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Now, she understood everything. Rico was the person really working with Karyme to take down Garza and not for the DEA. How had he gotten so high up in the organization? She shoved that aside for later. Before noticing Rico, she’d set in her mind where Hadda knelt.
Moving in the darkness and listening to scuffling coming from the dais above Hadda, Isabella rushed to the girl’s side. Hadda emitted a cry before Isabella could stop her.
“Shh, I’m here to help you get loose,” Isabella whispered in the girl’s ear. The scuffling continued as she dragged Hadda across the dirt floor away from the dais. Feeling down Hadda’s body, she found the rope around her ankles and sliced at the hemp with her X-Acto blade. The small blade, while sharp, took small slices. The rope finally fell free when a bright light flashed on above the dais.
Isabella shielded her eyes, waiting for them to become accustom to the bright light. Removing her hand, her body froze. Bastante, bloody and still, lay on the dais at Karyme’s feet. Her hands and a wide blade knife dripped blood. Red droplets spattered her white robe. The glow in her eyes and triumphant smile on her lips frightened Isabella more than anything she’d ever witnessed before. Even the insane zealot Virgil as he was plunging the obsidian dagger toward her hadn’t brought on the terror the sight of this woman brought.
Hadda shoved her body against Isabella, reminding her she had more than herself to get out of this mess. Tino! Her gaze caught sight of him slumped on the ground by the door. Rico stood over him smiling.
Shamutz! She was Hadda and Tino’s only hope.
Rico raised his head. His gaze bore into her like a laser. His displeasure to see her was as palpable as the iron tang of blood in the air. In fact, he looked worried. Finally, something she might have control over. It appeared this was yet another man who feared her intelligence.
“Karyme is insane. You need to get her some help,” Isabella said, standing and drawing Hadda up beside her. Her hope was to get near Tino and figure out how to get all three of them out of this.
“I am not insane!” Karyme said in a commanding voice. “I give gifts to the gods and they in turn give me the things I want.” Her eyes glassed over. “They brought me Paolo who allowed me to continue exploring the ways of the Aztec and gather the means to give my thanks to the gods.” She shook her head. “I thought he was worthy but he wasn’t.” She dropped the knife, point down, into Bastante’s body. “I was close to attaining everything I want,”—Karyme peered at Rico and smiled seductively— “until she,”—Karyme pointed toward Hadda—“discovered my Paolo was her father.”
Karyme stepped over Bastante’s body as if it wasn’t even there and stalked toward them. Isabella pulled Hadda behind her. The iron tang of blood preceded the woman. How could she keep the girl out of the woman’s hands?
“Don’t come any closer. You are not absolved from your actions. You don’t have all three of the Triple Alliance statues so their shield won’t protect you.” She grasped at the hope Bastante had kept the statue she’d stolen to keep Karyme in line.
The woman stopped. Her forehead wrinkled in confusion.
“I’ve been researching.” Isabella swallowed to ignore the taint of the lie she was about to spout. “As long as the statues remain together all those who believe in the alliance who are within the triangle of the three Temples are safe. The statues no longer are together. We are all doomed.”
Karyme’s eyes narrowed. She glared at Isabella.
“I know you took the third statue. I will have Manny work you over until you beg to tell me where it is.” Karyme reached a hand toward Isabella as if to snatch her.
Isabella sliced the woman’s arm with the blade in her hand.
Karyme screamed and came at her like a wild beast. Isabella swung her arm again, slicing at the woman.
A gunshot echoed in the small room, mingling the acrid scent of gunpowder with the tang of the freely flowing blood.
Karyme slumped to the floor. Her body sprawled at Isabella’s feet, bloody, her wild eyes staring up at the ceiling.
Inching away from the vile woman, Isabella’s hand shook as she raised an arm to hide her nose and eyes from the gut roiling smells and sight. Hadda pushed against her back as if trying to find comfort. Isabella peered at Rico still standing by Tino, a revolver in his hand.
“She was becoming a liability instead of an asset.” His gaze moved to the girl behind her. “Karyme wanted her husband’s fortune to use it to become a specialist on her ancestors. I, on the other hand, just want her husband’s fortune. I refused to wait by marrying his daughter and having him die an unexpected death. I want it now, while I can enjoy it and all the amenities that come with it.”
“Greed is not becoming on you, Rico.” Isabella turned to Hadda and began to slice at the ropes on her wrists.
“What are you doing?” Rico lunged toward her as she had planned. She wanted him away from Tino and his attention on her until she could find a way to get the jump on him.
She put a hand on her hip and glared at him. “Do you really think after all this killing and being separated, the Triple Alliance gods are going to allow you to get away with this?” She didn’t have a clue if Rico was superstitious or if he believed in the Aztec gods but she’d try that ploy first.
Tino heard Isabella’s voice as he gradually gained consciousness. He opened the one eye that wasn’t swollen and his body immediately surged with adrenaline. Rico was advancing on Isabella and Hadda. The two women he’d sworn to keep safe. Without moving his limbs, he flexed his muscles to assess what kind of movement he might have. Two beatings in twenty-four hours had reduced his ability to defend even himself.
¡Coño! He hated this. The tang of blood registered. He scanned the room. Bastante lay in a bloody heap on the dais, Karyme sprawled on the floor not far from Isabella and Hadda. What had happened while he was out? The chamber looked like a massacre.
Rico stalked toward the women. He had to do something to distract the man holding his weapon. The snuffed-out torch lay on the ground beside him. Tino reached out, caught the handle in his grip and rose. He wanted to run at the man but knew his body couldn’t.
Moving one foot and then the other, he quietly walked to within striking distance and swung. The torch clobbered Rico alongside the head, knocking him to the floor.
“Come!” He dropped the torch and grasped Isabella’s hand. Shuffle-trotting he led the women out of the chamber.
“This way.” Isabella took the lead, pulling him and Hadda along one on either hand.
They only traveled a hundred meters when the sound of footsteps came from the direction they were headed.
“We have to go the other way. We have no weapons.” Tino tugged on Isabella.
“But Rico is back there.” Hadda’s scared voice boosted Tino’s adrenaline.
“He is one. The sound coming toward us is many.” He expected Isabella to say something, but she only changed direction and headed back the way they had come.
Going by the chamber door, Tino peeked in. Rico was gone. He had to be in the tunnel ahead of them, thinking that was the way they had traveled. Tino stopped.
He pulled the two women close and whispered. “I think Rico is ahead of us, and we have the others coming from behind. We need to find a way out of here before either one finds us.”
Isabella clicked on her flashlight shielding the beam with her fingers to give her only enough light to see the walls and look for a way out.
Tino had been in situations like this before. Then he was alone and had only his own hide at risk. Right now, he had the life of the woman he loved and a young girl who was pulled into this because of her birth. He had to keep them all alive even if he was only at fifty percent. Fear for the women overrode any fear for himself.
As Isabella scanned the tunnel, he kept his ears trained for movement ahead and behind them. They didn’t want to be surprised again.
With her looking for plaques and doorways they weren’t moving as fast as before. The sounds behind them quieted. They probably found the chamber and dead bodies. Which meant they weren’t that far behind.
“Here it is,” Isabella whispered. Her light shone on the crack of a portal and the round wheel that suctioned the door closed.
Tino walked up and grabbed the wheel, pulling it as hard as his battered ribs would allow without screaming in pain. It barely budged.
“Let me help.” Isabella squeezed in next to him and pulled on the handle as well.
Inch, by miserable inch the wheel gradually gave way. The footsteps started up again. Moving closer. They weren’t masking their movements at all.
Tino groaned. His muscles burned and seared as he forced them to flex and pull on the wheel.
“We have to move on,” Hadda said, the fear in her voice causing it to raise an octave.
“We can’t take the chance of Rico having help at the end of that tunnel,” Tino huffed between trying to turn the wheel.
“Rico is not a problem.”
“Arrh!” Tino growled as he spun toward the sound of Garza’s voice.
Isabella clicked the light on and shone it in Garza’s face. The man raised up a hand shielding his eyes.
“Papa!” Hadda threw her body against Garza. He wrapped his arms around her.
“Are you safe?”
“Sí. These two got me away from Karyme, but there are others following.” Hadda hugged her father.
Tino hated that his enemy was so protective of his daughter—the girl he’d made his promise to keep safe.
“Let me help.” Garza pushed his daughter into Isabella’s hands and grabbed the wheel. With his help they broke the seal and the door swung open.
“Hurry!” Isabella ushered them through and shoved the portal closed. “Try to turn it enough that it will stay closed. We can’t chance it squeaking if they walk by while you’re trying to seal it.”
Once the portal was closed, Isabella set out down the walkway of the larger culvert to her right using her light at its brightest.
Tino wasn’t as nonchalant about being in the company of his sworn enemy. He’d spent years trying to bring this man down and now here he was helping them. The whole idea made his head throb.
“How do you know we don’t have to fear Rico?” Tino didn’t want to give away his affection for Isabella to this man but at the same time he wanted to make sure he was close to her if the man decided they were expendable. He’d yet to see a weapon on the drug lord but that didn’t mean he didn’t have one. Tino hurried to catch up to Isabella. Touching her arm, he slowed her steps so he could keep up and remain close to her.
“I found him coming toward me as I was traveling through the old sewer. He appeared wobbly and disoriented. All he said was Karyme and Bastante were dead. I knew he was part of Karyme’s obsession and wanted to question him later, so I knocked him out.”
“Did you do anything else to detain him?” Tino didn’t like the idea of Rico coming to and finding them.
“Papa, he wants you dead.” Hadda clung to Garza’s hand.
“I knew Karyme was seeing him, but I didn’t realize he wanted anything more than to have DEA catch me.” His voice softened, sounded weary.
“Your wife was loco.” Tino sucked in air when Isabella’s elbow jabbed him. “If he did not know she was loco he needs to know. It could be in his other daughters.”
“How did you know we were down here?” Isabella asked.
“Luis called me.”
“Luis?” Hadda asked in a loud whisper.
“Sí.” The heavy sigh that hung in the air around the word stopped everyone.
Tino turned along with Isabella who trained the light on the ground. The father and daughter were silhouettes in the outer ring of pale light.
“I thought you hated Luis.” Hadda backed away from her father.
“I do not like someone who uses my little girl to rob me. But he persuaded me that he was only worried about you and that I needed to call off my wife.” Garza looked at Tino and Isabella. “He told me you were trying to get Hadda and where you went into the sewer. I climbed into the manhole on the same street closest to the house and headed this way hoping I’d find you.”
“How did you know to go into the old sewer?” Isabella’s mind was working better than Tino’s.
He was still having problems seeing the man as anything other than the man who killed his family.
“Luis. He told me everything he knew.” Garza smiled at Isabella. “You are too clever for your own good.”
“I agree,” Tino added. “We must continue.”
A light flashed ahead of them.
“Cut the light,” Tino whispered, grabbing the flashlight from Isabella. He pulled her closer to him and away from Garza and Hadda. Let the drug lord protect his daughter. Tino had his own prize to protect.
“There has to be a manhole around here somewhere,” Isabella whispered in his ear. “We’ve traveled far enough there should be one. They have them every five blocks.” She grabbed his hand tucking it in a jean pocket. “Stay with me.”
Tino shoved his fingers deeper into her hip pocket and followed Isabella. She walked sideways along the wall. The sound of her hands sliding across the concrete wall gave him the visual she was feeling for a ladder in the dark. He also heard the father and daughter following behind them.
The light grew brighter as they continued toward it.
The twang of metal rang through the darkness and the light stopped as if the person behind it listened.
“I found the ladder,” Isabella whispered. “I’ll go up and move the cover.”
“I’ll go, those lids are heavy,” Garza whispered.
“No.” Tino put up his hand, ramming it into Garza’s chest. “I do not trust you. You could get out of here and put something on the cover leaving us to these sewer rats.”
“Fine. I am the only one with a weapon.” Satisfactions purred in Garza’s voice.
Tino’s teeth ground together, knowing his enemy had the upper hand.
He turned and realized Isabella had already started climbing the ladder. The sound of their followers grew louder as the light coming the other direction lit more and more of the culvert in front of them. His one solace was that Isabella could get free even if the rest of them didn’t.
The grinding of metal on metal meant Isabella was moving the lid. “Send Hadda up,” she called down.
Tino grabbed the girl and placed her hands on the ladder rungs. “Go.”
“Papa?” she questioned.
“I’ll be right behind you.”
Tino didn’t like the tone. He wasn’t staying down in this hell hole with his own private devil. He pushed up against Hadda so he could follow right behind her up the ladder.
He raised his foot to step on the bottom rung and the area around he and Garza lit up.
“Go!” Garza shoved him upward. “Take care of my daughter.”
A bullet thunked into the concrete beside Tino. He forced his stiff and battered body to move up the ladder, leaving his enemy at the mercy of whoever shot at them. More shots rang out in the tunnel. The thud of a bullet hitting something soft, like a body, made him look down. Garza held a hand to his middle as the fabric on his shirt darkened.
¡Coño! The man had taken a bullet for him. No... not for him... for his daughter.