Caleb saw the next blow coming at his midsection. He couldn’t do much except try and keep the muscles of his abdomen tight. Sorrel Amor’s fist sank into his stomach with a meaty thwap!

The hit detonated like a shell burst in Caleb’s gut.

He let out a pained gasp as his body swayed against the chains that held him upright. His wrists had been rubbed raw against the steel cuffs. The chains ran from those cuffs to one of the ceiling’s support beams.

Only those chains that held his arms up had kept him standing. His body ached from the punches he’d taken. A trickle of blood ran from his mouth and down his naked, bruised chest.

The Nepomucenos had allowed him to retain some dignity. They’d let him keep his pants on and hadn’t hit him below the belt.

Yet.

Sorrel Amor, the Nepo’s chief enforcer in South Florida, was a compact man made out of lean muscle and little else. He had a gloomy, henpecked countenance and a comb-over that utterly failed to hide his bald spot. His loud Hawaiian shirt looked just as comical.

None of the forty people that he’d flayed, burned, or beaten to death had ever laughed at him. Not even once. It was pure irony that he’d acquired the nickname El Diácono Amor, Deacon Love.

Caleb had been hauled off his boat by a pair of the Nepo’s local muscle men and then thrown into the hellishly hot confines of a dock warehouse. Sorrel had taken his time, only resorting to his fists around the third time that Caleb had repeated the same answer. From then on, it had been nothing but a litany of pain as Deacon Love worked his torso over, never hitting him in the same place twice.

“My friend, this is your last chance. You need to give this up before I start breaking ribs,” Sorrel said quietly. “Your latest shipment was light by thirty kilos. Thirty kilos of pure-as-snow Caseteja White. So tell me. Where. Is. It.”

“I told you,” Caleb hissed, from between clenched teeth. “I don’t know. I never open my hold after the cargo’s placed inside.”

“Of course you don’t. None of you couriers do, you’re all so honest, butter wouldn’t melt in your mouths! Yet this is the third time we’ve come up short on the back end. And a little bird told me that searching your boat would give me the break I needed.”

“Then that little bird is a liar!” Caleb shot back. “Let me out of these chains and I’ll find out who robbed the store of its candy. And I’ll put a stop to it.”

“You? You’re just a ratas de agua. A water rat.”

“I’m telling you, I can find out!”

The door to the warehouse creaked open, letting in a blessedly cool blast of air. It slammed shut, and the sound of high heels clicking on the bare cement echoed off the ceiling. Even though his body was racked with pain, the woman who stepped into the light made him raise his eyebrows.

Her features were delicate, as if they’d been molded out of porcelain. Her skin was the lightest shade of caramel mixed with cream. Eyebrows arched like gull’s wings over wide-set hazel eyes. Light brown hair cascaded over her shoulders.

She wore a dark outfit that hugged her from chest to thigh. To Caleb, it looked more suited to a high-end cocktail party than a daytime torture session. Even better to his eyes was the fact that it showcased her slender form as well as her matched sets of feminine charms. She carried a black leather purse in the crook of one arm.

“Hold up, Diácono,” she said, as Sorrel’s men stepped out of her way.

The so-called Deacon of Love looked up, annoyed.

“What is it, Vega?” Sorrel snarled. “Can’t you see I’m working?”

“There’s some new information you need to see. If there’s still time.” She looked over to where Caleb still hung, blood dripping from his lip and bruises already starting to blossom over his lean frame. “Well, you don’t look like you’re quite dead yet.”

“Me? I’m just fine,” Caleb said, between coughs. He rattled his chains. “Thought I’d just hang out here a while.”

Her lips twitched as she suppressed a smile. “You’ve got brass ones, I’ll give you that.”

“What’s this new information?” Sorrel said. He reached out a hand, fingers twitching. “Let’s have it.”

Vega reached into her purse and pulled out a videocassette. Sorrel took it and gestured to one of his men, who wheeled over a blocky television with a built-in VCR. He switched it on, popped in the tape, and hit PLAY.

The ghostly black-and-white image of a boat’s deck shimmered into view. Caleb had to crane his neck to see the screen around the back of Sorel’s follicularly-challenged head.

“What am I supposed to be looking at?” the man grumped.

“This is footage taken from yesterday evening,” Vega explained. “Security camera from pier fifty-one.”

“That’s where I’m moored,” Caleb put in. “You’re seeing the afterdeck of my sailboat, the Harbinger. I didn’t know there was a camera out there.”

“Mierda. Neither did I,” Sorrel spat.

Vega pointed to Caleb, then Sorrel in turn. “That’s because you’re Shipping, and you’re Enforcement. Neither of you are part of Security, and that’s the way los mejores perros like it. Now turn up the volume, it starts gets interesting.”

A flick of the remote, and the room filled with the dim slap of water against the pier’s timbers.

Two men came into view as they strolled down the dock together. Caleb recognized one as his friend, Jace Ancona. The other was shorter, thinner, but he struggled to remember the man’s name. That whole night had passed in a dim haze.

Sorrel’s eyebrows went up. “That’s Mateo! He’s not supposed to be in town. Why is he at the docks with one of our couriers?”

Vega just gestured towards the screen. Watch.

“You sure about this?” Mateo asked, as they drew close to the boat.

Jace shrugged. “I know mi amigo like the back of my hand. At this time of day, he’s always stoned, drunk, or a little of both. It’s pathetic, but useful for now.”

“I still don’t like this.”

“Neither do I, but we don’t have much choice. Unless you’d like to hang out for a bit with Deacon Love.” Jace raised his hands to his mouth. “Hey, bro! Bro!”

Caleb watched as the image of himself from last night staggered out of cabin and waved to the two men. They jumped down from the dock onto the boat, shook hands, and made introductions.

“Mateo here just became a made man, in mafioso terms,” Jace said merrily. “We’re heading over to the Crooked Anchor to celebrate. They got hard stuff to pour, lots of green to smoke, white to sniff, and it’s all free – for Nepos or their friends. You up for it?”

“Yeah, I am,” Caleb yawned and stretched. “Always up for some action. Don’t have to pull out of port until tomorrow.”

“Well, come on then!” Mateo said, laughing. He and Caleb climbed back up onto the dock planking. Jace lingered behind.

“I’ll be right behind you,” he said, before calling over to Caleb. “Hey, bro? Mind if I use the john on board? Gotta drain the lizard real bad.”

“Sure, just put the seat up before you let fly,” came the reply. Caleb and Mateo disappeared off the screen as they walked off.

Jace watched them for a few moments. Then he knelt and pulled up one of the Harbinger’s afterdeck’s hatches. He hauled up a waterproof chest and set it on the deck. Then he pulled a flat, plastic key out from a pocket and opened it.

Vacuumed-sealed bricks of white power lay stacked inside. He grabbed a few of the bricks before setting the chest back inside and resealing the deck hatch. Jayce got back onto the dock, whistling to himself like he hadn’t a care in the world.

“That was an encrypted key,” Sorrel breathed. “Mateo’s is in deep with the family. He’s one of the few who have one. He’d also know sharing it would be his death.”

“He knew,” Vega agreed. “But he was building power, making a play for the top spot. For that, he needed money. So he needed to be selling our excess inventory.”

“There’s no such thing as excess Caseteja White!”

“Something he should have known. The missing powder got our attention. Mateo got wind that we were looking, and he already had Jace Ancona in his pocket. Ancona’s the one who suggested pinning the thefts on his friend. The man you’ve got chained up over there.”

Caleb’s growing anger vanished like the moon going into eclipse. He felt a strange coldness come over him for the first time.

Sorrel squinted at her. “How do you know all this?”

“We nabbed Mateo twenty minutes ago. We persuaded him to tell us everything. After that, it was decided that he needed a new job. Feeding the gators in Bonitacielo Bayou. Here, I brought a souvenir for you. The kind you like.”

She reached into her purse again, pulled out a plastic bag, and threw it onto a nearby table. It landed with a half-liquid slap. Caleb’s chains squeaked as he turned to look. The object was a rough, brown oval. It was red and ragged along one edge.

The blood dripping from Mateo’s ear was still bright and shiny. Whoever had removed it must have been in a hurry. Most of the liquid oozed from a chunk of the scalp that had been peeled off where the cut hadn’t gone all the way through the meat.

“Get him down from there,” Sorrel ordered, indicating Caleb. “Now.”

Two of his men did as indicated. Daggers of pain shot through Caleb’s shoulders and biceps as he finally was able to lower his arms. His wrists burned as if set on fire.

None of it mattered to him at the moment. Something else burned hotter inside him.

“We still have a problem,” Sorrel announced. “I was wrong about you, Ledger. But this isn’t the kind of thing people can simply say ‘sorry’ over, is it?”

Caleb glowered at him. “I don’t care. My friend framed me. I won’t take ‘sorry’ for an answer to that, either.”

Vega looked Caleb over, considering. “Maybe there’s something else we can do here. Let you prove your continuing loyalty to us. And give you what you want.”

Sorrel let out a hiss. “That’s my job.”

She shook her head. “Not this time, Diácono. Not this time. How about it, Mister Ledger?”

Caleb rubbed his wrists, wincing. But his gaze remained steady as he met her eyes.

“Who are you, exactly?” he asked.

“My name is Alejandra Vega. All you need to know is that I’m the eyes and ears of the Nepomucenos from Daytona to the D.R.”

All the way to the Dominican Republic, Caleb thought. That puts her high up in the organization. Very high.

“Miss Vega, I think I’m due for re-upping my commitment to our mutual employer.” He scowled as he added, “Just tell me where Jace Ancona is right now. I’ll handle the rest.”

Her lips twitched once more. “You know Matagorda Bay, just north of here?”

“Like the back of my hand.”

“His ship’s moored a quarter-mile off the fishing pier. The lights are on, he’s definitely home and throwing some kind of party. Think you might want to crash it?”

Caleb nodded stiffly. “Damn straight. Just need to get a few things off my boat first. And a new shirt.”

“You go finish this,” Sorrel said. “If you don’t get yourself killed, then your slate will be clean again. And we’ll reward your loyalty.”

Caleb didn’t say anything. But his face looked as if it were carved in granite and etched by barely-controlled rage. Sorrel’s men stepped back and gave him room as he stalked out.