The Cartel Lawyer by Dave Daren (popular books to read .TXT) 📗

to duck his head as he stepped into my apartment without invitation. The bottom half of his wavy hair brushed his shoulders as he looked around, and his dark eyes were almost black as he turned them toward me. He had on the black suit pants he’d worn earlier in the day, but his jacket was gone, and the sleeves of his button-up were rolled up to reveal that he had tattoos down the length of both arms.

He was accompanied by a man I hadn’t seen before. He was closer to my height with a well-kept black mustache and scruff along his round jawline. He reminded me of a bear with his barrel chest, thick arms, and tree trunk legs. His clothing was a little more casual than Alvaro’s, slacks and a button-up, but they were clean and pressed like he’d just pulled them out of the closet.

“What’s wrong?” I asked as I looked from the beefy newcomer to the dark-eyed man in my apartment.

“The boss wants to see you,” Alvaro responded. “Now.”

“Do I have time to get dressed?” I questioned with a motion to my boxers.

“Make it quick,” the tall, tattooed man huffed.

“Sure,” I muttered.

I marched across the studio apartment to my small closet. I was tempted to put on a band t-shirt in protest, but I ended up slipping into gray slacks and a light-blue button-up.

“Are you done yet?” my impatient visitor asked just as I finished with my black dress shoes.

“Yes,” I answered. “So why does the boss need to see me?”

The giant didn’t answer while his dark eyes swept over my outfit. He gave a grunt of approval, and then spun on his heels. It took him four steps to get across my tiny apartment, and the newcomer quickly moved out of his way.

I fished my wallet and keys out of my discarded suit and then hurried after the giant before he could come back. He rushed me and the other man down to the street where a black SUV waited on the curb.

The man, whose name I still didn’t know, slid into the driver’s seat while Alvaro took the back seat and then closed the door behind him. He clearly expected me to sit in the front passenger seat, so I climbed in and tried not to think about the large man right behind me.

“Where are we going?” I asked as the driver pulled off of the curb and onto the vacant street.

Neither man answered me, and I swallowed hard as my pulse started to race. I couldn’t think of any reason that Osvaldo would need to see me in the middle of the night. I hadn’t done anything that deserved such a visit that I could remember. I’d dealt with the OSHA inspector, and I’d contacted the prosecutors for the two criminal cases he’d given me, and that was it. So why was his terrifying second-in-command pounding on my door at midnight?

The streets of Miami were eerily vacant as the mysterious driver sped along. He weaved in and out of the few cars we did come across, and I was amazed that we weren’t pulled over by some bored traffic cop.

My mouth went dry when the burly man merged onto the highway in the direction of the Everglades. I took a deep breath as I tried to calm my nerves. There was no reason for them to kill me, since I hadn’t had time to do anything wrong. Still, I went back over every little thing I’d done since I’d signed the contract as I tried to come up with a reason for Osvaldo to order my death.

I should have insisted on driving myself to our destination, I realized. That way, I could escape if I needed to. Though, to be honest, Alvaro hadn’t given me much of an option, and I suspected that if I’d tried to take my own car, Alvaro would have picked me up and tossed me in the SUV without a second thought.

Every crime drama that had even involved a floating body in the Everglades pushed its way into my mind as we drove further away from the lights of the city and deeper into the slow-moving river of grass. It wouldn’t be hard to feed me to a gator or one of the giant pythons out here, and my body would never be found. My poor mama would never receive her treatments, and would die a painful death from cancer without ever knowing what had happened to me.

“Is everything okay?” I asked the two men again in a surprisingly calm voice.

The only response I received was a sideways glance from the mustached driver before he pressed a little harder on the gas pedal. The SUV surged forward until the needle of the speedometer touched one-hundred.

I could almost feel Alvaro in the seat behind me as he shifted forward, and I was sure that he was about to produce a garrote so he could slice my neck open. It would be messy, but the seats and the dashboard were all leather so it wouldn’t be too difficult to clean, and the Everglades were full of hungry animals that would take care of my body.

The intimidating man’s breathing was the only sound that I could hear in the quiet of the SUV, and I could have sworn that Alvaro was only inches from me. His shadow fell across me every time we passed beneath a street lamp, and at one point, I could have sworn he raised his hand.

I wanted to lean forward and turn on the radio, in part to drown out his breathing, but also to put some distance between us. But I didn’t dare touch the stereo buttons after the driver shook his head when I started to reach for the controls. With no other escape available, I stared out the window and tried