Cadillac Payback by AJ Elmore (popular novels TXT) 📕

Gram's network is big, and spread through the city like mold in the cracks of a wall. Our network is solid, too, but we don't have an army willing to back us. Not yet. We have to prove our claims. So it comes down to the four of us and, all differences aside, we each have a special kind of intelligence in respective areas. Gram doesn't quite stack up to us as a think-tank. The rest is guns and grit, and if we have anything left spiritually, it's that.

I hear Maria return and take her seat, but I don't look up just yet. We're back in the dining room, she at the head of the table and me diagonal from her in the first chair on her right. Several ledgers lay open in front of us. Nothing in them is exactly labeled, only rarely and in code. They hold the details of our previously-profiting, currently-stalled operation. The sound of bottles clinking brings my attention up.

She sets a Dos Equis in front of me, her brow furrowed in familiar concern. She's not worried about the numbers. Like I said, we're not hurting yet. She wants to pick my brain, but she knows I won't give her much. She clinks the neck of her bottle to mine, then takes a long drink. I stare at the numbers.

They don't change as I follow suit and take a heavy swig. They won't change, not until we take care of this bullshit with Gram. That's what also bothers me. This shit with Gram. There's only one solution. Josh was right even if his input was asinine and poorly timed. Maria was also right, the how of the plan is the hard part.

That brings us 'round to Frederick, who's flirting with a very dangerous line. He's right, too, the Reaps have accumulated quite the roster of enemies. On the other hand, you can never be sure what scum might be under Gram's employ. You never know if the roaches on the wall are listening. Take Derrik, for instance. I don't so much want to give a shit, but I'm stressing over how long it would take to find out they killed Freddy. He'd be at the bottom of the gulf and we'd have our thumbs up our asses, wondering what the fuck just happened.

It's not good form to dwell on the bad thoughts, but I have to wonder if anyone else has even considered what happens if we fail. I want to have faith in Maria, but she keeps that damn poker face so well. She could be bluffing, just winging it. Or she could be playing chess. The truth remains, regardless: we're sorely outnumbered.

“You're drowning. Come back to me,” she says and my eyes focus on her.

I've been so careful with her, so on point with my defenses, yet she can still read me. That fact burns in my gut with the beer. What was I staring at, anyway? I take another drink.

“You look miserable, what's wrong with you?”

She has the slightest accent, and it's thickened in the past couple days here, where she speaks Spanish as much as English. It grabs me, hooks me just under the rib cage. My breath hitches. She's so goddamned sexy and it's fucking hot. Something's gotta give.

“It's hot,” I answer, gruffer than I mean to.

Her brown eyes flash, hold mine with the perfect mixture of surprise and curiosity. I swipe my smokes off the table and see to this evasive ritual. I guess it's my fault that she's forced to extremes when she wants to deal with me, but this pattern of her trapping me is getting so hard to beat.

She stares at me for what feels like eternity, the scales of her emotions tipping precariously back and forth. I think part of her attraction to me is the way I infuriate her. I'm not every guy she's ever known. I won't give her everything. No, I don't give her anything.

Her eyes narrow and she takes a drink, pointedly looking away like she's forgotten I'm here – the only other person in the house, with Abuela gone on business. Fine, she's just as aggravating as I am. It won't work, but she'll make me play it out.

We don't smoke when we're doing math, but I really wish we had a joint right now. The beers just make me sweat. We need a tension break, a middle ground. I feel like I've been watching a movie that is my life, dictated by the whims of one young and impetuous cartel descendent.

In a blur of movement, Maria flips the ledgers closed and sets them aside in a stack. She stands and leaves the room again. For a sweltering moment, I believe I've pissed her off with my tight response. But just as quickly, she returns with a joint. No way she just read my mind. Her gesture sets me off guard enough that I know I look like a startled deer.

She grins. It's not the sultry smile of a predator. Nope, it's a genuine yet canny thing straight from history. It reminds me of when Charlie first brought me on. She was eighteen, and already gorgeous enough to cause trouble, but she still held on to some childlike innocence. That look, it breaks my goddamned heart.

She takes a long drink and settles against the chair back with indolent grace. Her messy ponytail distorts against the wood as she slouches. She glances up at me, then back to the joint as she sparks it. The move is carefully calculated and I begin to wonder if it was I who made this a game? What would she do if I pinned her against that big chair?

My first instinct is to deflect, to find a distraction and drown in it – but something about her timing stirs a usually well-kept anger within me. It's occurred to me so many times that she doesn't actually know the demons she's dancing with. Again, that's my