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  “Maybe so. Maybe so.” He conceded to his wife with a smile. “But right now I need to get ready for this interview. This is going to be fantastic exposure and an opportunity to explain my first 100 days plan.” She broke the embrace to smooth the lapels of his custom tailored navy blue Brunello Cucinelli suit.

  “Of course mi esposo. The nation loves your ideas as much as they love you.” Carmella watched as her husband turned and began his walk to the waiting network cameras.

  “Thank you senator.” The network reporter extended his hand. His silky million dollar voice projected to Senator Sanchez. Jose took the offered hand and the two had a quick duel of thousand watt smiles.

  During the interview there were no softball questions and Jose appreciated that. He was a former soldier and relished the challenge. While his campaign manager held her breath every time a tough question came, Jose had the answer. His demeanor was soothing and reassuring. It was obvious to everyone in the room that Jose Sanchez had the right stuff.

  “Thank you for the opportunity Carl.” Jose said with his own well honed charming tones and disarming manner. The producer standing off camera signaled that the network cut away from them. Both men busied themselves with removing their microphones.

  “Jose, I hope you give us something to talk about in the next four years. I’m running out of different ways to ask you what your favorite color is.” Carl joked with the other man. “You are the first politician in recent memory that doesn’t make our viewers get a sour taste in their mouth. Your presidency is going to have me covering dog shows and Hollywood tabloid nonsense. You’re going to end ‘gotcha’ journalism.”

  Jose slapped the reporter on his back. “Carl, I have no doubt that you would win an Emmy for your dog show coverage.” The two men shook hands and Jose headed to his handlers and his family waiting behind the camera. “Are we ready to go?” Jose looked to his campaign manager for confirmation. She gave him an affirmative nod in reply.

  “Yes we are Senator.” The tall blonde woman smiled in her polished public relations way. “Your car is waiting outside to take you to the airport and then we will be on our way to Los Angeles.” She waited for him to greet his two children before she began to lead them outside. “There will be a speech when you land, then we will go straight to the fundraising dinner.”

  “This will give the Hollywood A-listers a chance to get their faces on the network news tonight.” The senator said with a smile. “They get to promote their pet causes and their new projects at the same time. With all the big stars there I doubt anyone will even notice little old me.” As they walked hand in hand, Carmella shot him a smirk and a playful roll of her eyes.

  “Oh look who is too big for Hollywood!” She chuckled. “Is this the same senator who tried to use his name to get invited to the last Star Wars premiere?”

  “Well if they had let me attend it I wouldn’t be so cynical about their support now.” He winked at her as the door leading outside into the warm Texas sun opened. The daylight shone down on him and his family for the last time. Jose’s final thought was how lucky he was to have been so blessed in life.

  “Yes sir.” He did not respond to her reply, instead the line went dead as he ended the call. Immediately Timmerman opened her national news app on her phone. She searched for a report from Texas. She did not have to look long at all. The incident in Texas was the main story and she pressed her lips together and frowned. “Shit.”

  He could feel the heightened energy as soon as he came into the office. When Reggie’s phone buzzed an alert, he discovered why. Ken McCullough met him in the hallway leading to his office. “Did you hear? This is gonna be bad Reggie, real bad.” The tall, blonde and perfectly sculpted FBI agent told him.

  Reggie opened his office door and waved Ken inside. “I saw that he got hit.” On his desk he found the remote to the television attached to the wall and turned it on. The screen snapped to life.

  “It’s terrible Reggie.”

  The screen was showing live footage of the scene. An SUV burning and police and Secret Service agents everywhere. The Secret Service ordered the network producers to avoid showing the scene. But there were some brief glimpses of the wreckage spread out on the ground.

  Reggie could imagine what the crime scene looked like after seeing so many of them in his career. It would be horrific. Seven people ripped apart by a car bomb would be a bloodbath. A sight that would shake even a veteran law enforcement agent. And two of the victims were children. Reggie’s heart sank at the scope of the tragedy. Jose Sanchez was on his way to be Reggie’s next boss. He was the favorite in the next election and was beating the incumbent by double digits in the polls. The man was the total package and a political party’s wet dream. He was young. Only forty five years old. He was a minority, and he was a centrist. He was liberal enough to please Democrats. And he was a veteran who championed enough causes that he had the respect of most Republicans. He was charismatic and played well on television. But now he was gone, his wife and his two children, his campaign manager, and two Secret Service agents. Murdered by unknown subjects. Unsubs that the entire law enforcement community of the United States would be looking for. Including him.

  “I guess Pierpont is going to be on the back burner for a while.” Ken’s statement was so obvious that Reggie did not even nod in acknowledgement.

  As she passed through the doorway of the suite Kelly immediately felt the chilly reception at her return. She saw that the assassin was in the middle of cleaning a pistol. Sonny was ignoring her and hadn’t even looked up to acknowledge Kelly. She kicked her shoes off. Each one tumbling in a different direction inside the spacious foyer.

  “Really Miss King? I shudder to think what your apartment looked like.” Sonny shook her head and Kelly shrugged, happy that Sonny wasn’t giving her the silent treatment.

  “My place was actually pretty clean because I didn’t have anything in it. It’s hard to have clutter when you can’t afford stuff.” She tried to smile but Sonny was keeping her eyes focused on her work.

  “You made money as a bounty hunter. How is it that you never had money? Are you that bad at finances?”

  Kelly pointed to herself with both thumbs. “Hello! Gambling addict? I was on a first name basis with every pawn shop owner in Chicago.”

  “Why don’t you go take a shower. I can smell you all the way over here.”

  “Sure.” Kelly started to pull her t-shirt over her head. Sonny peeked to see what Kelly was doing. Her teeth toyed with her bottom lip as she glimpsed the smooth pale skin of Kelly’s abdomen. The redhead walked into the other room and the door blocked Sonny's view. She started to imagine Kelly’s naked body in the shower and felt a tug inside her core. She was only yards away and she could hardly keep herself from hoping off the couch and bursting into the bathroom.

  No one had ever affected Sonny like Kelly King had done. Kelly managed to somehow befriend her in a very short period of time. Sonny could hardly think of the annoying redhead without feeling a desire to be more than friends. Kelly was definitely attractive but she was not a supermodel. But whenever Sonny looked at her, she couldn’t remember seeing anyone more beautiful. Kelly was also the only person she had allowed to get close to her in years. Maybe ever. One thing she knew for sure was that she found herself wanting to get even closer.

  “Miss King” She said under her breath. “What are you doing to me?”

  At the same time in the shower, Kelly was also wrestling with her own feelings. The warm water pelted her body, but her mind was miles away. Sonny had her thoughts scrambled like eggs. One minute she liked Kelly, the next she hated her, then she liked her. It made her head spin. She had made her angry by saying that Sonny had no emotions. She didn’t feel that way, Kelly had awoken from a nightmare and it slipped out.

  But there was a small part of her that wondered about Sonny. Having been in law enforcement she had some knowledge of criminal psychology. By definition Sonny Moretti was a serial killer. Bu
t that term didn’t fit Sonny at all. Sonny was more like a soldier at war, Kelly tried to convince herself. Except she wasn’t at war. She killed people for money and didn’t seem to be affected by it. That can’t be good, Kelly thought.

  But there was something about Sonny that didn’t say psychopath to her. Sonny seemed to show real empathy for others at times. Kelly saw Sonny’s rage first hand. When she saw the conditions the women they found in the brothel were forced to live in, she was furious. Psychopaths don’t feel empathy for others. Sonny doesn’t kill indiscriminately either, she thought. She lived by an honor code of sorts. She believed in right and wrong. Although her beliefs sometimes ran contradictory to the letter of the law.

  So perhaps she wasn’t a murderous maniac, Kelly surmised. But she was definitely closed off emotionally. That could be a defense mechanism, she thought. All the things that Sonny had seen would most likely break the average person. But somehow Sonny was able to compartmentalize all that. But at the same time, she had built up walls around her that were so high that no one could see over the top to the real Sonja Moretti.

  It was all too complicated for Kelly. There was no way she was going to figure out what made Sonny tick while she was in the shower. She rinsed her scarlet hair and settled under the hot spray. She could use a drink. Or even a game. She didn’t have any cash, but she wondered if there was some way she could get cash out of Trace. In the meantime, she would use the detachable shower head and fantasize about Sonny lounging around in a tiny bikini.

  Sonny settled down on the sofa that Kelly had dubbed the big ass couch. She used the remote to turn on the huge flat screen mounted on the wall. She watched as a helicopter provided a bird’s eye view of what looked like a hit to her. There were corpses

  covered by yellow tarps still lying near the burnt out wreckage of an automobile. The live feed told her that a senator and his family were killed. They cut back to the studio and the anchor was talking about the MH4 gang from Mexico. Sonny’s internal alarm went off.

  She knew the MH4 gang only by reputation, having never worked for them or taken a contract against them. MH4, Monterrey Hermanos Quatro, was a vicious gang. Feared all over the free world. Drug dealing, extortion, and kidnapping were their money makers. And they were not known for their subtlety in the execution of any of them. They recruited boys as young as ten years old into their organization. Sometimes they would even use them to kill. They were both ruthless and fearless.

  The news channels were showing some of the speeches the senator had made condemning MH4. He was adamant that the United States faced a serious threat. The gang that was now spreading into the country. One of his campaign promises was to go after them once he became president. Sonny thought that while that might be enough to piss them off, killing a US senator was a little too ambitious for MH4. Out in the open? During the day? And when the Secret Service would be on heightened alert while transporting him? They were cold-blooded, but they were still a gang. Guns were their primary tools of death, not explosives. Explosives required skill. Planting a bomb on a senator’s vehicle under the Secret Service’s nose? That was a task that was above the capabilities of MH4. To Sonny, the only possible conclusion was that professionals killed them. Really good professionals.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Agent Timmerman sat across from one of The Joint Chiefs in the seating area of his office inside the Pentagon. General Timothy England was not in his uniform, he was clad in a warm up suit and sneakers. He was young for a Joint Chief, only fifty years old and in great shape for his age.

  “This is bad Nancy, really bad, and it’s only going to get worse.” He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand below the immaculate hairline of his salt and pepper buzz cut. Nancy nodded while leaving the offered glass of water untouched on the table.

  “The media is saying that the MH4 crew is responsible. Has that been verified sir?”

  Nancy thought she saw a flash of something in England’s eyes, but it was gone in an instant. “That’s all we have so far. Jose said that he was going to go after them once he got elected. And I know, well I knew the senator and those weren’t empty words.”

  “Yes, he served under you in Afghanistan.”

  England looked like a proud father. “Yeah, Jose was a captain back before I got my star. This was right after 9/11. Great kid and would have made colonel if he stayed in. But you could tell even back then that he was going to be a politician. He had that kind of charisma about him. An aura of confidence.” His eyes looked off into the distance and there was a sadness there that faded fast. “Anyway, we know the FBI and the Secret Service are going to be all over this.” Nancy nodded again, knowing where the general’s thoughts were going. “But even if they find the shooters it won’t make a bit of difference. They can’t reach the people who gave the orders.” His gaze centered on Nacy. “But we can.”

  “How far do you want to go sir?”

  “I want the head cut off.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Arturo Garcia loved working on his cars; Corvettes, Mustangs, classic American muscle cars. To project an image of wealth in Monterrey he usually drove his Tesla or Lamborghini. But whenever he could, he would tear around his huge property in one of the cars. He had built a pseudo gran prix style course with a paved track and lined with tire walls for crash barriers.

  His tacky, yet expensive estate stood outside San Pedro Garza Garcia. He had built his estate north of the mountains along the Prolongacion Padre Mier. It had neither taste nor subtlety and he filled it with all the trappings of gangster money. Along with his track, Arturo had a dog fighting pit installed and a grotto devoted to sex parties. But the feeling he got from being in his garage was both primal and satisfying. Born in poverty, he vowed that if he ever got rich he would buy any car he wanted. Working on the cars allowed him the peace and quiet he needed to think. That was what he was doing when his brother Hector walked into his six car garage.

  “Did you hear about what went down in Texas?” Hector adjusted a sensor pad on the wall and turned off the loud chicano rap music that had been blasting. He stood on the other side of the red 1969 Camaro Z28 car that Arturo was hunched over.

  “No. What happened in Texas?” Arturo assumed that whatever it was, that it was not a big deal. Out of the four Garcia brothers, Hector was the youngest and also the most anxious.

  Maybe a shipment got stopped at the border. Or a few of his guys got picked up by the police. Hector was always finding some reason to shit himself over.

  “Somebody killed Senator Sanchez.”

  Arturo stopped working on the engine and straightened up. Actually seeing his younger brother for the first time. Hector’s big forehead was greasy with nervous sweat and he looked like he was going to puke. “You serious?” Hector nodded back nervously.

  “It’s all over the news. He’s dead.”

  “This is good news little brother! Why do you look like your side hoe gave you syphilis?” Arturo smirked, he hated the senator and would not lose any sleep over his death. Ever since the little bitch first started running for office it seemed like he had a hard on for MH4. He called Arturo and his brothers ‘savages’ and ‘inhuman’. It made Arturo laugh, what did the little fake ass bitch know about that? He grew up in the lap of luxury. The land of the free. Living that life and thinking he knew about what it was like in Mexico. How could he? With his college degree and having everything he wanted handed to him on a silver platter. He didn’t know what it was like to grow up cold and hungry. Having to sleep with one eye open so you don't get your throat cut at night. Spending half your life in jail. Learning how to watch his ass both literally and figuratively. As far as Arturo was concerned, Sanchez had it coming. “They know who did it? I want to send them a present.” He smiled, showing his golden grill. Hector grimaced. Arturo was curious about what his little brother was so worried about. Sanchez being dead meant only good things for the family.

  “They are saying we did it.”

 
Arturo was silent for a full minute, when he spoke it was a whisper. “Shit.”

  Her arms stretched lazily above her head. Her fingers curled into the soft pillows scattered around the bed. Kelly scrunched her face as one eye crept open. A deep, long yawn filled her with renewed energy. She climbed out of the bed in search of the en suite. Kicking some of the empty beer bottles from the bar that had somehow made their way to the floor near her bed. Instead of going out in search of a game somewhere, she had decided to stay in her room for the night instead. The bar in their penthouse suite was filled enough to provide her with the precious alcohol she craved so that she could finally black out.

  Stumbling into the huge bathroom she looked into the mirror and frowned. She wondered if Alcoholics Anonymous gave chips for half a day. Placing both hands on the sink she hung her head in shame. She only seemed to be concerned with her sobriety after the fact, she mused.

  Her drinking started when she was seventeen. Her mother had left her and her father. She was outed at her high school when she tried to ask out her crush that she thought was gay. It turned her high school life upside down. It made her a pariah until she established herself as the party girl. Her father drank as well and never noticed when his bottles of whiskey went from full to half full overnight. But her gambling addiction had been with her as far back as she could remember. Her need to win was obvious to everyone since grade school. In gym class or at recess it was always the same. She had to win. And she was not above cheating to make it happen. Board games were the easiest, all she had to do was move pieces when the other players weren’t looking. The thrill was irresistible. It was a high that she had never felt before, and so her chase began. Searching for that feeling that could match the rush of the first time.