by Cora Kenborn
I glanced around and having no idea where anything was in this place, I swiped my shorts off the floor and handed him the tiny red lipstick I kept in the pocket.
He raised an eyebrow, and I shrugged. A ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and he quickly cleared his throat, taking it from my hands and grabbing a discarded fast food napkin from the floor. “Okay, go ahead.”
I stared as he listened intently to whoever was on the other line. After scribbling a series of letters and numbers, Mateo hung up without saying goodbye, Ruby Red #3 bleeding into the stark white napkin.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
He tossed his phone and the napkin onto the bed and rolled his neck. “I’m going to have to take a raincheck on round five.”
“Yeah, sure. I understand.” I lowered my lashes and curled into myself, wishing I could disappear.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“That,” he said, pointing to the white knuckled grip I had on the sheet. “Don’t shut down on me just because I have to do my job.”
“Your job?” I snorted. “Is that what you’re calling it now?”
“I’m going to chalk your tone up to the stress you’ve been under and let it go.” Mateo reached for my neck and pulled me against him, kissing me long and hard. By the time he pulled away, I was ready to beg him to stay. “I’m going to take a shower.”
“You’re leaving?”
“I shouldn’t be long.” Giving me one last kiss, he slid off the bed and walked naked toward the bathroom, his hard cock bobbing under its own weight.
I sat there long after I heard the water turn on. I should’ve probably used the opportunity to get dressed in privacy, but it required too much effort, and I preferred to pull the covers over my head and hide from my own foolish hope.
I didn’t know why I thought we’d spend the day together. I wasn’t on the schedule at Caliente until three o’clock, and it wasn’t like he had regular office hours. We also weren’t a couple. Just because he gave me his body, it didn’t mean he owed me anything else.
Less than twenty minutes later, after quickly dressing and mumbling another hollow apology, Mateo left. Dragging myself out of bed, I threw on the uniform I loathed and stopped suddenly, listening to a sound I hadn’t heard since driving to Luis’s.
Silence.
I was alone.
Alone in the place Mateo was staying in. With all of his things.
Alex’s warning from yesterday wailed in my head like a siren.
“Next time, I want something on Cortes.”
If I didn’t give it to him, he’d go to drastic measures to get it. My reasoning was skewed, but I rationalized if I controlled the information, I controlled the damage. The more I thought about it, the more I convinced myself I wasn’t betraying the man I was sleeping with. I was helping him.
I went for the obvious culprit first—his duffel bag. Mateo was a light packer, which made sense. When all you wore was a stalker’s uniform, there was no need for heavy packing. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, I unzipped it, tearing through it with renewed vigor. Of course, I found nothing. I honestly had no idea what I thought would be in there. A smoking gun? A shipment of drugs?
This was the stupidest idea I’d ever had.
Annoyed, I pushed my heel out and kicked the bag across the room. That was when I saw it. The bag had been sitting on top of a crumpled pair of jeans. I recognized them as the black pair he’d worn the night he brought me here, but that wasn’t what caught my eye. It was the picture sticking out of the back pocket. Leaning forward, I pulled it out and held it close.
I knew it in an instant. The white dress. The building in the background.
The image before me blurred as tears and memories drowned me, dragging me back in time. The smiling face staring back at me looked familiar yet so foreign. Maybe because she was a version of me that no longer existed.
Crushing the picture against my chest, I openly wept for the innocent girl in the picture. I wept for the plans she made that would never happen. But mostly, I wept for the memory I thought I was the only one who remembered.
April – Four Years Ago
The first thing I noticed as I stumbled up the hill was the slow, steady beat of music. I froze, and Matty’s fingers fumbled with the blindfold. Once it dropped, I clenched my fists, digging my nails into my palms.
“Why did you bring me here?”
His soft chuckle fluttered against my ear. “It’s your senior prom, Star. You shouldn’t miss it.”
My heart pounded. No one could see me here with him. It was too risky.
“I told you, I don’t care. I hate this place and the people in it.”
“That may be true, but you don’t have to go inside to attend it. Besides, do you think I’d let you go with anyone else? When I said you were mine, I meant it.”
“What are you talking—” I spun around to face him, squinting as a bright flash blinded me. “Did you just take my picture?”
“I’m preserving the moment.”
I prepared to launch into a lengthy protest, but my words lodged in my throat at the sight of him. Gone was his usual T-shirt, jeans, and leather jacket, and in place stood a man I didn’t recognize. Tailored black pants covered his long, muscular legs and met a somewhat wrinkled white button up shirt in the middle. A loose-fitting jacket covered it all, cinched with a black and gray striped tie.
“Why are you doing this?”
He didn’t answer me, stepping forward with a secret smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Dance with me,” he said, offering his hand.
“What? Why?”
“Because I like this song, and we may never get to dance like this again.”
“Matty, what are you talking about? I’m only eighteen. Are you saying that—”
He rolled his eyes and grabbed my waist, pulling me into him. “Anyone ever tell you that you talk too much? I said I like this song. Don’t ruin it for me.”
So we danced outside of my high school—him in a second-hand suit, and me in a simple white sundress. We danced with his hands holding me tightly, and my head nestled in the crook of his neck.
The night was perfect. He was perfect.
He’d done all the right things and said all the right words. Even though some of them would prove to be truer than he realized.
We never did dance like that again.
Present Day
I glanced down at the tear-stained photo crumpled in my hand. If I closed my eyes and listened, I could still hear the song in my head—the melody like a knife slowly cutting my heart out piece by piece. Back then, we were just a couple of reckless kids who thought love was enough.
Love was never enough. Not in my world and definitely not in his.
I have to get out of here.
Tucking the picture back into his pants pocket, I stood up and scanned the room for my car keys. However, I could look all I wanted, and it wouldn’t make a difference. I’d never find them.
Because my keys were at Caliente. Along with my car.
“Shit!” Falling backward onto the bed, I let out a groan. Mateo drove me home last night, and now I was trapped in this cartel owned whorehouse like a kept woman—just waiting for him to come back and offer me a rescheduled fuck.
As much as I didn’t want to, I was going to have to call for reinforcements. Rolling over, I pushed onto my elbows and reached toward the nightstand for my...
“Fuck!”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Muffling my screams against the comforter, I pounded my fists against the mattress until I eventually collapsed.
This was why alcohol was bad for you. Nine shots of vodka and a snap decision may have very well tipped the first domino in my destruction.
My phone wasn’t here because it was in the pocket of Swenson’s trench coat, which currently lay crumpled in the floorboard of Mateo’s Tahoe.
Nineteen
Mateo
Fucking red lipstick.
Committing the address my informant had given to me to memory, I balled up the napkin and flung it across the Tahoe. All I needed was a pen and she gave me lipstick. How the hell was I supposed to concentrate on torturing information out of some asshole when all I could think about was her perfect red lips wrapped around my dick?
The image conjured a thought that had consumed me for over twelve hours now. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat as I replayed the overwhelming memory of feeling her again in that parking lot. She’d screamed, and the minute her muscles clenched around my throbbing cock, I knew she was still mine. Luis may have tainted her, but he hadn’t changed her. They didn’t have what we had. If they had, it wouldn’t have felt like coming home.
Grabbing my phone from the passenger’s seat, I cursed and dialed. Thinking of Leighton had already put me on edge, so I was amped up to an eleven by the time he answered.
“You on your way?”
“What do you think?”
“Someone’s grumpy today.”
“Fuck you.” Making the left onto Turner Street, a row of two-story plain brick buildings sat in front of me. Hector Diaz’s neighborhood reminded me of the shithole Luis lived in back in San Marcos.
Fuck, how bad did these idiotas suck at selling?
My informant found out the identity of one of the numbers on Luis’s phone. Hector Diaz. I made some calls and discovered Diaz was a low-level Carrera seller, trying to work his way up the ranks. Since he’d been with us for six years and he was still working the streets, the chances of that happening were about the same as Luis rising from the dead.
“Well, enjoy your time with Diaz,” he huffed. “I’m still working on the other number. Either it’s not one of ours or no one’s talking.”
“You have twelve hours.”
“You’re welcome, asshole,” he growled right before hanging up.
After parking the car, I walked toward the back of the cluster of buildings, the scene not getting much better. Air units were tucked into most of the open windows, and laundry was strung along wires tied between poles. An old man sat on the stoop of building 3, blocking the stairs, and of course, Diaz lived in 3C.
This fucking day.
“Estoy aquí para ver a Héctor. Soy un viejo amigo.” I’m here to see Hector. I’m an old friend.
The old man scraped his chair a few inches to the left and laughed. “Good luck,” he answered in our native language. “No one has seen that asshole in three days.”
His words stopped me on the first step. “Three days?”
He nodded. “Can’t say I’m sorry. I live right under him in 3A. People are always comin’ and goin’ at all hours of the night. It’s been nice to get some sleep for a change. I don’t care if he ever comes back.”
Shit.
I started up the steps then turned around and slipped a hundred-dollar bill in his hand. He may have been old, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew how things worked, and if Hector had lived here for any substantial amount of time, he’d seen things. Money went a long way toward making even the sharpest of memories hazy when it came to recalling faces during police questioning.
Hector’s door was locked—no surprise there. I had a feeling I could get away with shooting the lock off the door and no one would bat an eye in a neighborhood like this, but I didn’t chance it. Besides, a lock didn’t exist I couldn’t pick. My knife popped it in seconds.
Trading my knife for my gun, I used the door as a shield and entered. Once inside, if I had any question as to Hector’s whereabouts, I quickly found the answer when the stench hit my nose. I didn’t care how many times I’d smelled it—I never got used to the first pungent hit of death.
The place was ransacked, and Diaz was fucked up. He lay face down on the floor of his kitchen, the back of his head looking like a bowl of red Jell-O. I knelt beside him to check out the damage. Whoever got here first did a number on him. The man’s skull was bashed in so far, I wasn’t sure if he ever had a face. On closer inspection, the side of what used to be his forehead seemed to have the imprint of the number six on it.
Golf club.
It couldn’t have been a quick and painless death. He’d obviously suffered.
I stood up to check out the rest of the apartment. Everything had been torn apart, ripped down, and dumped out. Someone was definitely looking for something, but the question was what and why. Covering my hands with my jacket, I sifted through his shit.
Nothing.
The scene didn’t sit well with me. Someone wanted something bad enough to kill for it. This wasn’t just about shutting Hector up. I glanced down at the pile of mangled flesh again, trying to understand the thoughts of a dead man.
If I wanted to hide something, what would I do?
Hide it in plain sight.
My gaze immediately drew toward the television. It was a piece of shit—one of those old box types with a remote control sitting on top. That was what made it seem so unassuming. So safe. So easily overlooked.
In two steps I had the remote in my hands, ripping the back off the battery holder. Diaz didn’t watch much TV in his last few hours because there wasn’t one battery to be found. Instead, I turned the remote upside down, and a black USB flash drive fell into my hand.
I’d spent enough time inside and couldn’t afford to waste anymore. Pocketing the flash drive, I left Diaz’s place, making sure to fix the lock on my way out.
Once in the car, I drove to a gas station and pulled Luis’s laptop from the backseat. In seconds I had the flash inserted. However, instead of answers popping up, a file full of random letters and numbers filled the screen.
“Goddamn it!” I yelled, slamming my palm against the steering wheel.
Encrypted.
I knew Val would be waiting on a report, so with a frustrated sigh, I pulled out my phone and made the call. It only took half a ring for him to pick up.
“What do you have for me?” His tone left no room for pleasantries.
“Diaz is dead, and his place was ransacked.”
I could hear him pacing. “Find out as much as you can. Call in a clean-up crew to get that asshole out and down a drain somewhere.”
“There’s more,” I said, a sharper edge to my voice. “This wasn’t a cartel hit. It was too sloppy. Fucker’s head was bashed in. That’s not our style. Plus, a sicario wouldn’t have left the body to be found.”
Val’s silence spoke more than if he’d said anything. He knew I was right.
“Whoever did this wanted something Diaz went to a lot of trouble to hide.”
“But you found it,” he said, knowing me well.
“Yeah, a flash drive. It’s encrypted though. I’m going to take it to one of the suits on our payroll this afternoon.”
“Muy bien.” Be discreet.
Pocketing the flash drive, the suit in question reached for the passenger’s side door handle. “I’ll take care of it as fast as I can.”
Relaxing in my seat, I pressed the door lock button. “You’ll take care of it today,” I corrected. “I need that decrypted by tonight.”
He flinched, sweat beading across his forehead. “Things like this take time.”
“How are the wife and kids, Professor Bright? Does your wife still enjoy driving that Infinity we paid for?”
“I earned that money,” he bit out.
“And you’ll live long enough to earn more, provided you deliver what I need tonight.”
I made no move to restrain him. Although I locked the door, I didn’t engage the child lock. He could easily unlock it from his side. The whole thing was a display of dominance. A warning in case he forgot who he was dealing with.
“I’ll call you later,” he finally mumbled.
I smiled, unlocking the door for him. “You do that.”
He jumped out and sprinted toward Rice University, his shoulders hunched and his head down. He was pissed, but he’d do exactly as I asked.
Noth
ing motivated a man more than a well-timed threat against his family.
I pressed my foot on the break and reached for the gear shift to back out of the alley when my phone rang. I picked it up, hoping my informant had the identity of the other number for me, but my screen was dark.
What the hell?
The ringing continued, and I followed the sound to the passenger’s side where that fucking trench coat Leighton had on last night lay on the floorboard. Just the memory of her wearing that asshole’s coat put me in a worse mood than I was already in, so when the next thought crossed my mind, I saw red.
If she gave that motherfucker her number, I’m going to put a bullet in his head.
Grabbing it off the floor, I tore through the pockets, answering the call with rage. “What the hell do you want?”
“For starters, I’d like to know why you’re answering my sister’s phone?”
Shit. Brody.
“Hey, man.”
“Don’t you fucking, ‘hey, man’ me,” he warned. “This makes twice she hasn’t come home, Cortes. I want to know what’s going on.”
I didn’t have time for this. True, out of respect, Brody deserved an explanation. However, it was a conversation that’d have to wait. There was no way I’d make it back by three o’clock.
“I need you go to the townhouse and pick up Leighton. She has to be at the cantina at three, and I’m not going to make it back to take her.”
“Why? She has a car.”
Here’s where Brody loses his shit.
“It’s still at Caliente. I picked her up last night.”
Literally.
“Why the hell would you pick my sister up from work when she has a drivable car that could’ve gotten her home just—”
“Brody...”
“Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no. Tell me you didn’t...that she didn’t...that you two didn’t—”
