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  The taller paramedic gestured toward the ambulance. “Climb up and sit inside. We’ll need to cut your shirt to clean and treat the injury here because I’m assuming you’ll refuse transport.”

  Diaz had followed her. “Not sure I’m going to let her refuse.”

  She contemplated how many years in prison she would get for the justifiable homicide of a supervisor. “You can’t force me to go to the hospital.”

  “But I can make you leave this crime scene, which will happen if I think you need the hospital.”

  Sheer annoyance at the waste of valuable time forced a groan from her. “Fine. Go ahead and take care of it here. Then let me get back to work.”

  The taller EMT slid a pair of shears from his equipment belt and deftly sliced her blouse straight across the top of the left shoulder seam. Once the collar had been cut, the silky fabric fell away on both sides, revealing her bra strap and several inches of skin down to her shoulder blade in back and past her collarbone in front.

  Everyone froze. Shock reflected in their eyes.

  Was her injury worse than she thought? She glanced down, concerned she might see a shard of metal sticking out of her body. Instead, she saw what had caused the reaction.

  A black wolf’s head tattoo covering the left side of her chest just above the lace of her bra stood out in sharp relief against her caramel skin. The beast’s lips curled back over razor sharp fangs in a predatory snarl. Above the design, a crimson letter V had been inked in bold calligraphy.

  The paramedic tore his gaze away from the tattoo to scan her face. A spark of recognition ignited. “You must be …”

  She longed to snatch the tattered edge of her top and yank it up a few inches to cover the ugly ink, but restrained herself. She couldn’t hide who she was.

  “Yes.” She lifted her chin. “I’m Veranda Cruz.”

  The EMTs exchanged a look she recognized well.

  Revulsion.

  “And yes, that’s a cartel tattoo,” she continued. “With the Villalobos family mark above it.” Heart pounding beneath the indelible mark that proclaimed her heritage to the world, she gave voice to the tacit judgment both men had failed to conceal. “Because Hector Villalobos is my father.”

  2

  Daria Villalobos briefly closed her eyes and inhaled, breathing in the heady blend of primal male musk, sweat, and fear. Her designer boots stirred tiny puffs of dust from the compacted dirt floor as she took measured steps behind the circle of men. Her men. She had ordered them to what she referred to as “the pit building” to teach them the consequences of failure. She intended today’s lesson to fill their every waking moment with dread. And haunt their dreams.

  Under her guidance, twelve of her men had recently constructed the barn-sized prefabricated building on a vast plot of scrub-covered desert at the foot of South Mountain on the outskirts of Phoenix. Heavily sound-proofed and situated beside a nature preserve, outsiders seldom came near the area. Barbed wire fencing and dense chaparral kept wayward hikers away.

  When designing the building, Daria had included a service door at the back to vent fumes or make a fast exit. Equal parts science lab, demolition site, and personal fortress, the functional external structure hadn’t been her focus. What lay inside, however, had taken a great deal of time and money over the past few weeks.

  No one reported any disturbances when the men used her specially designed explosives and jackhammers to blast through the rock-hard layers of caliche just below the desert floor. Created by thousands of years of calcium carbonate deposits, the caliche around the mountain was particularly dense, but she had ordered them to dig a deep pit to her exact specifications.

  Now her men stood in silence around the perimeter of the hole they had toiled to create. She stopped circling behind them and drew near enough to lay a hand on the nape of a damp neck, a smile curling her lips when the man flinched. She addressed him in Spanish. “You were too slow, Pedro.”

  When the bomb in the storage unit failed to explode, she had turned to Pedro for the backup detonator to the device. While the idiot fumbled through a box of equipment, Veranda Cruz had managed to push everyone out to safety. Two hours later, Daria’s anger hadn’t cooled in the slightest.

  Pedro began to turn his head toward her, then appeared to recall himself and returned his gaze to the dirt floor. “I could not find it, Señorita Daria.”

  She gave him a slight nudge, and the treads of his worn leather work boots scraped the ground, sliding forward. The scuffed toes were now only inches from the edge of the pit. He sucked in a horrified gasp.

  “You should have been prepared for emergencies. That bitch would be dead right now if you had done your job.” She said nothing for several awkward moments, aware that silence could terrify more than words. She finally spoke again, allowing anger to sharpen her words. “But you are not the only one to blame.”

  Dropping her hand, she moved on. Eighteen of her men surrounded the pit. Over twelve feet deep and just as wide across, she had designed it for a specific purpose. Now one of them would be the first to test her new invention.

  She paused behind another man’s back. “Julio, where were you when I examined the wires?”

  “By your side, Señorita, double checking. Everything was good.”

  “And yet … no boom.” She reached out to stroke his quivering shoulder blade before moving on to the next man. “Which leads me to you, Guillermo.” She watched a trickle of perspiration course down from under his dark ponytail to disappear inside the collar of his damp shirt.

  “I did as you told me, Señorita,” he said, voice thick with strain.

  “And what was that, Guillermo?”

  “I put the bomb inside Oscar after he was dead.”

  She twisted the smooth hair of his ponytail around her fingers, relishing the terror permeating the open area surrounding the yawning hole in the ground. She could drag this out all morning, and probably would have, but the pit beckoned. Curiosity spurred her decision.

  She let the man’s hair slide from her grasp and used her index finger to trail a leisurely path down his spine. “Did you push it in hard, Guillermo?”

  His voice elevated an octave. “I had to … to get it deep enough inside not to fall out.”

  She kept her finger moving down until she reached his belt. “Perhaps a wire came loose with all that shoving.” She rotated her hand and placed it gently on his back pocket. “You have to be careful when you push.” She cupped his bottom. “Especially here.”

  His legs shook violently. “Please, Señorita Daria.”

  She lowered her voice to a whisper. “But you weren’t careful, were you?” His rising panic intoxicated her. “You pushed too hard.” She gave his backside a shove that toppled him forward. “Like that.”

  He pitched forward over the edge, arms windmilling in desperate circles. His guttural shriek ended with a thud.

  Daria leaned over to peer down at him, hoping the fall hadn’t knocked him unconscious. That wouldn’t do. Relief rushed through her when he scrambled to his feet on the pit’s earthen floor. She ordered her men to watch Guillermo scamper in a circle, picking his way around the pressure plates surrounding the metal pole in the center. He cast pleading eyes upward and placed his hands against the curved wall of reinforced cement that lined the pit’s sides.

  Daria spared Guillermo another glance before scanning the stunned faces of the men surrounding the hole. They didn’t like her, didn’t respect her, but they feared her. She had made sure of that.

  Born into her father’s patriarchy, she’d carved out a place for herself among her three older brothers. Their status as leaders in the family business was their birthright, but hers had come at a very steep price. Hector Villalobos had been upset that his youngest child wished to play what he thought was a man’s game. He had devised a brutal test before allowing her into the inner
sanctum. Only fifteen years old, her victory had surprised everyone. And irrevocably changed her.

  A rueful smile twisted her lush mouth. Her trial by fire had ended more than ten years ago, but she’d been forced to prove her mettle every day since. Guillermo’s punishment would ensure the remaining seventeen men would follow her orders without hesitation.

  She cleared her throat, and even Guillermo stopped his frantic scrabbling. All eyes turned to her. “Guillermo will be the first to test my newest invention.” She crossed her arms. “For those of you who weren’t part of the construction crew at this site, I’ll explain.”

  The men watched in rapt silence as she continued. “The pole in the center is an upgrade to the classic Claymore mine. Instead of targeting one direction, my version launches a shower of nails and ball bearings in a three-sixty spread.” She warmed to her subject. “If I’ve designed it right, a bit of C-4 will detonate, sending shrapnel in every direction.” She stopped and looked down. “There’s nowhere to hide when you’ve disappointed me.”

  She drank in the stark horror on Guillermo’s face as he wrung his hands. He took a step toward the metal pole, extending his arm as if he intended to disconnect the multicolored wires sticking out at odd angles.

  Did he really believe she hadn’t thought of that? “You can’t get near the device without stepping on the metal plates,” she called down to him. “Which will detonate it instantly.”

  The front of Guillermo’s jeans darkened as urine leaked from his pant legs, soaking into the dirt at his feet.

  She looked past him at the digital display timer mounted near the top of the pole for all to see. “Twelve seconds left. Any last words?”

  “Please, Señorita Daria. I swear it will never happen again!”

  “No, Guillermo.” She signaled the men to back away from the pit and jammed an index finger into each ear. “It won’t.”

  The explosion shook the building, vibrating through every part of her body from the soles of her feet to the fillings in her teeth. The pit’s mouth vomited up a plume of pebbled cement. In the eerie stillness that followed, the men crept to the edge, waving away curling clouds of dust and squinting down. When several of them retched, she knew Guillermo’s death had served its purpose.

  “Scrub down the inside wall and wash the smaller pieces down the drain,” she said, pointing to a circular metal grate the size of a manhole cover that concealed a waste disposal chute.

  Daria reflected on the lessons gleaned from her father about disciplining subordinates. El Lobo extracted maximum value from every death sentence he ordered, selecting each participant with care and purpose. The condemned, the executioner, and the person who disposed of the body carried meaning and significance.

  Her gaze locked on one of her men, singling him out. “Pedro, bag what’s left of Guillermo and dispose of it on the other side of town. I don’t want anyone tying the remains back to this location.”

  Pedro might have joined Guillermo in the pit. Mopping up bits and pieces of his friend would drive that point home as nothing else could.

  Trembling, Pedro inclined his head. “Sí, Señorita.”

  She strode from the building, reassessing her predicament. Determined to find a way to salvage this morning’s disaster, her feet hurried toward a nearby Jeep waiting in the barren dirt lot next to the building.

  She wrenched open the driver’s door and slid onto the utilitarian vinyl seat. The weight of impending judgment settled on her shoulders as she recalled the meeting in her father’s office at their family compound in Mexico seven weeks ago, when the course of her life had changed for the second time.

  Because she was female, her father had given her rightful place in the family business to Salazar, his trusted fixer and right-hand man. When she objected, he promised to reconsider if she eliminated Cruz. El Lobo didn’t specify the method, but the kill order had to be carried out personally. Expecting quick results, he hadn’t understood why Daria insisted on a bomb rather than a bullet.

  Any idiot could pull a trigger, but she’d engineered the pit, a thing of beauty designed to carry out her personal agenda. She had kept her reasons to herself, letting her father believe a fondness for explosives drove her choice of method.

  The Jeep’s engine sputtered awake at the second twist of her key in the ignition, pulling her thoughts back to her present situation. Her father’s impatience had forced her hand. He had called yesterday threatening to send Salazar to carry out her assignment if she didn’t act this morning. Her men worked through the night, but the pit wasn’t ready until an hour ago, well after her deadline. The storage unit bomb had been her backup plan.

  As she drove out of the lot, the beginnings of an idea slipped into her awareness. She had taken pains to frame Salazar for Cruz’s death. Now that Cruz had survived, the planted evidence took on a new role. While the police chased Salazar, occupying his time and theirs, Daria would be free to implement the alternative plan uncoiling in her mind like a viper preparing to strike.

  3

  Veranda watched the range of emotions flicker through her mother’s hazel eyes. Fear, anger, and sorrow finally resolved into an expression of deep pain. A single tear escaped, wrenching Veranda’s heart.

  After Lieutenant Diaz sent everyone home to eat and get cleaned up, she’d changed clothes at her small two-room bungalow house downtown before coming to see her mother at the family’s food truck. While her uncles took orders and cooked, Veranda had ushered her mother to the driver’s seat, squatting beside her to tell her about the explosion. It hadn’t gone well.

  She reached out to sweep the droplet away with her thumb. “I’m okay, Mamá. It’s barely a scratch.”

  “This time,” Lorena said, a slight Mexican accent lacing her words. “What about the next time?”

  Her mother knew, better than anyone, how relentless the Villalobos family could be. And how dangerous. Hector had brutalized her, and his son Bartolo was the reason she toiled in a cramped food truck every day.

  Lorena Cruz-Gomez had started a family restaurant with her younger siblings soon after arriving in Phoenix over thirty years ago. After Bartolo burned the restaurant down last summer, Lorena had accepted an offer from her youngest brothers to share their food truck. They had stationed the brightly colored vehicle in the former restaurant’s parking lot to keep existing customers coming during reconstruction. The new building was almost finished, and the family planned to throw a grand reopening celebration.

  Veranda took pride in her family and dreaded bringing more suffering to their door because of her job. The moisture on the pad of her thumb from her mother’s tear told her that was exactly what she’d done.

  She bent her head. “I’ll be careful, Mamá.” The words came out hollow, even she could hear their empty promise.

  Lorena stood and smoothed her white apron. “I must help them.” She inclined her head toward Veranda’s uncles, who were struggling to keep pace with the lunch rush.

  She wanted to say more to her mother, find a way to make things right, but she knew Lorena preferred to work through her troubles. Over the years, she had observed her mother in the kitchen. Chopping, cooking, and plating were a kind of meditation. Feeding others fed her mother’s soul.

  Her tío Rico gave her a nod when she followed her mother into the food prep area of the truck. “Chuy’s waiting for you,” he said, pointing a serving spoon at three heaping paper plates sitting on the tiny metal counter. “He already ordered.”

  Chuy, her favorite cousin, had asked her to meet for lunch. The third plate meant he must have brought Tiffany, his girlfriend, along. Stomach growling, she inhaled the mingled scents of onion, cumin, and cilantro as she threaded her way through the cluster of sun-bleached card tables and weathered folding chairs. Snatches of conversations in Spanish and English reached her ears from diners enjoying an al fresco meal in the fine late-October Arizona w
eather.

  Plunking the plates down, she quirked a brow at Chuy, who sat next to Tiffany at the farthest table from the food truck.

  “You had to pick the farthest table?”

  Chuy slid a calloused hand over his shaved and tattooed scalp. “Yeah, I want to talk serious shit, so I’m sitting where folks can’t listen in.” His dark eyes swept the area like an inmate checking a prison yard for threats, a tactic he was intimately familiar with. “Especially our tíos and tías.”

  She grinned and pulled out a folding chair. “And people say you don’t have manners.”

  “I know, right?” He reached a muscular arm out to slide his plate closer. “I’m a considerate fuckin’ guy.”

  She sat down, pushed Tiffany’s enchiladas toward her, and considered the couple. Extensive elaborate body art set them apart from the midday business crowd. While Tiffany’s ink consisted of brightly colored animals and flowers, Chuy’s tended toward dark biker-style Gothic symbols and intricate Mesoamerican tribal patterns. Over the past five years Chuy had converted his crude prison tatts into professional designs. Once he got out, opened a car repair shop in an old garage, and began making legitimate money, he’d forged a new direction for his life. After he got clean and sober, he’d fallen for Tiffany, whose bleached-blonde locks, custom Harley Softail, and mostly spandex wardrobe reminded Veranda of Barbie. If Barbie ditched Ken for a badass Chicano biker.

  She handed them plastic forks. “What’s up, Chuy?”

  Never one to mince words, her cousin got right to the point. “I’m glad you came to talk to your mom in person. Would have been much worse for her to see it on the news.”

  Veranda winced inwardly at the memory of her mother’s stricken expression when she told her about the bomb. She recalled an incident years ago when one of her fellow officers had been shot. Despite his pain, he’d clutched her arm as paramedics lifted his gurney to load him into an ambulance. He had one request: “No one calls my wife except me.”