Fuck.
I spent three hours with the men who I still didn’t know the names of. We practiced scenarios, rehearsed various responses and questions I should ask. They made it sound so simple—meet one of the church leaders present at the event (preferably Theodore), play a traumatized and pathetic girl looking for a sense of purpose, and then I’d be swept up into their grip and on my way to getting married.
When the two men left, I lingered, eyeing Carlos.
“Why do you need me to marry this guy?”
“We need leverage before we fund his campaign. You will be that leverage.”
“I don’t understand. You want me to spy on them or something?”
Carlos shook his head. “No. It’s more of an insurance policy. We plan to fund his campaign so that when the time comes, we have him pushing policies and legislature that aligns with our interests. But, as Logan said, this is a long game. If you’re already implanted in their lives, we won’t have an issue when it comes to putting pressure.”
“Like a threat?”
Carlos nodded with a smile. “Smart girl.”
Fuck, they want to use me as bait.
“Why are you sendingme? I may be able to lie, but I’m not a fucking actress.”
“Sweetheart, why do you have so much trouble seeing your own potential? You don’t need to be an actress to marry someone. You just follow along with their little religious idiosyncrasies, and you may actually find yourself in love one day. It’d do you good to smile a little more, but otherwise, Shiloh, you’re perfect as you are. As I said earlier, they want someone just like you. You don’t see it, but your condition with your eyes really works to our advantage here. It gives you an air of fragility that these types of people like to use. They want tosave you, and who better to save than a young and seemingly broken woman.”
I blinked. Well, he had me there. I guess it didn’t matter what I looked like so long as they thought I was in need of saving.
“What if I don’t want to do this?” I asked.
He tilted his head, studying me like he might actually be thinking about offering me an alternative. I crossed my fingers in my lap.
“I don’t care what you want, Shiloh. You joined this family. You took an oath to be loyal. I thought you’d be happy. What was it you said? ‘Don’t turn me into one of your prostitutes.’” Carlos paused to chuckle, motioning to Adrian to get him a drink. “If you can pull this off, you’ll be living the rest of your days as a housewife for the son of a wealthy politician.”
My jaw clenched with frustration as I watched him sip the liquor that Adrian had poured from a bar cart in the corner of the room.
“And if I don’t marry Theodore? What will you do?”
Carlos smiled, but it was anything but kind. “Don’t worry, your value isn’t limited to this job.”
Fuck. Would he sell me to work in one of his clubs? Kill me? I was completely fucked if I couldn’t make this Theodore guy fall for me.
He waved his hand in dismissal and Adrian clutched my bicep to pull me up from my seat when I didn’t move.
Adrian drove us home. He let the radio fill the silence until my curiosity won.
“Was my brother always an arreglador?”
He looked over at me, studying my face like he was looking for something. Adrian turned his attention back to the road and nodded.
“He started as a matón, but he outgrew that position and moved onto an arreglador.”
“And what exactly did he do?”
Adrian seemed hesitant to answer. “Well…it’s in the name. He fixed problems. In whatever manner Carlos deemed necessary.”
“So, he tortured people?”
“Sometimes,” he shrugged. “But the end result was always the same. Death.”
I shook my head to myself. He murdered people.Murderedpeople. For years. My stomach twisted.
