Wild Cat (35 page)

Drake nodded. Calm. Elijah recognized instantly why he'd always admired Drake. He took responsibility. He never passed the buck. And he remained calm. He got the job done. It was how he could lead so many, clean up and run a very difficult lair and run so many jobs with dangerous leopards following his orders. Elijah could be that calm over everything and anything—unless Siena was involved.

“I get that, Elijah. I'm just saying, you want that man out in the open, you have the way to do it fast and easy.”

“Not going to use my woman as bait, Drake. I don't need
fast and easy to bring that fucker down. I'll get him. And when I do, you don't want to be anywhere around. He ripped her to shreds. He put his hands on her. He hurt her. He doesn't get to do that and die clean.”

“I don't think you're going to get any arguments over how the man should die, Elijah,” Drake said, shrugging his shoulders. “He's rogue. He knows the rules of our world. The boys are standing in line to teach him a lesson. To make him a lesson. No one is backing away from taking him out or teaching him that lesson.”

“My woman isn't bait.”

Drake grinned at him. “Get a handle on it, Elijah. You're a crazy fuck when it comes to her. Where's your famous cool? If I didn't know better I'd think you just came out of a cave for the first time.”

Drake, damn him, was
teasing
him. Looking to get a rise out of him, and he'd managed to do it in a very dangerous way.

“I still ought to rip your fucking head off,” Elijah groused, but the anger was gone, replaced by something else altogether. Affection. It wasn't just respect he had for Drake Donovan, it was affection.

Alonzo slid into the seat across the aisle. “You hitting them in broad daylight?”

“That's the plan,” Drake said.

“He's leopard?” Alonzo prompted.

“He's a big son of a bitch too,” Elijah said. “I didn't see his leopard, but he's a big man. Walks like a cat. He's going to be expecting us to hit him at night. He knows he blew the hit, and all this time he's been waiting for retaliation. He's on edge, knowing it's coming but not when or how. He's probably locked his place down and thinks he's got a fortress. We've made him wait, get anxious. Made his boys stretch their nerves out. He's in meltdown mode by now.”

“So why daylight?” Alonzo reiterated.

Elijah wasn't used to anyone questioning his decisions. He sized Alonzo up. The man wasn't questioning the decision so
much as trying to learn. Elijah liked that. He was certain Alonzo was far more than the soldier he claimed to be. He was comfortable in that role because he was used to it, but he could be a king. He needed to learn the ropes and become comfortable in his decision-making. The very good thing about Alonzo was that when he gave his loyalty, he didn't take it back. That meant he would always give his allegiance to Elijah and Siena, even if he were crowned the new king.

“He knows I'm leopard,” Elijah said. “It won't occur to him that I'm going to hit him during the day, so his security won't be as tight. At night, he's going to have every soldier he can muster, especially the leopards, guarding him. During the day, he'll want to take care of business. Let everyone know he's the new boss. He'll be working at shaking down everyone Cordeau had on his books and cementing his relationships with the gangs running his drugs and guns for him. He's got a prostitute ring that goes through four parishes. He can't afford to keep all his soldiers home with him during the day.”

“You have someone on the inside?” Alonzo asked. “Someone feeding you information?”

Elijah smiled like the leopard he was. Hungry. Cunning. “In every family, Alonzo. That man is your bread and butter. You keep him happy. You protect anyone he loves. You build him up. You make certain that whatever he gets from you is far more than he can ever have where he is. You don't ever ask for anything but information. Nothing that ever can blow back on him or anyone he cares about. They have to come from that territory, not yours, because there can never be a tie back to you. That's a protection for them. So always, take the time to do homework. Know everyone low, mid and high level. Low level moves up. High level is usually very loyal.”

“Do you have the layout of his compound?”

Drake nodded. “Down to the last bush. We've got aerial. We've got blueprints. We've got the contractor who did the work fifty years ago and his son who added a few new escape
routes since then. Talked to the painters, the electricians and even the plumber. All a very long time ago, back when Cordeau was alive and getting a stranglehold on the territory. Elijah's uncle was very thorough finding out about every boss connected to his business. But more than that, when Gaton moved his ass to Rafe Cordeau's mansion, he made the mistake of his life. We've got Catarina Perez, and she was raised there. She knows every inch of that property and she drew it all out for us.”

R
AFE
Cordeau had bought one of the oldest plantations existing near New Orleans. The huge rambling house with its elegant white pillars and large wraparound verandah spoke of decadence and affluence. It hid the secrets of those who had lived before, although Elijah thought Cordeau's ownership was fitting.

The property was large. Great cypress trees with barreled trunks lined the water lapping at the lawn on two sides of the house. Great shawls of Spanish moss dripped down toward the water, swaying in the slight wind. The swamp crept up toward the house on the other two sides, threatening to take back the property at any moment.

The air smelled musty. Old. The farther Drake and Joshua moved through the swamp, the more often they came across the old slave cabins Cordeau had renovated for his men to use for various activities. It was where Cordeau's lieutenants took their women so screams couldn't be heard.
It was where they took enemies and tortured or beat them into submission or to death.

As they got closer to the main house, they ran into razor wire strung through the trees and brush. The motion detectors in the trees were much more frequent here, and the guards were used to animals setting them off. Drake and Joshua didn't. They moved with ease through the dense vegetation, not making a sound, closing in on the plantation, the sniper rifles flat against their backs, avoiding every single motion detector and camera along the way.

The road leading to the plantation had never been paved and Cordeau had kept it that way. He liked looking at the tracks and recognizing who drove what vehicle. Once he'd learned to identify tire tracks of each, he always knew who had come close to his property.

The plantation had been outfitted with a surrounding high fence, the top three strands razor wire, and a guard shack. The propane truck rumbled up to the guardhouse and the driver leaned out. He was sweating. The morning was already hot and humid, the air heavy with moisture. His shirt was wet under the armpits and down the front. His cap was pulled low over his eyes and he chewed on his toothpick.

“Danny.”

“Pete,” the guard answered, even more bored than the driver. He'd been on duty 24-7 since Cordeau had disappeared with several of his lieutenants. At night, Robert Gaton insisted everyone stay alert. Mostly the plantation was visited by deer and other wildlife. They set off the motion detectors and the floodlights every so many minutes. Danny was sick of it, just like most of the other soldiers. Gaton treated everyone like shit. He liked being the boss and knowing everyone had to jump if he told them to—and he told them to often.

“Gonna be hotter than hell today,” Danny observed. “And it's gonna rain.”

Pete glanced up at the sun, squinting. “Yeah. Maybe in an hour or two. I got a heavy schedule today. I'm going to get wet.”

Danny grinned at him, revealing crooked teeth. “You ever find that niece of yours? When she disappear? 'Bout three months ago?”

Pete's face closed down. He pulled his hat lower. “Nope, we never found her,” he said. “Funny thing, that. You and your partner, Bart, spent a lot of time talkin' to her every night at the bar.”

“Didn't get anywhere.” Danny shrugged. “Legs were tight, man. She wasn't givin' anything up.”

Pete's mouth hardened. His hand closed over the small caliber gun tucked down the side of his seat, but then he relaxed. He had a little surprise for Gaton and his crew. He knew Danny and Bart had taken his niece from the bar when her shift ended three months earlier. Hell, everyone knew it. Danny liked to taunt him about it. Pete also knew she was dead and that she'd probably died hard. Women tended to disappear if any of Cordeau's men took a fancy to them. Gaton was every bit as bad, but everyone feared them and no one dared to challenge them. Until now.

Danny waved him through, laughing softly. Knowing he'd had Pete's niece and he was going to keep on having her until he used her up. He and Bart had been having good times for the last three months. They enjoyed putting on shows for some of the other boys. She didn't seem to enjoy it, but then she wasn't into receiving pain as much as they liked dishing it out. He especially enjoyed taunting Pete to his face, because he thought Pete—and no one else—would ever stand up to them.

Pete drove the truck around the main house, back behind the shrubbery that hid the large propane tank. He'd been there hundreds of time. No one ever paid any attention to him anymore. Still, even though he was certain his niece had been taken here, somewhere on the property, he'd never dared to look around. The men all were armed and they thought nothing of killing.

Like most people who had to deal with Rafe Cordeau and
his men, Pete kept a low profile. But he heard things. He certainly had heard of Elijah Lospostos. There was nothing low profile about him. He was a devil. Worse than the likes of Rafe Cordeau it was said. His name was whispered by Cordeau's men and they looked at one another uneasily when they said it. Since Rafe's disappearance, the name came up much more often. Everyone knew a war was coming. Everyone including Pete, so he had tried, like his neighbors, to stay under the radar.

He was shocked when Elijah Lospostos's men approached him. They were civil. Respectful. They didn't threaten. They didn't treat him like he needed to bow down before them. They had a plan and they laid it out. They needed a ride onto the property. They would use one of the propane tanks to get in. They'd construct a place in the belly of the tank to hide their men. He'd drive in, fill the tank as usual and drive away. Seeing nothing. Saying nothing. In return they would pay him very well and find out what happened to his niece. They would also avenge her. Nothing could be traced back to him.

Pete liked them. More, he liked their plan. It was a good one. He wouldn't know that the gas smell would mask their scents from the shifter guard. He liked the idea of the Trojan horse, driving right onto their property, under the nose of Danny the guard.

Pete's older rig, one he rarely used anymore, had been completely reconstructed inside. There was space—although cramped quarters—for five or six men and their equipment as well as a smaller tank that he could use to actually pump the gas into Gaton's propane tank. He liked being part of taking Gaton and his men down. It hadn't taken much convincing to put him squarely in Lospostos's camp.

He drove into the deepest brush, where he knew it was difficult to see from the house or any of the outbuildings. Cordeau hadn't wanted to have a propane tank visible. Gas made him nervous. He liked it hidden so no one would get the idea of using it against him. Pete parked and got out,
walking around to the hose. As he did so, he hit the side of the truck hard to indicate they were undercover and this would be the best chance the men had of getting out of the truck without being seen.

Pete should have been tense, but he wasn't. All he could think about was Danny's taunting smirk. That voice. The one that told him his niece had suffered and there wasn't anything he could do about it. He went about his business pumping the gas and trying not to see the five men moving silently out of the belly of the truck. He didn't recognize any of them, and none of them looked at him until the last man. He turned and saluted Pete, as if respecting him. That meant a whole hell of a lot when he'd spent the last three months feeling less than a man.

Elijah smelled the air. Somewhere close, an outdoor barbecue was going. Steak, if he was any judge. Steak and pork. He signaled the four others with him to go easy. They had to slip in and take over the control room. If whoever was on the cameras was sharp, they'd eventually spot something wrong. So, the control room had to be theirs first.

Alonzo and Eli split off, moving around toward the back of the house where the large barbecue pit was. Joaquin, who had always remained Elijah's ally throughout the war with his uncle, stayed close to Elijah. Elijah knew the man would lay down his life for him. That was Joaquin. He tried not to use him too often, because Joaquin had seen too many battles and, like Elijah, killing came too easy, but this one was necessary.

Evan would be their man in the control room. He was fast and silent and knew his way around computers, cameras and just about any technology possible. He had come to Drake straight out of the rain forest. In the beginning, Elijah had confused him a few times with Jake's worker, Evan. Jake had a habit of picking up strays. His Evan didn't talk, but used sign language and was as tall and muscular as a tank. He wasn't leopard and was totally loyal to Jake and his family.
Evan Courtier was a little leaner, a lot meaner and had eyes that never stopped moving. He worked with Drake in the bayou a lot, but Drake had called him in to help.

Evan broke off from Elijah and Joaquin, dropped to the ground and rolled beneath the wide verandah while the other two skirted around the porch. According to the very detailed plans Catarina had drawn out for them, the control room was located on the left side of the house, on the first floor. There were two windows, both with bulletproof glass. One man stayed inside the room at all times.

Elijah and Joaquin had studied the cameras and the angles. There was one spot, just along the southern corner of the verandah, where the roof dipped a little lower to meet a pillar and a large live oak tree blocked the camera. Cordeau had left the enormous tree because he was leopard and the compulsion to keep the tree was too strong. No self-respecting leopard would cut down part of a personal highway.

Branches stretching across the forest, in the jungle, rain forest or the bayou—it didn't matter where—that was the leopard's ultimate highway. Glancing up, Elijah could see that Cordeau had escape routes from every direction of his home. Gaton had moved into the mansion, eager to become the boss over the territory. As a leopard, those private escape routes were now his.

Elijah crouched low and sprang up, catching the edge of the roof and easily pulling himself up. As a shifter, he had the same enormous strength as his leopard. And leopards could take several times their own weight right up a tree when they needed to do so. He gained the roof and, staying low, made his way along it until he was in position by the door closest to the control room. Joaquin was close behind him.

He never heard Joaquin. No one ever did. Most shifters were silent on their feet, but Joaquin was a ghost. He always had been. He rarely spoke, and it was far rarer to get a laugh out of him. He avoided Drake and his men, although he stayed close to Elijah. Elijah had laid it out for Joaquin and
Tomas, all of it, before he'd ever made the move to kill his uncle and get out from under the brutal monster of a man who had murdered his father. The brothers had simply shrugged, and said, “I'm with you,
mi hermano
.” That was Joaquin and Tomas.

Elijah purposely didn't expose them too much. Not to anyone. Joaquin and Tomas were his personal bodyguards and the closest thing he had to men he trusted until he met Drake. Joaquin touched his shoulder, and instantly Elijah dropped down flat on the roof. He heard a twig snap as a man walked up to the door.

The newcomer was short, but had the familiar roped muscles of the leopard. He yanked open the door. “Food's almost done, Terry. You hungry?” he shouted.

There was the sound of movement almost directly below them. The man in the control room opened his locked door. “Starved, Bart. What took so long?”

“Fuck you, Terry. I'm getting you food first. You think it's easy cooking for so many? Gaton brought in a whole new crew he's so paranoid.”

Elijah lifted his head, did a quick sweep of the surrounding yard and he leaped, driving Bart into the house with both feet. Joaquin was right behind him, going over the two rolling figures on the floor of the entryway to hit Terry in the chest like a battering ram. Terry fell back into the control room.

Bart began to shift, clearly unaware that Elijah was leopard as well. Elijah was there before him, his huge male coming eagerly to the fight, head and arms already shifting, slashing, a silent kill as the claws ripped out the throat. He didn't need the suffocating puncture his male wanted to add. Elijah controlled him, controlled the need for blood. His male was difficult to control when fighting. He liked it. Elijah liked it.

He shifted completely back to his human form and dragged the body into the control room. Terry lay dead on the floor. Joaquin's work was always fast and efficient. He
had the body dumped in the corner, and Elijah tossed Bart on top of Terry, out of the way.

“Blood in the hall. Too much to hide. We got to do this fast,” Elijah informed Joaquin. He touched his earpiece. All the men were wired. “Evan, we're good.”

Evan responded immediately, rolling out from under the verandah, and was in the house so fast he was almost a blur. He didn't even glance at the two bodies in the corner or at Elijah and Joaquin. He was already in complete control, reaching for the wide board to shut down the recording equipment. “I've got this. Go.”