Ghostwalker 08 - Street Game

anymore.”

    287

    “You know I can’t. Rachel would kill me and, quite frankly, I don’t have the same kind of dominant quality you have. Women always go for you.”
    “I have a mate. She may hate my guts, but I will not betray her any more than I already have. No.” He half turned, ready to leave.
    “Your father sent much of the information to us,” Rio said, his voice quiet.

    Conner had his back to the man. He stopped, closing his eyes briefly before turning back. His entire demeanor changed. The leopard blazed in his eyes. There was a threat in the movements of his body, in the fluid, dangerous glide toward Rio. The threat was sufficient enough to get the other three men on their feet. Conner ignored them, stopping just in front of Rio, his golden eyes focused completely on his prey.
    “My father observed the old ways. He would not ask outsiders for help. Ever. And he has not spoken to me since he disowned me many years ago.”
    Rio pulled a tanned leather skin from his backpack. “I was told you wouldn’t believe me and was asked to give you this. They said you would know what it meant.”
    Conner’s fingers closed over the thick fur, tunneling deep. His breath caught in his lungs. His throat burned raw. He turned away from the others and stood at the door, breathing in the night air. Twice he opened his mouth but nothing came out. He forced air through his lungs. “What’s the job?”
    “I’m sorry,” Rio said.
    All of them knew what a leopard pelt meant and the way Conner held it to him, there was no doubt he knew and loved the owner.
    “Conner . . . man . . .” Felipe started and then broke off.
    “What’s the job?” Conner repeated without looking at any of them. He couldn’t.
    His eyes burned like acid. He stood with his back to the others, holding his mother’s pelt against his heart, trying not to let anything into his mind but the job.
    “Imelda Cortez has decided to run her smuggling routes through the rain forest.
    She can’t use her men because they aren’t accustomed to the environment. The roads turn to mud, they get lost, the mosquitoes eat them alive, and even small cuts turn septic. She’s lost a number of her men to injury and disease, and to local predators.
    Once they’re deep in the forest, they’re easy to pick off with poison darts.”
    “She needs the cooperation of the Indian tribes she’s been annihilating, but they aren’t too fond of her,” Conner guessed.
    “That’s right,” Rio said. “She needed leverage to get them to work for her. She’s started taking their children and holding them hostage. The parents don’t want to get their children back in pieces so they’ve been running her drugs through the new routes where it’s unlikely government agents can track or intercept them. With the children 288

    hostage, she has the added bonus of not having to pay her couriers.” Rio pulled a sealed envelope out of the backpack. “This came for you as well.”
    Conner turned then, avoiding Rio’s all-too-knowing eyes. He held out his hand and Rio put the envelope in his palm.
    “I’ll need to know if your father believes our leopard species have been compromised,” Rio said. “Have the two rogues working for her revealed what they are to her, or are they just taking her money?”
    Conner looked at him then. The irises had nearly disappeared in his eyes. Flames smoldered in the depths. It would be the height of betrayal for a leopard ever to reveal to an outsider what he was. He ripped the envelope and pulled out a single sheet of paper. He stared at it for a long moment, reading his father’s missive. The night insects sounded overly loud in the small room. A muscle ticked in his jaw. The silence stretched.
    “Conner,” Rio prompted.
    “You may want to change your mind about the mission,” Conner said and carefully, with reverent hands, folded and returned the pelt to the backpack. “It isn’t just a hostage rescue. It’s a hit as well. One of the two rogue leopards working for Imelda murdered my mother. Imelda knows about the leopard people.”
    Rio swore and crossed to the stove to pour a cup of coffee. “We’ve been compromised.”
    “Two of our own betrayed us to Imelda.” Conner looked up, rubbed at his eyes, and sighed. “I have no choice if we want to make certain our secrets remain just that to the rest of the world. It seems Imelda would like an army of leopards. The elders have moved the location of the village deeper