by S. Ann Cole
“Oh.”
I only understand maybe half what he just said. Though at the pace at which he spoke, taking great care to choose his words wisely, it feels like a safe, dumb-downed version of what they really do. And even so, just a fraction.
Taking my face in his hands, he stares into my eyes and tells me, “I’ve witnessed a lot of terrible things over the years... But I promise you, I’ve never killed anyone. Ever. And unless someone fucks with you, Mom, or Tillie, then nor will I ever. I’ve got a mean streak at times, yeah, but I’m not anything like my soulless, psychotic cousins.”
I believe you.
Closing my eyes, I press my face to his chest again. “I can’t believe you all are related to them.”
“Neither can we.” He rests his chin on top of my head. “Don’t worry. Our familial ties aren’t common knowledge. And those who do know have been made to believe there’s bad blood between us—we’ve made sure of it. So none of their shit ever touches us.”
Well, that makes me feel better at least. Considering I’ve decided I want to spend my life with this man. Have his babies. Be his and only his.
After a stretch of silence, I ask, “What was that reparation bit all about?”
He groans at this, but he should have known I’d ask at some point. “Lorenzo called and told me Slim hit you.”
“So?”
“What do you mean ‘so’?” Anger edges into his voice. “He kidnapped you, drugged you, and to top of it had the gall to put his fucking hands on you? I said I’m not a killer, Lexi, I didn’t say I’m a fucking saint. Wasn’t gonna let that go. He had a choice: lose all the fingers on the hand he hit you with or pay 100k for each of them.”
Eyes snapping open, I jerk my head up to look at him. “He gave you half a million dollars?”
Trent shakes his head. “He gave you half a million dollars.”
Oh. My. God.
“How doesn’t threatening to cut someone’s fingers off makes you any different?”
“What did I just say, Lexi? My psycho doesn’t come out to play unless anyone fucks with…?”
Exhaling a defeated breath, I say, “Monica, Tillie, or me.”
All of this is so…much. The last couple of hours feels like dream. But it’s not. I’m here in the flesh. I’ve never known this side of the Garzas. Never seen this side of him. And they might not be as bad as the Castellos, but if they have Castello blood in them, how far from the edge of darkness can they be?
Trent releases me to get the loofah and body wash, then he begins to bathe me. Slow and gentle, almost caressingly. I close my eyes and breathe, because it is everything I didn’t know I needed. Yet, somehow, he did.
And it’s because of this, because he can make me feel like this—safe, appreciated, cared for, loved—why I’m willing to overlook his flaws. I’m uncomfortable with his relation to the Castellos, and I’m worried about what level of darkness lives within him, but none of it is enough to change how I feel about him or what I want from him.
I love him.
The boy next door who used to get under my skin like no one else. The Garza who, even though he’d irritated me to no end, I’d spent more time at his side, in his presence, than any of the others. I think…I think I’ve loved him all this time and just didn’t know it.
We’ve just stepped out of the shower, Trent wrapping a towel around me, when the doorbell echoes downstairs.
“Be right back,” he murmurs, leaving a kiss on my forehead.
I towel off and pad to the bedroom. Although it’s been less than a week since I’ve been here, in this room, clinging to him and gasping his name, it feels like eons ago. Now, however, it feels different. Not like I’m just sleeping over at his place. But…like home. Like where I’m supposed to be. Where I belong. The familiarity of it envelopes me and offers me warmth and comfort.
I’m seated at the end of the bed moisturizing my skin with body oil when Trent returns with a tray of food.
“Scratch’s wife sent over breakfast,” he says.
As he deposits the tray in the little nook of the room with two armchairs and a small table, I frown and ask, “Who?”
“Oh, Scratch’s the one who rode with True. He heads our Denver branch,” he says as he walks over to me. “He flew in to help. They’re staying at over True’s, and his wife…well, she can’t help being a host, even when she’s the guest.”
“That’s nice of her.”
He pries the body oil from my hand and takes over, squeezing oil into his palm before massaging it into my skin.
“Where did he keep you?” he asks me after several beats of silence.
Assuming he’s referring to Stefano, I answer, “With him. Wherever he went, there I was.”
“You slept in his bed?”
His gaze is casted downward, focused on his ministrations, and I’m getting the feeling he already knows the answer. “Yes… But he didn’t touch me or anything.”
“He wouldn’t,” he says, voice tight. “Stefan’s a nightmare, but he has his limits. He cares about two things: money and family. In that order. Mess with either and the devil comes out.”
“He said it’s because—”
“Lorenzo?”
“He told you?”
A shake of his head. “Picked up on it once he called me to tell me Slim hit you—considering Stefano didn’t. But I also saw him with you last night. He likes you, and Lorenzo likes next to no one.”
I watch his hands, slick with oil, as they glide up and down my leg. At this point it’s a massage, or a caress, because I’m already as moisturized as I can get. “Did you really go to Turks and Caicos?”
He nods. “Hauled them right out of a beach house.” An angry noise reverberates in his throat. “They were so cozy. Thought they’d gotten away with it?”
“Wow,” I say, “You guys really are good.”
“Only took us as long as it did ‘cause we were deliberately misled,” he adds. “You begged for Alvin’s life, but with the cunning steps that were taken to throw us off, there’s no way it was all just Ellie’s idea. We’ve found nothing on him—squeaky clean background, but I know without a doubt that he’s not as innocent as he pretends. He knows how to dance.”
I don’t imagine someone who would steal from their boss and run off to the tropics is any kind of innocent, but it’s a life. Though this explains why none of them helped me when I was pleading for his life. “Did you want Stefano to shoot him?”
Trent snaps the cap on the body oil closed and stands. “You don’t really want the answer to that question, Lexi.”
As I watch him walk over to the nook, lowering down into one of the armchairs and picks up a piece of fruit, I decide he is right. I don’t want to know.
When he looks up and gestures for me to come join him, I tighten the towel around me and do just that.
Chapter THIRTY-ONE
“Why didn’t you ask me to stay?”
Lexi
I wake up to a waning sun, its glow almost faded from the sky. Thin, dull rays of soft orange spill through the windows, like fingers of light in a darkened room.
The weight and warmth of Trent behind me fills me with an unbelievable sense of peace and contentment.
Gingerly, I shift around so I’m facing him. He’s fast asleep, his muscles relaxed, features softened. He’s so stinking gorgeous it hurts.
After picking at my breakfast this morning, still struggling to escape flashing images of the night before, I’d climbed into bed and curled into myself.
Trent climbed in behind me and held me.
It was what I needed. More than words. Until we both fell asleep.
It’s the best I’ve slept all week.
I want to reach up and skim my fingertips all over his beautiful face, but he’s a sensitive sleeper, so I know if I do it will wake him.
Quiet and careful, I ease out of bed. I steal a tee and boxers of his and throw them on. As I’m leaving the room, I spot his phone on the nig
htstand. I snatch it up and head downstairs.
While there’s no way I can call Mama right now without breaking down, I need to at least call Maggie so she knows I’m alright. Trent told me neither Monica nor Mama are aware of what happened. Which I’m grateful for.
After getting a drink of water from the fridge, I curl up on the couch with Trent’s phone. He’s never been discreet when unlocking his phone around me so I know his passcode. My birthday. Heck, maybe he wanted me to know it.
I unlock it and find a number of text messages on his screen. My eyes narrow as I search for women’s names, but the only one I find is Maggie’s.
Magnolia: So???? Did you get her?
Magnolia: I’m calling you! PICK UP
Magnolia: Please please tell me she’s okay.
Tripp: How’s she holding up?
True: How’s our girl doing? She handling everything okay?
My heart tightens in my chest. In this moment, I’m grateful to Trent for not telling my family what happened. I’d hate for them, especially Mama, to have been this worried about me.
I dial Maggie and she picks up with a screech, cussing Trent out.
“Maggie,” I say, cutting through her hysteria. “It’s me. It’s me. I’m fine.”
Silence. Then a stifled sob. “Oh my god. Lexi…I’ve been so worried. Oh my god.”
“It’s fine, honey. I’m back now. I’m safe.”
She sniffles. “Trent is an asshat. He would hardly tell me anything.”
“In his defense, it was a really…delicate situation.”
“Are you hurt?”
“Not a scratch, I promise.”
More sniffles. “Oh, thank God.”
She goes on to tell me that, per Trent’s instructions, she’d texted Mama as me and told her I lost my phone and that I would call her in a couple of days when I got a new phone. Smart, because Mama is a video-caller, so no other lie would’ve worked.
She tells me she’d also canceled the housewarming party, citing inspection reasons, and that everything has been in limbo since.
As I don’t think it wise to share the truth of what happened, I give her a fake version of it. As far as she’s concerned, it was all a failed human trafficking attempt. Depending on how the Castellos dispose of bodies, she might hear about Ellie’s death at some point, but she doesn’t need to know it’s connected.
I make sure to stay on the phone until I hear laughter from her, because the idea of people being worried and in distress over me makes me uncomfortable.
After hanging up, I can’t help myself, I creep through Trent’s picture gallery, searching for boobs and nudes. But his gallery looks nothing like it had when I crept through his phone months ago. Now, it’s all me. Me and him. Me and Monica. Me and Tillie. Him and Tillie, or Monica, or his brothers. But mostly me…posed, candid, unaware, dressed, half-naked…
He’s all about me.
Feeling giddy, I press the phone to my chest, grinning to myself.
He’s mine.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
Suddenly, I have an appetite. A real one. Jumping up from the couch, I pad to the kitchen and set about doing something I haven’t done in a long time.
I cook.
~
I’ve just switched off the stove, humming along to praise and worship music spilling from the phone propped on the counter, when I turn and find a shirtless Trent watching me from the other side of the kitchen island. His gaze is cautious, as if trying to gauge my mood.
“Hey, you’re up,” I greet.
He plants his palms to the counter. “Yeah…”
“Oh, I borrowed your phone to call Maggie. And then I wanted to listen to music while I cooked but didn’t want to wake you with the house system, so I propped it up here up to use YouTube instead.”
“That’s fine.”
I clear the spice bottles from the counter.
“What?” I ask with a smile when he doesn’t stop staring at me.
“Just…” He shakes his head. “You’re good?”
“Why? Because I’m listening to gospel music?” I roll my eyes. “I just thought, after everything, my soul could take some cleansing.”
“No, of course that’s not what I—” He shakes his head again and straightens. “I’m just happy you’re okay, that’s all.”
Although Trent has been here for me in all the ways that I’ve needed, with silence and hugs and as a literal shoulder to lean on, I know he’s been hiding his own worry and concern for me. Which no doubt runs along the lines of: How deeply has what I experienced and witnessed affected me? How would I deal? How long of a haul was he in for?
What I’ve experienced and witnessed isn’t something he or anyone else can help with. It’s all up to me. Will I allow it to affect me?
I’ve decided that I won’t, in any way or at any depth.
I did nothing wrong.
Nothing.
Bad decisions were made which yielded horrific consequences. But none of it is going to steal my joy or ruin my life. And that’s where my head is at. Not on the bad, not on the negative, not on the past, but on the good that’s standing right in front of me now and the awesome that awaits me in the future.
I wipe my hand on a kitchen towel then round the island to him. With a narrowed gaze, he watches me approach him.
Tipping up on my toes, I lock my arms around his neck and touch my lips to his. Soft, gentle, confident.
As his hands drift up to my waist, I meet his gaze, locking it in place as I tell him, “I’m fine. I’m okay. And, thank you.”
He holds my gaze for several heartbeats. Then, his eyes shutter closed and a long, ragged breath leaves him as his forehead drops to mine.
I can feel the tension leave him, his whole body relaxing. It’s as if he’d been holding his breath all this time.
A sudden lightness swirls around us, and it’s then I consider how much of a toll this must have taken on him.
Also, he still cares.
We’d been over. Our little fling, done.
He’d not asked me to stay.
I’d been one day away from leaving.
I’d told him off.
There’s no way he would’ve gone the lengths he had for me if he didn’t still feel something for me.
And I need that something he still feels for me. Dear God, I need it. To feed it, water it, nurture it until it grows back to what it was all those years ago when I was too oblivious to notice it.
And then, even bigger. Stronger. Undying.
This man will go to the ends of the earth for me, and there’s nowhere I’d rather be than with him.
We stay like that for a long time, bathing in each other, until my calves start to burn from tipping up for so long.
“Are you hungry?” I whisper. “I made paella.”
“Yeah…” His smile is so fucking beautiful. “I am.”
~
After dinner, we go out on the balcony to soak up some cool night air, like we used to do when I slept over on the weekends.
He’s nursing a bottle of cold beer, while I overindulge in a bowl of caramel-drizzled ice-scream.
Our balcony time is usually filled with banter, debates, or make-out sessions, but now it’s comfortable silence.
There’s that thing between us—the thing that goes without saying, yet still needs to be said.
I scrape the last bit of ice-cream from my bowl. It’s the first time in days that I’ve had a real appetite and didn’t have to force myself to eat. As I’m licking the spoon clean, Trent shoots me an amused glance. I don’t care. Food finally tastes good again and I’m enjoying every second of it.
I set the bowl down and lay back in the lounge chair, gazing up at the inky-blue sky with misty clouds and hidden stars.
After a long moment, I ask, “Why didn’t you ask me to stay?”
His gaze touches the side of my face. “Why did you want to leave?”
“Because…” I sigh and close my eyes. “
I was a blind idiot with my head too far up my own ass to see what’s right in front of me. Just like I was when we were kids.”
Opening my eyes, I shift onto my side to face him. He’s looking at me. He’s always looking at me. Because...he sees me.
“When Stefano pointed that gun at my head and I was sure it was over for me, I saw only one face, and it was yours.”
His expression morphs into one of mild surprise.
“Yeah, I know,” I say. “I thought for sure it would’ve been Mama’s, but it wasn’t. It was you. And... I remembered...things.”
He takes a swig of his beer before asking, “What things?”
“The things I didn’t hear before…” I lift a hand to finger my gold necklace and his gaze falls to it. “In that moment, on the brink of death, I heard them loud and clear.” My eyes burn as emotions flood me. “You tried to tell me...so many times.”
He drops his gaze.
Averts it.
The discovery might be new for me, but for him, they’re old feelings that he probably no longer has. Time has passed. He’s lived his life and I’ve lived mine. So I get that this conversation might be uncomfortable for him or even unwanted.
But what I do know is that I want to be with this man, so I’m not going to allow my ego to get the better of me this time. I’m going to fight to have his heart again.
I get up and cross over to his lounge chair. “I’ve discovered something,” I say as I sit astride him. “I’ve fallen in love with you.” I cup my hands to the sides of his neck, brushing my thumbs back and forth along his scruffy jawline. “And... if you still want to be with me, I want to stay.”
He gives me a lazy, contemplative blink as his free hand drifts to my hip and squeezes gently.
And as his gaze traces every detail of my face, I hold my breath.