Thrive (Guardian Protection)

by Aly Martinez

  And there I was, finding out that those feelings might have been valid.

  “How much?” I asked in a broken whisper.

  Mateo cocked his head like he didn’t understand the question, so I expounded.

  “How much of the money I made was real?”

  His eyes dimmed as he quasi lied. “It was all real, Preciosa.”

  Not even Jeremy Lark was strong enough to hold me down as I exploded to my feet, dove at Mateo, and screamed into his face with life-shattering devastation. “How much of it was mine!”

  Every man in the room moved. The army at the wall lurched forward, eight guns appearing from under their coats. Johnson sprang from his chair, and Leo came up off the couch, more guns raised high. Jeremy hooked me around the waist, lifting me off my feet, my arms and my legs swinging wildly as he cocooned me with his upper body. But it was Braydon, who appeared behind Mateo, pressing the tip of his gun to the back of his head, who halted the chaos.

  Through it all, Mateo’s gaze never left mine. He didn’t have to answer. Pity was written all over his face.

  I’d experienced that look from a lot of people in my life. Growing up the way I had with a drunk for a mother, who paraded one abusive man through the trailer door after another. Then again when I’d made the astronomically stupid decision to marry a man whose only positive quality was that he’d told me he loved me, regardless that he’d proved with his every action that he hadn’t. Hell, Kurt’s own parents had looked at me with that same pity as I’d spent countless years letting him dictate my every move just so I could cling to a stupid fucking bar that had always been my dream.

  And there it was—more pity—staring back at me in the eyes of a drug lord who had drawn the short straw when it came to finally telling me the truth because I had been too big of a fool to ever see for myself.

  My whole life had been a lie.

  “No!” I screamed with everything I had left in me—which, admittedly, wasn’t much.

  The buzz of adrenaline coursing through my veins was deafening. There were too many guns, too many threats, too much going on with my fucking woman in the middle of it, especially while she was fighting against me as if I were the enemy.

  “Mira, stop,” I snarled.

  “Rodriguez?” Leo called. It might have only been one word, but it was the most important question in all of our lives.

  My heart slammed into my ribs with an alarming velocity as an eerie calm-before-the-storm feeling filled the room.

  But, finally, in a deep, malevolent growl, Mateo ordered, “Down.”

  Relief surged through me.

  That was the right fucking answer.

  All at once, his men tucked their guns away, and then Johnson and Leo followed suit.

  Lastly, and only after Leo had clipped, “Bray,” did Braydon lower his gun as well.

  The change in the room could be felt physically. The relief on all sides was tangible.

  “Everybody out,” Mateo demanded, his men moving before the T had cleared his lips.

  Turning Mira in my arms, I hugged her to my chest. “I’m not fucking leaving.”

  “You stay. Leo too. The rest of you. Out. Now.”

  Johnson arched a questioning eyebrow at Leo, who nodded in response. And then he and Braydon disappeared down the hallway while the rest of the men filed out the door much the way they had entered.

  And, when the door had closed behind them, a blessed calm washed over the room. Or at least it washed over most of us. Mira was a different story.

  The second I put her back on her feet, she stormed toward Mateo, yelling, “You son of a bitch!”

  “Preciosa, we all thought you knew,” he purred, rising to his full height.

  “You thought I fucking knew?” she yelled, a sob catching in her throat. “Like I was some scum-of-the-earth criminal laundering drug money?”

  His face got hard, and I protectively dragged her back, her heels sliding against the wood floor until she hit my front.

  My chest ached for her. It really did. She loved that bar. Anyone could see it etched in her face when she talked about it. The night before, when she’d told me how Kurt had used it to keep her in his reach, had been bad enough. But this? She had every right to be livid.

  However, I really fucking wished she’d unleash that anger on someone who didn’t have a squad of men ready to wage war for someone so much as raising their voice at him.

  My body remained coiled tight as I watched him retrieve his drink off the end table.

  Lifting it to his lips, he paused before taking a sip to say, “This became clear when I heard you were starting a new Sip and Sud.”

  Fisting her hands at her sides, she hissed, “It’s not that kind of Sip and Sud.”

  “Perhaps not. But the men Kurt stole three point four million from believe otherwise.”

  My back shot straight and Mira went solid, but it was Leo who found his words first.

  “I’m sorry. I’m going to need you to repeat that.”

  Mateo’s lips thinned as he set his drink down again. “When Kurt went to jail, he had millions of dollars that had not yet been fully cleaned in his possession. This money has never been recovered. The government doesn’t know it exists, and despite our attempts on the inside, Kurt isn’t talking. Honestly, I’m surprised the man has lived this long. He left a lot of angry customers when he went down. People who could have easily turned their anger on Kurt’s family.” Mateo kept his eyes on Mira but spoke to Leo. “I’ve had Mira under my protection since her divorce. However, the moment word got out that she was opening a new Sip and Sud, those men were willing to risk my wrath at the shot of getting that money back.”

  “I don’t have it!” Mira cried. “I was trying to get a loan from the bank. I’ve got, like, twenty-five thousand dollars squirreled away. But that’s it.”

  My stomach rolled. The severity of the situation fell over me like a million rusty razor blades. “That’s why Noir was here?” I breathed, the acrid taste in the back of my mouth stifling my voice.

  “No,” he replied firmly. “Noir was here because he didn’t like the idea of someone treading on his territory. He took over Kurt’s accounts and has been running them for years. But with news hitting of Mira opening another Sip and Sud? To him, that was a challenge.” He swayed his head from side to side. “While I have every intention of making Noir pay for going against my orders, I can’t blame him for his reaction. There was no mistaking Mira’s play as anything but competition.”

  “It was a fucking bar!” Mira yelled. “T.G.I.Fridays is my competition. Not whatever the hell illegal operation Walter Noir is running.”

  Mateo grinned, cunning and sharp. “And, if you had been trying to open a T.G.I.Fridays, none of this would have been an issue. But you didn’t. You decided to open another Sip and Sud—a laundromat bar, which I will repeat with love”—he lifted his hand to cover his heart—“is a silly concept that could not possibly be a successful business endeavor.” He paused and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Unless, say, you were laundering money.”

  Mira stared at him for several beats, her chest heaving.

  And I stood there, holding her, helpless to do one damn thing to fix any of it for her. Suddenly, I was a twenty-something kid again, watching Kurt ruin her all over again.

  “Preciosa,” Mateo said softly, lifting his hand toward her face. His dark eyes flashed to mine for what I told myself was his way of asking for permission—though it came across as a warning.

  Unwilling to provoke him, I allowed it. Though I did readjust my hold on her, just in case.

  Cupping her jaw, he said, “I’ll take care of Noir. He is not an unreasonable man. But my reach is only so wide. These other men, the masses, they aren’t going to back down. Not all of them. Before now, my word was enough to keep them away from you. But the idiots like Steven Browel will always find you. Now…if you want to come with me back to Miami, I give you my word to personally keep you safe for the rest
of your life.”

  “The fuck you will,” I snapped. Muscles I didn’t know I possessed strained inside me, the sound of a time bomb ticking in my ears.

  Luckily, before I had the chance to detonate, he released her, linked his hands behind his back, and sauntered away. “But I do believe your affections for me would suffer when I am forced to bury your man here.”

  I jolted toward him. “You mother—”

  “Stop!” Mira demanded. “Jesus Christ. Fucking stop. Both of you. The testosterone in here is suffocating. I can’t even think.” Peering up over her shoulder, she demanded, “Let me go.”

  A vise clamped down on my chest. I prayed she was asking for me to release her physically, but the words were too familiar to a choice she’d made in the past to offer me any comfort.

  “Mira,” I rumbled.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake. He’s not going to hurt me. He just said he’s been protecting me for the last three years. So, unless you’re worried about Kurt owing Leo over there three point four million dollars, I think this might be the only fucking room in the entire continental United States where you can safely let me out of arm’s reach.” She drew in a deep breath and then continued her rant. “And I would highly suggest you take advantage of this moment, because if everything Mateo says is true—and let’s face it, it’s fucking Kurt, so of course it’s true—then after tonight, if you are still hell-bent on keeping me alive, you are going to have to have me surgically attached to your side. So here it is, your last moment of freedom. Don’t waste it.”

  And, with that, the vise in my chest disappeared. I couldn’t even fight it. A grin broke across my face. Relief was so thick in my veins that the tension of the entire day was momentarily forgotten. “Baby, if I’m getting you surgically attached to me, it’s not going to be at my side.”

  Pushing out of my arms, she snipped, “By all means. Feel free to get creative.” After marching straight to Mateo, she stopped a few inches away from him and said, “Not to sound ungrateful or anything, but seeing as to how I divorced one criminal not too long ago and his shit is still stuck to my shoes, I’m going to have to take a pass on your invitation to join your harem in Miami.”

  Mateo wasn’t immune to the ridiculous charm of a Mira York snit fit. He, too, grinned. “No harem, Mira. I haven’t had time in my life for one woman, much less twelve.”

  “Then you are missing a great opportunity. Because I know there are a lot of women who would seriously get off on the whole arrogant-bad-boy-with-a-good-heart thing you have going on. I, however, am not one of them.”

  When she gave him an attaboy punch to the shoulder, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to burst into laughter or tackle her to the floor before eight gun-wielding men had the chance to storm back into the room because she’d touched him.

  As he shook his head, his grin stretched. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “You do that.” She nodded curtly.

  And then all of our smiles fell as the snit fit faded and an unmistakable desperation filled her voice.

  “Now, what if I can get the money back? I’ll go visit Kurt, explain the situation to him. I’m sure he’ll tell me where it is.”

  “Baby,” I whispered, advancing on her from behind.

  She frantically swung her gaze to mine. “We can just give the money back to whoever Kurt owes it to. No harm no foul, right? He’ll tell me, Jeremy. I know he will.”

  A knife twisted in my gut. “Mira, Kurt got you into this mess. What makes you think he’s going to do you any favors to get you out of it?”

  She stared at me for several seconds, her face growing tighter with every blink. “Because he will.”

  I shook my head. “He won’t, baby.”

  “He will,” she chirped.

  “Sweetheart, he’s never done one selfless thing in his entire goddamn life. If he knows where this money is, he’s had three years to turn it over, knowing good and damn well that you could be at risk. Why would he do it now?”

  And then, right in front of my eyes, I watched Kurt Benton finally succeed at destroying her once and for all.

  “Because he has to!” she screamed, the sound slicing through the room, cutting us all. “Because he fucking has to!”

  With two strides, I closed the distance between us and turned her into my chest. No sooner than she was in my arms, her knees buckled and tears flooded her eyes.

  “That fucking man,” she cried. “Was it not enough that he stole almost twenty years of my life? Now, he’s going to get me killed and steal the rest of it?” Her hands fisted the front of my shirt, her body shaking as she screamed, “What the fuck did I ever do to deserve this shit? I wanted to open a bar! Something that I could call my own! And truly my own, not something he lorded over me. I…” She trailed off, breaking down all over again. “He stole it from me. He stole everything from me. Jesus Christ. I have nothing left.”

  “You have me,” I swore, smoothing the back of her hair.

  She writhed against me, the emotional pain becoming physical. “No, I don’t! He made sure of that too. Yes, I made the choice all those years ago, Jeremy. But it was always one big fucking game for Kurt. He laid the groundwork, making me dependent on him so I could never leave, and I fell for it. So goddamn dumb and desperate, I would have done anything to escape that life. But, somehow, I ended up running away with the devil himself. I’m so sick and tired of paying for that mistake. I made the wrong choice. I admit it. I take full responsibility for everything that happened after that. But he won’t let me go.”

  Fuck. She was slaying me. Never had I felt a pain that dense before. Her every word was twisting me, wringing me out, snapping my bones one at a time.

  And I could do nothing but hold her.

  I glanced up at Mateo and Leo, who were watching us both and looking equally as shattered.

  But we were all helpless.

  “I’ll do what I can on my end,” Mateo announced.

  “Me too,” Leo added.

  I dipped my head in gratitude to both of them. Holding her tighter than ever before, I whispered, “See, baby? You got people at your back.”

  She sucked in a shaky breath. “Which means it’s only a matter of time before he takes all of you from me too. I’ll never be free, Jeremy.”

  But she was wrong. Because, even if it took my entire life, I’d make her free. And, in the process of doing that, I would make her mine once and for all.

  For over an hour, Leo, Mateo, and Jeremy stood in a huddle, watching me warily out of the corner of their eyes, whispering God only knew what to each other as I sat on the couch and stared into space, lost in a worthless black hole of regret.

  Eventually, Mateo broke away, pausing only briefly to press a kiss to the top of my head—one I was positive Jeremy hated—before he left.

  Johnson and Braydon emerged within seconds and joined the huddle. The whispers never grew louder, the lingering stares never grew shorter, and the pity in all of their eyes was more prominent than ever.

  I had no idea what time it was when Jeremy guided me out the door of Guardian. Braydon, Johnson, and even Leo escorted us to the truck in the parking garage. I forced a smile and thanked them all. They returned those thanks with tight grins and chin jerks. Braydon threw in a gorgeous wink for good measure, but the pity still showed like a beacon of light in his baby blues.

  As we drove back to Jeremy’s house, I stared out the window and retreated into my head again. It was safer there. It was the only place Kurt had never been able to reach me.

  When we arrived, Jeremy came around the car and did the bodyguard bit, ushering me through the door of his house, locking it, and setting the alarm before releasing me.

  He started toward the stairs, but I stood frozen, so lost that I didn’t even know how to put one foot in front of the other.

  “Mira, come on. Let’s go to bed, baby.”

  Glancing around his empty living room, I dropped my Gucci on the floor at my feet. It really was a beau
tiful house. A place any woman would be lucky to call home. Granted it needed furniture, maybe a few pictures on the walls, but all of that was easy enough. Though earning a place in a home like that… Now, that was a different story.

  “What are we doing here?” I asked, defeat making my tone rough.

  He turned to look at me, confusion pinching his eyes. “We’re going to bed.”

  “Why?”

  “Uhhh… Because, after the day we’ve had, I’m in the mood to lock the doors, crawl into bed, and shut out the rest of the world for, oh, about eight to ten hours.”

  God, that did sound fabulous. But that wasn’t my life. Hell, I didn’t even know what my life was anymore. But I knew with an absolute certainty that it was not with Jeremy Lark.

  “I think it’s time you finally took me to that hotel,” I announced, my voice steady and filled with resolve.

  His eyes narrowed, the barest hint of Mr. Hyde peeking out. “A hotel?”

  Confused, I confirmed, the barest hint of my bitch peeking out too. “A hotel.”

  He stared at me, his mouth hanging open like I’d grown a second head. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  I’d just found out that my entire life was a lie. It was safe to assume jokes were off the table for the night—and possibly the next century.

  “Nope.” I sucked in a deep breath, refusing to acknowledge the agony in my chest, and stated as calmly as I could muster, “It’s been a few days. And you’ve been more than a gracious host, but I think, at this juncture, we should go our separate ways. You have a family to get back to. I…” I paused and beat the tears back. “Well, I have to figure out what the hell I’m going to do with the rest of my life and do it in a way that won’t get me kidnapped or killed. So I’m thinking maybe a convent. Perhaps I could talk to Caleb about me doing a stint in the Witness Protection Program. But, whichever way I end up going with that, you don’t have to worry, okay? I’m a big girl. I always bounce back.”