“Clean,” Green Eyes confirms.
The man nods, then looks at me. “She good?”
“Good enough.”
“She doesn’t look like much.”
“Looks can be deceiving.”
They’re talking about me like I’m not here. Like I’m cargo.
Maybe that’s all I am.
“Come on,” Green Eyes says, walking toward the SUV. “Time to go home.”
Home.
To his penthouse. To his protection. To his control.
I don’t move.
“Mary.”
I look at Rodriguez’s body. At the endless desert. At the reality of my situation.
I have no money. No phone. No allies.
Everyone I’ve trusted today has tried to kill me.
Everyone except him.
“If I come with you,” I say, “what happens?”
“You live.”
“And if I don’t?”
He glances at Rodriguez. “You don’t.”
The math is simple. Brutal, but simple.
I walk toward the SUV.
Green Eyes opens the door for me—a gentleman’s gesture that would be sweet if it weren’t attached to a man who just committed murder to save my life.
“For what it’s worth,” he says as I slide into the leather seat, “I’m sorry it has to be this way.”
I look at him. At those vivid green eyes that have become the only constant in my shattered world.
“No, you’re not.”
A ghost of a smile crosses his face.
“No,” he agrees. “I’m not.”
The door closes, and we drive away from the desert, from Rodriguez’s body, from any illusion I had left about having choices in this new life.
I’m not going back to Green Eyes because I trust him.
