The Cartel Lawyer by Dave Daren (ebook reader below 3000 TXT) 📕

tables or pool tables with cigarettes and cigars in hand. Every wall was covered in pictures of big catches, old fishing nets, and news articles about some of the storms that had hit Miami over the years.

An old, grizzly bartender leaned against the pine bar with a rag in his hand and a toothpick in his mouth. He lifted an eyebrow at me when our eyes met, and then he glanced over to the two men in front of him who had caught sight of me. They said something that I couldn’t hear and then chuckled to themselves as the bartender stood up straight and tossed his rag onto the counter.

“Can I help you?” he asked in a voice made gruff from years of smoking.

The old bartender had short cropped gray hair that was tucked underneath a hat with fishing lures and holes, and a dark-green, longsleeved plaid shirt over a grungy black t-shirt. He had a scattering of scruffy gray hair over his square jaw, and a small scar on his right cheek.

“He’s meeting me here, Drew,” Eloa said as she swept in from the area marked as the bathroom.

“With you?” the grizzly man asked as he gave me another once over.

“We’re working on a story together,” the reporter explained with a wink at me. “Can we get two rum and cokes?”

“Sure thing, Eloa,” the bartender said while he grabbed two glasses. “If the pretty boy gives you any trouble, you just give me a shout.”

“Pretty boy?” I muttered as I took the two drinks that he put on the bar for us.

“With that hair?” Drew teased with a smirk and a flip of his hair.

“Fair enough,” I said with a shrug. “But I haven’t had any complaints.”

“And you won’t from me,” Eloa interrupted as she took one of the rum and cokes from me.

The grizzled bartender chuckled as the gorgeous woman sauntered toward a back table. Her hips swayed enticingly, and the light caught the red highlights in her long brown hair. She wore a pair of black, high-waisted shorts covered in sequins and a white, off-the-shoulder blouse that was nearly sheer. I could just pick out the shadow of the bra she wore beneath the flimsy fabric, and I had to force myself to look elsewhere.

She swayed a bit before she eased down into the booth where she had left her messenger bag. She shoved the bag over, scooted further in, and then patted the seat next to her. She flipped her hair over one shoulder with a huff so that she could braid it, and I watched in fascination as her hands flitted over the three thick strands until she was finished.

“Did you bring your research?” I asked as I shook myself out of my trance and slid into the booth next to her.

“Yep!” the beautiful reporter answered as she pulled out a small spiral notebook with sparkles and hearts and a white pen with a ball of fluff at the end.

“That’s… an interesting choice,” I said with a small smile as I pulled out my own notes and pen.

“Would you think that this has top-secret information in it?” she challenged with a lifted eyebrow.

“Maybe for middle school,” I laughed.

“Exactly,” the brilliant reporter said with a nod of her head. “It’s camouflaged.”

“Fair enough,” I shrugged. “So, what have you found?”

“You first,” she countered. “You’re the one that called me in the middle of the night.”

“True,” I said.

She was so close that I could feel the heat of her body. Her cheeks were flushed, and I suspected that she’d had more than one drink already. Despite that, she still seemed coherent, so I decided to find out what her leads were before I saw her home safely.

“So?” she prodded after she took a sip from her rum and coke.

“I found a super PAC that receives most of its donation from the Everson Juvenile Detention Center,” I told her as I looked at my notes.

I quickly flipped to the section with the super PAC so that she wouldn’t see the judge’s name. She had missed the quick movement as she jotted down the new information in her notebook with her adorable pen.

“That follows what I found out so far, too,” she said as she looked back up, and for a moment I forgot to breathe as I stared into her honey-brown eyes.

“And what have you found out?” I asked as I forced myself to sit back so that I wouldn’t be as close to her perfect bow shaped lips.

“Well,” she said, completely unphased as she took another sip of her drink. “It seems like the center gives a lot to political campaigns like that super PAC. They also claim to be at full capacity almost constantly, though their expenditures on supplies seems on the lower end compared to the other facilities I’ve looked up.”

“My client did say that the food is a gray goo,” I told her. “I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the extra money was finding its way into the company’s pockets.”

“Yes!” the Brazillian bombshell exclaimed as she turned in the booth to look at me fully. “Both of the owners belong to this really swanky country club for Miami socialites and politicians.”

“A country club?” I asked while I tried to ignore the warmth of the leg she had pressed against mine.

If the owners of Everson’s belonged to the same country club as the judge, then that could be another link in their relationship. It would be interesting to know who had nominated the judge for membership, since all of those places required a sponsor.

“It seems like it’s the favorite for all of the more influential families,” she responded before she polished off the rest of her rum and coke.

“And their financials show that they’ve donated to political campaigns?” I