by Aly Martinez
“Weapons up, boys,” Johnson replied, moving toward the safe Leo kept in the corner.
I caught his elbow and forced him to face me. “Who the fuck is that?”
He cracked his neck and then snatched his arm from my grip. “Your worst nightmare or your sweetest dream. It all just depends on the day.”
I stepped toward him and seethed, “And what about today?”
His gaze flicked over my shoulder to Mira, and then he shrugged. “We’re about to find out.”
“Zach,” Leo called to the ceiling. “Get Jude up here and lock down Rhion’s apartment.”
“Braydon’s down there watching the game,” Zach replied.
“Good. Get his ass up here too.” He marched to the safe and retrieved a forty-five, checking the magazine before tucking it into the back of his pants. “Don’t open that elevator until I give the word, you got it?”
“On it,” he replied.
Leo turned to his brother-in-law. “You need to get the fuck out of here.”
Caleb’s eyes flashed wide. “Please fucking tell me that is not who I think it is.”
Leo moved to the office door and yanked it open. “You want to keep that badge on your hip, I highly suggest you leave. Take the stairs. Go out the front. I’ll call you later.”
Silently, I watched the men go back and forth like a Ping-Pong match, a vile sense of unease settling in my gut.
“Are you fucking insane?” Caleb questioned, fisting his hands on his hips.
“Now!” Leo boomed.
I jerked when I felt Mira’s heat at my back.
“What’s happening?” she asked, fear thick in her voice.
I had no answers. I was as clueless as she was, but one thing I was sure of: I didn’t want her to have any part of whatever the hell was about to go down. Sliding an arm around her shoulders, I shifted her around to my front and then into my chest where I whispered in her hair. “Go down to Rhion’s, baby. I’ll come get you in a—”
“No,” Johnson and Leo bit out in unison.
Shocked, I flicked my gaze between the two of them. “The fuck? She’s not staying here.”
Johnson shrugged on a shoulder holster and replied, “Yeah. She is. That man is here not eight hours after Walter Noir tries to put a knife in your woman. I promise you he’s not here for tea and fucking biscuits. This is not Rhion’s bullshit, and we sure as fuck are not leading this man to her front door. Mira stays. We’ll keep her safe. But, if he’s here for her, you could send her to the fucking moon and it wouldn’t help.”
Suddenly, that vile sense of unease turned to acid devouring me from the inside out. My throat constricted, and I peered down into her terrified, brown eyes.
“Jeremy,” she whispered, her body trembling against me.
I’d just fucking gotten her back. I’d be damned if I was going to let anything happen to her.
I forced a smile. “Everything’s going to be fine. I swear.”
Her breathing shuddered, but she nodded, trust I wasn’t sure I deserved blazing from her eyes.
Less than two minutes later, Caleb was gone. Leo, Johnson, Jude, Braydon, and I all stood in a semi circle around the front door. Mira and Apollo were locked in the security room with Zach. And, while I thought she’d be safe with them, I felt like I was going to have a goddamn nervous breakdown from not having her within reach. Nobody could protect her like I could. I still had no idea what the fuck was going on, but as we waited by the door, Johnson gave me the basic rundown. And, when I say basic, I mean bare fucking bones. I believe his exact words were, “Mateo Rodriguez. Bad man. He and Leo have a history. Stay sharp.”
That. Was. It.
Without a knock, the front door swung open, and then the entire room filled with static as the well-dressed man came sauntering in. He left the door open, but his entourage stayed on the other side of the threshold.
My body went solid as he swept his gaze over each of us. His lips turned up in a slow smile as he lifted his chin to Johnson, and then his gaze landed on Leo. A thick Spanish accent curled around his words as he asked, “Where is she?”
Leo gave him no reaction as he said, “Good to see you too, Mateo.”
He took a challenging step forward. “Mira Benton. Give her to me.”
My body jerked, and I instinctively moved my hand to the gun on my hip.
His gaze slashed through the room before landing on mine. “You’ll be dead before you ever pull that trigger.”
Leo took a step forward, strategically moving in front of me, his hands lifted in surrender. “Mateo. Please. Mira is—”
I didn’t think. I didn’t consider if it was a truth or a lie. I didn’t weigh my options. My mind didn’t actually have any part of my decision at all. The word just tore out of me as if it had been poised on my tongue for my entire life, waiting for its chance to fly free. “Mine,” I declared, my shoulders rolling back as I stood impossibly taller. Holding his icy stare over Leo’s shoulder, I added, “And you’ll be dead before you ever lay one fucking finger on her.”
His body went taut, the air around him becoming toxic.
Braydon and Jude slid in close to me, flanking each side, while Johnson shuffled forward to have Leo’s right.
“What he means is, ” Leo started, and then I lost the conversation completely.
The two men broke into Spanish. Mateo spoke; Leo fluidly replied. This went on for several minutes. Their tone never rose, but the tension between them never ebbed.
Based on all two years of high school Spanish, I was able to catch a few words. Mira, Lark, Benton, bitch, and that was about it.
I glanced to Braydon, who was staring out the door at the huddle of Men In Black agents A through H. Jude was stoic as ever, his eyes fixed on Leo. And Johnson stood stock-still, boring a hole in Mateo.
Finally, Leo switched back to English. “Zach,” he called. “Send Mira out.”
All at once, my blood ignited in a wildfire. “No fucking way,” I barked, my body exploding forward.
Leo’s hand came up, slamming into my sternum to stop me. And then he smiled. Like an honest-to-God shit-eating grin. “Relax,” he ordered.
He turned his head back to Mateo, who was surprisingly smiling too.
“See? I told you,” Leo said, his voice filled with humor.
What…the…fuck?
The bad dude, who Johnson had so eloquently warned me about, gave me a quick head-to-toe and replied, “I can see.”
And then the entire room broke into chaos.
Happy, gleeful, long-lost-friends-finally-reuniting-for-the-first-time-in-a-century kind of chaos.
I seriously thought that my head was going to turn into a geyser when I watched Johnson extend a shake to Mateo before pulling him in for a chest bump and a back pat. “Good to see you again, my man,” he said.
“You as well,” Mateo replied. Cheerful. Fucking cheerful.
When he snapped his fingers, his goons filed in through the door before carefully shutting it behind them. For the record, they did not look happy or gleeful, but they seemed relaxed and quite honestly bored.
“Can I get you something to drink?” Leo offered.
I blinked, more puzzled than ever. Jesus Christ. Clearly Johnson had been wrong. Maybe they had shown up for tea and biscuits.
“I wouldn’t turn down a scotch,” Mateo replied.
Leo headed for the kitchen, calling out, “Coming up.”
I was perilously close to losing my goddamn mind when I heard her voice.
“Mateo?” she whispered.
We all turned at the same time, my heart lurching when I saw her standing in the hallway, her dark hair cascading over her shoulders, her red-rimmed eyes now lit with an even more confusing mixture of anxiety and relief.
With long strides, I descended upon her. Leo’s tea and fucking biscuits aside, she was still my woman and Johnson’s brief to stay sharp still rang in my ears. Protectively, I tucked her into my side.
Then, swear
to God, shit got weirder.
Her eyes remained on the man across the room as she timidly asked, “Are you a drug lord too?”
He stared at her for several beats before erupting into a fit of laughter.
What in the fucking hell was going on?
When the man finally sobered, he strolled toward us.
I tensed, ready for war.
Thankfully, he stopped an acceptable distance away, and then rolled every R as he said, “Yes, Preciosa, I am what you would call a drug lord. However, I’m here to help.” He waved a hand at me like he was one of Barker’s Beauties on The fucking Price Is Right and said, “Introduce me to your new man, and then we’ll all get down to business.”
And that was the exact moment I decided I was quitting my job, getting my girls, chaining Mira to my bed, and then spending the rest of our natural lives in an underground bunker.
Have no fear. A self-proclaimed drug lord was there to help.
Fuck.
My.
Life.
If Walter Noir had been one of my best customers at the Sip and Sud, Mateo Rodriguez had been the absolute best. He was a gorgeous Hispanic man from Miami. Who, much like Walter, had only come through a few times a month when he’d been in town on business. He’d tipped well, but that wasn’t why I’d been excited each time I’d seen him across the bar. Truth be told, beneath that arrogant exterior, the man was hilarious. He’d always come at random times when the place was dead, and he’d sit there for hours, trying to teach me Spanish. It was a hopeless cause. I didn’t have much of my Southern accent left after having lived in Chicago for so long, but my tongue was physically unable to make the sounds required to pronounce words like correr or rápido.
For a while, I’d thought Mateo was interested in me. And, for a while, given the way Kurt had tiptoed around him, I’d hoped he was.
Like everyone else in my life, I’d lost Mateo when the Sip and Sud had closed. And, as fucked up as it was, even knowing he was a drug dealer of the worst kind, I felt a certain happiness about seeing him again.
We were sitting on the long, chocolate-leather couches in the Guardian living area. Leo was sprawled out on one end like he owned the place. Which, technically, he did, but Johnson had had to pull up a chair and Braydon was forced to remain on his feet to be a part of the conversation, so it seemed odd.
I was curled into Jeremy’s side—or as curled as a person could get while cuddling a slab of granite. It was safe to say my guy did not share my enthusiasm to be hanging out with my old friend.
Mateo had settled into one of the overstuffed recliners. He didn’t kick it back and get comfortable. He sat straight up, an inch of scotch in a highball glass, swirling it and looking every bit as regal as the king of crime I was learning he was. His men had scattered to various points around the open room, all of their backs to the wall and all of their eyes leveled on their fearless leader.
In hindsight, this could maybe…possibly… Fine, it definitely was why Jeremy was so uptight.
“So, this man put a gun to your head?” Mateo looked to Leo. “Jonah Sheehan, is it?”
Leo nodded.
“I know the name,” Mateo told me. “Small time. I feel certain he was acting alone, approaching you after being fed incorrect information about the Sip and Sud. I’ll see what I can do about your friend.” Mateo’s gaze snapped to one of his men.
Silently, something was communicated. Something I pretended not to see, considering I was pretty sure that communication had been Jonah’s death sentence. Though, if it got me Whitney back, I’d have been willing to personally attend his execution.
Mateo turned his attention back to me and asked, “Then Steve Browel sent someone to abduct you?”
I leaned toward him, but Jeremy’s hand got painfully tight on my thigh, so I leaned back before whispering, “Yeah. Do you know who that is?”
He chuckled like I was a silly child, but it wasn’t insulting. “Mira, love, do you remember the bald guy who always brought in his laundry? No shirts. No pants. Just seventy-five pair of men’s underwear. And he only showed when you had the boys working? He’d never drink. He just stared, his hand every so often disappearing under the table.”
My mouth fell open. “Oh my God! Stevie the perv?”
He winked. “Also known as Steven Browel.”
Appalled, I scooted to the edge of the cushion and was promptly pulled back by Jeremy. “What the hell would he want to kidnap me for?”
He looked back to Leo and then awkwardly took a sip of his scotch.
“Mateo?” I prompted.
When I tried to rise from the couch, Jeremy once again prevented me by hooking his arm around my shoulders and dragging me back down.
Frustrated, I craned my head back and snipped, “Would you stop?”
Mr. Hyde got in my face, his eyes dark, his face hard, his jaw clenched. Then he said, “No.” Only he didn’t just say no. He enunciated it slowly and drew it out like I had suddenly gone deaf and needed to read his lips.
I twisted my mouth. “You cannot be serious right now?”
He did this crazy thing with his eyes where they somehow bulged and narrowed at the exact same time. And it told me that he was more than just serious; he was one blink away from becoming an X-Man.
“Sit,” he demanded, forcefully shifting me deeper into his side.
I groaned, not having the energy to argue with him and get the deets from a drug lord/good friend about why people were trying to kidnap me. (Jeez, my life was weird.)
When I gave Mateo my eyes back, he was chuckling. “I already like him better than the last one. He at least tries to keep you safe.”
“Yeah, but you hated Kurt,” I replied flippantly.
Since I was pinned to Jeremy, Mateo leaned forward, lifted his glass in the air in a show of cheers, and whispered, “Mira, everyone hated Kurt. Including you.”
“Touché.” I giggled.
He smiled, the white of his teeth flashing like a ray of light against his dark complexion, and then he leaned back in his chair. Crossing his legs at the knee, he looked Jeremy straight in the eye and ordered, “Hold her tight. This is going to hurt.”
Jeremy was already holding me tight, and I didn’t figure he could…
“Hey!” I objected as his arms anchored around me, not as much painful as they were uncomfortably restraining.
Discarding his drink to the end table, Mateo locked his gaze on mine and then ruined my entire dirty, filthy, garbage-filled, already-ruined life.
“The reason all of these men have come after you is because word is out that you are starting a new Sip and Sud. Preciosa, I know you believe that your bar was clean, but the Sip and Sud was one of the largest money laundering operations in the country.”
I scoffed. “Pssh. Please. The Feds told me Kurt ran a couple thousand dollars through my books when they seized the place. But that was it.”
Mateo’s face got soft, and so did his voice, “No. That’s all they found. Kurt made sure of that.”
I blinked, chills pebbling my skin. “W-what are you talking about?”
He cleared his throat. “I’m not privy to how it started for Kurt, but by the time I became involved, the Sip and Sud was a well-oiled machine. Our men would deliver him cash, he’d log them as sales, clean and clear, and then he would pay it back to us, less his cut through business accounts set up to appear as subcontractors. Do you happen to remember Scott’s Lighting?”
My stomach dropped. “They… That was who he insisted we hired to do the custom lighting on all the dryers.” My nose started to sting, and my throat got thick. “They strobed in time with the music.”
He nodded. “That was one of my accounts. It cost me seven grand to have the lights installed. Kurt paid me two hundred and eighty thousand dollars.”
“Jesus, fuck,” Jeremy muttered.
Breath flew from my lungs as if I’d been punched in the stomach, reality scorching my throat on its way out.
But he wasn’t done gutting me yet. “After he maxed out the books at your first bar, he did the same with the next two. And, when those became so successful he was unable to make the influx of money seem plausible, he branched out. He recruited other businesses and eventually became one of the highest-paid middlemen in the business, collecting a percentage of money he never even touched. As much as it pains me to admit, Kurt Benton was far from an idiot. And the fact that he went down for distribution of anabolic steroids, something that was a hobby of his, not his career, all without a single of his real clients catching any heat, proves it.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “You’re wrong. My bar stayed packed. We got shut down by the fire marshal on Halloween one year.”
He uncrossed his legs and folded forward. “Because Kurt was smart. You can hardly run a bar making that kind of cash without a single customer walking through the door. People would notice. And, Mira, I say this with love, but it was a laundromat bar. That kind of business does not make that kind of cash period. A crazy idea like that goes bankrupt before the doors open.”
Blood thundered in my ears. I was vaguely aware of Jeremy whispering something to me, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Mateo long enough to focus on what it was.
Kurt had always lied to me. He’d controlled me mentally, physically, and emotionally. He’d manipulated me to stay in a marriage I’d desperately wanted to escape and forced me to live under the cold chill of his shadow. I couldn’t have a family or friends. Forget about children. But the Sip and Sud… It was my light.
I loved that bar. I loved that it was unique. I loved that I had created it from nothing. And I loved that it had been successful because that meant, no matter how shitty and miserable my life had been, I was successful too.
It had given me a purpose. A reason to wake up in the morning. I had finally been good at something. And I’d made a substantial living doing it. As silly as it sounded, for a girl who had grown up with nothing, the ability to buy myself a wildly expensive designer handbag had meant more to me than the dozens Kurt had spoiled me with using his parents’ credit cards. When the Feds had seized all of my belongings because they were covered in Kurt’s filth, I’d felt like I’d lost a part of myself. And not because I needed a closet full of Manolo or Louis Vuitton. But rather because it’d made me feel like a fraud. Like nothing I had worked my ass off for had ever truly been mine.