by Edie Harris
Casey swallowed hard, and allowed his arm to rest over his midsection, defensive and protective at once. “I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?”
“That you mourned me.”
“I wasn’t the only one.” There was an edge to Pipe’s tone, but he didn’t elaborate, didn’t have to. Casey knew to whom he referred. “Tell me why we found your ID, your mobile, your gun on a body that apparently wasn’t yours.”
It was tough to confess weakness, even a fictional weakness. “I took a round in the stomach, thought I was gonna die.” He had the scars to prove it, though he’d received them in the years since escaping Medellín. But Pipe didn’t need to know that. “There were Orras soldiers everywhere.” Or rather, Faraday operatives dressed in the rival cartel’s colors. “Didn’t want to wait around to have my head blown in, and I knew your rules about capture.”
“Don’t get taken.”
“Don’t get taken,” Casey echoed gratefully. Despite the fact that suicide was a cardinal sin to a devout Catholic like Pipe, a brigadier putting a gun to his own head was preferable to the torture and beheading he’d suffer at the hands of the Orras cartel. “So I stripped my shirt and dumped my shit on a dead Orras soldier, took his and ran.”
Pipe seemed to consider this. “But you didn’t return to the hacienda. Why, if you knew you’d be safe there?”
Casey shook his head. “Never made it that far. I kept losing blood, and I passed out. When I woke up, I was in Orras territory—the shirt, you know? These farmers thought I was Orras and fixed me up, but it took a while. A few weeks, maybe. They were going to Barranquilla to see their grandson and... I took a ride. Then hopped my way to Maracaibo.”
“Going home, then.” Nodding, Pipe crossed his arms over his chest, expression thoughtful. “But you ran, Casímiro. You ran and stayed gone for four years. Did you spend it all nestled to the bosom of your family?”
Casey snorted derisively. “Fuck no. I mean, I stuck around through the holidays,” he rushed to assure Pipe when he caught his dark glance. Family was everything to Pipe, something he’d do well to remember. “My sister had a baby. My abuela got cancer.” He shrugged. “Needed to bring money in again, so I caught up with Josef Seijas. He had work for me.”
“Josef Seijas,” Pipe repeated, obviously recognizing the name of the son of a noted Venezuelan gun runner. “And if I call him, he will confirm this?”
Hell yes, Josef would confirm it, considering he was CIA and owed Casey a favor of the life-and-death variety. Shrugging casually, Casey nodded. “If you can get in touch with him. He’s in jail awaiting trial for knocking over a US military convoy in Nicaragua.” Not that this would prevent Pipe from contacting Josef. Besides, a call from Pipe Marin would liven up Josef’s current mandatory stay in La Modelo prison. “I was with him for that job. It’s why...” He trailed off and let his gaze fall from Pipe’s.
Pipe didn’t disappoint. Stepping closer, he crouched down until he and Casey were eye level, and his cultured voice, when it came, was gentle. “It’s why what, niño?”
Inside, Casey smiled. He was in. “It’s why I came back here. I have... I have cargo that I can’t take home.”
“What cargo?”
Slowly, Casey lifted both hands. “I need my phone. May I...?” At Pipe’s nod, Casey carefully reached into his pocket to retrieve the cell, and opened to the picture he needed. He handed the phone to Pipe. “Here.”
For a long moment, Pipe crouched there, staring at the phone and occasionally tapping the screen to zoom in. Then he stood, waving a hand at Manuel, and the angry fist at Casey’s collar disappeared. Taking that as permission, he shoved to his feet, wincing at bruise already forming along his ribs. He didn’t think the brigadier had broken them, but damn, the dude had certainly done his duty.
Abruptly, Pipe offered the phone back to Casey. “Those are legit?”
“Taken from the bed of a Marine command vehicle. There’s a reason they didn’t extradite Josef to America—the military doesn’t want it getting out that they lost control of this particular shipment.”
“And you have it.” Pipe’s tone wasn’t doubting, per se, but needing that final confirmation.
Hook and line, meet sinker. “In my hotel room. Hoping you want it.”
“Why me?”
Casey pocketed the phone, shifting his weight. “What am I gonna do with that shit, Pipe—start a war? Win a war? Not my game. I figure you’d know what to do with product this hot, and thought that...you know. Maybe I could...come back?” He accompanied this quiet plea with a cautious glance first at the brigadiers, then at Pipe. “I still need to send money home, and Josef isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. If you know of something I could do, for you? It doesn’t have to be big, or like it was before. But I’ve got family depending on me.”
Unbuttoning his suit coat, Pipe pushed it back, settling his hands on his hips and considering Casey with a hard gaze. “You remember how to get to the hacienda?” When Casey nodded, Pipe extended his hand, ostensibly to shake, but when Casey took it, Pipe’s grip turned cruel. “I have no use for a coward in my organization, Cortez, and make no mistake, a coward is what you are. You ran from your brothers-in-arms and your responsibilities, and you’ve lost my trust.”
“I understand,” Casey murmured, solemn and seemingly repentant.
“Bring your stolen property to the hacienda tomorrow morning at nine. If it checks out, maybe we can talk.”
Adrenaline tore through him. One step deeper into the cartel meant one step closer to Adam. “Yes, Pipe.”
Releasing his hand, Pipe buttoned his jacket again and adjusted his cuffs, every inch the moneyed gentleman. One of the brigadiers opened the door to the club, Ilda’s voice drifting out, and Pipe paused with a foot on the threshold. “Oh, and Casí?”
Casí. The name that only Ilda had ever called him, and there it was on Pipe’s tongue, brutal and mocking. Casey’s sore jaw tightened.
The drug lord shot him a cold smile. “Come back to this club, and I’ll kill you myself.”
Chapter Six
You’re a dirty little sinner.
Ilda cringed at the gleefully accusing voice in her head and took another bite of huevos pericos, letting the savory mix of egg, onion and tomato scooped atop a flat cornmeal arepa melt on her tongue. Maybe if she kept her mouth busy, she wouldn’t be tempted to confess just how dirty yesterday’s sinning had been.
Very dirty, that’s how. That big, muscled body working hard over hers, sweating and thrusting and stretching her so intimately. Big everywhere, was Casí—Casey—from his shoulders to his hands to his thick cock. Her sex clenched with the memory, the current emptiness an acute loss.
Mother Mary, she shouldn’t be wanting this right now, at the wooden trestle table in the family breakfast room of Pipe’s sprawling hacienda. Morning sunlight streamed through the wall of glass-paned doors, some of which stood ajar in their arched frames to encourage the gentle flow of crisp fresh air throughout the room.
She and Pipe occupied two chairs at the eight-seat table, the staff having prepared their usual scrumptious spread, more food than two hungry adults could ever possibly eat at a single meal. Another nibble of arepa kept her jaw from clamping shut. No outward tells, that was the rule. She couldn’t afford to let Pipe see evidence of her fraught psyche, and Lord knew if she didn’t inhale her typical morning meal, along with her mug of coffee, glass of milk and small tumbler of fresh-pressed juice, Pipe would grow suspicious.
Ilda adored breakfast.
At least, she adored it on a normal day, but nothing was normal anymore. Casí—Casey—was alive. Her husband. Her secret husband. What Pipe didn’t know could spell disaster for them all, and hurt people in the process. Arrogant and deadly, Pipe did not suffer betrayal lightly, and the consequences for said betrayers were painful and long-lasting.
Ilda had never shown him an ounce of her fear, and she didn’t intend to start now. “Don’t forget, we have an in
terview with the school tomorrow morning. Ten o’clock.” She sipped her coffee, gaze trained on the stunning view through the doors. Wooded hills surrounded the hacienda, a mass of vibrant green rolling beneath a perfect blue sky slowly surrendering to the myriad earth tones marking Medellín’s city limits.
“I won’t forget, querida.”
“You sound so grim.”
Pipe sighed audibly. “I suppose I’m not ready for my princess to be old enough for school.”
Shifting, she smiled at him over the rim of her mug, taking in his scowling face. “We agreed that we couldn’t put it off any longer.” Her smile widened as she turned her attention to the dark-haired three-year-old on his lap who was happily chomping away at a buñuelo, oblivious to the adult conversation going on around her. “Weren’t you the one who said she would benefit from socialization?” Her tone was light, teasing.
“I’ve changed my mind.”
Ilda gave a genuine laugh at the gruff petulance in his voice as she spooned yogurt from the serving bowl into a small dish and placed it in front of the pair of them. The little girl in his lap glanced up at her and beamed before taking hold of the dainty child’s spoon Pipe offered her.
As always when she looked at her daughter, Ilda’s heart expanded nearly to the point of bursting, aching pressure pushing against the inside of her rib cage in an effort to escape. There was nothing like it in the world, this love for her child. It was consuming and radiant and petrifying, all at the same time, and Ilda would not trade the heady sensation for anything. Beautiful little Arlo Beatrìz was worth every moment of pain, physical and emotional, that had brought her into this world.
Arlo’s straight brown-black hair, so different than Ilda’s light mass of curls, was pulled back in a topknot she’d already managed to muss, her blunt-cut bangs framing a round face and drawing attention to big, alert eyes that took in every detail of their surroundings...except when she was focused on food, as she was right now on her yogurt.
Arlo was her mother’s daughter after all. Perhaps love of breakfast was a genetic trait.
This morning, Arlo had insisted on wearing turquoise rain galoshes—though no rain was in today’s forecast—with a taffy-pink shirt under short orange overalls, baring the twin bandages with purple paw prints decorating her knees. The girl was a speed demon, dashing around the property like a whirligig, and more often than not taking a spill on the courtyard cobblestones. Unlike other children Ilda had observed, however, Arlo never bothered to remain prone on the ground, crying. No, she hopped back up and continued to run, even if she was bleeding. The most recent set of knee scrapes came courtesy of a chase with Pipe’s aging terrier mutt, Cerdito.
Cerdito had won that game, but gifted Arlo with the consolation prize of his drooling tongue all over her grinning face.
Despite the eyesore that was Arlo’s color palette for the day, Ilda couldn’t look away, nor could she keep from smiling. “Her classes will only be for half a day,” she murmured reassuringly to the man who kept one stabilizing hand on Arlo’s waist.
Dark eyes met hers, wry self-directed humor alive in the brown depths. “But that is half a day when she won’t be here with us. You know I’m no good at letting go.”
A pang of compassion plucked at Ilda’s heartstrings, for all that those strings were twisted in a complicated knot when it came to this man. “Better than you think, Felipe.” Reaching out, she covered Pipe’s hand, the one resting near the bowl of yogurt in case breakfast got a little wild, squeezing gently. “So you’ll be at the meeting?” she prompted again.
He turned his hand beneath hers and briefly linked their fingers. “I wouldn’t miss it,” he said soberly, then bounced Arlo lightly in his lap to make her look up at him.
When she did, he plucked the spoon from her small fist, used a napkin to wipe away a blob of yogurt at the corner of her mouth and proceeded to brush the crumbs of an earlier muffin from the front of her overalls. Giggles erupted when Pipe tickled her ribs before she wriggled into a standing position atop his legs and threw her short arms around his neck, peppering his clean-shaven face with kisses.
Ilda caught the bemused expression on Pipe’s face as he hugged Arlo in return, as though—even though it had been more than three years since Arlo had prematurely entered their world—he still couldn’t quite believe she was his to care for, his to protect, his to love.
Her lungs seized, and she drew her hands beneath the table, where no one would notice them shaking. Her skin burned where he’d touched her, an indictment of her behavior yesterday. Behavior that should, by any definition, constitute infidelity, the conflict roiling within threatening to rip her apart.
This was all Casey Faraday’s fault. He was the reason she’d lost her appetite, sat mired in unsettling guilt and too confused over the metric ton of unanticipated truth bombs that had been dropped over the past twenty-four hours. If she thought too hard, she could feel her identity and the careful life she’d built start to disappear. She feared that, should she glance down, she might witness her fingers fade away. It seemed logical to her, that her physical body would reflect her loss of self.
So Ilda clung to what she knew in the here and now, and the shaky foundation she’d laid brick by tenuous brick with Pipe since their shared tragedy, followed so soon by Arlo’s painful, joyful birth. “I’m finalizing the menu for the dinner party. Do you have any requests before I talk to the chef?” she asked, reaching for a pitcher of grapefruit juice and pouring herself a small glass.
“So long as there’s torta de natas for dessert, I’ll be happy.” He clucked his tongue at Arlo, steadying her with both hands as she devoted single-minded focus to his hair, stubby fingers attempting to twist and braid the once neatly combed strands.
Ilda watched the two of them together with a painful knot beneath her sternum. He sat there so casually, this man the world vilified, and let his niñita do whatever the hell she wanted, uncaring who noticed his obvious doting. No better father, she told herself, more assertively than usual. Her baby girl had won the lottery when it came to papas. “I’m nervous about this dinner, Felipe.” Ilda shifted her gaze to the pretty pink grapefruit juice in the cut-crystal tumbler, swirling the liquid with restless fingers.
“Nothing to be nervous about, querida.” Pipe reached for the mobile phone next to his coffee mug, tapping at the screen, scrolling with his thumb, his mind clearly already on his workday. “I’m going to bring peace to Medellín. This dinner is the first step.”
It might be the first step, but it was a dangerous one. Pipe had invited the leaders of the Orras cartel to the hacienda a few days from now for what could only be described as détente. Magnanimous of him, which was obviously the point, but Ilda wasn’t so forgiving. The rival cartel was responsible for Théa’s death—they’d killed in cold blood, on the side of the road.
The thought of Ciro Orras and his merry band of thugs sitting around her supper table, eating the dishes she’d planned, thanking her for passing the butter dish...it made her sick. It made her tremble in her seat, her skin prickling in nauseating waves, because there was every chance in the world that she would have to smile politely at the bastard who pulled the trigger on Théa.
But Pipe had demanded this dinner, and Ilda’s presence as its hostess, and Pipe’s word was law. Not only at the hacienda, but in this city.
He glanced up from his phone to spear her with a searching look. Whatever he saw on her face softened his expression, and he set the mobile aside. “Trust me, Ilda. I know what’s best for us. This is how we finally move past our grief.”
For a moment, her heart softened. Pipe had suffered as deep a loss as Ilda with Théa’s murder four years ago. Their engagement had been Colombia’s fairy-tale romance, for all that the prince of the story was a dangerous drug lord. The country had watched their courtship unfold through paparazzi photos and media interviews, and their wedding would have been a gilded, lavish dream. Little wonder that Théa’s shocking death threw all
of Medellín into mourning, their beloved pop princess meeting a tragic, senseless end.
Medellín had forgotten about Ilda in the aftermath, focusing instead on Pipe and his grief, and for that she would always be grateful. She’d always been the harmony to Théa’s melody, the steady support to Théa’s wild ways. Of course it was Théa who’d fallen in love with the most dangerous man in the world, and of course it was Théa who had been his most vocal proponent, citing all of the good Pipe had done not only for their city but their country, as well. He had been her hero, and he’d adored her for it.
Ilda didn’t adore Pipe. She saw him for exactly what he was, had always done even when Théa was alive. But somehow, despite her lack of blinders, she had let her guard down with him. So much so that...well. The glittering platinum-set engagement ring on her third finger said it all, didn’t it?
“I do trust you.” Scooting her chair away from the table, she held out her arms. “All right, hand over our hair-dressing princess. I see you sneaking glances at your phone—I’m sure you’ve got plenty of work to do.”
“You have no idea,” he said mildly as he stood, moving around the table to deposit a wriggling Arlo in Ilda’s lap. “But all that work is what makes this possible.” Cupping her face in his capable hands, Pipe bent and pressed his lips to hers in a quick, affectionate kiss that ratcheted up the anxiety stuttering her lungs. His thumbs brushed over her cheekbones, his face hovering close above her. “When are you going to let me back in your bed, querida?”
She released a tense breath she wasn’t aware she’d been holding. “Felipe...”
Crouching down in front of her, Pipe settled a hand on her knee, the other on Arlo’s. “Six months. It’s been six months since we made love, and I’ve respected your wishes on this. I know I made a mistake.”
