That night, they sat by the campfire, watching it gutter out. Pilar rested between his legs, against his chest. She played absently with the rings on his left hand. With his right hand, he combed his fingers through her loose hair. And they talked. Alone in the desert night, they talked. For hours, until the fire was dark and cold.

In the tent, before they slept, he f.u.c.ked her slowly, gently, telling her what he wanted from her body, what he wanted to give her from his. Seducing her to patience.

Yeah, he saw his future.

Two days later, Connor, his father, and Bart sat in a hotel suite in the suburbs of San Diego. Dora Vega and her two closest a.s.sociates, Luis Torres and Matias Cruz, sat with them. The six of them were arrayed around the living room of the suite, and Dora had provided light spread of hors d'oeuvres and drinks.

Usually, the Horde met with business a.s.sociates in a less polished atmosphere-in an out-of-the-way dive bar or just some abandoned building. But La Zorra preferred to maintain a sense of decorum in her business meetings. Even when they met in the middle of nowhere, she came supplied to approximate a business meeting.

She always dressed like a business executive, too. Most of the boss-type men they worked with dressed with some degree of flash. Even those who wore suits would have stuck out in a downtown executive suite. But Dora dressed conservatively. Today, she wore a slim black skirt and a light blue silky blouse, unb.u.t.toned just to the point that it was impossible to forget that she was a dramatically beautiful woman. Her simply-styled hair, the little bit of gold and diamond jewelry she wore, her plain black high heels-the whole package was a balance of power and poise that Connor couldn't help but admire.

She was a conscientious hostess, too. Each man had a gla.s.s in his hand filled with his favorite drink: Connor and Bart had Jack, and Hoosier had Jameson. As they took their first sips, Dora asked, "Has there been any-what's the word you use-blowback from my special request?"

She meant the Cartwright hit. His father answered, "No. Bart and Sherlock are keeping track, but it's been five weeks, and they have nothing. Case is going cold."

Bart picked up. "It's not cold yet. They're still working it hard. But if we had left any trace, they would have found it by now. The chatter we're finding says they are looking overseas, at terrorist organizations. Homeland Security has it now."

"Ah," Dora said, and Connor thought she looked pleased.

"That doesn't get us out of the woods just yet. DHS could look south if looking east doesn't pan out."

"I understand, Connor. Thank you." She sipped daintily at a gin and tonic. "I'm impressed by the quality of your work. I'd like to meet with the man who got it done."

Trick was having trouble dealing with having gotten that job done. He was a quiet and thoughtful guy, but that didn't necessarily mean he was always diplomatic. He tended to answer questions posed to him with bald honesty. Connor wasn't sure it would be such a great idea to have La Zorra speak with him directly.

But his father said, "I'll bring him when we meet next."

Thinking about his friend, Connor asked a question he normally would let lie. "Now that the job is done, can we get some idea about why you needed Cartwright gone?"

Her lieutenant, Luis, said, "She would have told you if she'd wanted you to know."

Holding her tall, clear gla.s.s in both hands, Dora Vega contemplated Connor over its rim. "As I told you, the reason is compelling."

Connor held her brown eyes. He wouldn't push with words, but he wouldn't be the first to look away, either.

They stared at each other until Dora's mouth lifted in a slight smile. "Luis, Matias, step outside for a smoke, please.

"Seora..." Luis protested.

"Please." At her simple, firm word, a command in a plea, her men left the suite.

The most powerful woman-no, the most powerful person-in the Mexican underworld picked up from a tray a dainty cracker laden with some kind of black goo. "I a.s.sume you did some research, Bart."

"Only enough to get a read on the target. We didn't dig into you." The Horde officers had discussed that at some length, but the protection around her was state-of-the-art, and both Bart and Sherlock had said that they could get in, but not without her knowing. The risk, therefore, was too great. They did all they could around the edges.

"Thank you. And what did you learn?" She bit into the cracker.

"Cartwright was District Attorney for three years. He worked as an a.s.sistant U.S. Attorney before that. With the Feds, he worked a lot of drug enforcement cases, but he never sat first chair on any of note, and none of the cases intersected with your interests. He got his J.D. at UC Irvine. He's an L.A. native. Married with two kids."

"And before he got his law degree?"

Bart shook his head. "His trail fades out there, and we didn't have a lot of time to dig deeper. We went back as far as we had to to get a sense of him and then focused on the intel we needed to plan the job..." His last words drifted off. "He worked for the Feds before he got his law degree, didn't he?"

"He did. Homeland Security, in fact. It wasn't work he was made for, but he was a field agent for three years."

"And they obscured his record. Which they do for undercover agents. This is about your ex-husband." Connor spoke the words to Dora and then turned to his father, who was nodding; he'd put it together, too. And Bart.

David Vega was, or had been, a Special Agent with the Department of Homeland Security. He'd been deep undercover with the Perro Blanco cartel and had risen to stand at Julio Santaveria's right hand. He'd also taken an interest in one of the young women Santaveria kept as clerks, a pretty young thing named Isidora. They'd married and had three children, all while Vega was living his double life.

"My husband, yes. In that way, it's personal. It also bears on business, of course. Mr. Cartwright worked with my husband. He was also a greedy, corrupt man. Shortly after I took over the guilas, he made overtures to me, suggesting that we might work together. When we couldn't come to terms, he made threats." She finished her fancy cracker and lightly brushed her hands before she picked her drink up again. "It is not easy to be a woman in my world. The men who live in it do not respect women. They think I can be bullied. I've achieved what I have because they are wrong. I answer every threat in the same way: I ensure that the man who makes it will not make another."

"He made threats?" Hoosier asked.

But Dora shook her head. "The specifics aren't important. Let it suffice to say that Mr. Cartwright thought that my feelings about my husband were a vulnerability. They are not."

Bart leaned forward and set his empty gla.s.s on the table. "Can I ask...do you know what happened to your husband?"

"You may not ask, no."

Connor's antennae pinged like crazy. She did know-moreover, now he was sure that Vega was alive, and that she was in some kind of contact. What the f.u.c.k did that mean? A drug boss and her Fed husband? What the f.u.c.k? They needed to get out of here and talk.

He cast a glance at his father, who met his eyes briefly, but that look was enough. They were on the same page.

His father turned to La Zorra. "Dora, I respect your need to protect your secrets. But I need to protect my family. What's our exposure here?"

"From this, if you did your job, then your exposure should be negligible if not nonexistent." Her expression sharpened. "But this trouble in your own yard-that's another story. This beef you have with the Aztec a.s.sa.s.sins. That's an inconvenience. This is not a time for my peace with the Fuentes to be disrupted, and that gang is an important supplier for them. I need that resolved."

"We agreed to sit back and let that cool off. It's cooling. They're beneath our notice."

Connor was surprised at his father's a.s.sertion, but he made sure not to show it. The Aztecs were not cooling. They weren't escalating, but they were poking. Trying to get the Horde to make the first move. Looking for a fight. His read was that the Fuentes had given them the same instruction, or advice, that La Zorra had given the Horde-stand down unless there was aggression from the other side.

So they needed some attention. They were not beneath the Horde's notice, even though they should have been.

"Good." She gave them a wide, pleasant smile. "Then are we ready to talk new business?"

They stopped at a roadside diner on their way back to Madrone. Once the waitress had their order, Connor was the first to raise the key issue. "I don't like this. Vega's alive and she's in contact. That's what I got from her kicking back that question. If he's still a Fed, that's all kinds of twisted. I don't like how many variables that puts in play."

"Connor's right," Bart said. "Even if he's not still a Fed, and they witpro'd him, we need to know what it means if he's back in play. What team is he on? f.u.c.k, what team is she on?"

Hoosier tugged his beard. "She just had us. .h.i.t a D.A. She's on our side of the line."

"Vega killed on the other side of the line," Bart reminded them. "He killed Hav. And who knows who else."

Sighing, Connor's father leaned back. "I don't think killing Cartwright was some kind of setup. But you're right. Something's off. We've been working with this woman for two years. Things've gone smooth. We're making bank, she's getting her product out, it's been a good relationship. But she's starting to say 'I' a lot more than 'we' lately. She's starting to tell instead of ask. I don't have a problem working with a woman, but I do have a problem being anybody's b.i.t.c.h."

Connor had noticed that, too. When they'd first started working together, Dora Vega was new on the scene. She'd made an impression as a ruthless leader and a cool-headed businessperson, but she'd still been making her mark. At the same time, the Horde SoCal charter had been working straight for more than three years, since the charter had been founded on the ashes of a defunct club. Though that old club had held a lot of power as notorious outlaws, their years of quiet living had seen most of that power fade away.

In the two years since, Dora had embraced what had been intended as a dismissive nickname. She'd become La Zorra, and she all but ruled Mexico on both sides of the line. And the Horde had reclaimed their place among outlaws. Together, they'd killed a charter of another MC, the Dirty Rats, and crushed the Castillos, an upstart drug cartel. Now La Zorra had the Zapatas, one of the original Colombian cartels, who had been working with the Castillos, under contract. She was the queen.

But she was acting less and less like she considered the Horde her partner and more and more like she thought of them as employees-or subjects. That was going to be a problem.

"So where do we go from here, then?" Connor asked.

"I gotta dig into her, I think," Bart answered. "Me and Sherlock. She'll probably see us coming-her guys are as good as we are-and that'll cause a problem, too. But we need to see what she's not telling us. I know you trust her, Hooj, and we've had two good years, but I think it's a mistake to give that much trust to anybody that doesn't wear the Mane. She's got her thumb on the scale."

"Yeah, she does. G.o.ddammit. Why can't anybody just be an honest outlaw anymore?" He sighed again, sounding old and weary. "Okay. You and Sherlock see what you can see. Connor, I want to poke back at the Aztecs-not a p.i.s.sing match, but we need to get control of that message-to them and to Dora, too. No more joy rides past the compound for our brown friends."

"Should we take that to the table?" Connor asked.

"No. Like I said, I just want to push them back to their side of the city limits. Pest control. But this is our problem to handle as we see fit. Dora's truce with the Fuentes is her deal, not ours."

It was a bold move that could put them at odds with a powerful woman, but Connor was relieved. He'd been feeling hamstrung, too, by La Zorra's 'requests' regarding the Aztecs. He was not one for whom sitting back came easily.

Hoosier continued, "I don't want to come back at them with the same schoolyard bulls.h.i.t they're throwing at us, though. I think we should hit their business, let 'em know what they risk with this game."

Bart and Connor both nodded their agreement. Bart said, "I don't think we should push harder than a message, though. Not yet."

"No," Hoosier agreed. "A clear message, but no more."

Connor nodded. "I'll bring Muse and Diaz in on it, make a plan."

His father dug into his roast beef sandwich, thinking as he chewed. "I don't want an enforcer approach to this, son. Esposito and La Zorra both need to know that we handle our s.h.i.t, but if we go in hard, we could start a battle before we have a map of the field."

As Connor considered the problem, another idea occurred to him. It was underhanded, when he preferred a direct approach, but his father was right. They needed to stay back until they had a sense of the lay. "Bart-can you dig dirt on the High Life? They gotta be using it some way to front their drug business."

"Yeah. What're you thinking?"

To answer Bart, he looked at his father. "You say you want to hit their business. What if we can tip off Montoya, get it shut down. Maybe suggest he seize the place-everything he can? That could give the Sheriff a win and put the Aztecs in trouble with law and the Fuentes, both."

Hoosier shook his head. "That's a lot more than just a message. It f.u.c.ks with how the Fuentes move their product. It could cause trouble with the peace. I don't want Dora stirred up until we understand better what's going on with her."

"So it's not a message. We don't sign this. Let Montoya have it. The most important thing is shutting the Aztecs down, right? They don't need to know who did it." As the idea flowered in his head, he relaxed back in his chair. "h.e.l.l, maybe it even helps the Queen if Fuentes can't move that weight. She could take it over. If this works, we'll be doing everybody a favor."

He sat and let the President and Vice President mull that over. It was a good plan. Not flashy, no guns blazing, but a good plan.

And they knew it. His father nodded at Bart. "You can find what we'd need to give Montoya?"

"No question. There'll be something. Those guys aren't careful enough to hide from me. So yeah, this could work. It could be a big move, though. Even if the Aztecs don't figure it out, Dora will know. Could tip the scale with her either way. We should vote it."

"Agreed. And I want her to know." His father pulled his beard. "It's not our style, ratting anybody out to law, but those roaches are taking too much of our time lately. Let's let Montoya take out our trash, and let's keep our focus where it matters. We need to get on top of this Vega thing and show La Zorra that we are not her f.u.c.king lackeys."

Despite the heaviness of the topic, Connor grinned. His father had dropped ten years of age from his face and posture since they'd sat down at this worn table. He'd always chafed at working for anyone. Connor had heard dozens of drunken rants over the years about how working for someone ran against everything he believed in, the very reasons he wore a patch at all. What Hoosier liked about working for Dora Vega was the partnership. Over the past several months, and especially in the weeks since they'd done the hit for her, she had clearly begun to see the partnership as significantly less equal.

He only hoped that they would find a way to equalize the situation. Because the naked truth was that that woman was now a lot more powerful than they were. If they ended up opposed to her, they'd lose. No question.

So they had to find a way to stand their ground and keep her allegiance. As a partner.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

Pilar reached out from under the covers and grabbed her phone, swiping off the alarm. Before she could turn the covers back and sit up, though, Connor's arm tightened around her waist.

"No. Stay." His voice was thick with sleep, even gruffer than usual. When he pressed his c.o.c.k against her a.s.s with a grunt, she moaned and rocked backwards.

"I can't. I go in this morning."

He kissed the back of her neck. "Not till seven. Don't run this morning. Let me f.u.c.k you instead. I'll get your heart rate up."

As tempted as she was, feeling his big, warm, hard body tight against hers, his beautiful c.o.c.k sliding against her a.s.s, his teeth nipping lightly at her shoulder, Pilar hated for her routine to get screwed up on work mornings. "Connor..."

He sighed. "Come on, Cordero. This is our only time together for the whole week, because you're going off on that stupid trip and taking two days we could have had." His voice lost the petulant edge it had picked up, and he nuzzled behind her ear. "Baby, let me f.u.c.k you so you feel it all weekend long."

As he spoke, his hand slid over her belly and between her legs, and she decided she could skip her run. She wasn't ready to let him up so quickly, though. "Babes Ride Out is not a stupid trip. It's one weekend a year, every October, and I love it."

"I don't know why I can't go. It's only Joshua Tree. What are you gonna be doing out there, anyway? Some kind of lezbo orgy?" The way his hands moved over her body was distracting, but not so much that she missed his whiny jerkiness entirely.

She reached back and bopped him on the head. "You're such an a.s.s. No. But it's Babes Ride Out. You are not a babe. And it's just a party. Music. Booze. Camping. The usual. And you're going to be in Vegas when I get back, so come on."

"That's work, though."

"Funny how often you come back from 'work' smelling like expensive whiskey and cheap perfume."

"Hey, now. I'm true. You know that. I can't help if a chick pushes up on me, though."

"I'm just sayin'-your work looks a lot like play sometimes, and it keeps you away from me. So let me have this one weekend."

"I don't know why you have to have a rally of your own. Seems pretty s.e.xist to me." He slid his fingers inside her, and she wanted this conversation to be over.

"Because women are just t.i.ts and p.u.s.s.ies at your rallies. Shut up and f.u.c.k me already."

His chuckle rumbled low in his chest, and he grabbed her thigh and dragged her leg backwards. She reached between her legs and took hold of his c.o.c.k, pushing it against her until he was inside. "Oh, f.u.c.k," she breathed as he filled her up.

For a few minutes, they rocked slowly together, both groaning. Connor's pace gradually intensified, until the bed rocked and Pilar clutched at him, writhing against his hold.

He surprised her by rolling to his back, carrying her with him so she was lying on him. Then he grabbed her hips and lifted her up, driving hard into her from below. Jesus, he was strong.

And Jesus, the feel of him, hitting the deepest, most tender part of her, making her nerves writhe and quiver. It was always so f.u.c.king good with him.

The loud, rhythmic clap of their meeting bodies rattled the air. She leaned her head back on his shoulder and grabbed a breast with one hand, plucking and pulling at her nipple. With her other hand, she reached between her legs to feel him pistoning wetly into her.