Stone Cold

by Kristi Belcamino

  “Then why?” Nico asked.

  “You have grown soft. You are weak. The last time I saw you act in a way befitting of your position was when you went to war with the Rivas Cartel to stop the sex trafficking in Cabo San Lucas.”

  “What are you trying to say, Anthony?”

  “They wanted me to work for them. They have paid me good money. For your death.”

  “So you can live here?”

  As he said it, I saw movement behind him. Something large, creeping up. I tapped my foot against Nico’s in a warning. He gave me a side-eyed look and a tiny nod. He’d seen it too.

  “This is one of my many homes, you fool,” Anthony spat the words out. “I am staying here while they outfit my island. My own goddamn island, Nico. Can you say you ever had the same?”

  It was a massive leopard. And it was ready to pounce.

  “If they paid you enough to buy an island, why did you need my money too?”

  “I need enough to live comfortably for the rest of my life.”

  He’d just said the word “life” when the big cat pounced on his back.

  Anthony was suddenly flat on the ground and the cat was biting in a frenzy. Blood was flying everywhere. He’d gone right for the back of Anthony’s head, taking a chunk out of it.

  Anthony was not moving.

  I was frozen with fear until the cat looked up with a bloody mouth and stared right at us. Anthony’s body lay between us, but it wouldn’t take much more than a hop for the cat to clear it.

  Nico reached behind his back and grabbed me by the wrist. He hissed. “Whatever you do, don’t run. It will trigger the panther to chase and attack.”

  I was shaking. “Okay.”

  “We are going to back off very slowly now. Stand as tall as you can. Raise your arms above your head like this.” He let go of my wrist and raised his arms up like he was going to do a free throw on the basketball court. “I’m going to start yelling and being very loud,” he was already speaking in a loud voice. We were already shuffling backward, putting more space between us and the large cat. And Anthony’s body.

  The big cat’s tail was swishing, and it looked pissed off.

  “Keep walking back,” Nico said. “You don’t even know what kind of crazy I am!”

  Now Nico was shouting. If it weren’t so terrifying—if Anthony’s brains weren’t spilling out of the back of his head—it would’ve been comical.

  “Back off!” he shouted. “Go eat your dinner and leave us alone. We mean you no harm.”

  I was trying really hard not to judge what was coming out of Nico’s mouth. Who the hell knew what I would say if I were him. Probably something with the word fuck in it a few times. But it was working. At least the cat wasn’t coming toward us. It dipped its head to Anthony, its meal, and then looked back up.

  Soon we could only barely see its eyes. That’s when it seemed to forget about us. It disappeared from my view. But then I saw Anthony’s body. It was moving. I put my hand on Nico’s arm, but he held up his palm. That’s when I saw what he was looking at. The big cat was tugging on Anthony’s body, dragging it somewhere where it could have a feast.

  I leaned over and threw up, silently and quickly.

  “I think we are safe to turn and run now,” Nico said.

  I didn’t wait for him to say it twice.

  I ran as fast as I could until I emerged out onto the row of houses and then down to the beach and onto the dock, my feet pounding loudly.

  Nico had stopped back by the houses. I turned and saw he was talking to a few people. They were nodding and then shaking their heads. Nico handed them something. It looked like business cards. And then he turned toward me. We sat on the dock, swinging our legs until the boat came back.

  I didn’t speak. Neither did he.

  Finally, when I was safely in the boat, I said. “What were you talking to those people about?”

  “I told them the cat had eaten my friend, and they should probably put up an electric fence or something to keep them safe in case the cat developed a taste for human flesh.”

  “Is that true? Will he want to eat people now?”

  “I have no clue,” Nico said.

  “Did you really say all that to them?”

  He shot me a look. “Yeah. What did you think I was saying to them?”

  “I don’t know.” And I was telling the truth.

  “You ready to go home now?”

  I closed my eyes and nodded.

  Belize was an amazingly beautiful country. And someday I’d love to actually explore it. But, right then, all I wanted to do was go home. I wanted to be in my loft with Rosalie and Django tucked safely in my big comfy bed, and I wanted to sleep. For a very long time. Ten years at the minimum.

  46

  My flight back to America wasn’t until the next day so we stayed one more night at Nico’s. I slept soundly and woke to quiet. After I showered, I dressed in a coral sundress, and I headed downstairs barefoot from my bedroom in Nico’s estate. Today, I was going home.

  The coral dress felt odd but strangely good. I’d packed colorful items as part of my disguise. However, since Nico knew who I was from the start, I hadn’t needed to keep up the ruse. But something about being in Mexico with its saturated colors everywhere, made me want to shed my all-black clothing.

  As I stopped in the stone courtyard, I noticed it was unusually quiet. At first, a trickle of fear zinged through me. Where were the armed guards? Had something happened? Then I spotted one of the sentries sitting quietly at a corner of the dining room table with a cup of coffee before him. He was watching me. Unobtrusively. I smiled and he gave a curt nod and then looked down at the newspaper spread out before him. I suppose now that I was no longer a threat, they could go back to the silent-but-deadly role they normally held.

  This was reassuring. The thought of a big scary armed man following Rosalie everywhere she went in this house was awful. But now I was seeing how they normally acted. There, but not there.

  I headed into the kitchen and started digging around. I wondered if Nico had house staff or just big men with guns. Either way, I could fend for myself as I always did. There was a moka pot on the stove, so I emptied the grounds and dug in the cupboard until I found coffee beans. The first cupboard I opened had about ten different bags to choose from. Of course Nico had coffee beans. We were in Mexico! Hello!

  As my moka pot gurgled on the stove, I opened a small refrigerator. It was nearly empty. But I found a bowl of fresh fruit on the counter and grabbed both a banana and a mango to munch. I was washing the mango off at the kitchen sink when I saw something out the window above the sink.

  The window overlooked the back yard with the pool.

  Nico was crouched down near the pool, facing the jungle area by the guest cottage. The black panther stepped out of the bushes. I held my breath, watching as it bounded toward Nico.

  I thought they’d said the big cat had been shot dead in the attack. Once it was close enough, Nico buried his face in the panther’s fur. Then he drew back, and the panther began to lick his face repeatedly.

  It was one of the most remarkable things I’d ever seen. They raced around the yard together playfully. The panther was smaller than I’d thought. About half the size of Nico. They rolled on the grass together. Then, the cat walked over to a large bowl and began to drink.

  Nico stripped. He tugged off his shirt, kicked off his shoes, and dropped his pants. He stepped out of them and then dove into the pool. I watched, transfixed, taking bites out of the banana.

  After several laps, he pulled himself out of the pool. The panther had already disappeared back into the wooded area. That’s when Nico’s gaze wandered. And then landed on me. I waved like an idiot. A huge grin spread across his face.

  He met me in the courtyard. I handed him a cup of coffee.

  “What were you really saying to those people in Belize?”

  He sighed. “I told them that I was sending men to install an electric fence se
parating their land from the jungle because a beautiful panther lived there, and I didn’t want any of them to accidentally stumble upon the animal and get harmed.”

  I frowned. It made sense. But why would they agree?

  “Did you tell them about Anthony?”

  “No. I told them that he had been watching my house for me and that I would be back soon to visit and hold a giant party to meet everyone.”

  “Hmmm.” I said. It all sounded odd to me. “Why would you do that?”

  “I’m the owner of the compound.”

  “You are?”

  “Apparently. Anthony bought it in my name. He was attempting to transfer it to his own name, but it was still mine when he…died.”

  “Are you really going to go back?”

  “Of course. I said I would. I am a man of my word.”

  I nodded.

  “Did that make you afraid of your own cat? Seeing what the leopard did to Anthony?”

  “Not at all,” he said and scoffed. “I raised Tabitha since she was a baby. She is a wild animal, though, and I respect that. That’s why I’m going to turn her over to the zoo now. There are two other panthers there, and the space has been renovated and expanded. I believe she will be much happier there in the company of other cats. Did you see how lonely she is? She was so excited to see me. It breaks my heart.”

  “And it will be safer for Rosalie to visit here, right?”

  He winked. “And that is the main reason. Yes.”

  He took a big gulp of his coffee.

  “Oh, this tastes wonderful,” he said.

  “Always tastes better when someone else makes it,” I said.

  He shrugged. “I wouldn’t usually know.”

  His voice was low and matter-of-fact. I didn’t think he was trying to garner sympathy.

  But it made me realize he was probably a pretty lonely person.

  “I’ve done a lot of thinking, and I have an idea I want to run by you about how we might proceed from here,” I said.

  We spent the next hour discussing the possibilities of my plan. He’d said a car was on its way to take me to the airport. Our visit would soon be over.

  “I have to pack,” I said, standing.

  He gave me a look. I knew it might be the last time we ever had sex, since the next time I saw him Rosalie would be there.

  “I might need some help.”

  On the way up to the room, he texted the car service and told them to come an hour later than planned.

  Later, I packed while he still was in bed. When I was done, I looked over at him. He was staring straight up at the ceiling. His brow was furrowed.

  “You aren’t happy with our plan?” I needed to know right then, before I let him into Rosalie’s life.

  He turned toward me. “No, I am happy with it. It is for the best.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  Then he stared at me so intensely, I squirmed.

  “I need to tell you something.”

  My heart raced.

  “Anthony said that Rosalie wasn’t mine. That she was not my child. That is how he lured me to Mexico City that day.”

  I stared back. He was leaving it up to me. He was giving me an out.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “I am afraid.”

  I could tell it had cost him a lot of effort to say those words.

  “Well,” I said, exhaling loudly. “She looks just like you.”

  He blinked and then blinked again.

  “Really,” I said. “If you need more proof, I guess we can arrange it. But only if she agrees.”

  “No, no, I don’t need proof.”

  “Okay then,” I said.

  His phone dinged. He grabbed it off the nightstand.

  “The car is here to take you to the airport.”

  I quickly grabbed my bag and turned toward the door.

  Before I could reach it, he’d slipped out of bed and was right in front of me, blocking my way. Then his good arm wrapped around my head and gently brought my face forward until his lips met mine. I was relieved to be leaving. I didn’t like it when my body wanted something so badly that it messed with my head. I needed to be in control. Especially when it came to making decisions about Rosalie.

  I drew back and ducked around him without speaking. I was too afraid of what he might hear in my voice.

  “I will see you next week,” he said.

  In the car to the airport, I realized I was excited to get home.

  I only hoped that by putting some serious miles between me and Nico, he would lose his power over me.

  47

  After I boarded my flight to San Francisco, I closed my eyes to avoid having a conversation with the chatty Midwesterner beside me. She had a layover in my city and then a flight back to Minneapolis.

  I needed some time to try to process everything that had happened over the past week.

  Although I had killed before, it hadn’t seemed as senseless and violent as the deaths of the three people at Dante’s house. I had thought they were there to kill me and take Rosalie, but now I realized that Nico had ordered them to take me alive. And that was probably the only reason I was still alive. But they were dead.

  It was something that was hard to swallow. It was something that I would have to live with forever. And it also made me wary to judge Nico. Who was I to judge his actions when I was a stone-cold killer, the same as he was?

  We sat on that beach and tried to kill those two men. Sure, they were trying to kill us, but did we hesitate for one second? No. I had become something so foreign, so strange to myself, that I felt disoriented.

  What had become of the girl who moved to San Francisco to embark on a life of debauchery? The worst I’d done was drink too much, sleep around too much, and smoke a little weed.

  Now I’d become something else entirely.

  I could say it wasn’t my fault. I could say that I’d been forced to become a killer when someone had killed my family and tried to kill me. But in the end, it still boiled down to choices I’d made.

  In a way, my strange relationship with Nico was comforting and natural in a way that I’d never experienced before. I didn’t have to hide any part of me. With Bobby, the most pure-hearted man I’d ever loved and the man I would’ve stayed with until I was gray and old, I could never let him see the side of me that was a killer. It was a part of me I kept closed off, shut tight away from him. With the other man in my life—my other great love, James—it had been what had destroyed us. He was a police officer. I was essentially a criminal. Even though we’d come together in a beautiful way for such a wonderful time in my life, our destiny was to remain forever at odds. I’d only just recently started to feel like maybe we could be friends again.

  But with El Jefe Grande—Nico Ortiz Morales—it was different. We were kindred spirits. Killers, yes. But only because of the circumstances life had thrown at us.

  Soon, I would be in San Francisco. I was planning on meeting Dante and Rosalie there. Our flights were getting in at similar times. I could not wait to hug them both. And a small part of me was excited for them to meet Nico, which surprised me.

  Maybe, just maybe, it would work. Rosalie had a right to know her father. If it went badly, then all bets were off. I didn’t care how comfortable I felt around Nico. If Rosalie wasn’t comfortable and didn’t want him in her life, I would fight to ensure she didn’t have to.

  But when I’d seen him with the panther, I’d seen a playful side of him that was just what a father should be. It was reassuring.

  With this thought, I let myself fully relax, pressing my head against the wall of the airplane and drifted off into a deep, calming sleep.

  48

  Since our return from Mexico, we’d settled back into our normal routine.

  I walked Rosalie to school every day with Django and then went to work out at the dojo. As much as I wanted to tell Kato what was going on and why I’d fled to Mexico, I wasn’t quite ready for it yet.


  He was never one to pry, but I could tell he was curious by the way he looked at me during our training sessions.

  I spent my days with Dante, who was staying with us while his house was being repaired. Plus, I wanted him there to meet Nico and weigh in.

  Today was the day he was expected to arrive. I’d received a text and knew that I should expect him. It’d said, “Mexican avocados make the best guacamole.”

  Dante was busy in the kitchen preparing a feast—one of his most popular dishes from his restaurant. I could tell he missed his restaurant. I was proud that he’d been able to delegate the running of it for so long. It’d been the longest he’d been away from it.

  Cooking in the kitchen was the happiest I’d seen him in a long time. Except for the time he spent with Rosalie. He was always down on the floor with her, building Lego cities, or on the couch side-by-side playing with their iPads, building Minecraft villages. He really loved spending time with her, and it filled my heart with joy.

  I glanced at my watch for the millionth time that afternoon.

  It was time. He should be arriving any second.

  Telling Rosalie and Dante I’d be right back, I went up to the roof. By leaning over the small, chest-high wall that surrounded my rooftop haven, I could see the street below.

  He was late. Five minutes late.

  Instead of being happy he might not show, I was disappointed. That emotion surprised me. It was a combination of wanting to see him again and finally coming to terms with the idea that maybe he was right—maybe Rosalie deserved a chance to get to know her father.

  But as I stared down at the dark street, I began to notice small movements. There were people in the shadows below. A slight shimmer of light from a darkened doorway across the street. A silhouette by a building on the corner. Another two figures sitting in a car parked below.

  For a second my blood ran cold. They were either Nico’s advance security crew or they were his enemies coming to take him out in front of my home.