Page 23 of Secrets Beneath the Waves

Miguel muttered something in Spanish about dirty traitors.

“You left the cartel as well.”

“You destroyed it. What else was I supposed to do except use the skills I have to make a name for myself? Isn’t that the American dream?”

“Make as much money as possible and hope they don’t catch you and put you in jail? Doesn’t sound much like a dream.”

“It isn’t like I had a choice. I wasn’t going to make money doing anything else.” Miguel sipped his drink. “Is this what you do now? Try and get people to find the straight and narrow, see the light, and change their ways?”

Ramon pressed his lips together. How could he do that with someone else when he was the person others were trying to redeem?

“I don’t have it all figured out. I’m just… I regret a lot of things. That’s why I work cases with Banbury Investigations and try to do the right thing. Like finding justice where there is none.”

“There’s nothing you can do that will make up for what you’ve done.” Miguel knocked the remainder of his drink back.“You could spend the rest of your life trying to fix what you’ve destroyed, but it will never be enough.”

He tossed two square photographs on the bar and walked away.

“You’re paying for his drink, right?”

Ramon didn’t look at the bartender, he simply nodded and pulled some bills from his wallet. Probably covered it—and then some. He lifted the photos. The first one was of a dark-haired young woman with clear skin and huge dark eyes wearing far too much makeup. She wore a clingy top with no straps, chains hanging low around her throat.

The second image was a trash can.

Ramon frowned. After a second, he realized what lay in the can, on a pile of tissue or wipes, was a pregnancy test. No way to zoom in, but he got the gist of Miguel’s point. She’d been pregnant when she died.

No.

When they had killed her.

He had to be honest with himself about that, at least, even if he could hardly remember her face and definitely didn’t remember her name. She’d betrayed the cartel, and that was all they’d needed to know. Some people in his situation might remember every second—every victim. Maybe it was a kind of mercy that he didn’t. But he certainly wasn’t deserving of any concession.

He left the half-drunk beer on the bar and headed out, walking way too fast to his car. When he slammed into the driver’s door, he realized he’d been running.

It didn’t matter how far he went or who he tried to be, he was never going to escape it.

Ramon would always be a killer.

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

Ramon hadfour missed calls from Zeyla, along with a bunch of emails he hadn’t responded to yet. Instead of heading back to the hotel, he decided to head for hers since she wanted to talk to him so badly. He called her number as he drove, not wanting to remain stationary anywhere too long—long enough to be picked off by a gunman.

Miguel was the one with the contract to end her life, but he could have used that conversation with Ramon just now as an alibi.

Was she all right?

The call clicked over to a voicemail that hadn’t been set up. Ramon hung up and hit the gas, driving faster to get to her motel, but not fast enough that he risked being pulled over by the police. If she had called him four times, then it meant she’d been alive to do so.

What should he make of that whole conversation with Miguel? Bringing up the worst time in Ramon’s life, the things he could never atone for. And then, on top of it, dropping that bombshell. He’d have said he’d made peace with it, knowing they were under orders and that young woman had betrayed thecartel. She hadn’t been innocent any more than they were, and yet, an innocent life had been ended in the process.

Miguel was right that he wouldn’t ever be able to make amends for this.

Ramon squeezed the steering wheel, fighting back the urge to reach out to one of his friends. Or to find a biker bar and take out his anger and frustration—okay, his guilt—in a fistfight with some unsuspecting guy. He always found the right bar and never picked a fight with anyone who didn’t want it. In fact, most of the time, he let the other person pick the fight with him.

On occasion, he had Bruce or Maizie find him a person with an outstanding warrant. Usually, the nastiest guy they could find, someone who had hurt a lot of people. Ramon had zero problem acting like an unpaid bounty hunter and delivering that person to justice, albeit with a number of bruises they hadn’t had earlier that day.

He should probably just get a license and become a bounty hunter. But for some reason, part of him had always wanted to get to the point where he didn’t need to pick fights anymore. Where he didn’t have the twisted-up knot inside him that needed to get relief by smashing his fist into someone’s face.