The Traitor

Goddamn! You old devil.'

'Don't get so excited. It was just a casual thing, you know? Besides, nothing happened.' Not much, anyway, he amended silently.

'No, I don't know.' Max waved his ring hand in the air. 'Hello, married ten years. Leg shackles and all. The only way I get lucky is through hearing your escapades. At least tell me her name. Give me a bone, here, Hash.'

Rafe chuckled, the sound of her name sexy as it rolled off his tongue. 'Isabella. No last name. Bella,' he said, the taste of it on his lips still feeling great. 'Maybe she'll leave her phone number.'

'You dick, you didn't get it last night?'

'What I got, Maxwell, was a frantic phone call from Mrs. Roberts about you in my office early this morning.'

Max grinned liked an idiot while Mrs. Roberts appeared from nowhere and stood beside him, her eagle eye piercing him. Max jumped up, snapping his jaw shut.

Giving him a scathing look, she spoke to Rafe. 'Agent Hashemi, excuse me, but your eleven o'clock appointment has been waiting quite a while. Assistant District Attorney Torres,' she added, clearly believing he'd forgotten.

A short, middle-aged woman with a no-nonsense attitude, Marilyn Roberts put everyone from the governor to the custodian in his place. She always called Rafe by his title, expected him to address her as Mrs. Roberts, and reminded him of his sixth grade teacher who'd scared the hell out of him. Privately, he called her The Little General.

Rafe looked at Max and shrugged. 'Sorry, this guy's been deflecting my emails for over a week. He has case files he doesn't want to hand over.'

'Oh?' Max peeked his head out the door at the lone figure fidgeting in the waiting room.

'Send him in, Mrs. Roberts.' Rafe moved behind his desk and pulled out a folder that contained ADA Torres' emails.

If not the smirk on Max's face, then at least the puzzled expression of Marilyn Roberts should've warned Rafe.

She never lost her composure, never missed a beat even in the worst situations, and absolutely never seemed confounded. 'Him?' she questioned, raising both penciled brows until they seemed to disappear into her very black hairline. 'I don't think so, Agent Hashemi.'

Chapter Nine

Seven muchachas jovenes lined up along the corridor of the tavern, youngest girl to oldest, although most of them looked to be the same age, around eleven or twelve. Perhaps the one at the end was thirteen, but none older than that. He could tell by their flat chests and straight hips as well as the baby-soft skin on their cheeks.

Santos crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the dirty faces and ragged clothes.

'Una cosecha fina de muchachas, a very fine crop this time. You agree?' The proprietor of La Taberna Afortunada – The Lucky Tavern – smiled broadly at Diego Vargas and chucked the first girl under the chin.

A fine crop, as if he were speaking of corn or coffee bean harvest, Santos thought.

'De vuelta alrededor,' the tavern owner ordered the girl, making a circular motion with his hand. Thin and brown, barefoot and dressed in a dirty white chemise, she turned slowly around at the command.

Santos peered into the girl's eyes, listless and dilated, like a cat's in the dark. She'd most certainly been drugged. Probably one of the benzodiazepines, but he couldn't be certain.

El Vaquero wanted the girls mildly sedated for transport, but not completely wasted. It was much safer that way to make the nearly fifteen-hour van drive north through California until they crossed the California-Nevada border.

'See, I told you,' the fat proprietor said. '?Muchachas finas, eh? And I can get you plenty more.'

'Shut up, old man,' Santos growled.

He watched lust play across the face of Diego Vargas. Santos knew his boss was calculating the price of having his way with one or two of the girls first and thereby lowering their value.

Lust and greed always battled inside Diego. Usually, his love for money won out, but sometimes the power of his lust overcame him and he succumbed. Often with tragic consequences. Although El Vaquero usually preferred his women large and lusty, he occasionally liked to sample the wares he purchased before he turned them over to the women in charge of his two legal, and one not-so-legal brothels.

Yes, Santos thought for the thousandth time, Diego Vargas was a fucking pig, un cerdo de mierdo. However, he allowed none of these thoughts or emotions to register on his face or in his stance. After all, he was El Vaquero's lawyer, as well as his bodyguard, and he was wise enough not to make his personal opinions available for perusal.

He was not afraid of Diego Vargas. In truth, he feared nothing and no man. His strength had been forged in pain and his reputation in fire. There were few enterprises Santos refused to engage in, few men or women he would not kill when necessary, few appetites he would not satisfy.

But some lines should not be crossed.

Santos did not remember his father. Miguel Gabriel Santos had been killed in the plaza when Santos was a small boy. He well remembered the square, the burnt adobe stones of the surrounding buildings, the deep stone well that stood at the end of the street. But he did not remember his father's actual death.

To this day in the village where he was born, stories of that event were widely repeated. Of how Miguel stood up to the oficiales federales. Of how he died slowly in the village plaza of Real de Cantorce after hours in the baking sun. Of how he choked on his own testiculos.

The small boy Gabriel Santos did not recall the event of his father's death.

He did remember his mother, however, and this trafficking with the girls – Santos knew his madre would not approve of a man who made his life's work out of the flesh of innocents. Santos did not fear the fuego del infierno or death's end, and he did not believe many true innocents walked the face of this earth. But the few there were should not be sacrificed.

Drugs, fine, una opcion. The users made their own choices.

Killing, una necesidad. Often very necessary.

But the girls, absolutamente no.

Santos knew the day would arrive when he would draw his boot across the sand and tell El Vaquero that he could not cross that line. That would be a very bad time for all of them, and Santos was not eager for that day to arrive. But, nonetheless, it would come.

The tavern owner pinched the scrawny backside of the last girl as she climbed into the back of the battered van.

Si, the day would come.

*

Bella didn't leave the bathroom until she heard the door shut firmly when Rafe left the apartment. Even then she waited what she guessed was five minutes more before entering the bedroom. After searching, she found her dress hanging from the shower curtain rod in the second bathroom. He'd apparently tried to clean it for wet spots dampened the bodice and hem.

That hadn't worked. The dry cleaners might be able to get the stains out, but Bella guessed she'd owe Anita the price of an expensive new dress. The panties and bra were soaking in the kitchen sink and her shoes rested on the counter on a piece of newspaper. The evidence of her wild night brought fierce color to her cheeks.