I stifled a laugh. “Annika, I’m a one-woman operation, not the fucking FBI. I take what I can get, and this was the only place I could think of where Tower’s men couldn’t follow us.” And it would have worked—if Kori weren’t one of Tower’s men.
I gave her a minute to absorb the new-to-her facts, then cleared my throat. “Are you two ready for this?”
“Looking forward to it.” Cam’s firm nod said he was looking for a chance to pick a fight with Cavazos, and the stern look I gave him othing to change that.
“As ready as I’m going to be,” Anne said, and I was pleased to find determination strengthening her gaze. She was channeling her inner mama lion, and I was relieved to see it.
“Okay.” I stood and headed for the front door. “I’ll be back in a minute. Stay out of sight and don’t come outside, no matter what. Got it?”
Cam nodded, but Anne’s agreement was a little shakier. But that was as good as it was going to get.
I patted my holstered gun beneath my jacket, then opened the door and stepped onto the second-floor landing. I jogged down the stairs and had only been standing in the parking lot for a few seconds when an unmarked black sedan rolled to a stop in front of me, and the passenger’s side window buzzed as it receded into the door.
“Evenin,’ Liv.” Gene smiled up at me from beneath the brim of his cowboy hat, faux-Southern gentleman, through and through. “What can we do for you?” I didn’t like many of Cavazos’s men, but Gene was at the bottom of my list.
“You can get on your phone, or your radio, or whatever toys Ruben’s passing out these days and tell him I need to see him. Here. Now.”
“Cool your panties.” Gene’s languorous gaze traveled south of my waist. “He’s already on his way.”
“I’m not sleeping with him,” I snapped, though I don’t know why I bothered.
“Right.” Gene laughed, and I wished he’d choke on his own disbelief. “You cover the windows and turn on all the lights for privacy so you can get yourself off.”
Bastard. “Just send him up when he gets here.” I jogged back up the stairs and into the apartment without looking back.
My heart thumped painfully when I closed the door and leaned against it. “He’s already on the way.” Which I might have known, if I hadn’t asked Cam to destroy my phone. “It’s only a five-minute drive, so you guys should probably head to the bedroom….”
“Do you know what you’re going to say?” Cam asked, as Anne started gathering her stuff.
I shrugged and slid my arms around him when he stepped closer, pressing me into the door. “I’m going to tell him the truth. Some of it, anyway.” The parts I was obligated to reveal, along with whatever else would help us get Hadley safely out of Tower’s grip. “But I’m going to have to spin it. Let him think he’s making all the calls.”
“What does that mean?” he asked into my hair, while I pressed my face into the side of his neck, breathing him in, dreading the moment when I’d have to trade his presence for Ruben’s. “I’m not going to hide in the other room and let him pound on you!”
“I can hold my own.”
“You don’t have to,” he growled, holding me tighter, and a bolt of dread lanced my heart. “I’m not going to let him touch you.”
“Cam.” I stepped out of his grip and looked up at him, trying to cvey the import of what I was about to say. “You have to stay in the bedroom until I call for you. No matter what. Okay?”
“Hell no!”
Outside, a car engine growled to a stop, then died, and my pulse raced. It was Cavazos—it had to be. “Cameron, listen to me.” I held him by both arms, but I was pretty sure that didn’t have the same impact it had when our positions were reversed—my hands only fit halfway around his biceps. “He’s going to be pissed at first, but the important thing here is getting him to help us go after Hadley, and I’m going to do whatever that takes. Anyway, as soon as he hears about his daughter, he’ll forget about everything else.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
Voices spoke outside my window and down one floor, and I recognized Cavazos’s cultured rumble among them.
“He will!” I whispered fiercely, already tugging Cam away from the door. “Promise me you’ll stay in there with Anne.” Who was watching us silently from the bedroom doorway.
“Liv…”
“Swear!” I snapped, whispering because I heard heavy, confident footsteps on the stairs.
Cam scowled. “Fine. I swear.” But we both knew that he’d break his word if Cavazos went too far. If I let him go too far.
“Thank you,” I breathed. Anne stepped back and I used my good arm to push Cam into the room with her. “I’ll call you when I’m ready for you.” I started to close the door, then noticed that Anne clutched Hadley’s photo album to her chest. “Can I take one of those?” I whispered, as the first knock echoed from my front door.
She hesitated, obviously reluctant to alter Elle’s handiwork. But then she nodded, and I flipped through the pages hastily until I found the shot I needed: Hadley, still in her blue cap on her green blanket. But this time, Elle was in the frame with her. I had no idea who’d taken the picture—the neighbor/babysitter?—but it suited my purposes perfectly.
“Thanks. I’ll bring it back.” But at the last minute, I refrained from promising her, because for all I knew, Ruben would insist on keeping the picture, and I couldn’t stop him.
“Olivia!” Cavazos shouted, pounding on the door again. He was pissed, and I wasn’t surprised.
“Shh!” I hissed at Cam and Anne as I closed the bedroom door, then I raced down the short hallway and skidded to a stop a foot from the door. Not yet…
I slid Anne’s photo into an end-table drawer, then jogged into the kitchen and pulled a steak knife from the block on the counter. Just in case. Carefully, I shoved it between the first two couch cushions, then took a moment to catch my breath and slow my pulse.
Then I pulled the front door open to find Ruben Cavazos waiting with his arms crossed over his chest, eyes narrowed in quiet fury—ten times more dangerous than an obvious bluster. “Sorry. I was in the bathroom.”
In response, Ruben backhanded me across the face.
Twenty-Five
I stumbled backward and grabbed the back of a chair to keep from falling. Pain exploded in my cheek. But I clenched my teeth and cursed beneath my breath to keep from alerting Cam. “Motherfucker!” I lifted one hand to my face to find it flaming against my cool palm.
Ruben stepped inside and pushed the door closed, then met my gaze with infuriating calm, as if hitting me sent him to his mental happy place.
Bastard.
My mental happy place involved him, ropes, nudity, honey and a massive nest of fire ants.
“Why didn’t you answer my calls?”
I stomped into the kitchen and he followed while I loaded ice into the center of a clean hand towel. “Regrettably, I am no longer in possession of my phone.” I twisted the bulk of the towel around the ice and pressed it to my cheek, but that only made the throbbing worse. “How many times did you call before you figured out I wasn’t going to answer?” Taunting him wouldn’t help anything, and it wasn’t as satisfying as hitting him back. But it was a close second. “Ten?” His scowl deepened, and my smile grew in direct proportion. “Fifteen? Twenty? Did you call me twenty times, Ruben? You know that makes you look desperate, right?”
He stepped closer. “Are you trying to piss me off?”
“Every girl needs a hobby.” I tried to step around him, but he grabbed my arm and pushed me into the countertop, standing so close our bodies touched from knee to chest, and I could feel the fury radiating off him like a fever.
“I’m assuming you came here to apologize. And to work toward forgiveness.”
“Then you’re making an ass out of us both.” I shoved him back with one hand and dodged his next grasp.
“If you’re not going to play nice, why are you here?” Ruben’s grin would have
looked natural on a snake. “Did my mark scare Caballero off?” He came closer, and when I backed away, I bumped into the couch.
Anger got in the way of clear reasoning, and for a moment I saw red. “He doesn’t give a shit about your mark, and neither do I. And there’s nothing you or your joke of a binding can do about it.”
“Let’s see how you feel about that mark in six months when I own you, head to toe, and everything in between….” His hand slid over the curve of my backside, and I shoved him away again, but he only laughed.
“That’s not going to happen.”
He actually laughed. “You’re no closer to finding my son now than you’ve ever been, and once you’ve failed, there’ll be nothing stopping me from securing Caballero’s services, whatever that takes. Maybe as a signing bonus, I’ll let him watch us together, so he can see what a good little girl you’ve become.” Cavazos leaned in closer and my teeth ground together when his lips brushed my ear. “He might even learn something….”
I buried my right fist in his gut and treasured his explosive grunt of pain as I lurched away from him.
For one long moment, Ruben couldn’t speak. He couldn’t breathe. He could only clutch the top of the couch, hunched over in the spot I’d just vacated, riding out the pain. I wanted to throw another blow. I wanted to kick him while he was almost down. I wanted to kill him, and in that moment, I think I could have. He couldn’t shout for help with empty lungs, and if he died, my mark would die with him. I would be rid of him. I would be free.
But we needed him. Hadley needed him. And I didn’t want to have to tell a child who’d already lost her real mother and her adopted father that I’d just killed another of her parents.
So I sucked in a deep breath and backed around the sofa, keeping it between us, and when he straightened, fists clenched in the overstuffed cushions, I knew that playtime was over. It was time to get down to business—before his retaliation drew Cam out of hiding.
“Truce? I need to talk to you, Ruben.” I edged toward the end table as he rounded the couch.
“You need to do more than that.” He shoved the coffee table out of the way and came two steps closer.
“Look.” I opened the drawer and was reaching for Hadley’s picture when his next word froze me in place.
“Stop.”
I fought the direct order, mentally, but couldn’t make my body disobey. I stood, but left the drawer open. “Please just look….”
He lunged forward and grabbed my arm. The room spun around me, ceiling soaring before my eyes. My back hit the couch and he was on me in an instant, one hand tangled in my hair, pulling my head to the side. “Now. You are going to shut the fuck up and do exactly what I tell you, or I’m going to make you wish you never set foot in this city.”
I forced a bitter laugh, rolling my eyes to the side to keep him in sight. “You’re a little late for that one. I hate you.”
Ruben laughed. “That’s why this is so much fun. You and Meika have more in common than you would ever believe. Swear you’ll play nice, and I’ll let you up.”
“Fuck you.” I dug between the cushions for my knife, but only wound up pushing it deeper.
He let go of my hair and his hand wrapped around my throat. But I managed three short words before he started to squeeze.
“I found him.”
Cavazos’s hand loosened, but didn’t leave my throat. “What?”
“I found him. Your son.”
“You’re lying.”
I shook my head, and his ring dug into my chin. “Let me up, and I’ll tell you.”
“You’ll tell me anyway.”
That was true, and we both knew it. I had to tell him what I knew, but my mark wouldn’t dntil he was in physical possession of his child. “Fine. Let me up and I won’t make you work for the information.” It was within my ability to make him fish the information from me question by individual question, which would take forever and piss him off.
Of course, I didn’t have that kind of time to waste at the moment, but he didn’t know that.
Ruben let go of my throat, and trailed his hand from my neck down the center of my torso as he climbed off of me. I didn’t let go of the breath I’d held until he settled into a chair perpendicular to the couch, still within striking distance, but removed from my personal space. “Talk fast.”
I pushed myself upright, in spite of the pain in my arm, and took a moment to tug my shirt back into place, determined to reclaim a little dignity before we began the professional portion of the night’s festivities. “I found your kid, but he’s not exactly…a he.”
“Not exactly a he? I’m losing patience, Olivia. If I’m going to have to beat the information out of you, we should really get started.”
“Okay. Here.” I stood, and he was in front of me in an instant, ready to stop me, should I bolt for the door. “Relax. I’m not going anywhere.” I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. I edged past him and bent to pick up a photo from the floor, where it had fallen when he’d shoved the coffee table.
Ruben didn’t sit again until I sat and handed him his own photograph. “This is your picture of Lucio.” The middle name he’d given the illegitimate child he’d thought was a boy. “The one you gave me a year and a half ago.”
He took the picture and frowned at it while I pulled Anne’s photo from the drawer of the end table between us. “Now look at this one. Do they look like the same child to you? Same room? Same outfit? Is that your baby?” And more importantly… “Is that ‘Tamara’?”
Ruben gaped at the picture, his eyes growing steadily wider. “Where did you get this?”
“Is that her?”
“Without a doubt.” His gaze was glued to Noelle’s face, smiling out at us from a moment frozen in time. “Where is she?”
“Dead,” I said, and his jaw tightened, the only outward sign of his displeasure, and I was surprised to realize that he still cared about her, even years later. “Your wife had her shot six years ago, about four months after this picture was taken.”
Ruben’s eyes closed, but he didn’t let go of the picture.
“Also, her name wasn’t Tamara Parker. It was Noelle Maddox.”
“How do you know all this?” he asked, staring at the picture again.
“Michaela told me she had ‘Tamara’ killed, as a conversational lead-in to her intent to do the same to me. As for the rest of it…I’m getting to that. But first, I really need to know something.”
“You’re answering questions, not asking them.” But for the first time since I’d met him, he sounded neither confrontational, manipulative nor controlling. He wasn’t trying to overpower me, make an example of me or get me out of my pants. And oddly enough, melancholy-Ruben was pretty damn creepy.
I could find nothing to blame for the change in him, other than seeing Elle again for the first time in years, and I really needed to understand why one of my best friends in the world would have voluntarily spent so much time with someone as vile and abusive as Ruben Cavazos. So…
“Did you love her? Not like you love Michaela.” If their twisted marriage could even be described in such terms. “Did you actually, really love Noelle, more than you love yourself?”
Ruben scowled, as if I was wasting his time. “That’s a pointless question.”
“It is not a pointless question. You cheated on your wife for the first time with Noelle. Surely that means something—your first infidelity. Did you love her?” Please. I need to know…
Ruben sat back in his chair, watching me like a shrink with a sadistic streak. “Are you jealous, Olivia?” But this time I recognized his misdirection for what it was—a defense mechanism. He was hiding from the truth.
“Hell no.” I bent to pick up the towel I’d dropped and scooped several fuzzy ice cubes back into it. “I’m searching for a shred of humanity in that shriveled tangle of arteries you call a heart.”
“Well, stop.” His scowl deepened. “It’s not there.”
But
it was. It had to be. Elle wouldn’t have stuck around long enough to produce another human being with him if he didn’t treat her better than he treated…anyone else I’d ever seen him with, other than his daughter. But he wasn’t going to say it.
“Fine. Did you hit her?” I asked, approaching the issue from another angle. Surely he wouldn’t beat on someone he truly loved. And I wanted that to be Elle for more reasons than I could even list. I wanted Elle to have been in love at least once before she died. I wanted to know that Ruben hadn’t abused one of my best friends during the last years of her life. I wanted to know that she wouldn’t have put up with it, if he’d tried.
She wasn’t bound to him. If she had been, she could never have run from him.
“Did I hit her?”
“Don’t act like that’s not a reasonable question.” I put the icy towel on my bruised, swollen cheek for emphasis.
Ruben sighed. “Did I hit her…?” And this time he actually seemed to be contemplating the question. “Only once. When she told me she was leaving. I left to cool off and when I came back, she was gone.”
“Holy shit. She hurt you, so you struck out at her.” He had loved her. And he missed her.
Maybe he’d been different with Elle. Maybe she hadn’t even known what he was really like, if she never saw him in his own world. After all, they were together eight years ago. A lot could have changed since then.
That’s what Imyself anyway.
“Enough.” He glanced at the picture again. “Tell me about my son.”
I nodded. In addition to satisfying my curiosity, talking about Elle had put him in a much more malleable mood. “Okay, here’s the short version. Your son is actually a daughter. Her name is Hadley, she’s seven years old, and she’s both smart and beautiful.”
Ruben blinked at me. Then he leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t like games, Olivia.”
“Yes, you do. But this isn’t a game.”
Another blink. Then Ruben held up Anne’s photo and pointed to the baby. “That is a little boy.”