“What?” she cries, more panicked than ever.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”
“How do you know that? Wait, what about you? What if they kill you? Aren’t you even worried?”
I feel a hint of a smile touch my face. For someone who was so eager to be free of me, it’s touching that she’s concerned for my welfare as well as hers.
“They aren’t killing anyone.”
The note of confidence in my voice seems to settle her a bit. “How do you know?”
“If they wanted us dead, we’d be dead by now. Last night confirmed that. Which means, either they don’t want us dead, or they are incompetent. We were practically sitting ducks here.”
“We were?” she asks, a note of outrage touching her voice.
“With weapons.”
“Two broken bottles against God knows who?”
“All the more reason not to be concerned. It’s not our lives they want, it’s something else.”
“What else could it be?” she asks, her eyes darting away as she’s reminded of her own family troubles.
“That’s what I’m going to find out.”
Chapter Thirty
Leira
“This one,” I say, pulling out a long, flowing, sleeveless dress with a tropical, flowery theme. It seems fitting enough for our surroundings.
Enrique’s expression airs his disapproval well before his voice does.
“You aren’t some retired ex-pat from Britain on vacation.”
I don’t even know what that means, but the way he takes the dress from my hands and places it back on the rack tells me it isn’t anything he finds favorable.
I narrow my eyes with resentment, but before I can retort some smart come-back, he’s reached for another dress. It’s a white billowy thing, with thin straps, and a skirt that floats like delicate flower petals.
I tilt my head to consider it, but Enrique stares at it like he can already picture me in it.
“It’s perfect.”
Something in his voice catches my attention, and my eyes flash to him. There’s something on his face that has me feeling self-conscious, and I haven’t even tried the damn thing on yet. In fact, if my skin weren’t so dark, now officially bronzed by the sun, I’d probably be blushing.
“I’m paying, so I get the final word,” he says in a gruff voice as he snatches his gaze away from me.
I purse my lips and grab the dress and enter a dressing room.
What the hell was that about?
As I remove his shirt, my current “dress,” and put the new one on, I think about it. Yes, he’s paying, only because I don’t have any money of my own. In fact, I don’t have anything of my own with me. The dress is pretty, but it’s not even all that practical. White? The perfect canvas for the blood I’m sure to shed if they are in fact out to kill us, despite his reassurances. Then, again, I’ll be sitting in the hotel room twiddling my thumbs while he’s off doing—
My mind goes silent as I finally zip up the dress and get a good look at it.
He was right, it’s perfect.
Well, at least as far as how I look in it.
I note the tag hanging from the side and reach over to look at it.
“Are you shitting me?” I hiss in a whisper when I see that it’s €500.
My eyes roll back up to my reflection. It serves him right, even though I suspect the amount is meaningless to him.
At least I’ll die looking perfectly lovely. Though I doubt even this thing could get me into heaven.
I walk back out to where Enrique is leaning against a column with a bored expression on his face.
“How do I look?”
He’s pulled out of his daze and turns to look at me with the remnants of irritation still on his face. It evaporates as his eyes go slightly wide and his mouth more slack.
“Like a fucking goddess,” he mutters.
I feel the heat sizzle my skin and rise to my face as my blood rushes, spurred on by that confession.
Enrique blinks and grows even angrier. “Pick a pair of shoes so we can get going,” he snaps.
I frown and spin away to go try on some of the sandals. I halfheartedly pick a pair of silver flat sandals, while he goes to pay.
“She’ll be wearing her clothes out of the store.”
“I’m afraid there are no refunds if—”
“Fine,” he snaps, taking his irritation out on the poor woman just trying to do her job.
Asshole.
By the time I come to join him, I’m met with nothing but a glare from her, seeing as how I am paired with the jerk.
Lovely.
Instead of taking me back upstairs, he guides me out the front of the hotel.
“Where are we going? I thought I was staying here.”
“I’m taking you to the police station first. If they are watching, I want them to see me doing it.”
I suppose that makes sense. At least one of us seems to be thinking straight.
When we get there, he stops me a few feet away from the entrance. I watch him pull out his phone and do something with it.
“I’m deleting the photo of you, along with the backup,” he says before raising his eyes to meet mine. “This means you’re free, Leira.”
I swallow hard at that announcement. What does this mean? More importantly, why am I so upset about it? Is it because he thinks he might actually be killed? Or is it because this is the end of it—of us?
He has no more leverage over me. And I have no reason to stay. In fact, I could walk a few feet into this police station and tell them everything about what he’s done.
So why don’t I?
I know why, and I know what it means. It means that I actually care about the son of a bitch who has turned my life completely upside down. It means maybe I don’t hate him as much as I claim to. It means that this is so much more complicated now.
Enrique stares hard at me, as though reading every thought in my eyes. He subtly nods as though discovering something there that sits well with him.
“Don’t worry, Leira. I’ll come back for you.”
I let out a breath, feeling my heart settle back into a regular beat.
“But I’m giving you the phone to use if you have to.”
He hands over his phone and I reluctantly take it. Once in my hands, I grip it, as though it’s some beacon that will silently call out to him, so he has no choice but to return.
“Good luck,” I manage to choke out.
“I will,” he says.
It’s the look in his eyes, as though daring fate to defy him that does it for me.
He will come back for me, even if he has to defeat death itself.
Chapter Thirty-One
Enrique
The image of Leira in that white dress follows me all the way back to my apartment.
A goddess?
Where the hell did that come from? As though I don’t know damn well where it came from. Everything about her is perfectly ethereal, awesome, untouchable.
Then there was that cross, conjuring up all sorts of unholy thoughts in my head.
On second thought, maybe she’s more like one of those vestal virgins, at least the way I always pictured them in my adolescent head during all those lessons on Ancient Rome. The only difference is, rather than pinned up on top of her head, her hair surrounds her like a shower of thick curls, somehow making her seem even more…raw. She’s like an unpicked fruit—a forbidden fruit. But still so very ripe for the taking.
All thoughts of Leira in that dress, or out of it, disappear as I turn the corner to my street. Once again, I stop, supporting myself and the scooter on one leg as I peer down the street. My eyes scan everything, trying to find what it was that gave me pause yesterday. Finally, my eyes land on it.
A large black Land Rover SUV, shiny and new. In this part of Ibiza, it stands out.
Almost too much.
I stare at it long and hard, deciding on my best course of action. W
hat I told Leira this morning wasn’t a lie. If they wanted us dead, we’d be dead. A car like that spells “professional.” Which means they don’t want us dead. Not yet, at any rate.
If there is anyone in the car, they would have seen me by now, so there’s no use bothering with subterfuge. Might as well play their game.
I push off the street to right the scooter and drive down to meet them. I turn until I’m facing the car head-on and sit idling by the driver’s side door.
Through the windshield, I can see it’s a woman at the wheel. She smirks through the glass and lowers the window. Keeping a somewhat safe distance, I wait for her to speak first.
“We were wondering when you would make an appearance. My colleagues and I were getting quite impatient.” She has an accent—something Eastern European, which matches the light eyes and severe features of her face.
“What do you want?”
“My employer would like a word with you.”
“Is that so? And who is your employer?”
She smiles. There’s nothing friendly about it. “That is not important for now.”
“So, what is important for now?”
“What is important is that you be there one week from now—Friday at noon exactly. Barcelona. That is where you live these days, is it not…Enrique Marín?”
I expected almost anything, so this surprise of her knowing my name and the city that I call home doesn’t garner a reaction from me.
“One week?”
“He is otherwise occupied.”
I narrow my eyes with suspicion
“Marina Port Vell.”
I’m familiar with the port in Barcelona, being that it’s where I usually dock my boat when I head back. They know too much about me.
“What is this about?”
“Again, is not important for now.”
“And if I happen to have other plans at the time?”
Her smile disappears. “You should cancel them. Or the girl can take your place?”
I feel a tic in my jaw at that not-so-subtle threat.
The woman smiles again, now with something gleaming in her eyes that I don’t particularly like. “Not to worry, Pirate. If we wanted you dead, you would not be here talking to me. If you should happen to miss this meeting, I can not say the same.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Good.” The same cold smile reappears on her face.
“Does this mean you’ll be calling your goons from my apartment and boat?”
Her smile shows the first signs of amusement. “We will see you in a week, Mr. Marín.”
The window comes back up, cutting off further communication.
I drive the bike toward the alleyway behind my building and park it back in its spot. By the time I make it to my apartment, whatever men she had in place are gone. Still, I cautiously open the door and do a quick scan before entering and closing it again.
Although nothing is disturbed—there really isn’t much too disturb—I can tell someone has been in here. So, they are looking for something.
That fact hardly eliminates the potential suspects as to who is behind all of this. If anything, it only expands the number.
While I change into new clothes, I think about all the people who could be targeting me. The list of names I was given several years ago had twenty-three people on it.
Then, of course, there is the final name: Richard Coleman.
At first, I immediately dismiss the name. If it really is my father after me, I would be dead right now. Heaven knows he didn’t bother taking his time with my mother. I spent exactly four days at that convent before Sister Clara came back to me with the news that I was an orphan.
Then again, he is my father. Maybe he’s playing the sort of long game that I’ve been playing for the past several years, biding his time while he fucks with my head. Also, he wouldn’t be this mysterious. The vicious man I’ve learned about mostly through reputation, which only added to the violent act I witnessed myself, would want to make sure I knew who it was that killed me.
Either way, I now have a seven-day grace period to figure all of this out.
Correction, we have a seven-day grace period.
I can’t very well ignore the leverage the woman used against me to make sure I show up at this meeting: Leira.
They’ve obviously been watching us. But why would they think that some woman I’ve spent a total of twenty-four hours with would be any kind of a bargaining chip?
I think about everything that’s happened since I first found her in that lagoon. The idea of them so much as thinking about her makes my fists curl. Yes, there is a part of me that feels responsible for her welfare. And yes, she has a way about her that sets my senses on fire. And yes, I absolutely would happily kill the man who she would ever think of first giving herself to.
“Hostia puta,” I curse to myself.
I grimace and run my fingers through my hair, pulling hard so the pain erases my frustration.
Of course they know.
I all but gave it away when the woman in the car mentioned her. That smug smile that touched her lips as soon as Leira was dangled in front of me as bait.
It seems she’s stuck with me for a little bit longer.
But the first thing we need to do is get off this damn island.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Leira
When I see Enrique zooming down the street on his scooter, I nearly faint with dizziness. When he gave me the phone, I had expected the worst.
The question again is, why do I care?
His leverage over me is gone, completely deleted. Him being dead or taken would have snipped my final tie to him. I had no reason to still be standing here by the time he returned.
Yet, here I am.
When he parks the bike on the street, I’m not sure if I want to punch him for causing so much worry, or kiss his stupid face if only out of relief.
Instead, I fall into him, throwing my arms around his waist and holding on tightly. I cling to him like he’s an anchor, the only sure and steady thing in this sea of craziness.
I feel him go stiff with surprise underneath me.
“Está bien,” he whispers, bringing his arms around me as well.
We stand there like that for a moment until the awkwardness sets in. I’m the first to let go, pulling away and self-consciously smoothing down my skirt as I try to reclaim some of the pride I just swallowed.
“You’re back sooner than I expected. What happened?”
“They just wanted to talk to me.”
“Really?” I ask, scrutinizing him closely. For such a short, apparently harmless meeting, he looks surprisingly troubled.
“Yes. Their employer wants a meeting with me seven days from now in Barcelona. They didn’t tell me who he is.”
“That’s good news, isn’t it? That means he doesn’t want to kill you.” The expression on his face doesn’t give me hope. “Right?”
“Not yet,” he says, giving me a resigned look.
“What does he want to meet about?” I ask hesitantly.
“They didn’t tell me.”
Enrique just shakes his head and runs his fingers through his hair in that way he does when he’s frustrated.
“What is it?”
His dark gaze comes back to me. “No one who just wants to talk goes to this much trouble.”
“So, you think someone you targeted is now after you.”
He nods in agreement.
“But…just to talk?” I say with skepticism. It doesn’t make sense.
“Exactly,” he says, obviously reading my mind. “Which is why I want to get out of Ibiza…now.”
I look around, suddenly paranoid.
“Whoever it is, is giving us seven days until I have to meet him.”
Which only compounds my bewilderment. What the hell is going on?
I’m all set to get on the back of his bike without hesitation, but Enrique is the one to stop me.
“Y
ou have a choice, Leira. I’m giving you this chance to go home to safety. You can use that phone to call your father and have him send someone to come and get you. I suspect he has the resources to do so. I also assume he has the capability to keep you safe from these people. If you come with me, you’ll only be putting yourself in danger.”
I realize his phone is still in my hands. My fingers grasp it, thumbs sliding up along either side of it.
He’s right. One phone call to my father, and I’d probably be in safe hands before the day is even done.
Enrique would be out of my life for good. Nothing more than a brief memory.
Or, I could go with him.
I stare hard into those obsidian pools, trying to read them for clues as to what he wants. He’s good at hiding it, but I see a tiny flicker of…something.
He doesn’t want me to leave, despite everything.
He doesn’t want me to leave!
“I’m going with you.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Enrique
“We aren’t taking your boat?” Leira says when I park in the lot for the ferries that go to the other Balearic Islands, Barcelona, and other cities along the coast of Spain.
“I don’t trust that they’ve left it alone. Best case scenario, it’s nothing more than a tracker to keep tabs on us.”
“Worst case…” She swallows as she gets off the bike before me, leaving the rest of that statement unspoken.
“Yes,” I say, giving her a level gaze. I’ve decided not to treat her with kid gloves now that she’s in this with me.
With me.
Something about that idea—even as it fills me with dread that something might happen to her—sends a warm rush of blood through my veins, filling a small, formerly empty part of me.
Even with the men on my team, there isn’t this kind of connection. With them, I feel like we’re different parts of a machine that work perfectly in sync with one another to complete a job. With Leira, it’s somehow different in a way that I can’t put my finger on.
Spanish Pirate: A BWWM International Legacies Romance Page 14
