound of our footsteps fills the empty space around us, and I feel so fucking useless. I know I promised her I would get her father to safety, but how much use have I been since then? She snuck right out from under my nose, when she was sleeping in bed with me, or was supposed to be. How can I keep the rest of her family safe, when I can’t even keep an eye on her?

Outside, Blue is waiting for us, and when he sees Maria, he raises his eyebrows at me expectantly.

“Light the place up,” I tell him, jerking my head back toward the building. “Nobody in there. Better not to leave it standing. Don’t want to leave Las Rosas with anywhere else to hide out.”

“On it,” Blue replies, his eyes flashing with that familiar excitement. I help Maria onto the back of my bike, and she hangs on to me, head pressed against my back, as though she never wants to let go.

She’s relying on me, counting on me to get her father back in one piece. I need to do better, I need to show her that I’m really capable of this. Not let her get out on her own again. Shit, if one of the cartel members had seen her… I don’t even want to think about what might have happened. This was way too close for comfort. I’m not going to let her get this far from me again. Not until I know Las Rosas Negras are dealt with, once and for all.

I take her to bed when we get back, and insist she gets some rest. After all the emotion of the last couple of days, she falls asleep quickly, and I head through to meet with Los Desperados and Blue to figure out what our next move is. In our search for Maria, we discovered that the Rosas Negras base that Maria remembered had been cleared out, leaving nothing behind.

“We have to check out the warehouses,” Marquez explains, tapping his finger at the spots highlighted on the map laid out on the table. “Check out how heavily-armed they are, what’s going on there. Before we attack, we need all the information we can get our hands on.”

I nod in agreement. I need to get out on the road for a while, anyway—anything to blow off a little steam. I don’t want to leave Maria alone again quite so soon after what happened, but I figure I’m going to need to put my trust in her. She seems to realize what a huge mistake she made, running like that, and I get the feeling she’s going to be too exhausted to think about going anywhere anyway.

We head out to the locations across the city that we’re planning to attack, and the first one, just like the warehouse where I found Maria, is pretty much empty.

“I thought you said they were dealing from this place,” I tell Marquez, and he frowns and shrugs.

“That’s the last intel I had from my men,” he replies. “Let’s check out the others. Maybe they’ve just moved it across the city.”

But the next two we visit are empty as well, as though Las Rosas Negras knew we were coming. It doesn’t sit right with me. What if they know we’re on to them? Has someone been feeding them information, giving them enough time to move before we could make a hit?

Marquez grimaces as he looks out over the abandoned building, and I can tell he’s pissed. We came here because we thought we could trust the information he had, but clearly, it’s not as solid as he thought it was. He jerks his head back toward the road.

“One more,” he says. “That has to be where they’re hiding out. No other place in the city it could be.”

We ride toward the final warehouse, and, as we approach, I can already tell our luck has finally turned. There are vehicles parked all around the outside, and guards patrol the large concrete walls that surround it. Barbed wire is silhouetted against the sky above, and Blue, Marquez, and I keep our distance as we do a wide sweep of the area. I’m not wearing my colors or anything that might give away who I really am or what I’m doing here, but that doesn’t mean I want to get close enough for them to clock us.

We convene a few blocks away, and when Marquez pulls off his helmet, there is a grim expression on his face.

“It looks like they’ve taken everyone and put them into that one place,” he remarks. “Like they’re battening down the hatches for a siege, or something.”

“No way are we going to get close without a damn army,” Blue mutters, shaking his head. He might be trigger-happy, but he knows an impossible situation when he sees it.

“We need to go back to base,” I reply. “Reconvene. This is a completely different mission than what we thought it was going to be.”

Blue nods and pulls his helmet back on, but I hesitate for a moment before I do the same thing. I’m not sure why, but there’s a part of me that wants to hold back before I return to base. Maybe because I know I’m going to have to tell Maria that things aren’t as straightforward as we first thought—that shit is about to get a whole lot more complicated.

Her father is likely under lock and key in a compound crawling with most of the cartel members in Mexico. And that might be too much for even the Kings to break through.

CHAPTER 24

MARIA

Isink down on to the edge of the bed, staring at the floor, as I try to take in what Malo’s telling me.

“You mean… you don’t think you can get him out?” I ask, my voice tiny.

“I didn’t say that,” Malo replies through gritted teeth. “It’s just going to be harder than we thought, that’s all.”

I feel as though I have been punched in the gut. This is the last thing I want to hear.

I can see from the look in his eyes that this scenario is one he never expected, and I don’t know how to feel about that. Maybe I shouldn’t have come here in the first place. I was so insistent on coming to Mexico with them, sure I could help, sure I could move this along a little faster, but it feels as though we’ve come so close only to slam up against a brick wall.

“I’m sorry it’s not better news.”

“It’s not your fault,” I reply, forcing myself to look up at him. I feel a pang at the expression on his face. He looks guilty, and I can tell he’s blaming himself for this.