“I did that to protect you.”
“I didn’t need protection! I needed you!” She stomped around me. “I was going to school, Penn. I’m one semester away from getting my bachelor’s in accounting. I had cash. I had plans for a future. I was getting out of there. I didn’t need a man to rush in and rescue me. I needed a man to stand at my side and help me figure out a life outside of there. I needed a partner, not another fucking obstacle.”
I planted my hands on my hips and breathed, “An obstacle? Are you shitting me? I left you everything you could ever possibly need.”
Her face vibrated as she roared, “Everything but you!”
My patience cracked. She wasn’t the only one who’d been hurting.
“I couldn’t stay.” I raked a rough hand through the top of my hair. “Believe me, Cora. I tried to figure out a way to keep you. I don’t know where this ends for me. But I know it ends with Thomas dead. I didn’t want you involved with that. I couldn’t stomach the idea of being another person to drag you down. When Nic died, he left you alone and abandoned.”
Her gaze turned murderous. “Don’t you dare say his name.”
“Tell me your entire life wouldn’t have been better if he’d walked away from you a couple of weeks before he died.”
“This is not about Nic,” she snapped.
I stormed toward her, not stopping until our whole bodies were flush. One of my hands splayed across her lower back, the other landing between her shoulder blades. Her chest heaved in time with mine and her eyes were wild, but not with fear.
I leaned in close, brushing my nose with hers before saying, “Oh, but it is, baby. See, Nic was a young, dumb kid who thought he could take his diamond to the junkyard and leave with her still in his pocket. Only he died in that junkyard, and that diamond was stuck there until the day I found her. I wasn’t doing that to you again. I wasn’t dragging you down, covering you in my filth, and then hanging your ass out to dry when something happened to me. I wanted you out of there, despite the fact that I had to stay.” I hooked my thumb at my chest. “I watched you sleeping every fucking night for two months with dread pooling in my gut, feeling like my heart was being ripped out of my chest at the mere thought of losing you. But there was no solution. In order for you to escape that life, the Guerreros needed to die and I had to leave.”
“But you didn’t have to make me think you were dead,” she shot back. “Fine, you want the credit? Here you go. You were my knight in shining armor. I should be on my knees, thanking you right now. But you’ll have to excuse me. My knees are a little sore. I’ve spent the last few weeks on them, crying over you.”
“You think I wanted this? You think I wanted to let go of the woman who made me feel more alive in two months than I had in all thirty-seven years of my life combined? For fuck’s sake, the idea of you moving on, making a life with another man corrodes my veins. I know I hurt you, Cora. But I swear to God, I did the only thing I could think of to make your life better rather than making it worse.”
She closed her eyes, her entire face scrunching in pain. “Why didn’t you just tell me? I could have handled it.”
“I didn’t want to drag you into this hell.”
“I was already in it. Long before you were.”
“But I couldn’t watch you burn. You might not have been scared of the flames inside me”—I pounded the spot over my heart—“but I was. So that connection between me and you had to be severed, no matter how much it destroyed me.”
“You?” she accused. Her eyes popped open and the betrayal blazing within them tore me limb from limb. “So you decided to destroy me instead?”
“Destroyed is not dead.”
“Stop saying that,” she seethed. “It’s bullshit. All of it. This was never about me. The day you walked into my apartment and every single day after it, you were one big fucking lie. You swore to me that you weren’t looking for Catalina.”
“I wasn’t there to hurt her.”
“No. You saved that for me, right?”
“No,” I stated definitively.
Her lips quivered as she peered up at me. “You walked into my life, took one look around, and felt sorry for me? Was that it? You couldn’t save Lisa, so you decided to give it another try with me.”
Pressure mounted inside me. I wanted to yell at her that she was wrong. Shake her and make her understand. But I really just wanted this to stop. All of it.
“That’s not what happened at all.”
Her arms hung at her sides, and the emptiness in her eyes knocked the breath out of me. “You made love to me every night, stared right into my face, and lied with your body too.”
“Cora, baby. No. I never fucking lied to you like that.” I was losing her. She was standing there in my arms and I hadn’t even gotten her back yet. But I was losing her all over again. “Please. Just listen to me.”
“What else is there to say? The minute you got the answer about what happened to your precious wife, you threw some money at me like a whore and then left.”
My whole body tensed, the muscles in my neck painfully straining against my skin. Careful to control my tone, I gritted out, “It wasn’t like that. And you fucking know it.”
“I don’t know anything anymore! Nothing makes sense. Was any of it real, Shane?”
I hated the way she said my name. Like it was a curse all of its own. In a lot of ways, though, I supposed it was.
Because, no matter how much I wanted to deny it, Cora Guerrero had never been in love with Shane Pennington.
Not yet anyway.
I needed her to feel the honesty pounding in my chest, coursing through my veins, and flowing in my lungs.
Taking her hand, I lifted it to my chest, sealing it against me with both of my hands on top. “We are the truth, Cora. We are the only truth in this entire fucked-up situation.”
Her shoulders rounded forward in defeat. “I don’t even know what the truth is anymore.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Then what do you want me to say, Penn?” She flinched. “I mean…Shane.”
“Penn. Please, just call me Penn.”
“Why? So we can continue with the lie?”
My hand spasmed over hers. “It doesn’t feel like a lie when you say it. Cora, I’m sorry. For all of it. No, I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you when this started. But you pretty much left me no choice. You’re an incredible woman. I knew that from the moment Lisa told me about you. But when I finally met you—”
She snatched her hand away like I’d electrocuted her. “What do you mean when Lisa told you about me?”
I swallowed hard and dug my phone out. “She came to Chicago after getting a tip about some girls getting into drugs and prostitution after answering online modeling ads. The cops weren’t doing anything about it, so she decided she would. Through that, she found the Guerreros.” I scrolled through my phone until I found a picture of her standing with Drew at a family Christmas party.
She was smiling at the camera, her brother’s arm draped around her shoulders. Pictures of her used to break me. Now, I was worried that they were going to break Cora too.
Turning the screen of my phone in her direction, I finished with, “And then she found you.”
I saw the exact moment recognition hit her. Her face paled and then her small body turned to stone.
“No,” she declared, scrambling away from me. “No, that’s not possible. That’s Lexy.” And then just when I thought I couldn’t hurt her any worse, a light of understanding hit her eyes before it shattered her. “Oh, God. Oh, God, you’re Shane. You’re Lexy’s Shane.”
Cora
Four years earlier…
“On a scale of one to ten, how bad would it be if we hit a drive-thru for dinner?”
“Bad?” River asked from the back seat. “That would be awesome.”
I smiled at her in the rearview mirror. She was getting so old, looking more and more like her dad every day. “Okay, but
just this once.”
She threw a fist-pump into the air.
I laughed and put my blinker on, cutting across traffic to get into the turn lane. “You find any good books at the library?”
“Meh. Not really. They were all so pagey.”
“Ah, yes. Those evil books are notorious for that. Real downer, huh?”
“Total. How’d your test go?”
“Ninety-seven.” I brushed invisible dirt off my shoulder.
She laughed. “Hey, nice job!”
“Thanks. I got approximately the same minutes in sleep last night, but whatever. I can sleep when we get our mansion in the sky.”
“Oh, that reminds me. When we get the new house, I want to paint stars on the ceiling.”
My heart skipped a beat. “I can get you some stars to stick up there for now if you want. Or you can take a few of your dad’s off my ceiling.”
“Nah, those are yours. I want to paint them myself. One in. One out.”
Pride soared in my veins. “Yeah. Of course. Any chance you’ll let me help?”
“Depends. You gonna let me get a milkshake with dinner?”
My smile stretched as I narrowed my eyes on her in the rearview. “You seriously going to blackmail me like that?”
She giggled. “This is what happens when you deny a child sugar for years at a time. They turn to a life of crime.”
Jesus, she was a smartass. Definitely her father’s child.
My phone started ringing when I turned into the parking lot of our favorite burger place. “Fine. Chocolate or vanilla?”
“Have we met?” she smarted.
“Once or twice. But I keep hoping to convert you into a chocolate lover.”
“I wouldn’t hold your breath.”
I stuck my tongue out at her as I got into the drive-thru line and lifted the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
It was Brittany, and the panic in her voice hit me like a Mack truck. “Dante’s here.”
The hairs on my arms stood on end. It was funny how two words could cause such a visceral reaction, but that was all it took with me. Two words and the core of my soul shivered.
“I’m on the way.” I dropped the phone in my lap without so much as hanging up first.
“Hey!” River complained when I wheeled out of line. “What about my milkshake?”
“Dante’s at the building,” I rushed out, my heart going to war with my ribs.
I mentally played out that morning in my head, reviewing my every move. I’d put my textbook away. My money was hidden. That week’s deposits were ready to go. River was with me. And all the girls had been accounted for. He hadn’t been by in a while, but we were always prepared.
God, I hoped we were prepared.
I glanced back at River and tears were already falling from her eyes as she silently peered out the window.
“It’s going to be fine. I’m sure he’s just dropping off a new girl,” I lied. “But when we get back, I want you to go straight upstairs and lock yourself in your room. You know the drill.”
She nodded without looking at me.
“Hey, baby, look at me. It’s going to be okay. He has no reason to take you this time.” I’d only gotten her back the night before. Manuel had had her for over a week that time. My blood turned to sludge when I thought of him taking her again. “It’s going to be fine,” I repeated for both of our sakes. “I swear.”
“Truth?” Not even her whisper could hide the shake of her voice.
I flicked my gaze to the mirror. I didn’t want to lie to her. I didn’t even want to tell her it was a lie. I wanted it to be the truth with every fiber of my being. So much so that I didn’t hesitate when I replied, “Truth. I won’t let him take you.”
It took us about five more minutes to get home. As soon as we pulled up, I saw a congregation of women huddled around the stairs and peering up. My heart stopped when ten pairs of terrified eyes flashed my way before I got the car in park. The sound of River’s door slamming came at the same time I cut the engine. I scrambled out after her, watching her brown ponytail sway as she ran toward the steps.
“Cora!”
“Cora!”
“Cora!”
I put a hand up to silence them while scanning the group for one I trusted. “Angela,” I called. “Go up with her. Lock the door.”
She peeled out of the group, taking the steps two at a time to catch up to River.
I turned my attention on Brittany. “Where is he?”
Her already pale face flashed ghostly. “He’s with Lexy.”
My pulse spiked as fear rocked me back a step. “Shit,” I breathed, taking off up the stairs at a dead sprint.
I’d just moved her up to the third floor. She hadn’t been there long, but she already wanted out. The girls up there all loved her. More often than not, I’d find them sitting around, waxing poetic about what they wanted to do with their lives. It gave me hope of one day helping them make it a reality. Lexy wanted to get into journalism. She had big dreams of becoming an investigative reporter for one of the major cable networks. Her whole face would light up like a sunrise when she’d talk about it.
But I had to get her out of there first.
When I hit the third floor, I found Angela trying to coax River into our apartment. But she was frozen in the middle of the breezeway, her mouth hanging open, while staring at Lexy’s ajar door.
And then I understood why.
“Get off me!” Lexy screamed from inside.
“Shut the fuck up,” Dante growled.
There were several loud crashes followed by another scream that echoed around the breezeway, slicing me to the bone with every reverberation.
My mind went to work trying to figure out any possible way in which I could stop this. I could have charged in there, dragging him off her. Dante loved to hit me. Hell, it probably would have been a treat for him.
But with one glance at River, I realized there was absolutely nothing I could do for Lexy.
He would have taken her. He would have beaten me senseless and then he would have taken her again back to Manuel. And God only knew for how long this time.
I was trapped. Caught between allowing a good woman to be raped and abused and losing my daughter to the very same man.
My whole body trembled, and my mind swirled, frantically trying to come up with a solution.
“You fucking whore,” Dante seethed.
“No!” Lexy cried.
I lifted a shaking hand to my mouth while tears scraped the back of my eyes like rusty razor blades.
“Cora,” Angela pleaded.
I shook my head repeatedly. “Get River inside.”
“No,” River argued. “We have to help her.”
Another scream.
Another grunt.
Another piece of me being stripped away.
My head throbbed with sharp, piercing pain—more than likely my conscience making its presence known. “I can’t. He’ll take you if I get involved. I can’t let them do that again. I can’t fix this, baby. I just can’t.”
Another scream.
Another grunt.
Another knife to my heart.
Like a coward, I came unglued and marched to the door to my apartment. I snagged River’s hand, dragging her after me, and barked at Angela, “Go tell everyone to get in their apartments and lock the door. I don’t want to see anyone outside until I let you know the coast is clear.”
Regretfully, she glanced back at Lexy’s door. She wanted to help as much as I did, but no one in that building could afford to go toe-to-toe with a Guerrero.
“This is so fucked up,” she whispered before taking off.
Another scream.
Another grunt.
Another blistering wave of guilt.
“Give me your key,” I ordered at River when I realized I’d left mine in the car.
She quickly dug it out of her pocket and slapped it onto my palm. Honing my focus on stilling the shake in my hand
s, I went to work on the locks.
Another scream.
Another grunt.
And then I died. Or at least, I thought I was going to.
“Dante,” River called, but she wasn’t behind me anymore.
I spun around and found her pushing Lexy’s door open. “River!” I whisper-yelled, lunging toward her, but it was too late.
“Get the fuck out of here, kid!” Dante boomed.
She didn’t move, but I watched in horror as she dipped low, picking something up off the floor before shoving it into her back pocket. Then she said, “Manuel’s looking for you. He’s been trying to call you. Apparently, something’s going down on the South Side. He wants you to meet him at home as soon as possible.”
“What the fuck?” Dante rumbled, but I heard his heavy footsteps. “Where the hell is my phone?”
In River’s pocket.
Shit. I was going to kill that kid.
With labored breaths and a marathon pulse, I clambered across the hall and put my back flush to the brick beside the door. Out of sight but close enough to grab her if I needed to.
“Yeah, don’t ask me,” she replied in a bored tone. “He didn’t give me any details. But he sounded mad.”
“Son of a bitch,” he grumbled.
I flinched when he tripped over the threshold, almost knocking River over, before stumbling down the stairs. He was high, no doubt. I could only pray he’d wrap himself around a tree before discovering that River had lied to him.
After tiptoeing to the railing, I peeked over and found him folding into his car. I refused air to my lungs until he kicked up a spray of gravel and dust while tearing out onto the road.
I raced back into Lexy’s apartment. She was sitting on the floor, her back propped against the wall, her brown eyes wild and distant, blood dripping from the corner of her mouth.
The Complete Truth Duet Page 35