“You won’t shoot me,” her attacker said in accented English.

“Try me. Who are you? Who do you work for?”

He didn’t respond.

“You said something in Russian. Why is a Russian hit man working for the cartel?”

He smiled.

An odd response, but she kept pushing. “Tell me.” She took a step closer to him.

“I work for the highest bidder. Doesn’t matter to me. A job is a job.”

So now the cartel was hiring professional hit men. Maybe Diego had expanded his horizons because the cartel members hadn’t been able to seal the deal.

Hunter ran back into the room and fastened the hit man’s wrists with the zip ties. The Russian grunted.

“I just started questioning him,” Layla told Hunter.

“I’m not saying anything else.”

“Yes, you are. If you want to live.”

Hunter shot her a worried glance. Of course she wasn’t going to kill the guy, but he didn’t know that. She needed to play the bad cop right now, and she was the one holding the gun.

“I need answers. You start talking, and we’ll see what we can do as far as a deal. You don’t, and I’m going to blow out your kneecap.”

The man’s eyes widened.

“Layla, you can’t do that,” Hunter said.

It was actually to her advantage that Hunter didn’t know she was bluffing. It made the act more convincing. “I can and I will.”

She moved an inch closer and pointed the gun toward his knee.

He cracked. “Okay, okay. Yes. I’m working for Mejía. I don’t know what you did, but Diego is out for blood. He will not stop until you are dead. You should’ve just let me kill you because the next person might not make it so easy for you. Being tortured by one of Diego’s henchmen will be much worse.”

Her breath caught, but she kept her hand steady on the gun. “What were your orders?”

“To kill everyone in the safe house.”

“And how did you know the location?” Hunter asked.

He shrugged. “It was provided by the cartel contact. I’m not sure how they got it.”

She glanced at Hunter. “We need to get out of here. Let’s call this in, and then we need to move once backup gets here and can take this guy into custody.”

She pulled out her burner phone and made contact. She only hoped she wouldn’t be too late.

Hunter couldn’t believe this turn of events. They’d taken one of the Agency SUVs and were driving, but he had no idea where. He just wanted to put some distance between them and the safe house.

Layla said the Agency was working on a plan, but she’d been pretty quiet since they left.