Page 5 of Consume

I interrupted. “I believe we are under surveillance even now. The truck is a loaner. I think mine is being tracked. Yours too. I’m going to bring your car in to get swept. Until then, you aren’t to drive in it. Okay?”

She nodded.

“First, is there anything you need to tellme?”

She bit her lip but then exhaled. “Yes, there is. Mitch. He came by the day you went to find Julián. He took me to Rafael’s place, hoping to get a lead to free Joaquín. Rafael forced me to do a line of coke, probably thinking I was a narc. I was so fucked up that when Mitch kissed me, I didn’t stop him. Well, I couldn’t’ve stop him—Rafael thought we were together. I should have told you. I was going to tell you but then I found out that Julián was alive and I was too overwhelmed. I didn’t mean to hide it fromyou.”

I stared into her hazel eyes as my brain battled my heart. I forced myself to lock down my anger. “Anythingelse?”

She nodded. “Yes. Mitch dropped me off at your place, but then I found out from the DNA that Julián was Elías. I was still coming down from the coke so I asked Mitch to drive me to Temecula. I’m sorry I lied to you. It won’t happen again.”

I kissed her forehead. Relief swept over me. She had told me the truth. She had told me everything that Ashley had shown me in the pictures. Mia was being honest with me. I had to believe in her. I did believe inher.

“I forgive you. But you need to be honest with me. There’s nothing you can’t tell me. Nothing. I love every part of you. Look, there’s so much going on, and I can’t tell you any of it. Do you understand?”

She nodded.

“I’ve thought it over, and I think we should get married. Tomorrow. We can drive to Vegas tonight. What do yousay?”

Her eyes brightened and then narrowed a bit. “What’s the rush? I mean of course I want to marry you. But I wanted to wait until everything calms down. I want Joaquín to be there, and of course, ourson.”

I refused to acknowledge her wish to have Joaquín present. “I want our son there, too, but I think we need to be practical. We can have a big ceremony later.”

Her face wrinkled. “Practical? That’s romantic. Can’t we at least wait until after the trial?”

She wasn’t getting it. I had to spell it out for her. “We need to get married to get on the list for housing.”

“What’s wrong with your place? I love being walking distance to Liberty Market. And there are so many great parks here I can take Juliántoo.”

“My hours are so long it would be better if we could live in base housing in Coronado. That way, I could come home for lunch or even when I just have a break. I loved living here, but I was single. Also, when I deploy it might be easier for you to be around some other Team wives with kids the same age as Julián. Pat and Annie live on base and that way if you need to go to school or even take a break, you would have someone nearby who couldhelp.”

She sighed and her shoulders slumped. “Yeah. I agree. It would probably be better to be married to prepare to file for custody of Julián. We can’t give the courts any reason to denyus.”

“That, too.” Everything I said was true, but the real reason I wanted to marry Mia as soon as possible was to protect her from her brother.

A flush of reluctance swept across her face. “Okay, you’re right. Let’s do it. We can have a big ceremony later for everyone.”

“That’s my girl.” I pulled her in for a kiss. I was shocked she didn’t press me about my conversation with NCIS, but she’d been around Joaquín and me long enough to know that we weren’t allowed to talk business. “Thank you for this. I can’t wait to marryyou.”

We returned to my place and she packed our bags as I loaded our pets into the truck. Hero and Curry, who were becoming fast friends even though Curry did use Hero’s tail as her own personal scratching post, were again dropped off at our friends’ house and we headed to Las Vegas. After all these years, after all we’d been through, Mia was finally going to be mywife.

And I couldn’twait.