Rosaria spots what looks to be a hand cannon on his lap, and with her left hand, reaches in through the open window, picks up the heavy revolver, and tosses it into the bushes behind her, where it makes one hell of a crashing noise.

“Now,” she says, “I’m coming in to join you. When I come in, you’re going to slide right over.”

Again, moving slowly, she opens the door while removing the pistol from the man’s mouth, and in a quick maneuver, she slides her way in, and then quickly pushes her weapon into his side.

Now she’s in.

The pistol is jammed into the man’s ribs just below his left armpit.

She says, “Hands behind your head, interlock your fingers. I promise, this won’t take long.”

The man spits at her. “Puta.”

“Really? That’s the best you can do?”

She shoves the gun in harder.

“This won’t take long. But you do anything funny, I’ll pull the trigger, and before you can blink, your heart is going to turn into mush. Do I have your attention?”

The man just nods, eyes lit with hate and fury, and Rosaria stares right back, hoping he can’t tell how goddamn scared she is.

CHAPTER 64

A WOMAN! Antonio can’t believe it. A woman has a gun on him…No matter how this turns out, he will make sure this woman ends up dead. There’s no way in hell that he will let her live, to be in a position to tell someone, who will tell someone else, such that the information eventually ends up with the jefe.

Not on your life. Or anyone’s life.

He stares at her and says, “Put me under arrest, if you can. And then I want a lawyer.”

Then another surprise comes to him when she speaks.

“Who says I’m police?” she says, jamming the gun harder into his ribs. “I’m looking for information, that’s all. I don’t care about you, or what you’ve done, or what you might be doing. A few answers and then I’ll be on my way, and you can go on yours.”

“Go to hell.”

The woman fumbles for a moment in her pocket, pulls out a cell phone, and her thumb is on the glass screen. “Here’s the deal, no talking, no negotiating.”

He stares, hands behind him, clasped against his head. The bitch doesn’t know it, but his fingers aren’t interlocked. They are resting plain and open on his head…Now, if he could just slap her suddenly—women don’t like being hit in the face—but she speaks again, interrupting his thoughts.

“This is pre-dialed to nine-one-one. I just press my thumb and in a minute or so, this parking lot is going to be full of police officers, eager to talk to you. Or, you can be stupid and try to hit me or something, and my other finger presses, and you die in this pretty truck.”

Antonio waits and waits. He can’t have her call the police, not with all the sirens in the distance.