by Logan Fox
He wished he could make peace as easily as Lars, but destiny preferred him a warlord, not a negotiator.
“You should eat,” Lars said.
It was heading into late afternoon already, but his body was a distant thing his mind barely felt tethered to anymore.
She loves him.
The phrase echoed hollowly inside his mind. At hearing it the first time last night, his beast had given such a deafening roar, he was amazed Lars hadn’t heard it. And then it had slunk away into the shadows. It skulked there even now, as lifeless as he felt.
She loves him.
Who’d he been kidding anyway? He’d known her barely a month. All they’d done was fuck. He should be figuring out how to get himself and Lars as far away from this mess as possible.
But all he could think was,
She loves him.
Lars sighed as he sank onto the low table beside Finn’s chair. “I’m disappointed,” he said, turning his head and pressing his lips to the shoulder of his long-sleeved shirt. Finn hadn’t put the radiator on—he hated artificial heat almost as much as rain—so their room had grown chilly as the rain persisted throughout the day.
He took a sip of coffee, not bothering to reply.
“Why is that, Lars?” Lars murmured, tipping his head to the side and making his voice low and gruff.
Fucking drama queen. He sounded nothing like that.
“Well, Milo, I’m glad you asked,” Lars said, leaning back on his hands. “You see, last night I was actually convinced, just for a second, that Cora could do this.”
“Become a drug lord?” Finn snorted and took another sip of coffee. “You hit your head when you were fucking her?”
Because Lars had seemed to think Finn needed to know that. Maybe, if he’d loved her, then yes. But now? Cora had made it clear there was nothing between them.
Certainly not love.
She could fuck whoever she wanted. He was done caring.
Lars smiled, but there was an edge to it, as if him saying that had brought back an unpleasant memory. “She’s got the fire, she just needs someone to make a spark.”
“She’s got Bailey for that.”
Lars let out another sigh—he’d been doing that a lot today—and turned to the window. Why the fuck did he bother? There was nothing to look at out there.
“I also kinda thought we’d be out of here by now,” Lars admitted quietly. “You know…hole up in the cabin for a while until the heat died down?”
At this, Finn laughed. Lars threw him a foul look, green eyes demanding an explanation.
“Never known you to be a fucking romantic,” Finn said as he set his coffee cup on the table. “We’d have to run a paternity test to see whose kid she eventually popped out. You’d be okay with that?”
Instead of the laugh he’d been expecting, Lars’s mouth went tight.
“Of course you wouldn’t have,” Finn said. “You told me yourself, no one wants to feel like their fucking heart’s been ripped out.”
“I didn’t say how long we’d be there,” Lars muttered. “Anyway—” he flicked his fingers “—there’s nothing we can do about it now. We’ll just have to wait until Gabriella decides the time is right for this thing to happen.”
“What do you think they’d do if we tried to leave?”
“Stop us, of course,” Lars said through a snort.
“I meant, you and me.”
Lars was still looking out the window, but Finn could see how his face solidified at the comment.
Silence spanned between them like wet, sticky spiderwebs until Lars murmured, “Guess it wouldn’t kill us to try.”
He turned a deadpan expression to Finn. “Unless they kill us for trying, of course.”
50
Strike three
The villa had obviously been notified of their return; Bailey and Javier were waiting for their SUV when they arrived.
Cora climbed out behind Ana, and ran up to Bailey. But he stepped back before she hugged him.
Whatever girlish enthusiasm the sangria had endowed her with withered away when he considered her with those solemn gray eyes. A pair of guards walked past them, one of them with a dog, as they set about searching Gabriella’s car. Cora had grown so used to it, she hardly noticed them. Instead, she looked around for Finn and Lars.
“They weren’t in their room,” Bailey said. “Aren’t answering their radios, either.”
She swung around to Javier, a scowl already tugging at her face. He held his hand out for Gabriella, a wide smile on his face. A third guard joined the first two, and began unpacking the shopping bags from the SUV’s trunk.
Javier drew Gabriella into an embrace, studying the men surrounding her car. “Looks like you had a busy day,” he murmured, but just loud enough that Cora could catch his words. “I was starting to get worried about you.”
“Didn’t Franco tell you we were stopping for a bite?” Gabriella asked, drawing her sunglasses up so she could fix Javier with a steady eye.
“I still worry, my dear,” Javier crooned, sliding an arm around her waist and drawing her towards the villa. “I’ve missed you these past few weeks.”
“Me too, my—” Gabriella began.
A sharp bark cut her off.
Cora, Bailey, Javier, and Gabriella turned to the car. The German Shepherd they’d brought out to inspect the car sat close to the rear wheel of Gabriella’s SUV, tail swishing. The man holding its leash tapped against the bumper, and the dog barked again, louder.
From the corner of her eye, Cora saw Javier push Gabriella to the side.
“¿Que?” Gabriella called after him as he made his way slowly down the stops.
“What is it?” he demanded. The man with the sniffer dog stepped back, and one of the other guards went to his knees. He crouched, feeling by the wheel guard of the SUV.
“What’s going on?” Cora asked, glancing up at Bailey.
“Checking for trackers,” he murmured, without taking his eyes off the scene ahead.
“But I mean…”
And then her mind flashed back to that man in the restaurant. His vague silhouette as he’d bent over to tie his shoe.
Or had he been planting a tracking device?
That had been a cop?
Her stomach grew tight. All the sangria she’d drank began sloshing around like warm, thin stew. Bile shot into her throat, and she swallowed hard, swinging away from Bailey as she aimed at the first planter she could reach.
Cool hands brushed hair from her face.
“Guess I’m not the only one who tries to get you drunk,” Bailey said, his words dripping with acid.
She should have been pissed off. For fuck’s sake, she’d told him she loved him. But her stomach was too busy emptying itself. Loud voices came to her; Gabriella’s, Javier’s.
She had to tell them it wasn’t Gabriella. About the man she’d seen. But when she straightened, the world swung around her like a carousel. She grabbed for the planter, missed, and collapsed on the floor.
Bailey tried to get to her in time, but he couldn’t stop her cracking her head against the tiles.
She heard a sound, something like a slap…but it could just have been her head connecting with the floor.
A bolt of pain shot through her skull before the world went white…and then black.
51
Luck and destiny
It was quarter past three at night when Kane sat bolt upright in his motel bed. He swung his legs over the side and strode to the small table where three empty bottles of vodka and a few cans of energy drink lay.
He hadn’t been sleeping, of course. There was no time to sleep these days. He’d been running through everything he could remember in the last six months.
And then it had come to him. Bright as fucking day.
He rummaged in his jacket pocket where it hung over the chair and fell onto its wooden frame as he slapped his notepad down on the table.
Flipping to the latest entries,
he gazed down at the sketch and ran his finger around the outline of her heart-shaped face.
He touched fingers to her plump lips. Traced a line from the corner of her eye to her mouth, because he knew she’d be crying soon after he found her.
“I know,” he murmured, shaking out a cigarette and lighting it with one hand. He drew deep, blew enough smoke to obscure her, and then smiled back at her when the sketch became visible again.
“I know who you are now.”
52
Pedazo de mierda
Tony had fallen into some kind of limbo; a gray world filled with the screams of a young child. It resolved into a claustrophobic-small room where blood leaked from the walls and gathered in pools at his feet.
Sometimes, he’d open his eyes, and see his sick room. But less so each day; more often than not, he’d open his eyes and he’d still be in that blood-wet room.
Today, yesterday—for it could have been either, so distorted was his sense of time—a prickle tore through him.
His eyes opened.
The doctor stood beside him. There was no blood on the walls. A deep quiet, now that there were no longer any screams echoing through his mind.
The dispassionate face of Dr. Gomez morphed into the self-satisfied mug of Javier.
“Are you still with us, Antonio?” Javier asked, his expression making it clear he’d be happy with whatever Tony answered.
“Fuck you,” he croaked.
“Get our friend some water, Doctor.”
Seconds later, something cool pressed against his lips. He turned his face away and tried sealing his mouth, but strong fingers wormed their way between his jaws so hard that he tasted blood where his teeth cut into his inner cheeks.
Ice cold water stung his mouth, scraped down his throat, and settled like lead in his stomach.
“I trust you enjoyed the video?” Javier waved a hand to the now dead monitor. “I could always put it back on, if you—”
“No,” he rasped. “Please. No…”
And that was when he knew he’d been broken. Because he might have begged Javier after his capture, but it had always been a ploy. A test to see what—if anything—would swing the present in his favor.
The plea that he’d just uttered held the weight of his entire being behind it.
He couldn’t go back to that bloody room with its incessant sounds of torture. He wouldn’t survive it. His mind would unravel, perhaps past the point of anyone ever being able to sew it back together.
There was a weight on his stomach. He tilted his head down, and stared at the clipboard with its single sheet of expensive writing paper clipped in.
Javier held out a golden fountain pen.
“It’s your daughter’s wedding day tomorrow,” Javier said. “Is there anything you want to tell her before you die?”
53
Sleeping Beauty
Cora turned at a knock to her bedroom door. It opened, and Javier walked inside. He wore a white tuxedo, a golden bow tie, and a ten-carat smile.
“Don’t you look beautiful?” he said, sweeping his hands to either side.
Cora looked down at herself. A cream-colored bustier emblazoned with pearls and tiny satin flowers clung to her. A princess skirt billowed out from her waist, gleaming like only expensive silk could gleam. Diamante glittered in some of those folds, catching the light like winter sunlight on the crests of an agitated ocean.
When she looked up again, Javier stood in front of her. She started, and her heart began pounding in fear.
“We must take off the ring,” Javier said. “How else can my son give it to you?”
She couldn’t reply; her mouth and vocal chords had frozen up on her.
Javier grasped her wrist, drawing her hand out. He kissed the back of it, his lips lingering warm and smooth on her skin as he ran his fingers around that ruby ring.
It came off easily, and lay in his hand like a coiled snake.
“You should probably have four of these,” he said, turning so the light could catch the ruby.
It was blood red inside that stone, as it was made of clear glass and held the liquid inside.
The door to her room swung open again. Bailey walked in wearing a black tuxedo. Lars followed a few paces behind. Then Finn walked in. He wore gold—the same gold that was on Javier’s tie.
Finn didn’t pause behind Javier like Lars and Bailey had. He strode right up to him and Cora and snatched the ring from Javier’s fingers.
“She’s not getting married,” Finn said in that rough, broken voice of his. “Not to Neo, not to any of us.”
She wanted to cry when he said that. The pressure building inside was so immense that she felt she would explode if she didn’t let it out.
A sadness sunk into her bones, chilling her through and through.
Finn held up his hand, squeezed. She heard glass shattering.
Blood dripped from his closed fist, splashing onto the carpet. Some of it got on her dress, and she took a hurried step back. What had been a trickle became a stream.
“You’re a slut, just like your mother,” Finn announced in a calm voice.
He tossed the ring at her, and on instinct she caught it.
It should have hurt, holding that shattered ring, but it didn’t. She opened her hand. The blood-stained ring lay on her palm, glittering.
An impossibly long shard sat beside it.
No, it hadn’t come from the ring. That was a piece of Noah’s meth pipe. Bloodstained, like the one she’d stabbed him with.
“You’re going to be late for the wedding,” Javier said. “Better hurry.”
When she looked up, it was not Javier standing in front of her, but the English man.
Zachary West.
He watched her like a mountain lion might watch a hare. Waiting…just waiting…for his chance to strike.
She darted forward, slicing the shard of glass over his exposed throat. He laughed at her as blood flowed from the gaping wound and began soaking into his shirt. She flung away the piece of glass, and spun back to Zachary.
But the man from the restaurant stood in front of her now, his wolfish lips set in that vague, perpetual smile.
“May I have the first dance?” he asked, stepping forward and reaching for her. She lifted her arms, entranced to the point of hypnosis at the thought of having him twirl her around a dance floor, her dress flaring out behind her.
But he didn’t embrace her. He grabbed the top of her bustier and tore it off. Cold flashed over her, and she scrambled back a step, trying to keep the two halves of the corset from revealing her nakedness.
“Don’t be shy,” the man said to her as he came closer. “Simon says, spread your legs, bitch.”
“Cora? Cora, wake up!”
Ana’s voice thankfully tore her from that horrific nightmare before the man’s hands reaching fingers could touch her naked skin. She sat up, slapping away Ana’s hand, and shrank back onto the bed as she fought back a wave of nausea.
“Are you all right?” The concern in her voice made Cora blink until she could focus on Ana’s face.
“What happened?” And then, sensing the light had changed, added, “What time is it?”
“Relax…you still have a few hours. But I thought I’d bring you some coffee. That sangria gave me a wicked hangover, so I’m sure you could use it.”
She leaned against her headboard, taking the warm cup from Ana.
It was early morning, perhaps before eight. She took a sip of coffee, and then accepted the aspirin Ana shook out on her palm.
She put her head back for a moment, and tried to will away her headache.
“Have you heard anything yet?” Ana asked quietly.
Cora opened one eye, and gave her a listless shrug. “About what?” Even her voice sounded husky. She shifted, and winced at a flash of pain from the back of her head. She touched her scalp, tenderly fingering a large bump on the back of her head.
When had she gotten that?
; And then it all rushed back like it had been impatiently waiting for her to ask.
She sat forward so fast, she spilled coffee on her sheets. “Gabriella.”
Ana looked blank. “No. Your boys. Lars and Finn.”
“What?” she kicked away the sheets, slamming her coffee cup down on her nightstand. She had to go see Javier. He had to know about the man in the—
“I thought they’d have sent a message or something by now.”
Ana was making no fucking sense. Cora swung around, spotted the jeans she’d been wearing yesterday, and hurried over to them. No time for a shower, no time for clean underwear. Knowing Javier, he’d think Gabriella was out to get him or something. And Gabriella knew nothing about the stranger in the restaurant.
A cop.
He had to be.
“I just can’t believe they’re gone,” Ana murmured.
Cora zipped up her fly, drew her hair into a hurried ponytail, and froze. She turned to Ana, her hands dropping to her side.
“Gone?”
She scrambled to recall what Ana had said. What had been urgency filling her changed to a hot, prickling panic.
“Gone?” she repeated, stepping closer to Ana.
The woman shied away as if worried Cora might do her bodily harm. “Y-yes. They…they left yesterday. While we were shopping. Didn’t…didn’t anyone tell you?”
Cora slapped a hand against her own forehead, digging her nails into her scalp as she took a step back from Ana.
They’d left?
“Where?” her voice sounded breathless, near hysterical. “Where did they go?”
Ana shrugged. “I don’t know. No one knows. They just…left.”
Cora put her hand over her mouth, flinching when something cold brushed her lip. She stuck out her hand, and struggled for a moment to focus on it.
Ana got to her feet and made for the door. “Maybe you should get some more sleep. You look a little pale.”
