4

Ian's mood the next morning was less than cheerful. He always awoke quickly, but opened

his eyes slowly. He felt his surroundings out, let his senses hone in to detect any shifts or dangers before

he allowed himself to move from the bed.

This morning, he awoke in a mood designed to piss even himself off. His skin felt stretched, irritation

tightened his guts, and damn if he didn't still have the hard-on from hell throbbing between his thighs.

He took care of the hard-on in the shower, masturbating as he closed his eyes and imagined Kira, on her

knees, her lips surrounding him, her tongue licking and stroking as she sucked him to her throat and made

his teeth clench with the need to hold back.

Not that his hand came anywhere close to the imagined feel of her mouth, but the thought succeeded in

spilling his semen to the shower floor and taking the bitter edge off his lust.

Hell, he could have gone to Astra's room and awakened her last night. He could have fucked her all

night long, and rather than giving him grief, she would have smiled and licked her lips in anticipation.

She was one of many women that Diego seemed to delight in filling the villa with. He liked pretty

women, and he liked having them near. Women who liked rough sex. Hell, they went beyond a little

rough sex. They were women who enjoyed the pain Diego could mete out.

Ian grimaced at the thought of that. He had seen one of the maids, Eleanor's, back beaded with blood

from the stroke of Diego's whip, and still she had begged for more. Not more sex. Not more fucking or a

deeper penetration, because Diego rarely fucked one of his toys. No, it was the pain that got both of

them off. Diego got off giving it, and Eleanor could climax from it. Ecstasy would wash over her face and

her body would tremble with it.

It was enough to make a jaded man wonder what the hell had gone wrong with the world. For all his

cynicism and experience, he still couldn't understand that one. But it wasn't Astra he wanted, it was Kira.

Stalking into the breakfast room nearly an hour later, he found Diego at the breakfast table. Just what he

needed that morning, a healthy dose of dear old pop.

"Ah, good morning, Ian." A smile creased Diego's swarthy face as he laid his forearms on the table and

regarded him with something resembling pride. "I trust you slept well?"

Could his morning get any worse?

"Morning, pop." It was the most disrespectful title Ian could come up with. It was the one thing that had

earned him his stepfather's ire when he used it.

John Richards wasn't a man to stand on ceremony, but he did demand respect, and he earned it. Ian

could call him John or Dad, his choice, John had informed him. But call him pop again and he would

show Ian a pop he wouldn't forget. Ian almost smiled at the memory.

Diego frowned. He didn't like the title any more than John Richards had.

" 'Father' would be a much better greeting," Diego informed him, not for the first time.

"Too stiff." Ian moved to the sideboard, piled his plate high with fluffy scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon,

and toast. For all his faults, Diego had an excellent cook, and she seemed to have grown fond of Ian.

"'Father' sounds like something from the fifties," he continued, passing over the fruit and various sweets

the cook had laid out as he turned and moved to the glass-topped breakfast table.

Sunlight spilled through the open doors and tall windows that surrounded the room as Ian took his seat

and let the little dark-haired maid pour his coffee.

"Thanks, Liss." He smiled as she moved back.

"You are welcome, Mr. Fuentes." Her lilting English was a little shy, but Ian had learned early just where

this little cat's loyalties lay. And they weren't with him.

"Set the coffee on the table, Liss," he directed her. "And then you can leave."

She looked to Diego. The obvious cut was irritating.

"Liss, he didn't give you the order, I did," he told her softly, meeting her dark eyes with the promise of

retaliation in his own gaze if she didn't do as ordered.

"Of course, Mr. Fuentes." She set the silver pot in the center of the table, between him and Diego, and

then headed for the wide double doors, the short skirt of her uniform swishing.

"Close the doors behind you," he ordered, before nodding to Mendez to follow her out. The other man

would stand guard at the doors. Deke and another bodyguard stood guard at the patio and the fourth

had positioned himself at the door leading to the kitchen.

Only Deke knew his true purpose there, but the other three were slowly proving their loyalty to Ian

rather than the cartel.

"I do not like how you require that I serve myself," Diego snapped as he reach for the coffeepot and

refilled his cup. "I have the servants for a reason."

"And I'm always amazed that they survive it." Ian grunted at the thought of the perversions the maids

shared with Diego. "But I see no reason to have to kill one of them because they overheard the wrong

thing."

"You should not discuss business with breakfast," Diego instructed him. "It is bad for the digestion."

"Right now, business is bad for health, period." Ian sipped at his coffee as he stared back at Diego. "I'm

canceling our relationship with the Radacchio consortium. My men were hijacked on the way to the

delivery point and I lost two of them. We nearly lost the shipment."

The report of the lost coca shipment hadn't been as bad as learning that the two men he had lost were

handpicked agents he had put in place. That pissed him off.

"Sorrell?" Diego narrowed his eyes thoughtfully as he watched Ian.

Sorrell was the reason Ian was there. The elusive terrorist, as yet unidentified, had managed to slip

through every net that several countries and more than a dozen law enforcement agencies had attempted

to use to catch him.

"That's what I suspect." Ian shrugged as he dug into his breakfast. "Valence Radacchio claims otherwise,

but the strike was well prepared and centered where security should have been the tightest. They

dropped the ball, and rather than getting embroiled in a blood feud with them, I'd rather sever ties

instead."

"Valence has worked with me for many years," Diego mused. "He has always moved our product

through Colombia and onto the ships. If we sever this relationship, we will be forced to forge a new one."

Ian shook his head. "We move our own product. Why use a middleman when we have the necessary

manpower and the network to do it efficiently? It saves time, money, and risks."

The product, of course, was drugs. Radacchio collected the bales of cocaine from the processing

warehouses and transported it across the mountains to waiting ships. From there, he delivered it to

various points to another drop-off where others then collected it, broke it down, and shipped it to other

points.

Until Sorrell had begun hitting the processing warehouses. The first thing Ian had done when he took

over the Fuentes business was to relocate the warehouses and have his men deliver the goods to

Radacchio instead.

"Is Valence aligned with Sorrell, do you think? Or has the bastard merely managed to obtain information

about our supply lines?"

Ian shook his head. "I don't know and I don't care. But Radacchio knew the location of the former

warehouses. We changed our locations and began delivering to them rather than having them pick up the

bales from us and the hijackings stopped. Now this strike? I'm inclined to once again cut them out of the

loop. We'll see what happens then."

"He will not be pleased over this," Diego warned him. "We pay him well for his consortium's work."

"Then he can find another client, one with a bit less paranoia than it seems I possess." Ian's smile was

tight. "I don't have time for a drug war, Diego. We'll do it my way first."

Diego's black eyes gleamed with excitement.

"The wars spice up life, Ian." Diego grinned with all apparent anticipation. "They keep you on your toes."

"I'd been a ballet dancer if I wanted to dance on my toes, pop," he said.

Diego sighed in regret. "Radacchio will demand a meeting to discuss this."

"Then tell him he can talk to me. And that's another thing; either I run this shit or I don't. Stay out of it.

Don't try to negotiate with Radacchio like you did the Misserns last month. I won't be happy."

The announcement had an angry frown creasing Diego's face. "What do you mean by this?" he burst out.

"Stay out of what business? Fuentes business? I remind you, I am the Fuentes. It is my business."

Ian lifted his head and stared back at Diego silently.

Diego flinched as Ian stared back at him unblinkingly.

"I do not like this," he muttered. "I am not so old that I cannot be a part of my own business any longer."

"You have your job."

"Bah. My job. It is no job to oversee the farms and production of the coca. A child could do this."

"We have a deal," Ian reminded him, his voice hard. "Don't fuck me over on it, old man, or I'll be gone

even faster than I made it here."

It wasn't an idle threat. If he couldn't control the cartel, then Ian didn't have a hope in hell of drawing

Sorrell in. He knew it, and Diego knew it. To safeguard the business from being forcibly taken by the

terrorist, Diego needed Ian. Ian needed control.

"You are hard, Ian." Diego sighed. "Harder than even I believed. More so than my investigations into

you revealed."

"I'm a product of my childhood, pop," he bit out. "Remember?"

Diego grimaced. His black eyes were, for the barest moment, bleak with sorrow. It was a sorrow Ian

refused to acknowledge, even to himself. He didn't care about Diego's past regrets, his hopes or his

dreams, no matter the illusion Ian allowed him that he did. All he cared about was catching Sorrell and

delivering him and Diego Fuentes into the hands of justice. Or, their heads on a platter. The latter if he

could get away with it.

"If I could go back, I would give my life to have spared you that pain," Diego said softly, with apparent

sincerity.

"There's no going back." Ian shrugged. "Just think, it made me hard enough to straighten your little world

out, pop. We haven't had a successful hijacking or a missed load since I arrived."

"For a man who does not enjoy war, you shed enough blood," Diego griped. "And refuse to allow me in

on the fun. I was pleased though. The agents of the U.S. that you uncovered last month will steal no more

information from us, yes?"

The men he had killed had been perverted monsters posing as American agents. They had worked for

the DEA, drawn their pay, and given just enough information to make them viable. Until they tried to kill

Ian in the name of that bastard Sorrell.

Killing agents was something Ian preferred not to do, but when a man had the barrel of a gun aiming in

his direction, he did what he had to.

"I have to head back to town this morning." Ian glanced at his watch and grimaced. "I'm meeting one of

our lawyers at the casino. One of our Miami clubs seems to be losing a tidy little profit. I want to know

why."

"Why did you not have him come here?" Diego stared back at him in angry confusion. "You do not go

running like a hound to the underlings, Ian. They come to you."

"Good idea, pop." He sneered. "Let's just throw a party for all of them so they can scope out our

security and hit the house in the dead of night. Why the hell do you think so many of your friends end up

dying in their beds from an enemy bullet?"

Diego's expression flickered with anger. "I am aware of the risks to this life. I have lived many years and

survived many attempts against mine. We are Fuentes. We do not hide and we do not scrape to those

beneath us by observing their rules. They come to us."

"And Sorrell has managed to turn some of your most loyal associates his way simply because of your

arrogance," Ian snapped. "Let's not make this harder than it already is. I'll be back in a few hours. Until

then, try to stay out of trouble."

Diego hated nothing more than being talked to as though he were a child, and though Ian tempered it,

there was nothing he delighted in more. He was afforded very few pleasures in this little game he was

playing and he took them where he could.

"Should I consider myself under house arrest while we are at it?" Diego burst out angrily as Ian made to

leave the room. "You will not tell me who I may or may not invite into my house."

Ian shrugged. "Invite them all for all I care. I don't sleep deep enough for anyone to slip into my room

unawares. You do, though. I'd remember that."

He opened the doors and stepped into the foyer before Diego could say more.

"Mendez, have Deke and the others join us outside," he ordered the waiting bodyguard. "We have a

lawyer to meet."

Ian strode through the marbled foyer to the front door, almost grinning as the houseman rushed to open

the wide doors ahead of him.

He stepped onto the sunlit portico, gazing at the ferns, palms, and swaying greenery that surrounded the

large circular driveway and sheltered the paved road that led from the gated entrance. The entire

property was enclosed by a ten-foot stone wall that Ian had had wired for security. Guards were posted

around the property, and the additional training Ian had insisted on had paid off several times when

attempts were made to slip into the estate.

He was vulnerable and he knew it. Shoring up his defenses and inspiring loyalty throughout the Fuentes

networks was imperative now. He needed men who were loyal to the heir of the cartel rather than the

cartel leader himself. Soon, Ian would know every dirty little player, every scumbag assassin and petty

drug dealer Diego possessed.

He would know the whores, the pimps, clubs, and owners and which location yielded the highest sales.

He was gathering the names of political buyers and sellers as well as those within the law enforcement

community that not just Diego, but a dozen other drug kingpins, were blackmailing.

By the time he brought Sorrel and Diego down, there wouldn't be a secret of Diego's that Ian didn't

know. And that brought satisfaction. If he lived to achieve his objective, then two fewer drug-dealing

terror-selling sons of bitches would cease to breathe air.

He should feel a measure of guilt, he was sure. Diego was after all his father. The same father whose

wife had nearly killed Ian's mother, as well as Ian. Who had been responsible for the most terrifying night

of a ten-year-old boy's life. The night his mother had lain bleeding to death in his arms.

Because of Carmelita Fuentes. Because Diego was a drug-dealing slime pit with more enemies than

friends and hands so bloodstained Ian could smell the stench of them anytime he was around the other

man.

And soon, his own hands would carry the same stench, Ian thought with a sigh, as Deke pulled a white

Range Rover to a stop in front of the villa.

Rather than driving this time, Ian stepped into the back seat, accepted a briefcase from Mendez, and

opened it as the doors closed and the vehicle drove way.

The fourth bodyguard was in another Rover behind them, providing backup and an additional vehicle in

case this one encountered any unforeseen accidents. In this business, Ian had learned to expect the

unforeseen.

DIEGO WATCHED AS THE ROVERSleft the estate, a frown on his face, his jaw clenched with

worry and concern as Ian left the protection of the estate. He worried, a sign of old age perhaps. Each

time Ian left, Diego feared it would be the last time he saw him.

"El Patrón." Saul entered the breakfast room, closing the doors behind him and facing Diego with an

inquisitive expression. "You sent for me?"

Saul was old. His shoulders were stooped, his dark eyes a bit dull, his face creased with age. He had

been Diego's father's most trusted advisor. At Carmelita's death he had returned to Diego's side.

Diego nodded slowly. "Have you learned anything from our sources?"

Ian had eliminated the spy in the U.S. government that Diego had drawn closest to him, Jansen Clay, but

there were others, much more important contacts, who relied upon Diego as much as he relied upon

them.

"No teams are being sent for him, as you requested." Saul stepped to the sideboard and prepared

himself a plate of fruits and sweets. "There are reports that Durango team, the friends he fought with,

have protested this action vociferously, especially the one known as Macey, but they are being

contained. Orders have gone out to watch his actions only, and to learn what he has planned. It seems

the Americans are more concerned with your promise that Ian will eliminate Sorrell than they are with

capturing a traitor." Satisfaction echoed in Saul's voice, as it did in Diego's heart.

"The boy, he takes too many risks." Diego sighed. "He goes now to meet with lawyers rather than having

them come to him. As though he dares Sorrell or the other cartels to strike at him."

"The other cartel leaders are learning to stay out of his way, Diego. As with yourself and the Americans,

they merely watch him."

"And your report on his activities?" Diego asked.

As much as he loved the boy, and he did, loved him more than he had loved his youngest son or that

viper Carmelita, he couldn't forget that betrayal could come from within.

"He has met with no agents that he hasn't killed." Saul chuckled. "Of course, they attempted to draw

blood first. He does not party, nor does he partake of our product. He does not surround himself with

the whores and drug groupies that vie for his attention other than necessary. And those who cling to his

arm at those times are well known to us, and not associated with any government's law enforcement

agencies. For all appearances, my friend, he has upheld his word. His loyalty is to you."

Diego nodded slowly. "And your own impressions of him?"

Saul sighed then.

Diego turned and watched him with an edge of sorrow. Saul's impressions were as reliable as other

men's reports.

"I must know this, my friend," he said softly. "What do you believe goes on in my son's mind, in his

heart?"

"There is still much anger," Saul stated as he laid his arms on the table and regarded Diego. "He has

softened toward you marginally. He does not refuse to hear the stories I would tell him now of your youth

and your dreams. He listens. But I can see the rage in his eyes. The events of his childhood and

Carmelita's torments are not forgotten."

Diego clenched his fingers into fists before forcing himself to relax them.

"He blames me." Diego moved back to the table, taking his seat with a heavy breath of regret and staring

across the table at Saul. "As well he should. I should have known Marika had not been killed as my

father reported. I should have known that his fascination with her would result in a betrayal."

"He was an old man, Diego." Saul shook his gray head sadly. "The little blond nurse you brought to him

was seen as an angel. An angel that should not be mired in the blood and treachery of the cartels. He

sought to save her. It was only by chance that Carmelita learned of her and of the child."

Diego stared at the table, his finger smoothing over the lace cloth that covered it as he remembered

Marika Desmond. An unusual name, for an unusual woman. She had been named after her Slavic

grandmother, and she wore her name with pride.

So blond her hair had glistened white beneath the Colombian sun. Her smile had been filled with dreams

and with purpose as she came to the villages as a nurse, healing the sick and touching all with her

kindness. She had been unaware of who Diego was, and she had taken him into her bed with a love that

had touched his soul.

He had known her such a short time. Only months. And he had never forgotten her. To learn she had

spent the years of his marriage to Carmelita living in fear, that Ian had nearly died more than once, still

filled him with rage.

Diego's father had arranged it so it appeared Marika had died. Carmelita had attempted to arrange her

death in truth.

"We made a strong son," Diego whispered, wishing he could call Marika, wishing he could thank her for

Ian's life, but his son forbade it so violently that Diego feared his wrath if he attempted it.

"You did," Saul agreed.

"Has she attempted to contact him?" Diego lifted his gaze to Saul once more. "Have you heard her

voice?"

"He refuses to speak with her," Saul said heavily. "He has broken all ties, Diego, even those with his

mother. I questioned him just this past week about her. He said he does not speak to her in an effort to

not add to her pain. She would only plead for his return, and he has sworn he will not leave the cartel."

Diego wrapped his hand around his coffee cup and stared into the cooling liquid. Memories of Marika

washed over him, staining his soul with his own regrets.

"She is well?"

"She is well and happy with her American husband. And protected, Diego. Ian and John Richards see to

this, though Richards is unaware of the two men Ian has ordered to watch her."

"And my son is loyal?" He lifted his eyes to Saul again, needing the confirmation.

"In my estimation, he is loyal. And within a few years, my friend, perhaps he will even call you father."

Diego breathed in roughly. He needed to be called father, perhaps even one day, grandfather. Recalling

the information he had received last night, he thought that maybe with a little push, his son would take the

American heiress to the Maclane fortune. If nothing else, as a lover. Diego did not care if his

grandchildren were legitimate or not. It was blood that mattered. Now, he understood his father's beliefs

in family, no matter the betrayal. Blood mattered.