“How so, enforcer?”
“Climbed a lot of trees, innit?” Alexei was starting to annoy me, a dull beat of irritation that warred with the dread, horror, and raw joy of having my daughter in my arms again. “Crawled through the fucking hedge. Whatever. I did it. And eventually that got easier too... when Juana’s dad gave her a new bodyguard.”
“Raul,” Juana whispered.
My heart bled for her. For Liliana. For the years and years, I’d been not much more than a fucking myth. That man had raised my kid. Protected her. And he’d paid for it with his life.
“What was your plan?” Cam asked. “To sneak around until you got caught and then die?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t think too much about it when I was sixteen. I never believed he’d kill them, though. Or I’d never have done it.”
“What do you believe now?”
“That he’ll kill Juana. And make me watch while he takes Liliana again and marries her off to some paedo business associate. It’s what burned him the most about what happened—that Juana was used goods and he couldn’t flog her as a virgin bride.”
I choked on the words as Cam’s gaze darkened with the empathy he didn’t want to show yet. Then he glanced beyond me to the one brother I couldn’t see and the gates slammed shut.
He turned back to Juana. “So we’re at a place where your bodyguard is facilitating Mateo’s access to you and a kid we didn’t know he had. How did we get from there to here?”
Juana’s face crumpled with grief. “Raul was caught. My father slit his throat in front of me and left his body in my bedroom all night. He didn’t believe I’d have the will to run after that, but I had planned for that moment a thousand times over the years.”
“We didn’t plan for this.” I ashed my smoke. “You were never supposed to bring her here.”
“I know. I’m sorry, Mateo. I really am.”
I wanted to be too, but however deep I dug, it wasn’t there.
The room was silent a moment, digesting. Behind me, I heard Embry shift, but I couldn’t turn my fucking head. I couldn’t do anything except stare at the mother of my child and wonder how the fuck we’d made it this far.
18
EMBRY
I was underwater. I felt like a beer bottle that had been hurled at the wall, in pieces on the floor with no fucking clue how I’d ever be whole again.
Cam asked Mateo’s long-lost lover who her father was. Her answer washed over me, my brain equal parts fixated on Mateo’s tatty boots and distracted by a rip-roaring cramp in my overstressed belly.
I was gonna puke. Didn’t know when, but in the fucked-up hellscape this day had become, it was the only thing I was certain of.
That, and the man I’d let fuck me a few days ago was someone else entirely. A man who, whatever his reasons, had lied to me since the day we met.
Also, his... wife or whatever was stop-traffic beautiful. I fingered the sparkly hairband that had been in the pocket of these sweatpants for however long. It was the girl’s; it had to be.
She has a name.
Liliana.
And she knew mine. She’d asked for me before Rubi had stepped up, and how I felt about that didn’t have a fucking word.
The atmosphere in the room grew more tense. In the good old days, that had been my cue to mediate. To do my job. But Cam had picked a dud with me. I was defective.
I wasdone.
Alexei came to where Mateo slumped in his seat. He leaned on the table again, casual but fooling no one. Cam wasn’t going to hurt Mateo or sanction anyone else doing it. But we’d all seen Alexei strike. If he’d made up his own mind, Mateo would be dead before his body hit the floor.
No. I scrambled to stand.
Alexei stayed me with a dismissive flick of his hand. “Calm, chaplain.”
