by Sybil Bartel
I wanted to fucking throttle her. “Estevez and his men, guns, violence, you brought all of this shit to her doorstep. You fucking endangered her life, and you’re sorry? That’s all you have to fucking say for yourself?”
Summer burst into uncontrollable sobs.
Shade’s hand landed on my shoulder. “It’s over.”
Still seething, I held onto Fallon and stood. “Come on, darlin’. Let’s get you fixed up. Shade, grab the first aid kit out of the Escalade.” My arm around Fallon, I stepped toward the apartment.
Except she didn’t take that step with me.
Her feet planted, she looked down at Summer.
I glanced at Shade as he grabbed the medical kit that was in every Luna and Associates vehicle, then I tipped my chin toward Summer. Knowing what I was silently asking, he nodded once.
“Shade’ll handle her.” I tightened my arm around Fallon. “Come on, sweetheart.”
“No.” Fallon stepped out of my grasp, and her voice became stronger. “No.” Still in her heels, bending at the waist like she hadn’t just fallen off a second-story landing, she put her arm around a hunched-over, crying Summer and she pulled her up.
Incredulous, enraged, in awe, I stared at her. “Fallon.”
Just like in front of the office, her hand came up, palm up, and she spared me a single warning look. “No.”
My heart sank to my fucking stomach, and I fought to keep my tone calm. “What are you doing?”
Her dress ruined, her hair a mess, blood spatter all over her, she held onto Summer’s shoulders and led her toward the Maserati.
“Fallon,” I clipped.
Shade stepped up next to me. “Knight,” he quietly warned.
I didn’t fucking listen to him.
I was staring at her eyes. Eyes that’d looked up at me last night with so much fucking emotion, I couldn’t catalog it all. Eyes that’d smiled at me in that damn hospital all those years ago. Eyes that’d given me trust when I’d come inside her.
But I wasn’t looking at that now.
I was looking at a woman who dangerously had no emotion, and I couldn’t let her leave. Not like this.
I stepped toward her.
Shade grabbed my shoulder. “Let it play out, brother. Trust me.”
Trust him? I didn’t fucking know him, and I didn’t trust a goddamn soul. Except that was a lie. Last night I’d trusted the woman walking away from me. I’d trusted her with my fucking heart.
But I hadn’t been good enough.
Putting her junkie daughter in a hundred-thousand-dollar ride, Fallon had made her decision. Without glancing in my direction once, she got behind the wheel and she put the car in gear.
I DIDN’T LOOK AT HIM.
I couldn’t.
He’d saved my life, and I was walking away from him for Summer after her bullet had grazed my thigh.
Rationally, I knew she hadn’t shot me on purpose. She wasn’t even aiming. She pulled the trigger after Thomas reached for her gun. Oh God, Thomas.
Forcing myself not to look up, I tucked Summer in the passenger seat, then I got behind the wheel of her still idling car. Just like at my house a couple days ago that now seemed like a lifetime ago, she’d left her car running.
For once, I was glad.
Putting the overpowered sports car into reverse, I backed up, then I threw it into gear and drove down a driveway I didn’t want to drive away from, but I couldn’t stay here.
Smeared blood under her nose, makeup running down her face, Summer cried in the seat next to me.
In shock, I said nothing.
I pulled onto the road, not even sure where we were, but I headed east.
Thomas was west.
A man had held a gun to my head.
My own stepdaughter had shot me.
Dolphin boy had caught me.
From a second-story drop.
I was alive. Summer was alive. Thomas was alive.
Thomas had saved me. Again.
And I was driving away.
I couldn’t process the thoughts in my head. I couldn’t breathe a full breath. I couldn’t make sense of any of it, because all of it felt wrong except the part where he’d had his arms around me, but I couldn’t keep even that.
So I drove.
Summer cried. From withdrawal, from guilt—I didn’t know, but a country road turned into a county road and houses grew closer together and every second took me away from a small apartment with a hand-sewn quilt and a blond-haired man who’d stolen my heart not once, but twice.
I didn’t cry. I didn’t talk. I didn’t use Summer’s cell to call her father. I ignored the burning, smarting wound on my leg. I ignored the fact that I would have a scar. I ignored the new ache in my chest that hadn’t been there two days ago. And I ignored Summer reaching into her purse with shaking hands and taking pills out of a prescription bottle only to swallow them dry.
I ignored it all.
I drove over the causeway onto the barrier island.
I turned into my neighborhood.
I pulled up my driveway.
None of it feeling like home, I parked the Maserati in the driveway and cut the engine. Grabbing the keys, I got out, walked to the passenger side, and opened Summer’s door. Like I would with a child, I unbuckled her seat belt and took her hand. Pulling her from the car, I put my arm around her, then I led her to front door and used the key she had for my house.
My entryway, my paintings, my scent, it all should’ve been familiar, comforting, but it wasn’t. Because one step past the foyer into the open-plan living space, destruction hit.
Pillows tossed, furniture upside down, books on the floor, the ottoman on its side, drawers open, contents tossed everywhere, the kitchen in compete disarray—a hurricane had hit my house. A drug addicted, eighteen-year-old, stepdaughter hurricane.
I stared.
She stared.
The edges of my composure suffered a fissure, and I reached for the couch cushion. Tucking it in the corner seat, I picked up a toss pillow off the floor and set it on the lone cushion. The fissure turned into a wide crack.
I rasped out an order to my stepdaughter. “Sit.”
She sat.
Then she curled into a small ball and closed her eyes.
I pulled a blanket from the wreckage that’d once been my living room and put it haphazardly over my drug-addicted stepdaughter.
“I’m sorry about your place,” she whispered without opening her eyes.
The wide crack started to split like earth opening in an earthquake.
On shaky legs, nothing to say to Summer, I walked to my bedroom. Gripping the doorframe for support for only a second as I surveyed the complete destruction that continued throughout, I pushed off the frame and aimed for the bathroom.
My heels wobbling over a pile of strewn clothes, my legs weak, my body starting to scream in pain, I stepped past mess after mess and went to the sink.
Grasping the counter for support, I looked in the mirror.
Blood splatter everywhere, an angry welt on the outside of my thigh, my hair dirty, my dress ruined, I stood there. For two short breaths that weren’t enough oxygen, I forced myself to take it all in.
Every screwed-up, destroyed inch.
Then I slid to the floor and fucking fell apart.
I STARED AFTER THE MASERATI’S tail lights.
“Damn,” Shade muttered.
I took the first aid kit from him and dropped it to the ground before kneeling and opening it. Rifling through the contents, I pulled out the thermal blanket.
Shade looked at me like I was crazy. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Compartmentalizing.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Cleaning.” I didn’t want a fucking dead body in my yard come sunrise. “Wait here. Don’t use your phone.” I went to the front of the barn, and when I saw the jimmied lock, I cursed the dead asshole and myself for not being more vigilant. Grabbing the small bu
ndle of paracord I kept in my Escalade, I went back outside.
Shade stood there with his hands on his hips. “You don’t need to clean shit. We’ll call the cops. Self-defense, open and shut. Luna will sweep up any lose ends.”
I searched the dead asshole’s pockets and took out his wallet and cell. Thankfully the cell was powered down. Taking out the SIM card, I broke it in half. “I don’t leave loose ends.” Rolling the prick to his stomach, I yanked his legs up and wrapped the end of the paracord around his ankles before I grabbed his arms. “Do you know who this is?”
“Gee,” Shade clipped sarcastically. “I forgot to ask his name before I put a bullet between his eyes.”
“His name isn’t relative, but who he worked for is.” Wrapping the paracord around the prick’s wrists, I hogtied him. Then I glanced at Shade. “This is my land. I don’t want any cops out here. I don’t want anyone knowing we took down Julio Estevez and his men, and I sure as hell don’t want any damn trace of this ever coming back on me.” Or Fallon.
“Fine.” Shade exhaled. “But I gotta ask. Do you know what you’re doing?”
I spared him a glance as I grabbed the thermal blanket. “The fact that you’re asking me that after you watched me hogtie him says more about you than me.” I may not have been able to shoot worth a damn when I first started working for Luna, but I’d had a particular skill set courtesy of my previous employer that hadn’t required me to ever pull the trigger.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
I rolled the asshole up in the blanket and used the last of the paracord to truss him up like a Christmas roast. Then I stood. “You know what’s easier than digging a six-foot grave?”
“I know how to bury a fucking body.”
Ignoring him, I answered anyway. “Digging a four-foot grave.” Thanks to my handiwork, the dead fuck was now essentially folded in half.
Working for the cartel, I’d learned pretty damn quick that your life expectancy was directly linked to keeping your mouth shut and one of two skills—your aim or your ability to make the bodies disappear. Since I couldn’t aim for shit, I became a cleaner. My aunt Ginny had taught me to clean a kitchen spotless when I was six years old, and damn if those skills didn’t translate.
For five years I’d cleaned up after the assholes I used to work for, kept my head down, and by the grace of God I made it out alive. I was proud of the fact I’d never killed one damn person, but that fact hadn’t done me a lick of good when I scored the job with Luna. I could make bodies disappear, but I’d never been trained in personal protection, not to Luna’s standards. And I sure as hell never thought I’d have a job outside the Marines where deadly force wasn’t just a part of the vernacular, but an expectation in the name of protecting the client.
I never thought I’d be comfortable with that.
But after tonight, I knew I’d been ignorant as hell.
I not only wished I’d shot the dead asshole, I wished I could’ve fucking made him suffer first.
“Point taken,” Shade clipped. “What do you need me to do?”
“Get the lighter fluid out of the barn. It’s by the grill in back. Burn his cell and the contents of his wallet while I bury him. We’ll spray down the dirt and get rid of his blood after we’re done.”
“Ten-four. Want help burying him?”
So he would know where the grave was? “No. Take care of his personal effects, then bury the debris behind the barn in the grass. I won’t be long.”
“Copy.” Shade glanced at his cell as a text came in. “Luna’s back at base with her ride and the laptop, wondering where we are.”
“Tell him we’ll be there within the hour. Let him know Fallon took off with Summer, and she may need that graze wound looked at. I’ll return Fallon’s Mercedes to her after we get back to base.” I’d told Shade a couple minutes ago that I was compartmentalizing, and I was. One fucking step at a time. But I was also plotting. Take care of shit here, then get to Fallon. She may have walked away from me, but I wasn’t letting her off that easy.
I had one more goddamn thing to say to her.
Shade looked at me like he could see right through me. “Brother,” he stated.
“What?”
“You good?”
“Fucking solid,” I lied. “Take care of the dead asshole’s shit.”
Shade nodded and fired off a text to Luna.
I walked to the shed at the back of my property where I kept a small backhoe.
I DIDN’T KNOW HOW LONG I’d been sitting on the bathroom floor when the house phone rang. Every part of my body sore, I pushed up and rushed to answer it, because I didn’t want the ringing to wake Summer. Not because I was a caring parent, but because I couldn’t deal with an awake Summer.
Finding the phone on the floor, I grabbed it on the fourth ring. “Hello?”
“It’s Luna. Shade gave me a sitrep. You okay?”
“Fine,” I lied.
André exhaled. “Chica.” Then he said nothing.
Neither did I.
“All right, I hear you. Loud and clear. You need medical attention? You want Talerco to look at that graze wound? I can send him to you.”
“No, thank you.”
“If that changes, let me know. In the meantime, I’m getting your vehicle back to you, but I’m taking the laptop off your hands. You were right, it belonged to Estevez. As far as I’m concerned though, this situation is over for you. I’ll keep your and Summer’s names out of everything as I tie up any loose ends. All you need to do is get on with your life. Any questions?”
Get on with my life.
I looked past the destruction in my bedroom and out the open door at the complete chaos in the living room. Summer was curled up in the blanket, sound asleep.
“I believe my purse is at the ranch.” I couldn’t say his name.
“I’ll handle it. Anything else?”
I exhaled a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. “No, thank you.” I couldn’t see Thomas.
André was quiet a moment. “My next call is Leo, but I’m asking you first. You want me to make different arrangements for your daughter?”
“To what end?”
“A more secure facility. I can pull a few strings.”
I couldn’t ignore the overwhelming truth anymore. “I’m not her mother. I never was.” I realized that now. I’d done everything wrong by her. I’d tried to be her friend, not a parent. But she’d needed more than that. So much more.
“Chica,” André said with quiet compassion. “You’re the madre she knows.”
It hadn’t been enough. I wasn’t strong enough to weather her father and raise her with what she’d needed, so I’d given in at every turn. Now I didn’t know what to do. “I can’t… I don’t know how to help her,” I admitted with crushing guilt. “Call Leo. Please.”
“Done.”
“Thank you.”
His voice turned softer. “May I say something?”
I stared at Summer on the couch. “Yes.”
André inhaled. “Summer’s where she’s at because of choices she made, chica. Not choices you made for her. You didn’t put that first hit, that first drink or that first pill in her hand. This isn’t your fault.”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.
André’s tone went back to all business. “Call if you need anything. You’ve got my number. Your vehicle will be there shortly.” He hung up.
Placing the phone on the nightstand, I glanced at my thigh, and it was as if it awakened the pain. Throbbing heat smarted, and all of a sudden, I needed to be clean. I needed to be free of the blood, free of the violent death of the man who’d been ready to kill me, and free of the memories of last night.
Walking to the bathroom, I glanced at the bundled form on the single couch cushion, and my heart hurt as anger grew. Yanking my dress over my head and carelessly dropping it on the pristine floor, I knew I couldn’t wash off my stepdaughter’s addiction, but I aimed for the shower anyway.<
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Careful of my wound, nausea growing in the pit of my stomach, I held the showerhead and blasted too hot water and soap over my body until all of my flesh was as red as the gash on my thigh.
Drying off, I put ointment from a first aid kit I had under my sink on my thigh, and I combed my hair. All of my movements muscle memory, there was no grace to them. My bones ached, and a lump grew in my throat as a hollowness wedged itself in to my chest.
But no tears came.
I wanted to cry. I wanted to purge all the anger and guilt and hurt in my head, but every second something wound tighter inside me. By the time I picked a loose sheath dress from the hurricane destruction that continued through to my closet, my hands were shaking.
SITTING BEHIND HIS DESK, LUNA rubbed a hand over his face. “All right, let me see if I got this straight. Summer shot Fallon, Estevez’s last guy is dead, and neither of you are saying shit else about the whole thing, including not asking what’s on the laptop.”
I didn’t say the asshole was dead, I’d said handled, but I didn’t correct him.
Standing next to me, Shade nodded. “That pretty much sums it up. But I’ll bite, what was on the laptop?”
“The fucking works.” Luna shook his head. “Bookkeeping, offshore accounts, contacts, no wonder those fucks wanted to get their hands on it.”
Shade didn’t comment, and his solidarity grew on me.
Switching gears, Luna leveled me with a look. “Where’s the body?”
I stared over his head. “What body?” I’d showered at the apartment and changed into fresh clothes I kept in a go-bag in the Escalade, but I was still crawling out of my own damn skin. Not to mention, I was ignoring the telltale ringing in my ears that’d triggered when Summer fucking fired her gun and still hadn’t gone away.
“Madre de Dios, Knight, this isn’t your previous gig, and I’m not the fucking cartel,” Luna clipped. “You don’t need to bury the bodies.”
I needed to get to Fallon. She needed to hear what the fuck I had to say. “I didn’t say I buried anything.” I’d carefully left that part out.