Vow of Atonement

by Emma Renshaw

  “None of your damn business,” he replies quickly, snarling. James grits his teeth, blowing out a frustrated breath. “I’ll tell you, but it stays between who needs to know. Don’t bring this shit to the rest of the group’s doorstep. They sure as fuck don’t need it.”

  “Fine.”

  “I’m gonna dig until I find some answers. It doesn’t look good for Harper. I don’t know how this landed on her lap, but we’re going to clear it for her before it goes too far.”

  “We?”

  “Yeah. You got me. Shut up and deal with it. I’m not walking away from this. Harper’s a good girl.”

  I shake my head. “Not one to deny help when they have knowledge of a suspect.”

  James curtly nods. “Rafael Bazán Cortez is the son of Santiago Cortez, former head of the Cortez Cartel, the largest cartel to have a foothold in Texas. Rafael took over his father’s place.”

  Fuck.

  15

  Harper

  “Come see us again soon,” I call out to the customer walking out of the store. It’s been a busy morning since Roman dropped me off. The customer flow has been steady all day. When one walks out, it’s not long before a new one walks in. I pop my head up when the door chimes, signaling the pattern continues.

  “Good morning,” I call out walking toward the door to greet the new customer. “Can I help you find—” My voice disappears as I watch Rafael tuck his sunglasses into his jacket pocket. Camille left to run a few errands and isn’t due back until later. An image of my cell phone sitting next to the register flashes in my mind. I tear my eyes away from Rafael, judging the distance between the register and me.

  “Chiquita.” Rafael’s seductive accent makes me turn back toward him.

  “Rafael.” His name comes out on a broken whisper. I try again, bolstering all the confidence I can muster. “Rafael, what are you doing here?”

  “I came to see you.” Each step he takes toward me, I move back a step. Rafael smirks. “I came to apologize for my behavior the other night. May we go into your office?”

  “No. I’m the only one here. I need to be out here.”

  “You are all alone? That is dangerous.” Rafael moves closer to me but I’m rooted in my spot. “A little, innocent lamb all alone is the perfect time for a wolf to attack. Have you not read the children’s tales?”

  “I’m only alone for a minute,” I lie. “My assistant will be right back. Roman is also meeting me here.”

  The anger he tries so hard to conceal flashes in his eyes and his hands ball into fists at his side. He takes the last step, closing the distance between us. Sweat coats my palms when he brushes my hair behind my shoulder and skims his fingers along the strap of my top. “What will it take for you to choose me over Roman?”

  “I’m not choosing either of you.”

  “Chiquita.” Rafael’s patronizing tone breaks me from his hypnotic gaze.

  “I don’t even know you,” I state, trying to take a step back, when the bell chimes on the door. “I have a customer, excuse me.” But Rafael’s hands on my shoulders hold me firmly in place.

  “Sugar?”

  I close my eyes and finally manage to step away from Rafael. This is not happening. I turn toward Roman, hoping to usher him into my office, but he’s already on top of me. Roman’s eyes are locked on Rafael over my head, and I turn to see Rafael with the same deadly stare. In this moment, they look so similar. I don’t know how I didn’t notice the similarities before this. Roman is taller and more muscular while Rafael is leaner but their deep, rich, tan skin tone is exactly the same shade. If Roman didn’t have the lightness playing with the darkness in his eyes, those would be the same, too.

  I don’t waste time with introductions, taking a step back toward Rafael. “You need to leave.”

  His eyes snap down to mine, and the anger and hatred brewing in them makes me catch my breath. If looks could kill. The roughness in the tone of his hissed whisper matches the anger in his eyes. “As owner of this building, I do not have to leave. I can, however, ban anyone I want from my properties.” His eyes dart back to Roman.

  “You may own this building, but this is my store. I will not allow you to dictate who can or can’t come in here. That would be overstepping your bounds, Rafael.”

  The anger that started to simmer in his eyes turns into fury before he reins it in to replace it with his mask. When he looks back to Roman, there’s nothing on his face. Rafael takes a step forward extending his hand to Roman.

  “We haven’t been properly introduced. I am Rafael Bazán.”

  Roman doesn’t accept his hand. “No introduction needed. I know exactly who you are. Stay the fuck away from Harper.”

  Rafael smirks, dropping his hand. “She has not asked me to stay away. I will come around whenever I want and for as long as she is here.”

  Roman growls, stepping forward into Rafael’s space. “If you come around her again, I’ll end you.”

  The chime sounds on the door. “Stop it. Both of you. Rafael, please go. Roman, you can go, too.”

  “As you wish, chiquita.” Rafael stops in front of me, brushing his knuckles along my cheek. “Think about what it will take to choose me. Let me know. Anything you wish, it is yours.”

  He swiftly walks away, exiting the shop before I can reply. There’s nothing he could give me so that I’d to choose him. My heart made my decision when I was fifteen years old, the first time I saw Roman. He was a year older than I was and immediately stole my heart. I’m not ready to be with Roman. I know he’s going to leave again after whatever it is he’s doing here, but he took my heart when I was fifteen—then smashed it underneath his army boot. I still haven’t pieced it back together.

  Roman comes up behind me, resting his hand on my hip.

  “Please go,” I whisper, stepping out of his hold. “I have a customer. I have to work.”

  “Not leaving, Sugar.” He turns toward the customer walking deeper into the store. “What can we help you with today?”

  You’ve got to be kidding. He did not just greet my customer. As she steps around another rack of clothes, she spots us. Her eyes widen when she takes in Roman before a slow smile splits her lips. “I need a new outfit for a date. Harper always picks the best outfits.”

  “That she does,” Roman agrees, as if he knows anything about clothes.

  “Since she’s not here, maybe you can help me?” Her tone is seductive and implies she wants him to help her with more than just clothes. Seriously? An attractive guy stands in front of her and all of a sudden I’m invisible.

  “I’m right here. Do you know where y’all are going tonight?”

  She’s still ogling Roman and biting her bottom lip when she responds. “Mexican restaurant that just opened with the rooftop patio.”

  Roman is looking over his shoulder, smiling at me. “Roman, why don’t you go wait for me in my office?”

  “He can stay,” the customer insists. She’s been in my store several times, but I can’t remember her name right now.

  “I’ll stay,” Roman says, looking at me. “I won’t be any help. Unless it’s Harper in the dress, I’m not the best judge. I want to see my girl work, though.” His girl. I ignore my stomach doing somersaults and my heart beating happily.

  I roll my eyes, not wanting to fight with him in front of the customer. He can do whatever he wants.

  “I think my ovaries just exploded,” the customer says. Roman’s grin deepens, still not looking away from me. My entire body starts sizzling under his stare. I shake my head, avoiding the ache between my legs, and get to work.

  After she leaves with a gorgeous new dress for her date, I start wiping down the counters, evading Roman. He hovered the entire time she was in the store.

  “That was fun,” Roman says, pulling a wipe from the box to wipe down the other side of the counter.

  I scoff.

  “Didn’t you have fun making a sale?”

  “You only had fun because she was flirti
ng with you the whole time. She has a date tonight. Why did she flirt with you?”

  “Jealous?” Roman whispers in my ear. The wipe he was using is forgotten on the counter as he leans over me, smirking.

  “Definitely not,” I say, walking around the counter, putting space between us. He follows me, not taking the hint, or bypassing it completely.

  “I didn’t flirt with her.”

  I groan. “I know.”

  “The only woman I want to watch try on sexy dresses is right here. Lingerie would be good. I’d fucking love to watch you try on some lingerie. Something in red.”

  A flush spreads up my neck to my cheeks when an image of me walking out of a dressing room in lingerie toward Roman flashes in my mind. When I snap myself out of the daydream, the same desperately hungry look is on his face.

  “Yeah, a red just like this,” Roman whispers, caressing my flaming cheeks with the back of his fingers.

  “Not going to happen, Roman.”

  He stares hard at me for a long moment before changing the subject. “Why was he here?”

  Crap. I was hoping he forgot about my visitor and we could just move on and forget it happened.

  Deciding I don’t want to spend the next hour going back and forth, I tell him everything. From the moment he walked into the shop up until Roman arrived.

  “You can’t trust him, Harper.”

  I look Roman in the eye. “I can’t trust you, either.”

  16

  Roman

  Punch to the fucking chest.

  “Bullshit,” I seethe. I take a menacing step toward her, crowding her space. “You can trust me more than anyone. I know you better than anyone.”

  She pushes against my chest, fury igniting in her eyes. “You haven’t seen me in ten years, Roman. You may have known me when I was a teenager and naively in love with you, but you don’t know me now.”

  “I will always fucking know you, Harper,” I growl through clenched teeth. Harper is as much a part of me as my blood, bones, and muscles. She fucking lives inside of me and I live for her.

  Harper shakes her head, denying everything I’m saying and feeling. “I can’t trust you.”

  I take a step back, pain radiating through me. Her words may have well have been bullets burning through my system. “How can you say that?”

  She slowly approaches me, and our eyes are locked on each other. When she reaches me, she cranes her neck to keep looking me in the eye. She’s so close, I can feel her soft breasts grazing my chest. She venomously whispers her words, but they’re as catastrophic as an atomic bomb. “You left me. On the worst day of my life, I went to you. Even though you had already fucking shattered me, I still went to you. Some whore wearing your t-shirt answered your door. I’ll never forget that. I’ll never forgive that. I’ll never trust you.”

  She spits out the last words as if she’s disgusted by the thought of trusting me. She walks away and leaves me there stunned, racking my mind for what she’s talking about. What girl? There’s no way she would have come to me, and there’s no chance in hell I would have had another woman wearing my shirt. I haven’t been celibate for the last decade, but it took a long fucking time before I was able to form any sort of life outside of Harper. She’s right about one thing though—I did leave. I left for her.

  Ten Years Ago

  “Roman, I can’t take this.”

  A piece of me hates myself even more each time I hear Harper’s soft cries through the phone. I’m clutching the phone so hard between my hands I wouldn’t be surprised if the piece of shit broke in half.

  I don’t ask her what she can’t take. I already know. She needs to leave me, she’s better off without me. Even being barely out of basic training, I know I can’t put her through this. Every time I see one of the wives looking broken and beaten down, I refuse to put Harper through that life. She’s better off without me. She’s always been too good for me. I’m a fucking trailer park kid, with a junkie for a mom and a sperm donor for a dad. My mom sold her body for drugs throughout my life, I’m sure she was doing it before I was born, probably doesn’t even know my father’s name.

  Harper’s the opposite of me. A goddamned princess or angel. Perfect family. Perfect house. Perfect face. Smart. Kind. Generous. Beautiful. This could never last. I’m a fucking fool to ever think it could actually be anything. She needs more than me, and now she’s killing herself applying to colleges in every state, so she can go wherever I get stationed. It can’t work like that. She’s destined for better than me. Stubborn. My smart, kind, generous, beautiful angel who smells like sugar is also stubborn as a fucking mule. She won’t listen to reason and go where she could actually get a good education for what she wants to do. I won’t allow her to put her life on hold for me.

  Silence is what I’ve been giving to her for weeks. Silence and broken promises. I promised to come home on leave after boot camp. I didn’t. She’s called, written letters, and sent care packages, which I’ve been ignoring. When she does get me on the phone, I treat her like trash and I want to beat my own ass each time I’m an asshole. I need her to realize she’s better than me, deserves more than me, and then fucking leave my sorry ass. Here I am sitting on an army base with the knowledge that I’ll probably be receiving orders for my first tour of duty soon. I’m going to be in a war in a country halfway around the world, and I’m too much of a pussy coward to leave her. She needs to leave me.

  I close my eyes, listening to quiet crying.

  “Roman?” she asks softly.

  “Yeah.”

  She sucks in a tiny breath, taken back by my cold response. Men and women are walking by me with guns strapped to them. I wonder if I could convince any of them to put a bullet into my good-for-nothing skull.

  “Why are you doing this?” Her voice is so quiet and defeated, I hate myself even more with each syllable.

  “Doing what?” I make myself sound bored and irritated.

  “Acting like you don’t care.”

  I don’t respond. I close my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose and wishing she would leave me. I’ll never be able to give her the life she deserves.

  After the heavy silence, she speaks again. “Do you care?”

  “About what?” I blow out a frustrated breath.

  She takes a moment to respond. I hear her inhaling, preparing for my answer before she even asks the question. “Do you care about me?”

  “Yes,” I answer automatically. I hate that I’ve done such a good job at being a bastard that she questions if I even care about her. I’m doing what I have to do, though.

  “You’re acting like you don’t want to be with me anymore.”

  More silence. I’m not speaking a word, but on the inside I’m roaring. She’s everything. When a choked sob breaks over the line, I want to forget about my plan and go to her on my knees begging for forgiveness and worship her in every way. Refusing to break, I remain silent.

  “You said you cared.”

  “I do,” I urge. We can’t be together, she needs more than whatever life I can give her, but she needs to know that if she needed me, I’d come running. “I do care. I would do anything for you, Harper. Anything. Even if we aren’t together.”

  She sucks in a sharp breath. “Even if…”

  Her words trail off before I finish them for her. “We aren’t together.”

  I pull the phone from my ear, making sure we’re still connected, the silence is so intense. I want to beg and plead and make her understand. If she knew the real reason. If she actually knew why, she’d never let me go. She’d follow me to the ends of the earth and wait for me, hoping and praying I don’t come home in a body bag with a folded flag as her only consolation. Army people move, we move a lot. Kids of people in the armed forces are called army brats for a reason. She’d never accomplish her dream if she followed me from base to base.

  “Don’t do this, Roman.”

  Again, I give her nothing but silence.

  “Please,” sh
e begs over a broken sob. “I love you so much. You’re everything to me. Please don’t leave me, Roman. Please.”

  “I already left,” I state.

  “I’ll come to you as soon as I graduate. We can be together. I know the distance is hard but don’t do this. Please, baby. Please. Don’t leave me.”

  Her sobs and pleas are cracking me in half. I grit my teeth, holding back the tears that are flooding my eyes. I can barely hear her whispered question over the line. I swallow, holding back my bile. This is it. When I answer, it will be done.

  “Do you love me?”

  Even though the words are so quiet, they are filled with determination. She thinks she knows what I will say and thinks that she can use it against me. I’ve never lied to her before. I’ve always told her the truth, every single time. I’m about to give her my first lie and I’m doing it for her.

  “Not anymore.”

  Her sniffling stops immediately as silence takes over the line. I’ve shocked her. I wait for her answer as I fight against my urge to tell her the truth and beg for forgiveness. Fuck. We can figure this out. She may be too good for me but I can fight her harder and make her go to the best college and not follow me. We can still be together. I’m a fucking idiot. I’ll find a way to give her everything. I’ll find a way to come home safe. She loves me. I love her. She’ll wait for me and I’ll still make her dreams come true. I open my mouth to plead for forgiveness and tell her truth but the line clicks. I look at the phone.

  Call ended.

  17

  Harper

  Ten Years Ago

  Roman and I haven’t spoken in weeks. I hung up and turned off my phone when he obliterated my heart into tiny, irreparable shards. I didn’t know words could cause so much damage to a person, to their heart, to their soul. I never questioned Roman’s loyalty or love. It’s something he gave me for free, he filled me and showered me with it every day. In moments of weakness over the past few weeks, I’ve called him. He never answered or called back.