Chapter 22

Chapter Twenty-Two

Javier looked around the house that would be his home for the new couple of weeks. That was all he hoped he’d have to stay in this hovel for. He couldn’t deny he’d gotten used to the luxuries blood money could buy. Every expense justified fitting into the lifestyle he’d landed in.

Walking away from it all would be hard, but he would do it. Had to if he wanted to cleanse his soul.

He thought about the bank account where he’d stashed some of the cash he’d earned. Would he get to use it for the use that he wanted?

Only time would tell. If Javier couldn’t do it personally, he’d made contingencies for someone else to fulfil his wishes. That person was going to get a hell of a surprise when they got notified, should anything happen to him.

The thought of returning to the life he’d known before he’d become Javier Hernandez was one he tried not to let himself think about too much.

Yet now that he was back in the United States, it was hard to prevent the thoughts seeping into his mind.

Could he disappear?

However, as tempting the thought was, he was close to the end of a journey that had—realistically—started over twenty years ago, when he’d been fresh out of college.

Eyes wide innocent, and in a matter of hours the innocence had been shattered and he’d been part of something that’d change the course of not only his life, but someone else’s.

Ironic that the place he’d walked into eight years ago had been the place where it’d all started over a decade before that.

Had that been the reason he’d been chosen for this particular job?

Most definitely. Javier couldn’t have said no if he’d wanted to anyway. An order was an order.

“Mr. Rook wants to talk to you.” Santiago strolled up to him, holding out his phone .

“Thanks,” he grunted and took the phone, walking away, not wanting the other man to hear his side of the conversation. It’d always amused him that even though everyone in the organization knew what his name was, everyone referred to Gomez Ramirez as Mr. Rook, the name the streets had given him. “Yeah?”

“Excuse me? Is that how you address me ?”

As expected, his blasé greeting to Gomez wasn’t received well.

Sometimes he sounded so proper that anyone could mistake him for a cultured man, yet when he was in a room with the rest of the cartel, he was anything but proper .

Javier preferred the unproper man. He was more authentic than the one who’d just spoken.

“I’ve had to deal with these two fuckers for the last few hours. My patience is stretched thin,” he said.

Santiago and Gael weren’t the easiest men to deal with. Not to mention they thought their shit didn’t stink because they’d managed to get trackers on a couple of cars undetected.

That didn’t mean shit. They lucked out—that was it. What they’d done hadn’t taken skill because if they had it, they wouldn’t have been made when they’d attempted to tail Ramirez’s niece.

Javier wouldn’t have been spotted. Although, even spotted, they’d managed to get the proof that Gomez had wanted.

“They got the job done. That’s all that matters to me.” Ramirez voiced what Javier had just been thinking.

“They did. Now what?”

He’d been sent here to oversee the operation, which fucking sucked. Ramirez needed to be here. Of course, the second the cartel boss stepped on American soil, the authorities would be on to him. No doubt, they were aware Javier himself had arrived. He hadn’t tried to hide his presence this time.

It’d been deliberate. Javier wanted people to know he was here.

It was all part of the plan.

The fucking plan.

Would it ever end?

“I need to you watch my niece.” Ramirez’s instructions drew him back to the conversation.

“Why? Aren’t the trackers enough?”

“They’ve stopped responding.”

The news wasn’t a surprise to Javier. The guys from Alliez weren’t incompetent. He’d heard the report from Santiago and Gael and how they’d located Cassandra.

The moment they finished speaking, Javier suspected it wouldn’t take long for them to be found. “What’s the last known position?”

“An office building and her house. I’ll send you the house address. Also, I’ll be there in a few days. I’m not going to stay at home, not when it comes to my family. I’ve stayed away long enough, and these assholes have taken my brother’s little girl and made her a servant to them. It’s stops now.”

By the time Gomez had finished, Javier was holding the phone away from his ear. “Understood. I’ll make sure nothing happens to her and will keep you updated.”

“Make sure you do that.”

The call ended, and Javier blew out a breath. He would keep an eye on Cassandra and make sure nothing happened to her.

Not for Gomez Ramirez, but for himself.

He hadn’t sacrificed so much of his life for Cassandra Whitehall to fall into the clutches of her uncle.

Javier suspected that Alliez Security wouldn’t allow it either.