“Go find out for sure.” She hitched her chin toward the front door. “But stand by and watch. Don’t go putting your dick in it; this situation is already fucked enough as it is.”
Mateo looked like he was about to roll his eyes but thought better of it at the last moment. He turned toward the door instead.
“Call me when you know anything,” she said to his broad back.
Ricky rubbed his hands together. “Lookin’ forward to watchin’ the pigs work. It’ll be good entertainment.” And with that, her two lackey’s—there was no better word to describe them—sauntered into the night.
After the door slammed behind the men, she leaned back in her desk chair. The worn leather made a familiar sound against the fabric of her shirt, and the springs in the seat let loose with a comforting squeak.
She’d bought the chair not long after starting her business…how many years ago had that been? Twenty-eight? No, next month would mark the twenty-ninth year since she opened her front doors.
How times flies, she thought wearily.
Back then, if someone had told her there’d come a day when she’d find herself in bed with the Colombians, working to get drugs from South America to the US mainland, she would’ve laughed her ass off.
She’d been so young and naive. She sure as shit hadn’t fathomed the hard times ahead of her. Hard times that’d forced her to make hard decisions. Hard decisions that’d finally culminated in two people losing their lives.
Funny how a person breaks bad, she reflected. It didn’t happen all at once. Like the sea battering rocks on the shore, it was a slow process.
She hadn’t noticed how much she’d changed until tonight, when Mateo told her he’d murdered two people and she’d only experienced a fleeting moment of regret before her mind turned toward her responsibilities.
She had three grown children who all operated subsidiary business on other islands in the Keys. If she went down, she’d take them with her. But not just them, the eight grandchildren—with one on the way—they’d gifted her, as well. There were cars and mortgages and college educations to contend with.
There werealwayscars and mortgages and college educations to contend with. In fact, it’d been those exact things that’d led her to fall into bed with the Colombians all those years ago.
Now look at me…
There was no more denying her emotional coastline had been altered by the constant pummeling of the compromises she’d made day after day, month after month, and year after year.
So many compromises she barely recognized herself.
And she could never turn back.
Chapter 6
11:02 PM…
Mia hated hospitals.
The bright lights, the smell of bleach, the sense of urgency and fear that hung over everything like an ominous black cloud. It was horrible. A stark contrast to the sweet scents of suntan lotion and fresh-falling rain that permeated the warm air outside.
She had the overwhelming urge to flee. To leap out of the hard plastic chair and run through the emergency room doors into the wet night.
But that would be crazy, right? Not to mention selfish.
She didn’t know Christina Szarek well. But in the month since she’d been working with Deep Six Salvage, she’d grown to appreciate the blonde’s dauntless nerve and acerbic way with words. She’d come to think of Chrissy as…well, maybe not a friend, but at least a friendly acquaintance. And to leave now? Before she knew if Chrissy was okay?
She couldn’t. Shewouldn’t.
Which meant there was no more outrunning the old memory that lived rent-free inside her head. The one that’d been scratching at the back of her brain ever since she sat down.
Time to give in and let it replay itself. Get the whole horrid experience over and done with so she could—
She was seven.
Her nanny had taken her to seeA Bug’s Life,and that was the last thing she remembered before blinking open her eyes to find a stark white ceiling staring back at her. Her head felt like it was stuffed with rocks when she turned it to the side, only to discover the walls were the same unforgiving color as the ceiling.
This wasn’t her room.
