Rage Of The Assassin Read Online Free PDF

three attackers without breaking a sweat was advising her to avoid a story. She wondered if he knew something she didn’t, and tried to read his intelligent eyes to no avail. The same inscrutability she found fascinating was a double-edged sword – he’d advised her early on that there were some things he couldn’t discuss, and part of their unspoken agreement was that she wouldn’t press.
    He seemed to sense her scrutiny and looked up. “Let someone else run point on this one, Carla. If for no other reason, because I’m asking you not to step into the line of fire.”
    “And you can’t tell me any more than that? Just to ignore the biggest story of the year?”
    “You already know the rest. Aranas is more powerful than many governments. He’s got eyes and ears everywhere. And he’ll stop at nothing if he thinks you’re a threat. Trust me – you don’t want that man as an enemy.”
    “You speaking from experience?” she asked.
    He shook his head. “Maybe one day over cocktails I’ll tell you more. Until then, let’s keep you safe, shall we?”
    “Are you sure there’s nothing I can do to get it out of you sooner?”
    He leaned across the table and whispered in her ear.
    Carla could feel the blush from her hairline to her feet, and for an instant felt like she was thirteen again, kissed for the first time. This man, this assassin, was the only one who’d ever made her feel that way – and he did it effortlessly with only a few words.
    She cleared her throat and ran her fingers through her hair. “Too bad you ordered coffee.”
    As if reading her mind, the waiter appeared with their cups and set them on the table before vanishing.
    El Rey grinned. “I should have asked for the check.”
    She matched his expression. “Drink fast.”
     

Chapter 6
    Mexico City, Mexico
     
    Captain Romero Cruz’s intercom line buzzed as he sat at his office desk and morosely studied a pile of reports. He groaned under his breath as he reached over the stack and punched a glowing button on his phone.
    “Yes?”
    “ Capitan , your presence has been requested at a meeting in the commissioner’s office.”
    Cruz cringed. Meetings were the bane of his professional existence. Hours of infighting and political jockeying that normally accomplished nothing other than giving a bunch of functionaries with little else a way to while away their day. Cruz, on the other hand, as the head of the anti-cartel task force, was always overloaded, and since the new government had taken power, even more so. The arrest of many of the established cartel heads had created power vacuums that were being filled by ever more dangerous and reckless criminals, and the birth of a number of new cartels that were well equipped, motivated, and ruthless. The most visible, the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel in Guadalajara, had recently waged all-out war against the authorities, even bringing down military helicopters with surface-to-air missiles.
    The Jalisco Cartel was the object of his attention these days, as the organization was making a big push in Mexico City to displace the Sinaloa Cartel and the tattered remnants of the Los Zetas, whose top leadership had been killed or captured in a series of daring raids that signaled a change of direction in the government’s approach to criminal syndicates.
    “Do I have to?” Cruz protested. “Can’t you tell them I died or shot myself in the foot or something?”
    His receptionist was silent. She had no sense of humor, Cruz knew, yet some part of him still tried to elicit a response even knowing it was in vain.
    He sighed. “What time?”
    “Five minutes.”
    “Of course, with no advance warning,” Cruz griped, and hung up before he could say anything inappropriate. Just like the old days, when he’d be summoned whenever his supervisor had a whim, interrupting vital operations so the idiot could wax philosophical – or worse, propose lamebrained forays that would have resulted in countless law