She rolls her eyes.“Lo estoy intentando, pero no me ayudas. Y él no es mi novio,Tío.”
I’m somewhat mollified by the fact that she calls him uncle—it’s familiar without being intimate—but I can’t control the growl that escapes my chest when his eyes settle on her, dark and glittering.
And I hate that she said I wasn’t her boyfriend, even though I’m not. I despise that term; I’m much more.
“Estoy lo suficientemente cerca. Ahora, apunta con tu arma hacia otro lado, lejos de ella,” I grit out.
Both of them turn to me. “Wait, you speak Spanish?” Madison asks, eyes wide. Then, a line appears between her brows. “Wait,close enough? What doesthatmean?”
Felix doesn’t let me explain. “I know you like to piss off yourabuela,but sleeping with a murderer is taking it too far,enana.” He smirks at her, and my hand fists into a ball, ready to punch it off his face.
She turns her ire on him. “Mexican grandmas and their fucking double standards, I swear. Like that’s so much worse than regularly destroying evidence for them, orbeinga murderer,” she hisses.
So she knows exactly the kind of man he is—the full extent of what he really does for a living. Interesting. It explains why her first instinct was to diffuse the situation and not question why her uncle was pointing a gun at me.
I suppose she did tell me that she does jobs for him—that stealing data from SmarTech was his idea. And now that we know about the connection to the General, there’s no way it was a coincidence that he sent her there. He must have figured it out.
That pisses me off. I’ve spent years trying to find any sort of lead, and Felix finds one in a matter of months?
“His boss—El General—wants me dead. His boss wants you dead too, Mads. That’s what I was saying in my message.”
“I already know that,” she replies easily.
Felix makes a noise of disbelief. “Did he tell you hetookthe job?”
How the fuck does he know that?No one should know that. The channel between the General and the hitmen he contacts is closed. I’d know.
“It was the only way to ensure no one else did,” she says.
I never told her that part explicitly, but of course she figured it out. Clever girl. I’ve never been more pleased to have been honest with someone—because Felix looks quite put out that he doesn’t get to be the one to break that news to her and use it to drive a wedge between us.
“He’s not going to kill me. He saved my life, Tío,” she says, taking a step to the side and lowering her voice. “And sinceyou’rethe one that got me into this mess, I suggest you put that fucking gun away so we can all talk like fucking adults.”
Felix tries to stare her down, but I’ve never seen her look this fierce—not even when she was on top of me, pointing a gun at me. Felix only lasts two seconds before he makes a noise by sucking on his teeth and lowers his arm.
That’s right, you smug fuck.
“Doesn’t mean you should trust him,” Felix jerks his chin at me. He glances up out of the window behind me, stretching his neck to see down the street. “That your bike?”
“Yeah.”
“You came alone?” he asks, lifting a brow. “No scary Russian in the van or sniper with a rifle on a nearby rooftop?”
Fuck. My stomach roils as I try to think of something to say that wouldn’t make it seem like I walked into the proverbial lion’s den without backup. But Madison speaks for us. “We’re alone. Now will you please chill the hell out?”
In an instant, Felix is smiling. It’s not pleasant—more the knowing smirk of a man who thinks he’s reclaimed the upper hand—but he tucks away his gun and takes a seat at one of the bright tables. Madison joins him and, loath to be outside of touching distance, I follow.
It feels quite wrong to be sitting across from him like this. This temporary truce is a tenuous kind of peace, held together by a thread that might snap at any second.
“Okay. Good. So, other than his boss wanting you dead, how do you know each other? Because that wasn’t justyou tried to kill meenergy,” Madison points out, gesturing between us. “There’s clearly a history here.”
We eye each other appraisingly. I lift my brows and motion for him to explain. I can’t wait to hear his version of this.
He leans back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest and biceps bulging against his jacket. “We have a few… mutual acquaintances. We run in some of the same circles.”
“You’re not normally so circuitous, Tío,” she drawls. “Quit filling the air and get to the point.”
God, I love this woman.
