Page 34 of Cartel Viper (The Cartel Brotherhood #2)

Jorge barks a command to keep the guy alive but out of the way.

Apparently, two SUVs rolled in with sixteen men against the eleven still loyal to my family, my brothers, and me.

I don’t know how many men we lost when our attackers breached the gates and opened fire.

Not all the men have sounded off when the head of our guards told them to do a check-in.

They could be injured or dead or must remain silent to hide, but the majority of our guys responded.

Unfortunately, my brothers and I can’t afford to trust any of them completely.

We don’t have the luxury of making a mistake, so the three of us will err on the side of caution and only trust each other and Maddy.

“What are we going to do?” Maddy’s voice is barely more than a whisper, and it pulls me out of my thoughts as I consider all the possibilities.

“We still need to get you to the safe room.”

“No.”

My brothers and I spare her a glance, all three of us shooting her a look warning her not to argue.

“No, Javi, you don’t know which of your men have been compromised. I want to believe there’s only one person who would violate your trust, but maybe there are more. Right now, it’s three of you against an unknown number of men who could want you and me dead. Give me a gun.”

“Maddy, no.”

“Javi, give me a gun.”

Something changes in her posture, her expression, and her tone. It hardens to a shard of ice. There’s a warning in it that she’s more prepared for a situation like this than I want to acknowledge.

“Have you killed before?” Jorge blurts the question I already know the answer to.

“Yes.”

My chest tightens, hating that Maddy’s ever been in a position to take a life for whatever reason.

She chose a vocation that brings new life into the world, not one that takes it out, but she’s been forced to do that.

I wish there was a way I could shield her from more death and destruction, but that’s not an option.

At least not for today. And I don’t see it being one tomorrow or the day after or the day after that if she stays with a man like me.

“Javi, come on.”

She holds out her hand, our gazes locking.

It’s with reservation that I hand over the pistol I pulled from the drawer.

She accepts it and immediately checks the barrel.

She’s handling the weapon with expertise I didn’t expect.

I know she learned how to shoot when she was a kid, but there’s nothing rusty about her technique.

Joaquin elbows me and hands me his second handgun that he pulled from his ankle holster. It was naive of me not to keep mine on me, assuming that because we’ve never had a breach in the past we couldn’t have one now. Obviously, I was wrong, and I’m left unprepared to properly defend my girlfriend.

“Come on, Maddy, I’ll get you into a more secure part of the house.”

Jorge and Joaquin glance over at me, and I meet their gazes as they nod.

We all know Maddy is renowned for her stubbornness when she wants to be.

There’s no way I’ll easily convince her to go to the safe room now, but hopefully, I can convince her to move into a part of the house that’ll make her less of a target.

I see her hesitation, but when her gaze flicks toward my brothers and back to me, I know she understands my attention will be divided between them and her.

My brothers understand she’s now my priority in a way no one else ever has been besides our mom.

She’s always been a shared top priority.

I can’t expect the guys to understand what Maddy means to me, but I know they don’t begrudge me wanting to keep her safe.

“Go.”

Jorge barks the word as he leans forward and fires through the broken glass, taking out two men approaching the house.

Their hair isn’t bright red like the O’Rourkes’, but their fair skin and freckles certainly don’t scream Colombian.

I lead the way up the stairs toward my bedroom, and Maddy follows on my heels.

She’s so close I’m surprised neither of us trips, but I’d rather know she’s within my reach than not.

Instead of going into my room, there’s a billiards room at the end of the hallway.

What’s not obvious is the exterior wall is thicker than it appears.

I move aside a painting of my grandfather—the grandfather all the men in my family my age share—and reveal a biometric pad.

It does a retinal scan as I place my four fingertips to it.

A fake brick facade slides open, and I point into the dark.

“Maddy, there’s an escape out to the beach.

If you take these stairs down to the basement, you’ll be able to follow a hallway to the beach.

Just before you get to the sand and a sea gate, you’ll find an inflatable zodiac boat.

Everything will be ready to go if you need to flee.

Come here and let me set your access in case you need to go, and my brothers and I aren’t with you. ”

“I’m not going anywhere without at least you.”

“If I tell you to go, that’s exactly what you’ll do, little girl.”

I infuse steel into my command, and once more she looks at me like she did downstairs. I know her response will be just as determined as mine.

“I am not leaving you behind, Javier.”

“Fine, either way, let me get you set up.”

This isn’t the time for an argument neither of us will be satisfied with. So instead, I program her retinal scan and fingerprint access.

“You’re safe up here, Maddy. Just don’t leave. I need to check on Jorge and Joaquin. No one will make it up to the second floor.”

“Go do what you have to, Javi. I’ll be here.”

My hand rests at the base of her throat as I give her a quick, hard kiss before bolting to the door.

“This will lock behind me. Don’t open it to anyone for any reason.

Doesn’t matter who it is, even if it’s Jorge, Joaquin, or me.

If it’s one of us, and it’s safe, we’ll let ourselves in.

If we come up here and say anything to you, pretend you’re not here.

I don’t care how convincing we might sound. All right?”

“Yes, Javi, go help your brothers.”

I give her one last long look before I rush through the door and pull it closed, hearing the lock automatically set.

All of the rooms on the second and third floor have automatic locks that remain secured unless someone with access opens them.

The rooms on the ground floor have doors that stay wide open unless somebody closes them.

But once locked, no door in this house can be opened with anything other than a combination of biometrics or passcodes.

I hear voices yelling as I fly back down the stairs. I head toward the sound of more gunfire, but these are handguns, not rifles.

“Javier?”

“Where?” I respond in Macaguán , and Joaquin answers me in it.

“Sunroom.”

It’s our mother’s favorite room in the entire house.

If it gets destroyed, she’ll be beside herself.

There are things in here left over from my parents’ honeymoon.

They could have gone anywhere in the world.

The most romantic places. The most exotic places.

But all they wanted was time alone with just the two of them.

My mom is a photographer, and my father was a painter.

There are several pieces of their art hanging on the walls or framed on various surfaces.

When I enter the room, I find my brothers kneeling beside sets of French doors.

Every room on the ground floor has sets of these doors.

It’s wonderful to open them in spring and summer for the cross breeze.

The sound of the ocean wafts in and can be super relaxing.

But right now, I see them as nothing but a liability.

“I thought Papá had all of the glass replaced everywhere and put in bulletproof windows.”

I didn’t want to bring that up in front of Maddy. Joaquin frowns, and his brow furrows before he answers me.

“So did we. I took a look, and someone’s changed the glass recently. These aren’t the windows that were here when we moved to America.”

“Did somebody compromise the house’s security? Or did Mamá order repairs and didn’t mention it to us?”

Neither of my brothers have an answer to my questions.

It’s unlike our mother to do something like that.

None of us think her doing some remodeling is the answer.

But that means we must consider this betrayal goes far deeper than we initially believed.

Somebody has been planning for this for ages, hoping for an opportunity where they can get to us.

I squat beside Jorge as we peer around a curtain and look toward the beach.

“How do things stand right now?”

I can’t tell what’s going on because none of our attackers are on this side of the building, but we can hear stuff happening around us.

“Miguel and Tómas just led four of our guys around the windward side to disable their vehicles.” Joaquin points over his shoulder to where the surveillance screens are in this room.

I barely tear my attention away long enough to follow where he points. I see one SUV on fire, and the other clearly has all four tires punctured. The hood’s raised with smoke coming out of the engine block.

“How many have we lost?”

“Three.” Jorge names the men.

I know my brothers will inform the families when this is all done, so I can be with Maddy throughout whatever comes next.

I don’t envy them the job at all. It’s one of the worst duties we have in this world.

But we never pass it off to our men. Someone in the jefe’s family always informs the survivors.

“So that leaves us with eight because somebody betrayed us.”

“It was José.”

Joaquin’s answer sends fury through me unlike anything I’ve felt in years. Not since our father was killed. Hearing his name aloud from my brother was different from hearing it through the earpiece from someone else.

“Our José?”