I’ve been thinking about being twenty and drunk and the loneliest girl in the world, sitting on the edge of the pool after everyone else has passed out. Even a bottle of tequila can’t make me feel whole, make me feel like it’s not my fault my brother is dead, make me feel like I’ll ever be more than a husk trying to pass as human. It’s exhausting, being me, and so I slip into the water and let my infinite weight sink. I sit at the bottom of the swimming pool and trace teal tiles with fingertips I can barely feel, letting my lungs leak my life away and wonder why it’s taking so long. Unconsciousness starts bleeding through my skull like black ink, like the sweetness of sleep after a long day, but then legs are kicking, arms flailing, and I’m bursting back through the surface, my treacherous mouth gasping in oxygen I never asked for.
I’ve been thinking about Javier, yea high and chubby cheeked and stained in his parents’ blood. A boy who has never felt safe in his own home, in his own skin. I don’t know how old he was the first time he pulled the trigger, the first time he had to decide between his own survival or a stranger’s. I wonder if, in the moment, his body decided it knew better than his brain. I wonder if he had any more choice than the warthog, or me. Sometimes, even when its time to accept fate, the body refuses. There’s something hardwired into us that doesn’t know how to go down without a fight.
When I open the suite’s door and find that the person knocking is not who they’re supposed to be, the same instinct overrides the haze of apathy and lifelessness that’s hung over me for days, and makes every cell in my body burst back to life.
Instead of my latest babysitter, a bodyguard with a boyish face and slight accent, I find Detective Andrews staring back at me, his lips twisted up into a humorless smile. My heartrate triples, and I steal a glance behind him, where I see the room service cart he must have used as a facade to get onto this floor, and Paolo’s prone body splayed on the ground just beside him. Oh god, is he dead? I don’t let the panic register on my face, though, moving my eyes back to meet Andrews’s. The questions of how he found me or what he wants are inconsequential. All that matters now is survival. Even if I were at full physical capacity, I doubt I’d be capable of taking down this hulking man, the man that has already knocked out a trained security professional with silent precision.
“Well, are you going to invite me in?” Andrews asks, breaking the silence. “Thought they taught better manners than this at finishing school.”
“I never went to finishing school,” I say, but I step aside and let the intruder in without a fight. He strides in casually, hands in his pockets, eying the hotel suite apathetically.
The haze that had wrapped itself around me for days has vanished in an instant. Adrenaline has every cell in my body buzzing, my sluggish brain grasping at dusty instincts. Take stock of the situation. Find out exactly what you’re dealing with. No obvious weapons, I note, sweeping my eyes up and down Andrews’s body while I close the door behind us. He looks at ease, completely unconcerned, reveling in his power. He doesn’t perceive me as a threat. It’s a familiar energy. It’s the way men have acted toward me all my life.
“I know,” he says, turning on his heel to face me. I fight the urge to cross my arms across my chest, a comforting body language cue that would instantly reveal my nerves. Controlling my body language is a lesson Miel drilled into me, and I get the feeling that a law enforcement professional like Andrews probably reads even more into those cues than most. “You barely graduated high school, only applied to one college. Emory. You were denied admission, despite a generous donation from the Palacios estate. No wonder you didn’t take over the family business after your brother died.”
I force myself not to react. I know this game well. Waging war with polite, casual words. He’s trying to make me feel small, stupid, inferior. Again, it’s a very familiar feeling, a tactic I had mastered even before meeting Miel. Usually, though, I have ammunition of my own to hit back with. I don’t know anything about this man. I can’t even beat him at my own game.
“What can I say?” I reply jovially, offering a tight smile. “Throwing parties is a lot more fun than sitting at a desk all day.”
“That’s right,” Andrews says, snapping his fingers as if he only just remembered, when I’ve clearly walked into a trap, given him the perfect segue for whatever point he came here to make. “All those galas to raise money against gang violence. Were they always a facade, Mrs. Vega? Or has that been a recent transition?”
“Still Palacios, actually,” I correct him passively, lifting my chin. “What are you trying to say, Detective?”
“I’m saying that this act doesn’t fool me, Palacios.” He says my name like it’s a joke, taking a step closer to me, forcing me to crane my neck further to keep eye contact. I resist the urge to step backward in response. Don’t let him see you sweat. “I know what you and your husband are up to, and I know he’s not here for you to hide behind right now. Neither is your army of private security and dirty cops. It’s just you and me, Selina, and you’re going to tell me the truth.”
He pulls a hand out of his pocket, and for a moment I tense, expecting a weapon, but all that he retrieves is a small black device. He holds it up to me demonstratively, and I see a flashing red light. An audio recorder. He sets it down on the coffee table beside us, the plastic looking out of place amongst the expensive, functionless decor.
Of course. He came here for a confession.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, a phrase that is rarely true regardless of whose mouth it comes out of. “Javier and I, we’re just running Café Palacios, and—”
“Don’t lie to me,” Andrews growls, something in his eyes flashing dark enough to finally make me shrink and take a small step backward. Despite his cool demeanor and casual demands, there’s something a little wild about this man. Something freshly released, something not used to being uncontrolled. Whatever his vendetta is with Javier and me, it’s not just a job to him. Not anymore. “You can’t bat those eyelashes at me and play innocent, Selina. All anyone sees when they look at you is money. But I, I see straight through you like glass. Maybe you were just a society princess before, but you’re not anymore. Not since you met Javier Vega. You’re complicit in your husband’s crimes. Whatever he’s up to, you’re part of it. A big part of it. You wear the guilt all over you like it’s made of gold. It’s baffling to me that no one else sees it.”
I perk up, pushing my shoulders back a little, trying not to let the spark show in my eye. Miel told me that in every impossible situation, you always have at least one advantage over your enemy, even if it’s a small one. I just found mine.
“But you don’t underestimate me, do you?” I ask coyly, meeting Andrews’s eyes again. “Not like them.”
“Not at all,” he sneers, taking another step closer to me. “I know exactly what you’re capa—”
In one quick movement, I reach down and grab the heavy, decorative geode off the coffee table beside us and swing it upwards with all my strength. Andrews’s eyes are only just beginning to widen in surprise when the sculpture connects with the side of his skull. The cracking sound is louder than I expected it to be, the impact sending aftershocks shooting up my arm. The geode slips out of my shaking fingers and onto the ground, splitting with a second unexpected crack, followed by the thud of the detective’s unconscious body.
My phone rings—Paolo, one of the private security guards. The one on duty at Selina’s hotel suite today. I’m already on the move as I accept the call, grabbing the keys to the Hummer and motioning for Brock to join me.
“Javi…”
It’s Selina’s voice, thin and wavering.
“Are you okay?” My voice comes out violent in its intensity. I toss the keys to Brock and hop into the passenger seat. He doesn’t wait to be told what to do, just jerks the SUV onto the road and heads in the direction of the hotel at a sufficiently illegal speed.
“Yeah, yes, I’m fine,” Selina stammers quickly, bu
t my heartrate refuses to slow. “I, um, he…”
She trails off, and in my head I can see her perfect lips pursed in confusion, her dark brows furrowed, the hand that’s not holding the phone gesturing as if speaking a language of its own. God, I miss my wife. It’s only been a matter of days since I’ve seen her, but that’s more than enough to give me time to fully feel her absence. I need to hold her in my arms, to feel her pulse beat against mine and know that she’s okay. I need it with a vehemency I’ve never felt before, a pulsating fear so strong as to be suffocating.
“What happened, Selina?” I manage to say, and I can hear the strain in my own voice, the thin tenor stretched over the tight clip of panic. “Where’s Paolo?”
“Um, he’s okay, I think,” she says, and I can hear her breathing faster, the soft brush of her hair against the mouthpiece as she moves. “Yeah, he’s still breathing, just knocked out.”
If I grip the phone any tighter, I’ll snap it in half. “Why— Who knocked him out?”
“Detective Andrews.”
Fucking hell. At least it wasn’t one of El Sombrerón’s men, but this is hardly much better.
I resist the urge to punch the dashboard, and instead release the nervous energy about to explode inside of me with a series of gestures to Brock, demanding he do the impossible and drive faster.
“Where is the detective now, princesa?”
I see Brock’s knuckles whiten as his hold on the steering wheel tightens, and sure enough, the needle on the speedometer manages to bump up a few notches.
“He’s, um, also knocked out.”
A vision plays out in my head of an old timey duel, with Paolo and Andrews somehow rendering each other unconscious at the same time. But this is real life, not a cartoon, so there must be a third party involved. My pulse begins to drum loudly again.
“And who knocked him out?”
“Oh,” my princess still sounds a little shell shocked, each word coming out of her as if her mouth is making these sounds for the first time. “I did.”
For a moment, my mind goes completely blank, rendered not only speechless, but thoughtless. Selina Palacios just admitted to knocking out a trained professional twice her size with the same casualness she might use when telling me that dinner is ready, or that my tie is crooked. Everything comes slamming back into my body at once, and I’m surprised to realize that the vibrations thrumming through my veins are no longer pure panic, but are tinged with a hint of… arousal?
For the rest of the drive, which Brock miraculously manages to cut in half without killing us both, I get Selina to explain exactly what happened, restrain the unconscious detective’s body, and wake Paolo. By the time we arrive at the hotel, with me taking the stairs nearly three at a time, leaving even the taller Brock struggling to keep up, my wife seems to be almost herself again.
Still, I can’t keep my hands off of her, needing to confirm for myself that her body is safely in one piece. God, if only I could do the same for her mind and soul, run my fingers over every curve and valley of her psyche until I memorized its layout. In the absence of that possibility, though, the way she sags passively into me tells me everything I need to know about her state of mind.
By the time I’ve calmed enough to acknowledge anything aside from my wife, Brock has shipped the woozy Paolo off, probably for the amateur’s own safety, and fully secured the detective, who is slowly coming to.
“Detective Andrews, we finally meet,” I growl, reluctantly peeling myself away from my wife to stand before the captive. “Or, should I say, former detective. I hear you’ve been asking questions about me and my business.”
“I think I just got all the answers I need,” the man says in a raspy voice, glaring at Selina behind me. It’s all I can do not to force his eyes off of her with a sturdy punch to the jaw.
“How did you find us here?” I ask, careful not to give away the fact that only Selina has been staying here, a meaningless detail that means everything to me.
“Your wife has more enemies in this town than you may realize,” Andrews says, this time looking directly at me, the smug twist in his lips making my pulse skyrocket.
Fuck this guy. My fingers flex, eager to form tight fists, but I’m too close to this. Just the idea of Selina being endangered strains the limits of my self control. No, cracking Andrews is a job for someone else, someone perhaps even more ruthless than me.
I turn away and give Brock his orders, in a voice not quite hushed enough to not be overheard. “Take him back to the estate, put him in the basement. Miel will know what to do.”
Then I take the blinking audio recorder from the coffee table, toss it on the floor, and crush it with my boot, using as much force as I wish I could be using on the man himself.
As Brock pulls Andrews to his feet unceremoniously, I feel Selina come up behind me. Her thin, cold fingers tangle with my calloused ones, her soft cheek leans against my arm. I can see from the way the former detective sets his jaw that she’s doing this for his benefit, more intent on flaunting a united front than on showing true affection for her husband. It doesn’t matter to me, though. I tighten my hand around hers, clinging to every moment she’ll give me.
As soon as the door to the suite closes behind Brock and the captive detective, I extricate myself from my husband’s embrace. Touching him feels like picking at a scab; I know I shouldn’t do it, and I don’t want to do it, but I can’t help myself. I haven’t seen Javier since the day I discovered his secret, and though that was less than a week ago, the absence between us stretched out like years. My hands itch to touch him, my skin begs to be pressed against his. My body doesn’t care about his betrayal. It only craves the comfort and security it once felt in his arms, a safety that my brain might never feel again.
This is the man who has hurt me more than anyone else in the world.
So why do I feel myself tilting toward him still, like a magnet involuntarily drawn in toward an iron core?
I force myself to step away, out of Javier’s powerful orbit. There are only so many places to go in the suite, and I’m certainly not leading him into the bedroom, so I cross the short distance to the kitchenette, pouring myself a glass of cold water. I don’t offer my husband any, instead pausing to steady myself on the counter, keeping my back to him.
“Are you okay?” His voice comes from behind me, a little gruffer than it usually sounds. More raw, an underlying tinge of… something cutting a hard line across his deep timbre.
I picture him stepping close behind me, caging me against the counter with those violent, protective arms, repeating the question in a hot breath against my ear. But he remains on the other side of the small room, leaving me respectfully and utterly alone.
“Selina, please,” he says, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think that the unfamiliar bent of his voice is concern. “Did he hurt you at all?”
“No.” I set down the now empty glass and turn to face him, still bracing my hands against the counter to hide the remaining aftershocks of adrenaline pulsing through me. “He didn’t touch me.”
“Good,” he says, standing unnaturally still, not leaning against the doorframe, not folding his arms across his chest. Just looking at me. The full intensity of his focus is unnerving, and I have to force myself not to lower my eyes in natural submission. “You really did a number on him, princesa. Are you… feeling okay about that as well?”
Am I okay after nearly caving a man’s skull in? What, is he worried that I might have broken a nail? No, he wants to know if the act of violence did any damage to my already fragile state of mind. I think back to the moment I picked up that stone, swung it, and heard the ugly crack, then the heavy thump of Andrews’s body hitting the floor. Every step of the process felt methodical in the moment, inevitable. And afterward, as I stood watching blood spread, thinking that I might have killed a man… I didn’t feel guilt, or horror, or whatever a normal person is supposed to feel. All I felt was a wave of relief flood me, all my muscles rel
axing fully at the thought of having eliminated a threat, of having saved myself from danger. And then, a hint of something more than that, something darker. The power I felt in that moment pulsed through me, speeding from the top of my head down to my toes in an all-consuming flash of heat, and then it was gone as fast as it had arrived.
“I’m fine, really,” is all I say out loud, straightening and moving to step around him. I’m done with this conversation. All I want is a hot shower and a long nap. “You can go now, Javier. I don’t need anything else from you.”
I really think that he’s going to let me pass without question, that this delicate truce between us will remain intact. No such luck. Just as I’m about to slip past him, he captures my wrist in one hand and holds me in place. He doesn’t pull me close to him, but I can feel the desire palpably between us, can feel his restraint in the slight tremor of his fingers.
I try to conjure up something to say, preferably a barked order to leave me alone, a snide remark as I jerk away, but all that lives in my head is static that sounds a lot like a loop of he’s touching me oh my god he’s touching me oh my god.
We haven’t touched in days, haven’t kissed, haven’t pressed our bodies together in that blend of passion and punishment that we perfected over the past few months. The most primal part of my core pulses with need, desperate need. He’s touching me. I can see the same desire reflected in Javier’s eyes, feel it burning through his palm and into my flesh. He’s touching me. He gives me another heartbeat, one last chance to pull away, to resist him, but I can’t. I can’t even pretend to try. And then his other hand is on the small of my back, and he’s drawing me close, close, closer. The violent adrenaline from earlier is back with a vengeance, crashing down into me, drowning out the last of my self control. Javier pauses again, waits for me to react, to reject him. I wish he wouldn’t. I wish he would just take me, let me pretend that I’m not allowing this to happen. That I’m not begging for it, with every breath, with every heartbeat. I wish he would just give me this, give me what my body craves, and give my heart the plausible deniability it requires.
Caged: The Complete Trilogy Page 37
