The Girl with the Golden Gun. Ann Major

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      Three

      Marco.

      Tavio seethed. Instead of the bubbling springs that glimmered like black satin in the moonlight, he saw a dozen DEA agents, their guns trained on Marco’s belly as the kid helplessly backed into that whirling propeller. The image repeated itself in Tavio’s brain and was always punctuated by Marco’s final scream of agony.

      His younger half brother had been a mere twenty-five. He’d been smart and loyal. Tavio had had him educated and had taught him to fly. The kid would fly in any kind of weather with any kind of load, land anywhere, day or night. He’d trusted Tavio to take care of him.

      Tavio shut his eyes. He’d had such high hopes for Marco. He’d hoped that someday he’d take Chito’s place.

      Tavio kept seeing Marco and that propeller and blood. So much blood.

      His head began to pound. It was the crack and the tequila. He’d smoked too much and drunk too much over too many days and nights. It was making him crazy.

      Collins and Federico had stirred up a storm that had led to this. Some snitch within these walls had tipped them and the DEA off. Maybe the same person had hidden Mia in Marco’s plane. Why? Did she have something to do with Marco’s murder?

      Tavio felt anger coil in his gut. Slowly he set his golden gun down on a rock, and when he did, it shot blinding silver fire just as the ripples of the pool did. He blinked. His pupils were dilated. He’d been so busy organizing the runs, he hadn’t slept for three days or nights.

      He squinted. The light hurt his eyes. Things were too bright and too dark. That, too, was partly because of the crack.

      When Angelita was upset, she came here and stared at the reflections of the pool for hours sometimes. Was she looking at herself or the clouds when she did that? He clenched both fists. He wanted to know, damn it. He wanted to know everything about her.

      Staring into the black glitter of the water failed to calm him as it did her. In fact it made him feel even more strung-out. But then he was not like her. That was their problem.

      Tonight he needed more than sex from her. That was the only reason he hadn’t raped her. He needed the comfort of Angelita’s arms around him. But she didn’t want him. She couldn’t love him, and the torment of that was driving him mad.

      Estela would have held him close, but he’d sent her away for Angelita. He hadn’t touched another woman because of Angelita. He’d waited for this white woman longer than he’d ever waited for a woman, even for Estela, who’d been a teenage virgin.

      He could have taken Angelita anytime. Did his restraint mean nothing to her?

      He still didn’t know how he’d walked out of her bedroom two times tonight. Twice!

      Any other woman he would have taken repeatedly until she learned to submit to his every demand.

      She wasn’t that beautiful. But she was to him. He adored her trim body, her breasts that were in perfect proportion to her body and long legs. Her red hair had natural highlights and her skin was smooth and pale like porcelain. She was as beautiful to him as a goddess. Her full, lush lips haunted his dreams. He longed to taste every inch of her. He wanted her kisses all over his skin until every cell in his body caught fire. But afterward he wanted her to hold him in the darkness and be his tender friend. He had never wanted such things from a woman.

      But she was strong and mysterious. She was egotistical in the way a man was egotistical. She knew what she wanted and what she didn’t want. He wanted to know her mind, to be her friend. He wanted her to care, but she hated his rotten business too much to see him as man, who was just like any other man. Why couldn’t she see that he was trapped just like she was in this nasty life he’d created and now hated because white men like Collins and Valdez believed he was an animal?

      Valdez! How he hated Valdez!

      Didn’t she know he would have preferred to be a legitimate businessman as his father had been? But he’d been born a despised bastard. In fact Federico Valdez was his half brother, his father’s most honored son, who now ran the family business. Valdez was his rich, white half brother who thought Tavio was dirt.

      His brilliant father, also named Federico Valdez, could trace his ancestors to the Spanish conquistadores. He had been powerful in Ciudad Juarez. He’d belonged to an old and much-respected border family that had accumulated wealth over several generations. Tavio’s Indian mother had been a maid in his house. They had fallen in love briefly. Tavio was the result.

      Since his legitimate children were years older, his white father had made Tavio a pet when he’d been young, carrying him with him everywhere—to his factories, farms and offices. This had incensed his blond, СКАЧАТЬ