by Karina Halle
Javier pulled the gun around to me but I was too fast. I was already there. I was already the black beast.
I tackled Javier, my bad shoulder down, not caring about the pain. I dove right into his chest, throwing him back into the concrete wall of the building, his head smashing against it, leaving a bloody smear that was diluted by the rain.
Even with one arm in a sling, I was able to beat the fuck out of him. I punched him over and over again, relishing the feeling of my bleeding knuckles, the blood from his face, the feeling of breaking cartilage.
He tried, several times, to get up, to fight back. He put up a good, dirty fight, my shoulder being his number one target. But I was beyond the pain now. I was something else. I was rage and I was wrath and I was twenty-six years of hell.
I brought out my gun from the sling and held it right against Javier’s temple, spitting in his face one more time, watching the spit mix with blood and rain. “You can’t give me a single fucking reason why I shouldn’t pull the trigger.”
He looked up at me, eyes golden against the mask of blood on his face. He licked his broken and bleeding lips, slowly, sickly, and said, “No. I can’t. So kill me. And let this all be over with.”
I pressed the gun further into his head, the anger shaking me from my bones. “No. This won’t be over because Ellie is still out there. She’s going to Travis’s and there’s a chance she’s not coming back. You better fucking hope that she poisons him and does it well because that’s the only way she’ll get out of there.”
“Camden,” I heard Gus groan from behind me. I kept the gun at Javier’s head and looked at him. He was lying back and holding onto his stomach, blood running from his mouth.
“Stay cool, Gus, I’ll get an ambulance,” I told him.
“You go get Ellie,” he said, barely getting out the words. “I’ll be fine.”
I turned and looked at Javier, hoping I could burn him alive with my eyes. “I’m going to go after Ellie. I’m only letting you live so you can get Gus to the hospital. If he dies, it’s on you. And I’m going to be sure that Ellie knows about it.”
He swallowed hard and for a second I worried that Javier might die before Gus. A strange thing to worry about. I decided to call the ambulance on my way to Travis’s, just to be sure. I couldn’t trust this man for anything, not even to stay alive when I needed him to.
I got to my feet. “Do you understand?”
He nodded, breathing hard, his nostrils flaring.
“On second thought.” I pointed the gun at him and for once he looked like I might pull the trigger. He was actually afraid of me. “I could just kill you now and be done with you and call an ambulance myself.”
I held it there for a few moments, pointed at him with all the fire inside me, before I lowered the gun and walked over to Gus, kneeling down beside him. His face was white, his eyes dull but he was alert and looking at me. I patted him on the arm and gave it a good squeeze.
“You’re going to be fine, Gus.” I pulled the cell phone out of his pocket and eyed Javier who was still lying there, propped up against the wall like a rag doll. I nodded at him. “Tell me where Travis lives, Javier.”
He seemed to grapple with the information, as if he wasn’t going to give it to me and for a second I thought maybe he really would let Ellie go on this suicide mission. But he motioned for me to bring the cell over.
I handed it to him and with a bloody hand he began to enter an address into the GPS. He handed it back to me as the new coordinates began triangulating. A flashing red dot.
“You go in there like this, you’re going to get yourself killed before you even step foot on the property,” he sneered. “You can’t do this alone.”
“You let me worry about me,” I said. I got up, loomed over him. “And if I ever see your face again, I will kill you. You won’t know when it will happen, but it will happen.”
We stared at each other for a few tense seconds, his yellow, poisonous eyes hating every inch of me. I was sure my look was no different.
I tore my eyes away and glanced over at Gus. I swallowed hard, praying this wasn’t the last time I’d see him.
“I’ll see you in a bit, Gus,” I told him. Then I turned on my heel and started running for the GTO. Running for Ellie.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
ELLIE
Once I went back to the hotel and saw that Enrico wasn’t at the desk, I went upstairs and started going down the hallway, calling out for Gus and Camden, hoping they were in one of the hotel rooms. I needed to warn them, to get to them before Javier did. But they weren’t anywhere and when I went back downstairs and asked the front desk lady if she could call them for me, there was no answer on their end.
They would have seen the device going off with Javier and thought it was me, deviating from the plan. Now there was a whole new plan, one that Gus and Camden were walking straight into. I hoped to god that Javier would keep his word and only kill Camden if I didn’t go through with the assassination. I should have made him promise it.
That was the only thing that kept me going, kept me putting one foot in front of the other, the fact that if I did everything I was told, they could be saved. And Gus, dear sweet old Gus, he wasn’t an idiot – he was a trained cop and a hell of a lot of other things. He was the wildcard, someone that Javier wouldn’t be expecting when Camden turned up.
I got out of the shower, trying to calm my breath and keep my limbs from shaking, trying to go ahead and do the things I needed to do to survive and get out of this. I picked out a dress from the closet, the place where Camden had hidden, watching out for me, never obvious but always there. The dress was long, green and glittery like mermaid scales which would have made me feel absolutely beautiful if I was wearing it at any other time but now it was just a cloak for my murder, a means to an end.
I pinned my hair up and made my makeup look sweet and sexy. I’d definitely act the part tonight. I was no longer afraid. I was determined to carry this out. I would get rid of him and then figure out a way to get myself out of there and back to Camden and Gus somehow. Through hell and high water, they found me. I could find them. I’d been through worse.
I eyed the necklace hoping it would hold together and keep my secrets hidden. Those dirty angel wings. So Javier thought I was rotten too. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, he’d been telling me how bad I was all this time.
At five thirty I went out to the lobby where Enrico was still nowhere to be found. Funny how he disappeared all of a sudden. I wondered if that was because Travis was coming here or perhaps Javier had called all of his troops to deal with Camden and Gus.
I swallowed hard and started sliding the pendant up and down the chain. No fear. I could do this. This would be done.
A white limousine pulled up outside and the driver came into the lobby, elegantly dressed with a jaunty cap and dark glasses. He called out, “Eleanor Willis.”
I paused, waiting a moment, letting the fake name sink on me, before I stood up and gathered my black shawl around me. “That’s me.”
The driver showed the way to the limo. It had been raining on and off all day and it was just starting to sputter again, the wind driving it into my face. I had put on waterproof mascara, insurance against the weather and against any tears I knew I’d be shedding for whatever reason. I wouldn’t get out of this day without tears or blood.
The driver pointed to the heavy, dark sky and said, “It will be sunny tomorrow.”
I gave him a sad smile. I doubted tomorrow would be anything but sunny. I got in the back of the spacious limo, somewhat surprised that Travis wasn’t in the back.
“Are we meeting Mr. Raines at the restaurant?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Mr. Raines is having dinner at his house. He is there already tending to his guests. He is having a dinner party.”
I sat back, stunned. A dinner party? How the fuck was I going to escape from a dinner party? How was Javier going to get me, let alone anyone else?
And just like that, I’d let the fear back in. Maybe this really was a suicide mission. Maybe it was always planned this way. Ellie Watt, the sacrifice that everyone loved to make.
My heart cried out for Camden, the only one who never saw me that way. I held my head back, staring at the lights on the roof of the limo, trying to keep the tears back. I stayed like that the entire drive until the limo pulled off the main streets of Veracruz and started to head inland toward a group of low hills, lush with greenery and the heavily gated mansions sprinkled throughout like hard candy.
Travis’s place was at the end of a very long and narrow cobblestone street lined with flowers that seemed too bright for nature and palm trees that stretched as tall as the eyes could see. It was like entering a tunnel but there was no light at the end of it.
The limo paused at the extremely large gates where the driver waved something at the man at the booth. The man came out and the rear window went down. He looked in the back, at me, and then nodded. He returned to the booth and the gates opened for us.
Travis’s house took my breath away. I didn’t want it to, but it did. It was so much more impressive than the one I had to sneak into as a child. It was beyond sprawling, with many wings and beautiful balconies, shinning white and gold under the lights. The dark clouds billowed above it. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the skies opened above it and Satan came fluttering down on black wings.
The limo climbed up the long, sweeping driveway and stopped in front of the door, where the carpeted steps led up into the hall made of granite and marble. It was like a Hollywood movie premiere and there were beautifully dressed people everywhere. The driver held the door open for me.
I smiled in thanks and got out, saying, “This is pretty big for a dinner party.”
“Oh this is only the cocktail pre-party. The dinner party is for very special guests. It comes later. You should feel privileged that Mr. Raines has invited you, Miss Willis.”
I studied the man, someone’s father or grandfather, who seemed to have no problem working for one the most vile men in the country. Maybe that’s what you had to do here to survive. Maybe these people were no different from me. Trying to turn a blind eye to what they knew was wrong, shielding their hearts, trying to live another day.
I walked up to the door, getting curious but pleasant glances from Veracruz’s elite. The men admired my breasts, the women envied my dress. A bodyguard, the man I recognized as the bouncer from The Zoo, had a list and was checking names.
“Your name?” he asked.
“Eleanor Willis,” I said. “I didn’t bring my passport.”
“That’s okay, I am just checking.”
I smiled at him. “Oh good. My friend Connor Malloy might be coming here later.”
“Is he on the list?”
I peered over at the list. “He should be.”
The man scanned it. “Doesn’t have his name here.”
“Well, I’ll speak to Travis about it. He’ll be an American, tall, black hair, tattoos, glasses. Like a hot muscly nerd.”
The man nodded absently not really caring. “Check with Travis please.”
Then he looked at the next person coming up the stairs. I moved past him, chewing on my lip. I had no idea if Camden would show up here, how he’d get away from Javier, how he’d even figure out where I was. But if it did happen, I hoped I would give him just a little bit of help, maybe a few seconds bought.
Suddenly a woman all in black appeared in front of me, waving a metal detector. “Miss, we need to check you.”
I nodded my thoughts racing to my necklace. My nipple ring beeped first, prompting another somewhat embarrassing explanation considering this woman was in her late fifties and seemed disgusted by the whole idea. Then the necklace beeped. The woman rang the detector over it again and then lifted it off my collar bone, feeling it underneath.
I held my breath, trying to seem normal, trying to act like everything wasn’t resting in her hands. It didn’t say poison on the capsule but I still had a feeling it would get bad for me. At the very least she’d confiscate it thinking it some sort of drug and then what did I have. My only hope was that drugs weren’t so taboo at a party in a drug lord’s house.
But the woman pressed the necklace back into my neck and smiled at it. “Precioso,” she said and let me go.
I got far enough away from her before I exhaled loudly, letting it all out. That was close. I was in and I was okay but I didn’t know for how much longer. I needed to hold it together.
Too late for that.
The crowd parted and Travis Raines appeared in front of me in a tuxedo, his bodyguards on all sides of him.
He smiled at me and raised his arms to showcase the house. “You came, Miss Eleanor Willis. What do you think of my house? Isn’t it the loveliest house you’ve ever seen?”
I pasted a smile on my lips and the next thing I said wasn’t a lie, “Yes, it’s the nicest house I’ve ever seen.”
“Good, good,” he said and clapped his hands together. “Since you are new here, let me show you around and introduce you to the guests.”
It was the most terrifying and boring hour of my life. He introduced me to literally everyone, saying my name “Miss Eleanor Willis” to every single person there. And there were a lot of people. I estimated at least eighty, milling about and looking pretty.
The whole time I kept thinking about the necklace, I kept thinking about how I was going to do it and when. How would I get his food, what if I slipped up and he caught me? How long did the poison take to work? Would I have time to give it to him and then excuse myself to the bathroom? Would anyone suspect me? Did I have to sit there and watch him eat it and die? Because for all the terrible things he’d done, for the devil that he was, I didn’t know if I could do that. My heart would take no pleasure in murdering him, in seeing him die before my eyes. I always thought I might, that I would swim in it, but now that I was here and it was a reality, poison at my neck, I knew it would haunt me. Just because someone deserved to die didn’t mean I was the person to do it.
But for tonight, for here, I had to. I was the angel of death, walking arm in arm with Lucifer.
We paused by the open doors to the veranda where many people were sitting about on brightly colored deckchairs, watching the thunder and lightning storm off in the distance. From here you had the vantage point of looking down the large grassy sweep of finely cut lawn and garden that was illuminated by various lights. In flashes of lightning I could see the lawn went beyond the lights and disappeared into jungle. It looked like acres and acres and it was all his.
Travis was beside me, talking to someone that he introduced as the senator of something. But I wasn’t listening to a word they were saying. My eyes were caught on someone across the room, a striking man in an ill-fitting suit and an arm in a sling.
Camden. He was here, somehow. Just standing by the wall, his eyes on me, sending me signals. Trying to say something. But what? He was here, he was alive. He was alive. I looked around, trying not to be too obvious about it, to see if Javier was too, if it was a trap. Or maybe a dream, maybe a nightmare. But I didn’t see him, not Gus, not anyone. Only Camden. He jerked his head toward the hallway, motioning for me to go out that way, to meet him there.
I told him I would with my eyes, and was about to tell Travis I needed to use the bathroom when a woman stepped in front of me with a tray of champagne.
“Would you like some champagne,” she asked me and I nearly burst into tears at the sound of her voice. This woman. She was looking at the men, a phony smile pasted on her lips, one that lingered on Travis a little too long. Then she looked at me and for one second I could have been another pretty girl on the arm of the man she had once loved.
Then there was a flash of recognition, recognition that messed with her features, making her look less like a thin, middle-aged woman with highlighted brown hair and tall Estonian cheekbones, and more like a woman having the fright of her life. Becau
se this, this was absolutely as frightening as it was fucked up.
She dropped the tray, it falling in slow motion, the champagne flutes tipping and the fizzing liquid spilling everywhere.
“Ellie!” she exclaimed. And that’s when I knew it wasn’t a daydream of mine. It wasn’t something I’d imagined over and over again because what I’d imagined didn’t have my mother working for Travis Raines.
My mother.
This was my mother.
Mom.
She was here, standing in front of me. After all these years, she was here with me.
And in that moment, that cry that escaped from her red lips, she and I both knew what was happening. That Travis was looking between the two of us and putting two and two and eleven and twenty-six together.
I had, maybe, a few seconds. My eyes flitted over my mother’s shoulder to Camden in one second. He was already running toward me, a plastic bottle in his hand. He knew, he’d seen this was coming.
In the next second, I spun around and ran like hell. I ran as fast as I could, grateful, for once, that I was never able to wear high heels, and shoved people out the way, leaping onto the veranda. I don’t know what happened behind me, I could only focus on the lawn in front, the lights, the darkness behind it all. Suddenly there was a small explosion, a burst of something going off, though there was no heat and no light, but there was screaming and coughing and there was gunfire and suddenly Camden was at my side, running alongside me.
There was no time, no space in my lungs to talk, no way to figure out what had just happened and how that could have been my mother, my mom, who had left me in California all those years ago. The one who made me a freak, who left me as one. How could she be here? How could she be with that man, the one who ruined me before everyone else did? How could she do this to me?
My vision was getting blurry and the rainclouds burst open again, in time to hide my tears. I kept running, Camden at my side, limbs pumping up and down, bullets whizzing past us and I had no idea how we were going to get out of this alive.