by London James
Carlos’ eyes burn with anger, and I’m silently hoping he makes a move on me. I’d love to have an excuse to kill him. Carlos looks away, clearly not happy with me.
“So, can I have permission, jefe?” he asks anyway.
“No. Your petty bullshit doesn’t interest me,” I answer coldly. “Not nearly as much as your failures do. And I swear on the Virgin Mary, if I hear about a big man with a bushy beard in this town turning up dead, or going missing, they’re going to find all your parts in separate graves. Am I clear, Carlos?”
He glowers at me for a moment, then nods grudgingly. “Si,” he mumbles. “Crystal clear.”
I stare at him for a beat longer, then turn back to Ramon. He shifts in his seat, uncomfortable beneath my gaze. I watch him for a minute, not saying anything. I just let him sit there and stew beneath my scrutiny.
These guys let their egos get the best of them sometimes, and it’s necessary, once in a while, to put them in their place and remind them of where they fall on the food chain. Though they’re important to me and provide a valued service, they are not irreplaceable. For every Ramon and Carlos I have, there are ten more willing and eager to take their places in the hierarchy. They would both do well to remember that.
“So, what have you done to find her?” I move on.
“We have a guy watching her house –”
“You really are a moron, aren’t you?” I sigh.
“Jefe?”
“Do you really think she’s going back there? She was on the run, heading to meet with a Marshal, who was going to relocate her. Again. Do you know how long it took us to find her this time?”
With her security breached yet again, we were able to find it – and her location. It took time and a considerable amount of money. And all I got in return for the investment was these two idiots standing here with their dicks in their hands who keep trying to pass the buck, and a girl who should be dead, in the wind.
“It’s not our faults, it was –”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” I sneer. “It was somebody else’s fault. It’s always somebody else’s fault. Christ, if I had a nickel for every excuse you made…”
I let my voice trail off and pace the small room again, trying to think of something since clearly, my right-hand man can’t seem to think of anything useful. Despite the chill in the air outside, I push open the windows. It stinks in here. Nothing like cigarette smoke, stale beer, and old farts to turn your stomach. These men are pigs.
“You tried the hospital,” I start thinking out loud. “Did you try any private doctors? I know that this God-forsaken little town has at least one. Did you ask them if they treated a car crash victim recently?”
Carlos and Ramon exchange a look that tells me all I need to know. I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to stave off the oncoming migraine these two incompetent assholes are giving me. I let out a long breath and mutter to myself.
“Fine,” I growl. “Let’s get out of this dump, grab something to eat, and figure out if the local doctor has helped her or not. And if so, whether or not they know where to find our wayward girl.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Isla
The man, wearing a dark mask chases me down a hallway. All I can see are his eyes; they glitter malevolently and are somehow even more menacing than the gun in his hand. I open my mouth to scream, to call out for help, but no sound comes out. I run as hard and fast as I can but feel like I’m getting nowhere. It feels like I’m running through mud, and the masked man draws ever closer.
My heart is thundering in my chest, and my legs are burning with the exertion. I feel like I’m on the verge of passing out, but still the man keeps coming.
“Leave me alone!” I scream.
He doesn’t. He continues marching down the hall, the gun in his hand, a grim, hellish gleam in his eyes. I stumble over something and go sprawling. The breath is driven from my lungs when I hit the ground, and I scramble to turn over. I try to draw in air but can’t catch my breath.
When I manage to roll onto my back, the man is looming over me. There is a coldness in his eyes as he looks at me, and I’m sure I’m staring into the face of true evil. He raises the gun in his hand, the barrel of it looks almost comforting next to those eyes of his.
“Goodbye, chica,” he says from behind the mask.
I hear the roar and see the flame erupt from the gun.
I sit up, a choked cry bursting from my mouth. I feel arms around me, and I scream, blindly trying to slap them away.
“Isla, it’s okay.”
I hear his voice. Recognize it. But it still takes me a moment to slow my heart and get myself back under control. I look over and find myself staring into the warmth and tenderness I see in Baker’s face. His dark eyes – unlike those of the man in the mask – are full of care and compassion.
“You had a bad dream,” he soothes. “That’s all. Nothing but a bad dream.”
Baker’s big, strong arms envelop me, and I let myself melt into him as he pulls me back down against his hard body. He strokes my hair softly, whispering soothing words in my ear. It was just a dream. Nothing more than a bad dream. I repeat the mantra in my head over and over again, each repetition soothing me just a little bit more.
“You know, that’s the first time since this whole mess began all those years ago that I’ve had a nightmare about it,” I say. “I’m not sure what it means.”
“It doesn’t mean anything other than you’re under a lot of stress right now,” Baker says softly. “It’s natural. Normal even.”
My laughter is bitter. “I feel like anything but natural and normal at this point.”
He squeezes me to him tightly, holding me close. “Which is also probably natural and normal.”
I slap his chest playfully. “Circular logic doesn’t help.”
He shrugs. “Doesn’t hurt.”
For the first time since waking up from my dream, it occurs to me that we’re both naked – or at least, mostly so. The second thought that sends a shockwave through my mind is that we had sex. I look down and see that my yoga pants are still clinging to one foot, but my top is gone. Baker’s completely naked, and I stop and take a minute to admire the hard angles and planes of his body. I run the tips of my fingers around his scars – some of them no doubt, gotten while he was serving.
I feel safe in Baker’s arms. He makes me feel comforted. Even cared for. It’s such a strange dynamic and one that I just don’t get. Yet, I’m drawn to him. I’m compelled by him. Just being in his presence ignites this fire within me and somewhere in my addled mind, I know it’s the kind of spark I’ve been searching for, for my whole life. It’s the kind of spark I’ve never had before, but one I know I want. I can feel it as surely as I know I felt nothing for Tommy Larson – the way Baker lights me up is the exact opposite of what I felt when I heard Tommy’s name.
And maybe best of all, I can tell Baker feels the same way.
At least, I’m pretty sure he does. He’s hard to get a read on simply because he’s usually so stone-faced. So solemn. Every once in a while, I’ll see a crack in his mask of cool neutrality, and he’ll let a goofy side of him show, but it’s rare. He’s usually so self-possessed and in absolute control of himself, that you wouldn’t know if he’s hungry, in love, in pain, happy, or anywhere in between all those.
Baker is so careful and so guarded with his emotions, that it makes it impossible to know precisely what he’s thinking or feeling at any given point. Not with any certainty. And yet, when I look at him, when we’re close together, I can feel the emotion radiating off him. It never fails to make my heart swell with a joy I’m absolutely certain I’ve never felt before.
I may not remember much, but I know that with crystal clarity.
I slip off his lap and slide my pants back up. I search around, find my bra, and put that on as well. I look over and see Baker looking at me, an inscrutable expression upon his face. He looks me up and down, seeming to be drinking in my every detail. There’s a look
of hunger in his eyes – a look of absolute desire. But, there’s also a look of pure adoration as well that makes my heart skip a beat. As surely as I seem to know other things, I seem to know that no man has ever looked at me the way he’s looking at me right now.
“What?” I ask as heat flares in my cheeks.
He shakes his head and gives me a warm smile. “Just admiring your beauty.”
“Shut up,” I say and laugh.
He shrugs. “It’s true.”
Baker stands up from the chair and quickly pulls his jeans up, not bothering to button them. He pulls me to him and wraps me up in a tight embrace. The warmth and firmness of his body infuse me with a sense of strength – a strength I didn’t even know I needed until that very moment. I lean my forehead against his chest and breathe in his musky, masculine scent. It’s heady and makes my head spin a bit, but I cling to the hard muscles of his body, feeling like I’m exactly where I belong. Maybe for the first time ever.
“You are one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my life,” he says softly and pushes a strand of hair back from my face.
“Apparently, you need to get out more.”
He leans forward and presses his lips to mine. The kiss is soft, gentle, and sweet. And when he pulls back, he’s staring into my eyes in a way that makes my knees go weak.
“Shush,” he whispers.
A warmth spreads throughout my body, and every inch of my skin feels like it’s on fire. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve the adoration of this man, but I’m happy to have it. The reality of the situation though, makes it all so surreal. It puts doubts and worries into my head. There’s a small, niggling voice in the back of my mind whispering that this is all just fantasy. It’s nothing but make-believe. It tells me that when I get my memories back and return to my normal life, this will all be gone.
“What is it?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
“You sure?”
I nod but can’t meet his eyes. He puts his fingers beneath my chin and raises my head to make me look at him. His gaze bores deep inside of me. It’s as if with nothing more than a look, he can lay me bare. It’s like he can read my innermost thoughts and see exactly what’s going on inside of me.
“What is it?” he repeats.
I step away from him and walk back over to the couch, dropping down heavily on it as a dark wave of emotion washes over me. I hear Stabler’s nails on the concrete flooring as he emerges from wherever he’d gone to hide while we were otherwise occupied. Instead of going to his couch though, he gets up on the couch next to me and lays his head in my lap. I stroke the soft fur of his head and scratch behind his ears.
Baker apparently doesn’t want to crowd me, so he sits back down in the recliner and watches me closely. He says nothing and seems content to wait me out. I know he wants an explanation for the sudden shift in my mood, but I don’t have a good one to offer him. All I know is that I was at the pinnacle of ecstasy not all that long ago and now I feel like I’m at the depth of despair.
“Talk to me, Isla,” he says.
“It’s hard to explain.”
“Give it a shot.”
I look down at the dog sleeping in my lap and try to formulate my thoughts. I try to arrange them into something resembling coherency but seem to be coming up empty. I clear my throat and look up at Baker, who is looking back at me with nothing but sympathy and compassion in his eyes.
“Honestly, I don’t even know what my problem is,” I admit. “It makes no sense to me.”
“What isn’t making sense.”
“Just – everything. I mean, my memories seem to be slowly starting to come back,” I say. “And once they all do, what if everything changes. What if I’m not the person I feel like I am right now. What if – however it is we feel about each other changes?”
“It doesn’t have to if you don’t want it to.”
“I don’t know if it’s as simple as that,” I tell him.
“Sure it is,” he replies. “We’re all free to be whoever we want to be. It’s never too late to build a new life, and a new you.”
“That’s very motivational poster-ish,” I quip.
He chuckles. “Doesn’t make it any less true though,” he says. “You’re in kind of a unique situation if you think about it. You don’t have a past to go back to – and I’m not talking about your amnesia. Your situation kind of makes it impossible to go back to where you were living and pick up all over again. Which means you have a blank slate to start with. You can create your own present – and future – from the ground up.”
“That’s a pretty rosy spin on having my old life destroyed through no fault of my own,” she says.
“What can I say? I’m a lemons to lemonade kind of a guy.”
I laugh. “Yeah, that’s one state of being I’d never associate with you.”
He puts on an expression of faux hurt and puts his hand over his chest. “You wound me so.”
“I have a feeling you’re made of sterner stuff.”
“Perhaps,” he chuckles. “It still doesn’t change anything though. You have a blank canvas in front of you right now. It’s up to you to put the paint on it. Your circumstances may kind of suck, but you are free and unencumbered by the past. Even when your memories do come back, you can be and do anything you want to be. It’s a rare thing. Most people don’t get that kind of a blank slate to start over. It’s something I hope you take full advantage of.”
I want to ask him about this thing between us. I want to know if it feels as real to him as it does to me. Or, if this is just something to pass the time while we’re stuck together. On a gut level, I don’t think it is. When I look into his eyes, I see what I feel is being reflected back in mine.
But, with my head fully scrambled, I honestly have no idea what’s real and what’s not.
“Have you made your life what you want it to be?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Like you, I had to start over,” he explains. “And yeah, I think I have.”
“So, you living your best life includes living out in the middle of nowhere, without anybody?” I ask.
I see a tightness around his eyes and a tension in his body. I fear I may have crossed some line I didn’t even know was there. But he looks at me and rather than be angry, I see him trying to gather himself. I see the debate going on his head, and although I strongly suspect he’s not a man who opens up to many people, I can see him debating with himself whether or not to let me through those high, thick walls he hides behind.
“I was in love once,” he admits. “Jenny. She was my partner when I worked with the Marshal’s Service. We were deeply in love. Planned to get married. Have kids. The whole suburban, mini-van, Little League, PTA, white picket fence nightmare.”
A rueful, yet fond smile touches his lips, and I can tell the nostalgia is raining down thick on him. Irrationally, I feel a slight twinge of jealousy at the mention of another woman. It was obviously well before my time and has nothing to do with me, but I feel it all the same. Like I said, it’s irrational.
“Anyway, we were on a WITSEC protection detail,” he continues, his expression and tone growing darker by the second. “One of Zavala’s guys turned state’s witness, and it was our job to keep him safe. One night Zavala’s older son led the group of assassins that came for him. Jenny was killed outright, and I almost died in that firefight. In one night, I lost the only woman who’d ever mattered to me, as well as the future we’d laid out together. It was just gone like it had never existed before.”
“Oh my, God,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry, Baker. I didn’t know.”
He shrugs. “No way you could have,” he says. “Anyway, it took me almost a full year to recover from the wounds. I had a lot of time to lay around thinking, obviously. And while I was stuck flat on my back, I decided that I can just shrivel up and die, or I can take the second chance I have and carve out a life that makes me happy.”
“And living
out here, alone, makes you happy?” I ask.
He nods. “I’m not alone for one. Stabler’s with me.”
Hearing his name, the dog raises his head and wags his tail. A moment later though, he lays it back down and proceeds to snooze again.
“Anyway,” Baker goes on, “after Jenny – I honestly just wanted to be alone. I also wanted to be safe. Believe it or not, I don’t want to die. There are still things I want to do. But I know that Hernan – that’s the older brother and the one who shot me – will come for me. I need to make sure he’s dealt with once and for all before I’ll ever feel comfortable. As you’re learning, these cockroaches don’t stop coming.”
“Unfortunately true,” I agree.
“I’ve been watching and waiting for somebody to roll up the whole organization and stomp the Zavala Cartel out of existence,” he says. “I don’t even care who steps into that power void as long as Osvaldo and Hernan Zavala are taken off the board. Permanently.”
“I don’t know if that’s going to happen,” I say miserably.
“I’ve had the same thought,” he replies. “I’ve gone so far as to start plotting a way to take them out on my own. I’ve got the training, the friends who will back me up –”
“But then you’d be no better than him,” I interject.
“I disagree with that,” he counters. “When your house is infested with roaches, what do you do? You call the exterminator. I’ve been biding my time, waiting for the FBI or the DOJ to build a case against father and son that actually sticks. It seems like every time they bring a case; something happens to sink it.”
“I’m not sure how many more bites at the apple they’re going to get,” I say.
“Yeah, tell me about it,” He sighs. “I still believe in the law and in the process. But, at some point, I’m going to have to acknowledge that the law isn’t equipped to deal with somebody like the Zavala’s. At that point, I’m going to have to handle things on my own.”
“I hope it doesn’t come to that, Baker,” I tell him. “I really don’t.”
