Lace and Bullets(20)
“Excuse me?”
“With all that you know, you and I, we could go to the authorities. You could get the cartel taken down. They’d all be arrested. We’d clean up the city. Be heroes.”
Damien’s laugh rang hollow. “This is real life, babe, not the movies. Things like that don’t happen to people like me.”
“With me backing you up, it could.”
He walked to the door. “That’s where you’re wrong. Half the police department is on the take. The DA’s office is full of crooks. No one in this town gives a damn about stopping Marcelo or helping out all the people he’s hurt.”
“You just haven’t met the right people.”
“Don’t you get it?” He stalked toward her, waving the folder in her face. “People like Watson and me, we don’t count. We’re throwaways. No one gives a damn if we live or die.”
“That’s not true.”
He cocked his head. “Oh, really?”
Mia rose up on the bed and waited until he met her gaze. His gray eyes smoldered in the morning light.
She meant what came next. “I care.”
9
DAMIEN
He couldn’t tell if Mia was naïve or blind. How did she not see the corruption all around her? If a cop wasn’t on the take, then he was destroying evidence or cutting out early and getting paid double to look the other way.
The DA’s office was even worse. They cherry picked the cases to make examples of. Prosecuting this perp, letting that one walk, making a deal with another. If you threw enough money and influence around, you could get them to tap in front of the jury to a dance you choreographed.
He’d seen it over and over with the cartel. Got a heavy who had landed in jail? They would push money to the right prosecutor and he would be out with a misdemeanor assault charge and time served. One of the main traffickers get pulled over with a kilo in the back? If he snagged a dirty traffic cop, the officer would get a taste and send him on with a warning.
Enough of the bottom feeders got jail time that on the surface everything seemed fine. That’s how it worked with Marcelo. You earned your place in the cartel and worked your way up. If they needed to make an example of someone and appease the so-called good guys, a higher up would take the fall.
No one was safe. Especially not a gorgeous girl with a dangerous memory. Damien fingered the chain around his neck. “You’re in way over your head with this, Mia.”
“Then help me.”
If only it were that simple. “No.”
“Why not? What are you so afraid of?”
Damien rolled his eyes. “Don’t you get it? You’re the one who should be afraid.” He threw the folder on the floor and stormed up to her. His fingers dug into her arms beneath the sheet. “I’m handing you over to the cartel tomorrow. In less than twenty-four hours, you’ll be their property.”
Her brown eyes shimmered and her lips fell open. The truth cut deep. “Why?”
“Because if I don’t, I’m a dead man. If I hand you over, I can make a deal. You’re the only leverage I’ve got.”
“You don’t have to do this. I can help you.”
“Not with this.”
She reached for him, but he held her back. “Talk to me. Tell me why I’m so important. Maybe I can help.”
He let her go and staggered back. “I can’t.”
Her voice turned shrill. “If you’re handing me over, then what does it matter? I deserve to know why. Please, Damien.”
Fuck. He never should have told her his name. Mia Davenport was solidly under his skin. She wormed her way in sometime between trying to escape and letting him come inside her.
He could see the goodness in her. It sparkled like a crown woven through her hair. And he was sending her straight to the devil.
Damien had done some horrible things. After Melanie, whatever the cartel told him to do, he did it. What did it matter? Everything good in the world was gone.
Because of him.
He rubbed a hand over his buzzed hair. He was in so deep, he could never get out. Unless he gave Marcelo something he wanted more. A witness. A hot new piece he could sell to the highest bidder.
Mia was a tool. Nothing more.
He looked her in the eye. “Has there ever been someone you cared about so much that when they were gone, you wanted to die?”
Mia stared at him, the color draining from her cheeks as the seconds ticked by. At last, she answered. “No.”
“Anyone you ever loved more than life itself?”
“No.”
“Not once?” He looked her up and down. A pretty girl like her? No high school sweetheart or college boyfriend? He might have grown up on the streets, but he knew how the rich lived.