Relentless (Fallon Sisters Trilogy: Book #1) (30 page)

A knot of uncertainty lodged in her throat. Her selfish need to save her horse might end in one or more of their deaths. Ciudad Juarez was not a vacation destination like the posters she'd seen in the window of the local travel agency in Clear Spring. There were no sugar-sand beaches and gemstone shores like Cancun. The streets were crowded. Cars zoomed past, spewing fumes into the air. The people, their faces set on the task of the day, crossed streets amid armed police dressed in fatigues like Serg.

She wished she'd closed her ears to Serg and Trey, their conversation an extension of their work and the troubles one border town could suffer at the hands of a greedy drug cartel. Murder became murders in staggering numbers, their mutilated corpses left indiscriminately on city streets, the message: Power and profit—king.

Bren focused on the man who had caused her immediate discomfort and relaxed. They wouldn't have gotten this far without him. He spoke the language, knew his way around, including the location of the Rastro Municipal Slaughter Plant, and could recognize trouble, specifically, a member of the Juarez drug cartel. She hoped if they did run into one it stayed in the singular.

The jeep rocked Bren at seventy miles an hour, her hair losing the battle as dark wisps flew in her eyes. Serg had said twenty minutes—no more. They were close, pinned between ragged mountain ranges in front, rising up against desert flatlands of the Chihuahuan Desert, the thin ribbon of asphalt snaking the dust-laden landscape. Arid with only squat grasses, their lackluster narrow fronds, covered in dust, waved with the speed of the jeep when it rushed by.

Bren glanced back, willing the trailer carrying Smiley to miraculously appear. Serg's bronzed arm shot up. He glanced at Trey, his full lips curving with satisfaction. "Up in front."

Trey peered over his shoulder. "This is neutral territory, working class." He hooked his chin at Rafe. "Conceal your gun."

Rafe slipped it back into his waistband. His hand reached out and squeezed hers. "Positive thoughts, darlin'." She took comfort in his engaging drawl.

But she couldn't dispel the emotions already threatening her speech, so she nodded back. The jeep slowed, and they hit a checkpoint. Serg handed over a document, spoke brief Spanish, and the Mexican dressed in jeans and bright yellow shirt opened the gate.

To the right were cordoned-off areas, the fields within them dusty, the earth cracked, giving the horses currently milling about nothing to feed on.

They came up on a trailer, and she jabbed Rafe in the side. "Binoculars."

He gave her a questioning lift of his brow. "For what?"

"The license plate on the trailer."

He dug into the inside pocket of his army jacket and pulled them out. Bren squinted against the eyepieces and focused the lens—her heart dipped when she read "Texas." Bren handed back the binoculars. There were so many horses. Her hands began to shake. How would she find him? There were other trailers up in front. The heads of horses struggled, pinned in between metal piping. The echo of hooves, stomping against the metal floor of the trailer as they tried to get their footing.
God, I beg you. Let him be alive.

Serg parked the jeep and hopped out, followed by Trey. Bren grabbed the roll bar and followed. As Rafe came out behind her, he pulled her to him. "Don't flip out, Bren. I mean it. You can't help them." The lines of his handsome face grew taut, his words sharp with warning.

She could do this. She took a deep breath and tried like hell to ignore her surroundings. She had eyes for one horse only. She'd find him. Let Serg explain, and she'd simply take him home.

Take him home... take him home in what?

Bren shot a look at Rafe. "We don't have a trailer."

He frowned. "Let's make sure we have a horse."

She opened her mouth but snapped it shut. She wouldn't argue his point. She didn't come this far to fail. Of course they'd have a horse. She wasn't leaving without him.

Serg took off his sunglasses and angled his head toward Bren. "Chica, tell me again what your horse looks like."

"He's an Appaloosa."

"App-a-loosa."

Panic rose in her chest. Her spokesman had no idea what the hell an Appaloosa was. She swallowed and wet her lips. "He's white with spots on his rump." Bren searched the pens and the tops of the trailers. Most were black and chestnut, with just a few white blazes poking up amidst steel bars. Frustrated, she took a step forward and grabbed his arm. "I'll show you."

Trey stepped closer. "Not a good idea." He eyed Rafe. "Keep her contained. Serg and I will check on the horse."

And here she'd thought Trey was growing on her. She'd obey. But if they failed to turn up her horse, she'd be in the thick of it. And someone better the hell speak English, and if they didn't, cussing was pretty universal. They'd get her meaning.

B
ren paced beside the jeep. "I should have gone with them." she stopped in front of Rafe, her big brown eyes wide and glistening. "I know my own horse. If he's here, I could find him faster, Rafe." Her voice cracked on a plea.

He had no doubt. But letting Bren lose in a slaughter plant, her eyes unveiled to the ravages of their operation, wasn't going to happen. It sickened
him,
and he raised beef cattle.

"Be patient, Red. Give them a chance." He leaned against the front of the jeep, keeping a steady eye on her. He knew this one. Knew what she was capable of. They didn't need to escalate this visit—easy in, easy out. He'd given Trey a copy of the shipping manifest. Once management cross-referenced the manifest with the horse, they'd figure something out and get her horse back to Maryland.

"Hey, I asked Trey if he knew Jo."

She stopped pacing and gave him a curious look. "Why would he know Jo?"

"Jo worked for the DEA, right?"

She looked around, agitated, like she knew he was making small talk to take her mind somewhere else. "Is this going somewhere?"

"I just thought he might know her, or of her."

"Well, do they?" A well-shaped russet brow arched.

"Nope."

She placed her hands on her hips. "I know what you're doing." She tapped her finger to her lips. "You're trying to distract me. Besides, I think if she did know him, she would have put two and two together after having met you. She would have asked you about him." She turned back to pacing, her signal that his ploy to engage her in some other way wasn't working.

He settled his back against the jeep and kept her in his sights, checking his watch. The last two days he'd watched her break a little with the burden. Seeing her that way did strange things to his insides, and he didn't like it one bit. He had half a mind to level anyone who had caused her pain, but sitting inside a jail cell would make it difficult to keep an eye on her.

He eyed her now. A bundle of anxious energy wearing a path in the dirt, crossing and uncrossing her arms, her head a constant bead on anything that moved, and that damn pacing...

Ah, hell.

Rafe pushed off the jeep. "Red." He grabbed hold of the back of her sweatshirt when she passed him for the hundredth time and hauled her back against him. Wrapping his arms around her narrow waist, he whispered against her ear, "Relax, darlin'." He kissed the back of her head. "It won't be long now."

She turned in his arms and nuzzled into his chest. "I just want it to be over." She peered up, soft black lashes fluttering against the afternoon sun, small creases of worry bracketing her pale yet pretty lips. "I want to go home, Rafe. I hate this place. It's foreign and angry and scary and... and I just want my—"

The high-pitched neigh had Bren straightening in his arms. "What the hell—" Her head came up, and she abruptly pulled away, taking careful steps backward. Her arms swung back and forth at her sides in a contemplative gesture, as if weighing her options, her eyes like lasers looking for... what?

He groaned and pushed off the jeep.

And she stopped, giving him a curious look, like a spooked filly before it reared. Her hands were hidden inside her sweatshirt sleeves. Only the tips of her fingers visible, they curled with agitation. Her eyes, large and seeking, lit on the pens to the right of them—none of those horses, at the moment, appeared to be in dire distress.

She kept searching.

"Bren?"

She shuffled backward, her head swiveling for sound. Other than the snorts coming from the trailers, the high-pitched cry made no repeat. But she kept moving away from him.

He placed his hands on his hips, his gaze deliberate. "We're staying put."

She frowned. "Come on, Rafe," she whispered. "I just want to check things out."

No way in hell could he let her do that. There were things about this place she didn't need to know. He took steady steps toward her. "Darlin', I'm pulling rank." He reached for her, and she jogged backwards, turning toward the first horse trailer.

"Shit,
Bren, get your ass back here." Rafe charged after her. He couldn't let her get to the corrugated buildings.

Her hands ran along the metal pipes of the trailer, her head bobbing up and down as she searched the frightened group of horses packed tighter than a can of sardines. She passed the first trailer and jogged several more yards to the second. Rafe was on her now, only a reach away when the same neigh rent the air, freezing them in place.

Bren cocked her head and cupped her ear. "It's coming from over there."

Shit.
The buildings.

Rafe edged up on her and grabbed her arm, his breathing no longer suspended.

Keep her contained.
Yeah right.

He had about as much control over her impulsiveness as he did with his own destiny. And right about now he was seriously wondering what the hell he'd been thinking, bringing little Ms. Horse Rescue to a damn slaughterhouse.

"Bren," he warned.

Her eyes flashed. "Let go, Rafe."

"We're on foreign soil, darlin'. I'm not looking to be thrown into a Mexican jail. Leave it alone. The odds of it being Smiley are slim at best."

Her face paled, and Rafe wanted to kick himself. If she hadn't considered that possibility, she sure as hell was now.

"Bren?" He eyed her straight up, his one brow arced. "Don't make me bodily carry you back to the jeep."

He waited.

The combative stance of hers gentled. "You're probably right." She shook the arm he still held in a death grip. "But can you ease up?"

Damn.
But he'd forgotten how small she was and felt like a total jackass for manhandling her. He let go and pulled her toward him and kissed her forehead, his arm sliding to her waist. "I'm sorry, darlin'. You just can't take off—"

The shrill ring brought Rafe around to his phone shoved inside the front pocket of his jacket. Keeping his arm around Bren, he fished it out. Seeing Trey's name, he answered it, his grip on her loosening a fraction.

She slipped from his grasp and charged toward the buildings.

"Shit!" he hissed into the phone. Listening as he went after her, letting Trey know she was moving their way, he slammed his phone shut.

"Bren!" Damn it, but she was trying his patience. He'd tried to spare her. But her own obstinacy was going to get her an eyeful. She ran past several workers, gray aprons looped around their necks and waists. White masks hanging below their chins. They jumped out of her way, speaking in rapid Spanish, the words lost on Rafe.

Bren slipped behind the first in a series of buildings. Another crippling death cry pierced the air, followed by the deep-throated shouts of men. Bren screamed, and Rafe took off in a dead run. The gun Trey had given him dug into his back, and he prayed like hell he wouldn't be forced to use it. He should have known his easy-in-easy-out plan would be blown to hell. Everything the woman was involved in caused a freaking disturbance.

Rafe rounded the same building. Now on pavement, the audible click of his boots made him acutely aware he was headed in the right direction. Railings came up on him, the concrete dipping to the left, which he felt sure was the beginnings of a ramp into the plant, and without a doubt the direction she'd—

More shouts broke out, and the unmistakable female voice he'd come to associate with trouble shook with alarming agitation.

"Let him up, you murdering bastards. Now!"

And the fear she'd do something real stupid struck terror in his veins.

He came up on the railing and stopped.

Stupid didn't even come close.

Armed with a power-washer hose, the amount of pressure yet to be determined—he'd guess painfully high—she took aim. It wouldn't kill, but if she pulled the trigger, it'd sting like a bitch. He shook his head and frowned. Sure as shit she'd pull the trigger. Bren didn't know the meaning of negotiation. Before long, they'd have the whole Mexican police force surrounding them. He didn't even want to think about Trey's reaction.

But the scene at hand had him shoving Trey's concerns aside. Rafe had heard the stories. Never paid it any mind. His business was cattle, and The
Brazos
—the family ranch—slaughtered them, too. But there were humane ways of doing it, and this damn sure wasn't one of them. Rafe's hands fisted, anger hot and pulsing thumped in his chest.

On the concrete, in front of the double doors leading into the plant, lay a black gelding on its side, at least seventeen hands. Its coat rippled with sleek muscle. Handsome came to mind, except for the gashes on its neck, ripped open, exposing raw horseflesh. Its eyes bulged with terror. The white blaze along its nose was saturated in his own blood, the hind legs bound, a steel chain looped and attached to a winch. His guess, they'd been in the process of dragging the gelding into the slaughterhouse when Bren interrupted them.

The workers, and there were two dressed similarly to the ones he'd seen earlier, stood back, their aprons covered in blood, their hands each gripping a glinting puntilla—a sharp, deadly knife. Their barbaric, and Rafe would add criminal, method used to slaughter the most admirable of companions had him sorely tempted to blow a hole straight through them.