He laughed. “You mean Frank Esposito? Yeah, I saw him out front. That man is a beast when it comes to family law.”
Oh, thank God. Drew had come through.
“Right. Then please direct all further hypothetical games his way.”
“I sent him home.”
I shot to my feet, the chair falling over behind me. “You can’t do that!”
“Cora, honey. Frank and I play golf every weekend. What do you expect?”
I expected that, for once in my life, someone would actually help me—even if I had to pay them to do it. I should have known better. The law was only fair when everyone followed the same rules.
He rose from his seat and prowled around the table. Panic exploded inside me, and I tried to scramble away, but the room was too small to allow me any space. My back hit the wall as his hand found my throat.
“Stop,” I hissed, clawing at his wrist, but it only made him tighten his grip until breathing became an impossible task. Frantic, I glanced to the door, begging for someone to walk by. But even if they did, I wasn’t sure anyone would care.
Leaning in, he put his lips to my ear and snarled, “You’re in my world now. Losing River is just the tip of how bad I could fuck you. You think Manuel is rotting in a prison cell because he cooperated? Don’t fucking test me, Cora. This is not a fight a woman like you wants to take on.”
The pressure in my chest mounted as the adrenaline and the lack of oxygen made my head light. “What…do…you want?” I choked out.
I waited for him to once again ask me where Catalina was.
I waited for him to hit me or scream at me.
I waited for him to strangle me until I passed out or died when I told him that I didn’t know where she was.
But I never, not in a million years, expected his next words.
“Tell her to stay gone,” he seethed. “I swear to God, she gets one fucking idea about showing back up here to claim her brothers’ estates, thinking she can waltz back in, ruin my career because now she has a dime in her pocket… Fuck her. I will kill both of you before I let that happen.”
My vision was tunneling and my lungs were screaming for oxygen, but my mind couldn’t process his words. It was like he was speaking a different language.
Thomas had spent years trying to find Catalina. The same way the Guerreros thought they owned me, Thomas believed with his whole heart that he owned her. Manuel had all but given her to him as a gift. In his eyes, she was the lucky one. No one walked away from a man like Thomas Lyons. Add to the fact that she’d taken his daughter with her… Forget about it. I’d always imagined he’d be still trying to find her on his deathbed to make her pay. But now he wanted her to stay gone?
“I don’t…” Understand. “know where she—”
He gave me a hard shake, slamming me into the wall, knocking what little air I had left from my chest. Closing in on me, he pressed his large frame against my side. “Don’t you fucking lie to me. You know where she is. You have always known. I was willing to let you keep your secret when it benefited me. But if Catalina thinks for one second that her piece-of-shit brothers being ash is her cue to come out of hiding, she obviously needs a reminder of who she really needs to fear.”
I gasped for air when he slid his hand up to my jaw. His fingers bit into my face as he tilted my head up so I would look at him.
His malevolent gaze locked on mine as he seethed, “If you ever want to see River again, you will pick up the fucking phone and tell that bitch to stay…gone.”
He released me with a shove, pain detonating in my head when it cracked against the wall. Whether it was because of my shaking legs, my blurred vision, or my heaving chest, my ability to balance on my own two feet disappeared. My only options were to eat the tile floor or sink to my ass.
I chose the latter but kept my eyes on Thomas as best I could.
He straightened his suit coat and ran a hand over the top of his hair to smooth it back into place. “I took the liberty of scheduling your hearing with Judge Mayso for next week. Before you get too excited, he owes me more favors than I have time. You get word to Catalina, I’ll make sure everything is dropped and you get River back, no questions asked. But I’m watching you, Cora. I catch so much as a scent of that bitch in this city and you can kiss that child goodbye. Say you understand me.”
With my heart in my throat, I nodded.
“Say it!” he demanded, rushing toward me.
I told my body not to flinch. I wanted to be strong enough to lock my emotions down the way I’d trained myself over the last decade. But in just one week, I’d become so emotionally raw that I couldn’t fake it anymore. In that time, every emotion I’d ever possessed had gone to war inside me, my body physically becoming nothing more than the ravaged battlegrounds left behind.
It was supposed to be over.
I was supposed to be free.
But maybe freedom was nothing more than a delusion to convince people like me to continue working in hell. Without the light at the end of the tunnel, we’d accept the darkness for what it truly was: eternal.
I closed my eyes, bracing for his assault, and rushed out, “I got it. I heard you. She won’t come back. I promise.”
“I hope for your sake you can keep your word on that.”
I peeked up when I heard his footsteps moving away. The door opened silently, the sound of people in the distance being the only proof.
He paused before exiting. “You’re free to go, Ms. Guerrero. Do take care of yourself.”
Then he was gone.
And I was alone.
So. Utterly. Alone.
Cora
It was just before midnight when I walked out of the police station. Penn’s truck was sitting out front and the sight of Drew climbing out of the driver’s door equally felt like the sweetest relief and salt to a wound.
He was a friendly face.
And a liar.
But, sad as it was, he was also the only person I had left.
The tears finally breached my eyes as he jogged over and wrapped me into a tight hug that paled in comparison to his brother’s.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Nope. Not even close.”
Using my shoulders, he shifted me away from him. “What’s going on? What are they charging you with?”
I swiped at the moisture dripping down my face. “Being a Guerrero.” Starting toward the truck, I asked, “Did you bring my phone?”
He fell into step at my side. “Yeah. It’s on the seat. Did you hear anything about River? Can we go pick her up?”
The rusty knife twisted inside me. “No. Social Services has her until my court date next week.”
“What the hell? You didn’t do anything wrong. They can’t charge you with child endangerment and not follow it up with proof.”
“If you’re Thomas Lyons, you can.”
Drew came to a dead stop. “What did you say?”
I kept walking, too focused on calling Catalina to worry about his reaction.
After beelining straight to the passenger door, I leaned in to grab my phone. “I need a minute,” I said, searching through my contacts for her number. I made it exactly one step before I face-planted against Drew’s chest.
“Repeat it,” he growled. “What did you say?”
I craned my head back, and the streetlight in the parking lot illuminated the fury etched in his face.
When his anger leveled on me, his eyes flared wide as he boomed, “And what the hell happened to your face?”
I rubbed my aching jaw. I could already feel the bruises from Thomas’s fingertips forming on my face and neck—a not-so-subtle reminder that I had something to do.
“Move. I need to make a call.”
He grabbed my arm, pulling me toward him. “No. Start talking. Did Thomas Lyons do that to you?”
“Yes!” I snapped, my voice echoing off cars parked on either side of us. “And if you don’t get out of my way and
let me make this call, he’s going to do a lot worse.” I snatched my arm out of his hold.
His eyes got dark, his lips got tight, and his lean body became murderous. “Get in the truck,” he ordered on a low grumble.
“Get out of my—hey!” It wasn’t rough nor was it gentle, but one second later, I found myself inside Penn’s truck, the door slammed behind me, and Drew storming around the hood.
“He did not just manhandle me,” I whispered to myself, the trauma of the day finally manifesting in violent rage.
He opened the door and climbed in, which was when I screamed at a decibel that should never be used in an enclosed vehicle. “You did not just manhandle me!”
“I sure as fuck did.” He cranked the truck, threw it in reverse, and then hit the gas, all but peeling out of the parking spot.
“Are you kidding me right now?” I grabbed my seat belt and clicked it on. “Because clearly my day hasn’t been bad enough—you need to go psychotic on me too?”
His jaw ticked as he jumped the curb to get on to the road. “What the fuck do you mean he’s going to do a lot worse? Start at the beginning. I want to hear every goddamn detail that involves Thomas Lyons.”
“Oh, suddenly, I’m supposed to be answering your questions now? When you’ve been lying to me for a fucking week?”
He tore his gaze off the road long enough to glance over at me. “The hell are you talking about? I haven’t been lying to you.”
“Bullshit!” I yelled, hooking my leg up on the seat so I could face him. “You’ve been lying to me about everything since the night of the fire. I don’t know why. And I don’t know what you’re hiding. But don’t you dare sit there and demand an explanation from me when you’ve never given one to me.”
He sucked in a shaky breath as though he were searching for patience. “Has it ever occurred to you that maybe I’m trying to protect you?”
“Has it ever occurred to you that I don’t want to be protected? I want the truth. I’ve spent my entire life being lied to, manipulated, and controlled, and now, you want me to just shut up and swallow more of it from you?”
He opened his mouth, but I didn’t have time for any more bullshit explanations. They weren’t going to contain anything but smoke and mirrors anyway.
“Save it, okay?” I picked my phone up again, but my mind was spinning in too many different directions to remember what I’d programmed Catalina’s number under. Not like I could call her in front of Drew anyway.
Or did it even matter anymore?
I hadn’t meant to explode on him, though I didn’t exactly feel bad about it, either. Between Thomas’s new shit, River being gone, my inability to find Savannah, the gaping hole in my heart because of Penn’s death… I couldn’t take much more. Everything on my body hurt—inside and out. I was beyond exhausted. And, worst of all, I missed the comfort of my hell in that apartment building. I just wanted to go home, where something—anything—felt normal again.
“I’m done, Drew. I’m so done.”
“Don’t say that.” He sighed. “You don’t understand.”
“No. I really don’t,” I told the windshield. “Because you haven’t given me a chance.”
“Jesus Christ.” He said it like a curse, but it was filled with resignation. “Didn’t you and Penn used to play that game? Truth or Lies or something.”
My throat got tight and I swung my head in his direction. “I don’t want any more lies.”
For a split second, headlights from oncoming traffic lit up the cab of the truck, enabling me to see his wince. “I need an out, Cora. Some of this shit, you do not need to know. And that is not because it’s some great secret that will unlock the mysteries of the universe. It’s because I don’t want to know some of this shit. I’ll give you what I can, but if there’s something that you don’t need to know, I’m not going to answer.”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek. It wasn’t ideal. But any light was better than staying in the dark. “Fine. Truth or Lie.”
“All right. Lay it on me.”
“Where’d he get a million dollars?”
“Lie. I don’t know.”
I shot him a glare. “Did he steal it? Rob a bank? What? The girls have it now. Are they going to get arrested for using it?”
“Truth. No. They’ll be fine. Next question.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, why’d he go to the building that night?”
He groaned and then lifted a pack of cigarettes into the air. “You mind if I smoke while we talk?”
I didn’t care if he knitted a sweater while flying on the trapeze if he was actually going to tell me the truth.
“Go for it,” I replied.
He rolled his window down before sparking the tip. Then he pulled in a few deep tobacco-filled inhales and blew them out of the truck. “He was pissed about what Dante did to Savannah, and he knew it wasn’t going to stop at that. After everything he went through with Lisa, the idea of those assholes hurting you or River next… Well, it was more than he could take. I turned our cell phone records over to the cops. I didn’t want to tell you because I thought it would only hurt you more, but he called Marcos and Dante that night. Couple times. I don’t know what was said, but I can only imagine it was pretty colorful.”
I screwed my eyes shut. Yeah, that hurt. Knowing that I was Penn’s motive crashed into me like a sledgehammer.
Though finally having the truth made catching my breath a fraction easier.
“So he poked the beast and they actually showed up?” I asked.
“From what I’ve gathered, yeah, that’s exactly what he did.”
I spoke around the lump in my throat. “And he started the fire, didn’t he? Was that his plan all along—to kill Marcos and Dante?”
He took another drag of his cigarette but never gave me his eyes. “Yes.”
“And he did that for me too, didn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
It was a simple answer that needed no explanation.
I closed my eyes when they started to sting. I was so sick of crying all the damn time. “I knew it,” I mumbled. “I fucking knew it.”
Drew’s hand landed on the side of my neck, where he gave me a gentle squeeze. “The truth is, Cora, he loved you, and he was going to do whatever it took to make you safe.”
“Yeah, well. If you want my truth, I’d rather them still be alive than him be dead.”
“I know. But you gotta understand that I’m here, taking care of you, doing the best I can in a way that I know he would want. I’m on your team. And I’m sick of watching you cry, so if I can prevent that, sometimes, I might tell you a lie. But it’s only to protect you. Not all lies are bad.”
That little blast from the past made me stammer, “Y…you sound just like him. He used to tell me that too.”
“Oh, come on, Penn isn’t that smart.”
I laughed, but it ended on a sob. “I miss him, Drew. So damn much. And I’m really mad at him. I didn’t think I’d ever find someone after I lost Nic. And I don’t even want to try after losing Penn. It’s not worth it. In my life, nothing is permanent but pain. It’s always one sprint after another. I haven’t even caught my breath after losing Penn, and now, Thomas is trying to take River from me?”
The truck slowed to a stop on the shoulder of the road, but the dam inside me had broken. “What did I do wrong? I’m a good person, but I’m tired of being strong. I’m tired of fighting losing battles. And I’m tired of making the best out of a bad situation for the sake of everyone around me.”
He put the truck in park and leaned toward me to give me some awkward side hug thing. “Shhh…calm down. Get it together, because we’re gonna figure this out,” he soothed.
But I couldn’t get it together. My life had fallen apart the moment I first laid eyes on Nic Guerrero. And now, fourteen years later, there was nothing left of me but jagged remnants and broken shards. None of the pieces fit anymore, and I was too damn tired of trying to make them.
“I quit,” I told his shoulder. “The universe can have its victory, because I can’t take this anymore.”
“You’re not a quitter. Or we wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”
I sat up, swiping at my eyes. “He took my daughter, Drew. And unless I can get in touch with Catalina and convince her not to come back to claim her brothers’ estates, he says he’ll take her away from me for good. And he’s just sick and twisted enough that I believe him. Though I’m not sure if that’s before or after he kills me. Something he also threatened. So maybe I should worry about that one first.”
The day I’d met Drew Walker, I’d thought he was plain. But, in hindsight, that had only been because he was standing next to Penn.
Drew was a different kind of handsome.
A different kind of sweet.
A different kind of thoughtful.
And, right then, with his jaw tight, his eyes narrowed into slits, the muscles straining at his neck, and his lips forming a hard slash, he was kind of scary too.
“What?” he breathed so quietly that I barely heard him over the rumble of the engine.
“And he sent the attorney you found home tonight. Apparently, they play golf together. Annnnnnd…the judge that will be hearing my case owes him more favors than Thomas has time. How am I supposed to fight that? Because seriously, if you have an idea, I’m all ears. ’Cause I got nothing.”
“Oh, I got a plan.” He stared at me. His lips were curled into a rabid snarl and his chest was rising and falling faster with every breath, but his eyes weren’t focused. It was as though he were looking right through me.
I waited for several seconds, but when he failed to offer an explanation, I prompted, “You care to share it with me?”
The Complete Truth Duet Page 30