Dirty Angels 01 by Karina Halle Read Free Book Online Page A

the growing crimson pond.
    The door clicked softly and I felt him step into the room. “Laura,” he said. “She could fuck like no one’s business, hey. You should have tried her. You know I don’t mind sharing.”
    I ignored him. “Don’t you think it’s a bit, oh, I don’t know … crude, to have the whores leave this way?” I asked him. “Wouldn’t it be better to kill them in bed?”
    I heard him snort. “No, that would be crude. We might as well let them have that bit of hope that they’ll make it out alive, don’t you think? Besides, this is more sporting. It’s hunting. Hunting is elegant.”
    I nodded. I supposed he was right. It wasn’t very sporting otherwise. I watched as Carlos came scurrying toward the body and started to drag Laura away. I never asked what he did with the bodies, but as long as I never saw them again, it didn’t really matter. Out of sight, out of mind.
    I turned around and eyed Este. “I suppose in a perfect world, we wouldn’t have to kill them at all.”
    He smirked and leaned on my desk. “Well, look at you getting all soft.”
    I raised my brow. “It’s just a shame that you can’t buy silence anymore.”
    He shrugged. “One whore talks and then you get fuckers at your door. We all need to get laid, well at least I do.” A wry look came across his face at that. “There really is no other solution.”
    “I suppose not,” I said, and sat down at my desk. I adjusted my watch and stared up at him expectantly. “So, why are you here? Showing off your terrible taste in shoes? Are those made of cardboard?”
    He peered down at his feet. As usual the man looked like he’d rolled out of the California surf with his T-shirt, board shorts, and terrible Birkenstocks. Not the image the cartel had at all, but there was no talking style into him. Believe me, I had tried.
    He placed a large envelope down on the desk. “Got the email from Martin just a few minutes ago and had these printed out for you.”
    I stared at the envelope for a beat before laying my fingers on it and sliding it toward me. A quiver of anticipation ran up my arms and I did my best to quell it.
    “I didn’t respond,” Este went on. “He mentioned that the location of the wedding changed at the last minute yesterday, but he was still able to get everything done. I printed out the email. It’s in there too.”
    I nodded and slowly opened the flap.
    “Should I get anything more from him?”
    I shook my head and slid the papers out of the envelope and onto the desk. “No, it doesn’t matter. Martin is dead.”
    I glanced up to see Este staring at me with a stunned expression. “So soon?”
    “Yes,” I said absently, looking back to the paper in my hands. I skimmed the printed out email.
    “What a shame, I liked the guy.”
    “I didn’t,” I said. “But he got the job done and that’s all that matters.”
    “Kind of like the whores.”
    I pursed my lips. “Mmmm,” I conceded. From the email, Martin had done the job well. He had observed Salvador Reyes and his bride from a few days before the wedding and gotten photographs during the ceremony. “But killing women is always so ugly, isn’t it?”
    “You see,” Este said, crossing his arms, “right there, that sort of shit surprises me. You know, considering your issues with women and all that.”
    I shot him a piercing look. “I don’t have issues.”
    “No,” he said slowly with an easy smile on his lips, knowing all too much. “Of course not.”
    It was those moments that I hated Esteban Mendoza. Hated that he was my right hand man, hated that he was the closest person to me, even though that never amounted to much. I hated that it would hurt me so to kill him.
    “Martin would have talked,” I said to him. “Much like the whores. He did well. Don’t worry, his wife and children will be taken care of.”
    Este raised his brows.
    “With money,” I supplied quickly. “They will be fine without their father, who was stupid