Claimed by the Cartel

Chapter 4 : The Compound

Dante

Like always, Roman got into my head.

After helping our mom change his diapers as a baby, you'd think I'd develop some sort of defense for his manipulation, but no. Roman played me like a fiddle.

In my defense, I had one of two options.

One, prove Roman right. I did have reservations about stalking a young woman waiting for the inevitable order to kidnap or kill her, but the Don couldn't know that.

I always followed through. Didn't matter if I could never wash my hands of it.

My second option, however, was to fall right into my brother's hands. Meet this girl, face-to-face, and try to figure out why she was so important to Don Sierpiente.

I knew her father, David Whitlock, was a congressman pushing to put through a bill that would throw a kink into all of the Don's plans. He was also paying the Don to keep him off his back. But Whitlock had other kids. Other numerous affairs and a handful of secret families.

Pull one thread and everything would come apart. Surely blackmail would be more useful than a trained gun on his daughter from a failed marriage. I didn't know what his endgame was, which was a little unnerving.

I ran the portion of the cartel in Austin, always ordering people to run drugs and handle people who didn't reach the quota for how much they were supposed to sell. Occasionally, I'd send Roman if someone really f****d up.

As much as it killed me to send my little brother out to spill blood, all my other guys were afraid of him. His reputation helps me keep them safe. One day, I'll burn it all to the ground, but I had to wait for that golden opportunity.

But at least Roman was nearby. Enzo was in Mexico doing dirty work. f**k, I worried about him whenever he was gone. I swear Don Sierpiente did this to remind me how fast he could rip everything away.

My hands shook when I took that danish in my hands. I didn't like talking to Honey. It would make it all the more difficult to kill her later. That's why Roman was on this job. He wouldn't blink. He'd pull the trigger as casually as spraying a garden hose.

Enzo and I? We'd carry that s**t. Another innocent person's blood wetting our hands.

Fuck, I wish it bothered Roman the way it bothered us.

But it didn't. He was wired differently, but that didn't make me love him any less.

I could still feel the way my fingertips tingled when they brushed Honey's at the coffee shop. I tried to hide the shiver down my spine. A craving to touch her again rolled in my belly. I thought about it often. Wide golden brown eyes. A soft, innocent smile. Small and unassuming.

Seemingly always nervous. Perhaps a tad anti-social, but not because she wanted to be.

She was charming in a newborn fawn sort of way. But there was something else there, too. As wide-eyed as she was, she had a flicker in her eyes that told me she knew more than she let on.

That she wasn't just a quiet college girl.

Whatever that gleam was, that was why Don Sierpiente was targeting her. I didn't think she could physically hurt a fly, but it wasn't always the fists that did the hurting. Sometimes knowledge was the biggest weapon.

Honey wiggled her way into my head that night.

I didn't sleep much. It didn't help that Roman wouldn't stop texting me. The man never slept, a side effect of all the meds he was on to regulate his impulses. Of course, I could always silence my phone, but I liked being there in case he needed me. In case Enzo needed me.

It didn't matter how old we got, I'd always be his big brother.

With new bruises on my knuckles, I had to meet up with Roman. He was meeting Honey for drinks after her classes and nearby I had to persuade someone not to steal from us again.

I'd changed out of my bloodstained shirt, throwing it in the laundry right next to the coffee-stained one.

I pressed the call button in my room. “Mercedes."

“Yes, sir?" she replied.

“Make sure our guest downstairs is comfortable and relay to Bastian that he better have those cameras up tonight."

“At once. Anything else?" my matronly groundskeeper asked. She was the extension of my voice and all my guys respected her. No one could ever take the place of my mother, but it was nice to have her around. A shitty situation, but we looked out for each other.

“Have Alicia's room ready for her. She's flying in with Enzo," I stated with distaste clear on my tongue. Alicia was the Don's daughter. I didn't want her a thousand miles from my compound, but she always got what she wanted. Lucky me.

“I'll have that taken care of for you," Mercedes promised. Hating Alicia as much as I did, but there wasn't anything we could do about it.

“Thank you, Mercedes."

“Always. Tell Roman I said hello and I hope he's enjoying the break."

I almost laughed. I swear he was liking his assignment with Honey a little too much. I just had to remind him that she wasn't a plaything and that he was at work. If it wasn't for his meds, he'd do whatever he wanted to regardless of what I said.

And that was a liability.

Fuck, he was a walking liability.

I left the compound when the guards let me out to my car in the large driveway. It wasn't a long drive out of the hill country into the city, but if you live anywhere in Texas, an hour-long drive isn't abnormal. My compound was gated to the road, with massive hedges and trees for privacy. Disguised as a fancy winery and not like it has half a billion dollars worth of drugs in the tunnels under it.

Armed guards.

Far enough on the backroads that we didn't get many lost tourists looking for a winery. We'd kindly direct them to several other wineries because ours was private. Maybe even give them a bottle of wine for their troubles if they were incredibly annoying.

Luckily, they had enough sense to leave the moment they caught sight of the armed guards.

***

Roman opened the door for me as soon as he heard my footsteps down the hall. I swear the man had the hearing of a cat. “So?" he asked, a dimple puncturing his cheek as he waggled his eyebrows at me.

“So what?" I huffed. I knew exactly where he was going with this, and I didn't want to hear it.

“Honey is a cute little thing, isn't she?"

I crossed my arms and closed the door behind me. “Doesn't matter. What're you doing?" I gestured to his scope, but he wasn't looking in the direction of Honey's dorm.

“Making sure she gets back to her dorm safely. This guy has been following her around all day," Roman stated and outstretched his scope. “See for yourself."

“Does he look familiar?" I asked as I took the scope. Someone else with eyes on our mark wasn't a good thing. The Don wouldn't be happy about it. I lifted the scope and looked out the window.

“No. Over by the alley," Roman directed. “Red cap."

I turned to look at the alley to see a lanky guy standing there just as Roman said. He seemed young, perhaps a college student, but he definitely had eyes on Honey as she walked through the courtyard. It was her latest class and there wasn't anyone in the courtyard aside from this guy hiding just out of her sight.

Then I saw him flip out a pocket knife. If this guy was a rival gang or just bad news, no one was allowed to harm a hair on her head. Not yet, at least. And it didn't take an observant man to read Red Cap's body language.

The question was how he knew which building had her dorm and why he was targeting her. Because she was a pretty girl all alone? Or because she was David Whitlock's kid?

“Call her," I ordered. “Now. Speakerphone."

“I like it when you're demanding," Roman jested as he pulled out his phone and dialed Honey. I watched her stop mid-walk to pull out her phone and answer it. Her soft features lightened in pleasant surprise.

“Roman?"

“Hey," Roman greeted, cool as a cucumber. “I'm finished early and I was wondering if you'd like to go out for drinks now? Are you out of class?"

Through the scope, she twirled her hair and said, “Yeah…I just need to go to my dorm to change and I'll be—"

“I'm sure you look great, Honey. You don't need to get dressed up for me," he continued, oozing charm. “Meet me at the bar in fifteen. Don't keep me waiting or I might have to buy someone else a drink."

That was a dickhead thing to say, but it would get her moving.

“O-oh…Okay. Yeah. I'll be there. Could I throw my backpack in your car? I look young enough without toting around a backpack." Honey's voice lightened a little when Roman chuckled.

“Sure, baby girl. If you're lucky, I'll give you a ride back. See you soon." He hung up first, never one for lingering conversations unless he wanted to make someone uncomfortable.

As charming as he was, he could easily turn on a dime and that charm would become intimidation.

Her cheeks were pink, even in the darkness. I liked the way that shyness looked on her. She took a deep breath as if urging herself to get out of her comfort zone. Then Honey turned around and pocketed her phone, slinging her backpack over her shoulder, and walked in the opposite direction of the man in the alley. He stared at her but didn't pursue.

“Good. She's clear."

“Fantastic. I gotta go. As much as I would love to watch you get information out of Red Cap, I've got a date. See ya," Roman stated.

I lowered the scope and looked over my shoulder at my younger brother. “Don't be a dickhead. We want her to like you."

He scoffed. “Oh, don't worry about that. She'll love me." He threw me a wink and grabbed his coat and keys, throwing them across his shoulder to hide his holster. Not that Roman needed a gun to kill anyone.

I'd seen Roman do some truly heinous things with everyday objects. Pens. Bags. A mug. Oh, God, a stapler.

I shook off that image, and shouted, “And Roman?"

“I know. I know. Don't f**k her," he shrugged me off. “Save me a piece of Red Cap, will you?"

“I was going to say take my car, but yeah, keep your d**k in your pants before it gets us into another mess. This one we wouldn't be able to clean up."

I tossed him my key fob.

Without another word, he left, and I looked out the window one more time at Red Cap, texting on his phone. His guard was down, which meant that he didn't know Honey was already being watched.

Good. I'll handle him.