Page 22 of Secrets Beneath the Waves
“Hopefully, before then, Maizie will be into that flash drive.”
Ramon drove to her motel and swung around to park close to the stairs. He peered up at her door but didn’t see anything amiss.
“Don’t worry. I hid it all like a pro.” She pushed out the door. “Later.”
Ramon didn’t leave until he had watched her go inside, and even then, he waited a minute. He called Maizie, but the program she had running to break the security lock on the flash drive hadn’t gotten through yet.
He didn’t like pulling away, but in the end, it wasn’t up to him to protect Zeyla twenty-four seven. She had more than enough skills to take care of herself and probably had the room up there wired with defenses. She also had past experiences that would give her a healthy fear of being captured. The last thing she would want was forDominatusto take her again.
Ramon drove to a bar two streets over, parked out front, and found an empty stool in the middle. The bartender wandered over, so Ramon said, “Beer. Whatever’s on tap.”
The guy lifted his chin and poured Ramon a cold one.
“Thanks.” He took a sip.
It didn’t take long for a man to slide onto the stool next to him and groan a little, clutching his side. Miguel looked almost normal sitting beside him. Together, they’d seem like two old friends meeting up for a drink.
Miguel asked for a whiskey, and when it came, he took a healthy sip.
“How’s your side?”
Miguel muttered a disparaging name, and for the first time, Ramon realized why Kenna always got on him about swearing. It sounded jarring from this guy now that he’d spent so much time around people who didn’t curse much. They’d started to rub off on him in more ways than one.
Even Zeyla’s assessment of him probably wasn’t all that correct anymore. Ramon wasn’t some lily-white upstanding citizen, but he hadn’t been a vigilante in a while. Maybe he was growing. But that didn’t mean that people like Miguel wouldn’t always remind him of the man he’d been. The past holding him back like chains.
Maybe one day, he’d grow far enough to be free of it, but right now, he couldn’t even see how that was possible. It seemed more like who he’d been would always be a part of him. Despite what Kenna said, it couldn’t just be washed away.
“You gave me no choice.” Ramon took a sip of his beer. “And you pushed me off that roof with every intention of murdering me. I figure that makes us even.”
Miguel snorted. “No chance.”
“Too bad I’m not dead.”
“That was an oversight I won’t repeat again.”
“Good luck.” He tipped his bottle toward Miguel and drank again. “I’m not going to let you kill Zeyla.”
“Is that her name?” Miguel rolled the ice around in his glass. “Nasty piece of work that one.”
“You know about her, but you don’t know her name?”
“I know what I need to know.”
Ramon asked, “How’d you get into the business?”
“You taught me a certain skill set. I figured out how to use it.”
Ramon’s mind flashed back to that empty warehouse in Mexico City, back to when Miguel had been barely seventeen. It had been quite an education. And it was on the short list of Ramon’s biggest regrets. “I should never have done that.”
“It’s the life.”
“That doesn’t make it okay.” They’d killed people and, in the process, shredded at least part of both of their souls. “I knew better. I just got sucked into the life.”
“Never would’ve pegged you for a fed.”
After it had come out, Miguel wasn’t likely the only one surprised to find out Ramon had been an FBI agent before becoming part of the cartel. Then he became everything he was accused of being, swept away by that world. Not even bothering to fight the stain of cartel life. The things he’d seen. What he’d done.
Ramon said, “That’s kind of the point of undercover work.”
