Unveiled (Vargas Cartel #2) by Lisa Cardiff Read Free Book Online Page A

just hung up with her.” He looked pained.
    I raised my eyebrows. “And?”
    “There’s no way she can make it to that tunnel in Sonora. Her dad has relocated her to the house on Isla Mujeres. He thinks the Vargas Cartel plans to hurt her.”
    I exhaled loudly, hanging my head in my hands. “Maybe she should come clean and explain her situation. It might be the only option. I’m not going to break into a house on that island. I wouldn’t walk out of there alive. Neither of us would. It would be a death march.”
    Isla Mujeres was a four-mile island located off the coast of Cancun, Mexico. Smuggling someone from that island would be a logistical nightmare. There wasn’t a quick getaway plan.
    Rever punched the wall. It echoed through my apartment like a gunshot, and drywall dust coated his knuckles. “We have to try. I’m not going to abandon her and my unborn child.”
    I chuckled even as my blood boiled. I didn’t owe Rever shit. I already saved him from himself once. I didn’t need to do it again. I sympathized with Anna. I wished the reality of the situation were different. “This is your mess. I don’t have time for this right now.”
    Rever rose to his full height, squared his shoulders, and cocked his head. “If we don’t help her, they’ll kill her. Are you okay with them killing your unborn niece or nephew?”
    “Now you want to claim me as part of your family?” My voice dripped with derision. I raked my hand across my chest. “You have some fucking nerve pulling the family card now.” As kids, Rever never missed an opportunity to tell me I wasn’t part of his family. That I’d never be part of his real family. According to him, we shared blood, but nothing else.
    “You’re all I have.” He had this hopeless, hollow look in his eyes full of fear, fear of the unknown, and fear of the known. I knew that look. That’s how I felt when I threw Hattie out of my life and back into Evan’s open arms. I fucking hated that prick.
    Gritting my teeth, I clenched my hand around my beer bottle so hard my knuckles whitened. My phone—the one reserved strictly for business of Ryker Vargas, not Ry Fallon—rang, saving me from answering. Only past and potential clients had the number. I slipped the phone out of my pocket. “I need to take this call.”
    Rever briefly closed his eyes, then he rolled his shoulders back and retreated to my guest bedroom. I couldn’t get him away from me and out of my life fast enough.
    “Ryker Vargas,” I said, my voice clipped.
    “It’s Senator Deveron.”
    I didn’t say anything for a moment. I had no intention of doing jobs for him anymore, but refusing a job from him wouldn’t be easy.
    “How can I help you?”
    Labored breathing hummed in my ear. “We have a problem.”
    “Really? How do you figure?”
    “Hattie broke off the engagement with Evan.”
    My heart stalled in my chest, and then it started beating riotously. Thank God. “Sounds like Evan has a problem, not me. I completed the job. I’ve been paid. We’re done.”
    “Hm.” Papers rustled in the background and then he sighed. “I heard Rever slipped back into the U.S. In fact, all the evidence suggests he’s hiding out in D.C. I don’t have his exact location, but it’s only a matter of time.”
    Dammit . I should’ve shown my brother to the door the minute I saw him in my apartment. Better yet, I should’ve called Ignacio and asked him to forcibly drag his ass back to Mexico. Senator Deveron had all the leverage he needed to involve me in a new scheme. For some reason, the Senator had continued nosing around the Vargas Cartel and me, both as Ryker and Ry. It was making me uneasy. Hell, everything was making me uneasy these days.
    I was playing with fire. I had enough experience with backroom deals and shady undertakings to know something bad was going to happen, but I didn’t know if there was a damned thing I could do to stop it.
    “That’s news to me,” I lied as a thousand curses