"If you say so."
"I do say so."
He watches me. Patient. Knowing.
I hate that he can read me so easily. Hate that he sees through every excuse I make. Hate that he's lying there wounded and somehow still managing to make me feel like the one who's exposed.
"The couch is a bad idea," I say. Changing the subject. Grasping for solid ground.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dante
The ceiling has seventeen cracks.
I've counted them four times now. Traced each one with my eyes until I could draw them from memory. The longest runs from the corner near the window to just above the closet door. It branches twice. Looks like a river system on a map.
This is what happens when Marina Reeves decides to stop talking to you.
Twenty-six hours. That's how long it's been since she shoved me back into her bedroom and closed the door. Since she decided that silence was safer than conversation.
She brings food. Sets it on the nightstand. Leaves.
She brings medication. Counts out the pills. Leaves.
She changes my bandage. Leaves.
Not a single unnecessary word.
I shift against the pillows. My side aches, but less than yesterday. The wound is healing. I can feel it knitting together under the gauze. Another day, maybe two, and I'll be able to move without wanting to pass out.
Not that I'd tell her that.
She wants me in this bed. Fine. I'll stay in this bed. But I'm not going to pretend I'm weaker than I am. Every time she comes in, I sit up straighter. Meet her eyes. Let her see that whatever she's running from, it's not a dying man.
She hates it.
I can tell by the way her jaw tightens. The way she leaves faster each time.
Good.
If she's going to freeze me out, she can at least be uncomfortable about it.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand. Lorenzo's name flashes across the screen.
I answer on the second ring.
"Talk to me."
"We're not coming to you." Lorenzo's voice is clipped. All business. "The cartel has eyes on every route into Denver. We try to extract you now, we lead them straight to her door."
I close my eyes. "How long?"
"Unknown. We're setting up meetings with people who might have information on the Mendoza operation. Contacts in the DEA. A few independent operators who've dealt with them before."
"You're gathering intel."
"We're being smart." A pause. "Something you should try."
