Page 17 of Devil's Luck

My heart skips a beat when my phone buzzes and beeps from the coffee table in front of me.

Nola’s smiling face glows at me from the screen as I pick it up. Using my thumbprint to unlock the device, I read the message and jump straight to my feet.

Nola:You took my truck and killed my men, now I have your woman. Ten million or she’s dead. -Hector

Every word pierces through my chest like a knife. I know who sent this text immediately.

Hector Aguado has attempted to strike my organization hard before, but I’d never seen him stoop this low. Taking Nola, my love, my anchor, is a line that can’t be uncrossed. Thoughts racethrough my mind—anger, fear, and the cold weight of dread settle in my gut. The room grows silent as the realization hits . . . this is more than just a threat—this is personal.

As one of the last three leaders of the Aguado Cartel that is still alive after our massacre of their men yesterday, Hector is out for revenge. It was his seven fellow cartel men that I watched get buried under several tons of cement this morning. It was his shipment of women that we intercepted and handed over to the boys in blue at the Houston Police Department.

It’s not often that I choose to work with law enforcement, but after Corrin told me the semi-truck was carrying women from who knows where, I had to at least in a roundabout way. After we had all the cartel men moved to the construction site, an anonymous call was placed to 911 about an abandoned semi-truck. While I would like to know that every woman who was rescued is happy and safe and returned home to her family, it would be too risky for my business to be personally involved. They are is in the hands of the law now, and that’s all I could do.

But Nola? Her being captured and held against her will? Thatissomething I can and will do something about . . . and I know just how to find her.

As I head for the home intercom panel on the wall to get Corrin’s attention up in his apartment, my fingers move instinctively across my screen, opening the tracking app I had installed on Nola’s cellphone. A surge of adrenaline courses through me, fueling my movements as I watch the tiny dot that appears on the screen pulse, zeroing in on her location. I can almost feel her presence through the phone.

“What’s up, boss?” Corrin asks as he walks in from the garage.

“Hector Aguado has Nola.” The words come out but my eyes never leave my phone. “And he’s holding her in one of our warehouses.”

“What the fuck?”

The turn the phone to show him the blue dot. “They’re in one just on the other side of the highway from the development. I bet he chose there thinking he could taunt me that he could see my property, but not knowing he’s actually in one of my buildings.”

“Fuck,” he growls out as his fingers fly across his own phone, no doubt rallying the troops for battle.

Every second ticks by painfully, and I can’t help but think back to our last moment together this morning. I dropped Nola off to work thinking I’d pick her up again in just a few hours. She gave me a kiss before sliding out of the SUV and waved as she walked to the door. My last glimpse of her was through the glass of the office’s front window as we drove away.

If that was the last time I ever got to see her, I will burn down the entire state of Texas until I get my hands on Hector.

Nola knows the risks of my lifestyle, the weight of my choices, and still somehow she accepted them, accepted me as I am. Her vibrant laughter filled the empty spaces in my heart, and she chiseled the edges of my stone-cold heart to expose the fierce protector hidden beneath my hardened exterior. But now, withHector’s vile grip tightening around my throat, I am filled with a raw panic that fuels my rage.

With a roar that echoes off the walls, I follow Corrin toward the garage and jump in the passenger seat of the SUV. The engine growls to life, matching my turmoil as we speed through the neighborhood toward the warehouse, memories of Nola flooding my mind.

As the streets blur past, each mile brings me closer to the realization that every second lost could be fatal for her.

I hear Corrin talking on speakerphone to Tadhg, and his voice pulls me back into focus.

“I’m right behind you, brother.” I look behind us, and sure enough, I recognize the blacked out SUV behind us, identical to the one we’re riding in. “Corrin filled me in and Cian has the schematics of the warehouse pulled up on his phone.”

“We’re going to pull around back of the warehouse next to the one they’re in. We can park there, look at the layout, then head in on foot.” I make my first decision since this nightmare began. Thank God for my brother and our men, because my head is only screwed on half straight. They’ve gotten me this far, but I need to lead from here on out. This is my woman, this is my family he threatened, he will meet my bullet.

“Two minutes out,” Corrin announces.

“Don’t worry, brother,” Tadhg’s voice comes through once more before he hangs up. “We’ll get her back.”

As we arrive, the rusty exterior seems to groan, like it knows there is evil lurking within. Corrin parks the SUV under an overhang and we jump out. It’s only just in this moment that I realize Tadhg and Cian weren’t the only ones who followed us here. There are three more SUVs and twelve of us total.

“As soon as Corrin text what was going on, I called Shane to see what was going on.” Tadhg makes a beeline right for me. Shane is who I had assigned to stay close to Nola, outside her office. “He didn’t see anything out of place outside, but inside the office was a ghost town. No one was there.”

“Where did everyone go?” I ask no one in particular.

“No, clue. But he said the Nola’s desk looked like a mess. There were filled stacked everywhere.”

I shake my head, imagining the chaos she came in to find. “She hadn’t been in the office in a month. She’d been bugging me to let her go in for a few hours, but I kept pushing it off.”

“Her purse was under the desk, but he couldn’t find her phone.”

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