by Cora Kenborn
Emilio leaned against the freezer, coughing through a laugh. “You’d kill me over pussy? You’re no better than he is.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Grabbing him by the hair, I leaned down and knocked out his silver tooth with the butt of my gun. “You cost me everything,” I hissed, jerking his face against mine. “I trusted you, and you stole my life away from me. For what, Emilio? Your own pussy? Don’t lie to me because I saw the tape of you and the mayor.”
He managed a bloody smile. “You think you know everything, don’t you? Val’s little protégé. Boy, I don’t give a shit about you, your whore, or your kid. It’s only because of me that little bitch has lived as long as she has.”
My blood ran cold, my grip on his hair loosening. “What the hell do you mean?”
“Insurance, Cortes. You think her identity has been a secret for three years by accident? If I had my way, you still wouldn’t know about her. I wasn’t the one who put her in danger.” Blood poured from his face, coating his shirt. “You want to be mad? You need to look one step below me.”
No. He was lying.
“Brody would never do anything to hurt his own family.”
“Think so? Your boy Harcourt let the cat out of the bag about your kid, Cortes. He’s the one who put a target on that little girl’s back. Not me.”
Fucking liar.
I stumbled back, slipping in the trail of blood. “But Luis was after Leighton.”
Emilio slowly lifted his chin and delivered the blow he’d waited for. “Was he?”
I struggled to breathe as he laughed, one word searing through my soul.
Leighton.
Seeing her car parked outside the townhouse calmed the beast inside me. I’d needed to find her first because if I got to Brody, I was afraid I’d do something I couldn’t take back. There couldn’t be any more secrets between us when I confronted the man I’d convinced Val to break tradition for and bring into our family.
Racing up the stairs, I barely managed to get the key in and unlock the door before shoving it open. The last thing I wanted to do was scare her, but even I didn’t understand the overwhelming need in me to control her. It wasn’t about making her feel weak—far from it. I never wanted Leighton vulnerable again. My need for control stemmed from the ignorance I felt, and that word sickened me.
I’d been ignorant to the horror she’d suffered at the hands of her stepfather. I’d been ignorant to the loneliness she endured raising our child by herself, and I’d been ignorant to the conspiracy going on behind both our backs involving people on every side of the triangle in this fucked up equation. We’d wasted so much time blaming each other for the shape we were in, we ignored the fragile shape we’d become .
I found her sitting on the couch, still dressed in her Caliente uniform, mascara streaked down her cheeks as if she’d been crying. She had her knees drawn up toward her chest and her arms wrapped around them.
This wasn’t my Leighton.
This wasn’t my Star.
This was a lost little lamb.
Dropping to my knees before her, I took her face gently in my hands, wiping the dampness from under her eye with my thumb. The movement seemed to knock her out of the hypnotic trance, and her brows knotted together.
“Your lip is bleeding.”
“I went to see Emilio,” I admitted.
I waited for her to ask me why, but she held my gaze, her walls crumbling piece by piece.
“Me too.” Pulling away, she released her knees, collapsing against the back of the couch.
That was when I noticed it.
A purple bruise forming at the base of her throat—just the size of a thumbprint.
Emilio’s heated words came rushing back as that purple print made the black haze cloud my vision again. I touched it with a gentle hand. “Did he do this to you?”
Although she flinched, she didn’t pull away while nodding.
Fuck the code. He’s a dead man.
“I’m not the enemy, mi amor,” I promised her, doing everything I could to keep my voice even. “But I know who is.” Just as I promised myself, there had to be a clean slate between us before any more blood spilled. Taking her small hands in mine, I held them tightly, preparing both of us. “Remember those messages you said you sent me when you left?”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t get them, but someone else did.”
All the blood drained from Leighton’s face. “Who?”
“Emilio.”
Immediately, she tried to pull away, but I anticipated her fear, and held on, refusing her.
“How do you know this?” she whispered, her voice shaking.
“Don’t worry about that right now. Just know I finally heard them.” As the last word left my lips, I looked up at her. The wide-eyed panic in her beautiful brown eyes faded, the corners turning down in understanding.
“You didn’t know,” she said, matter-of-factly.
“No. But now that I do, I want to hear it from you.”
She stuttered, starting and stopping at least three times before tilting her head back and letting out a gasping cry. My heart bled for her. My arms ached to hold her, but I didn’t move. This moment belonged to her, and she needed to be left alone to exorcize the demons on her own.
“I left almost four years ago, Matty, but I didn’t leave alone,” she finally said, her hands trembling even harder. “When I said I came back to look for you, I wasn’t lying. I wanted to find you, even though you never answered my messages. I thought you deserved to know that...”
“Say it, Leighton.”
She swallowed hard, and the trembling stopped. “I was pregnant.”
Releasing her hands, I sat back on my heels. “Show me.”
Reaching behind her, she pulled a worn photo from her back pocket. She stared at it lovingly before turning it around. The moment my eyes landed on the little girl in the picture, I grabbed my chest. If I’d been standing, the image would’ve brought me to my knees.
She wore a pink tank top and held a bunch of wildflowers in her little hands. Her long dark hair was swept over one bronzed shoulder, and her expressive dark brown eyes crinkled at the corner with obvious love for her mother. It felt like the breath had been knocked out of me. Staring at this picture was like staring into a mirror.
All except for her wide dimpled grin. The one that lit up her whole face. The one that screamed innocence and light. That was all Leighton.
“She’s beautiful,” I choked out.
“She has your eyes. You have no idea how confusing it is to love something so much who looks exactly like someone who destroyed you.”
I traced her face, still mesmerized. “How old is she?”
“She turned three in January.”
“What’s her name?”
“Stella,” she said, tilting her head to stare along with me. “Actually, her name is Estella. It’s a Spanish name. I picked it because it means—”
“Little star,” I finished for her.
She nodded, but she didn’t have to. Even through our separation, she’d found a way to keep our love alive.
“Estella...” I hesitated, not daring to hope.
“James. Estella James.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Not Harcourt?”
She shook her head, her expression darkening. “You weren’t the only reason I left Houston, Mateo. I’ve already told you, I’ll do anything it takes to protect my family. I wasn’t about to let Finn get anywhere near another young girl. My grandparents helped me through everything. They supported me, so I couldn’t think of a better way to honor them and protect Stella than using my father’s name.”
“And she’s why you came back to Houston without a fight?”
Leighton nodded again. It was as if unloading the secret she’d harbored alone freed her. “Alex promised to keep Stella and my grandparents in protective custody as long as I cooperated. After what happened with Luis, I couldn’t risk it, Mateo. We’d be on t
he streets if it weren’t for my grandparents. They saved us. I’d give up my life for Stella, but I won’t risk hers.”
Tucking the picture inside my jacket pocket, I rose to my feet, pulling Leighton with me. Running my fingers through her hair, I tilted her chin up. “You don’t have to give up your life for her. I’ll lay down mine for both of you.”
“You don’t even know her,” she said, glancing down.
“I don’t have to. She’s my daughter, and I’ll kill anyone who comes near her.” I’d never fail either of them again. “This isn’t over, Leighton. She’s in danger.” Taking a breath, I said the words I knew would devastate her. “You weren’t Luis’s target. She was.”
“I know,” she said without a trace of shock.
It was the last thing I expected to hear.
“You do?”
She nodded. A shadow clouded her eyes, and in them, I saw the wheels turning inside a changed woman. “I saw Emilio too, remember? He knows Alex is hiding her, but now I can’t get in touch with Alex. I’m tired of reacting, Mateo.”
“This is going to end,” I promised her. “When all this is over, no one’s going to take either of you away from me again.”
“Show me.”
“What do you need?” I asked, wanting to hear her say the words.
“Make love to me.” Pressing a hand against my chest, she turned her cheek into my palm and closed her eyes. “Make it okay—just for tonight.”
Picking her up, I carried her into the bedroom, tasting her lips the whole way. After what we’d just shared, it felt wrong to touch her any other way but reverently.
She was the mother of my child.
My everything.
After laying her on the bed, I divested both of us of our clothes as she watched me through half-lidded eyes. The hunger was still there—still violent to the point of having to take a few moments to calm myself so I wouldn’t drag her hips up and drive into her with the punishing force of the anger boiling inside me. My emotions were too tangled for that. I refused to allow her body to take the brunt of someone else’s sins.
“Mateo?” I opened my eyes to her sweet voice questioning my hesitation. “Are you okay?”
Hovering my lips over hers, I fed myself inch by agonizing inch into her warmth until her tight walls squeezed me like a glove. Leighton dug her nails into my sides, arching her back and moaning my name.
“Now I am, mi amor,” I whispered, kissing her slowly. “Now I am.”
Thirty-Two
Leighton
The incessant banging was the first thing I noticed.
Rubbing my eyes, I lifted my head off the pillow and blinked at the alarm clock. It was seven o’clock in the morning, and whoever was outside the door sounded like they were about to take it down.
I rolled in Mateo’s arms and tucked my head under his chin. “One of your Carrera men is here.”
He threw his heavy thigh over mine, drawing me closer and all but crushing me against his chest. “I didn’t send for any men,” he rasped, his voice scratchy.
We stilled, both our eyes widening as his admission registered. We stared at each other in a rare moment of silence before the storm erupted.
I slapped a hand over my mouth and rolled away from him as he flung himself across the mattress, gathering his clothes from the floor.
“Fuck! Get dressed.” Shoving his muscular legs into his jeans, he jerked his T-shirt over his head and grabbed his gun from the nightstand. “Stay here,” he demanded as I buttoned my shorts.
I stared after him as he flung the bedroom door open and stomped down the hallway. When I told him last night I was tired of reacting, those weren’t just frivolous words. I was done being anyone’s victim and being trapped in his bedroom alone while he faced whoever was about to break down the door wasn’t happening.
Following after him, I stopped beside the end table next to the couch and eyed the decorative ceramic lamp sitting in the middle of it. Backhanding the shade, I grabbed the thinnest part of the lamp just below the lightbulb and swung it over my shoulder like a baseball bat.
Mateo froze, turning around and throwing his head back with a hiss. “Can’t you do one fucking thing I ask you to?”
I tightened my grip on the lamp. “No.”
“Mateo Cortes,” a voice boomed from the other side of the door, “this is the Houston Police Department. Open up.”
My mouth dropped open. In another life, the police would’ve been a welcome presence, but the last nine days opened my eyes to a world I didn’t know existed. One where the men who swore to serve and protect wore self-serving duplicitous masks while the ones condemned as the faces of evil righted wrongs written off by the straight and narrow.
“I’m going to need to see a warrant first.” Standing just to the left of the door, Mateo held his gun in position, every muscle in his body tensed.
There was a quiet lull at first, with no response to his challenge and no further banging on the door. Confused, I let out the breath I’d been holding, the lamp slipping from my hands and resting on my shoulder.
Then it came. The voice I never expected to hear—gruff and almost hoarse sounding with a harsh coating that rattled my eardrums. Like a chair being scraped across a dingy floor.
“Leighton, are you in there?”
I lost all sense of what was happening as the lamp slipped from my sweaty hands and crashed to the floor. “Alex!” I gasped. “Mateo, open the door! He knows where Stella is.”
Still gripping his gun, Mateo squeezed his eyes shut, pacing a few steps before turning back and dropping his hands in defeat. Shaking his head, he unlocked the door, barely having a second to step back before four armed police officers stormed in, knocking him into the wall and taking his gun.
One man pinned him with a forearm against his chest. “Mateo Cortes?”
“Yeah.”
Digging his fingers into Mateo’s shoulder, he spun him around, slamming his cheek against the wall. I watched in horror as the officer pulled out a set of metal handcuffs and locked his arms behind his back. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Hector Diaz. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law...”
The rest of his words were drowned out by Mateo’s shouts. Still in shock, I didn’t understand what was happening until one of the other officers headed straight for me. Instinctively, I backed up, stumbling as my feet tangled in the shards of broken ceramic littering the floor. His hands reached for me, and before I crashed into the wall, his much larger body pressed against mine.
“Get your fucking hands off her!” Mateo roared, fighting furiously as they shoved him face down on the kitchen table.
As if in slow motion, I detached from the horror unfolding around me. Taking a figurative step to the side, I watched everything happening as if I were an invisible spectator in the destruction of my life. I heard Mateo plead for them to let me go, but nothing emotional registered. I saw the officers click the handcuffs around my wrists and pull me away from the wall but felt nothing. It wasn’t until a looming shadow stood over me that everything vibrated, igniting life back into me.
I stared up at him. His salt and pepper hair was extra messy today, as if he’d spent all night pulling his stubby fingers through it.
“Why are you doing this?” I whispered.
“He’s a murderer, Leighton.” Alex shook his head and let out a disappointed breath. “I thought I warned you to stay away from him?”
Murderer? What the hell was he talking about? A week’s worth of conversations raced through my mind as I tried to come up with any reason Alex would have to pull something like this. I wasn’t blind to who he was, but all his indiscretions were concealed cartel dealings.
Except the one he disclosed to me.
“Did you say Hector is dead?”
“You sound shocked.”
“Why wouldn’t I be? I didn’t know anything about the man, much less that he was dead.”
“Someone’s cl
eaning up behind you, Leighton. Well, except for Hector, I had to take care of that particular mess.”
“No,” I yelled, launching myself toward him while two guards pulled me back. “You can’t arrest someone without a body!”
Mateo jerked his head off the table, his eyes widening. “Leighton, don’t say anything else.”
“No, I’m curious, Leighton,” Alex probed, his forehead crinkling. “Why can’t we arrest Cortes? Have we got something wrong?”
Hell yes, you do.
“They got rid of the body. You can’t arrest him if there’s no body.”
The entire townhouse went silent, and out of the corner of my eye, I watched Mateo close his eyes and collapse against the table.
A slow smirk crawled across Alex’s face. “Thank you, Leighton. That’s all I needed.”
Closing the door to the interrogation room behind him, Alex placed a paper cup of water in front of me before taking a seat across the table. Staring at it out of the corner of my eye, I backhanded it, sending the cup flying.
“Now that was rude,” Alex noted, staring over my shoulder.
He’d kept me waiting in this room for over three hours while I went stir-crazy worrying what was happening down the hall. I didn’t give a shit what he thought.
“Why are you doing this to Mateo?”
“Why not?” He shrugged casually. “I asked you to get me shit on the Carreras and instead of sharing information with me, you decided to share your bed with them. Can you blame me for taking matters into my own hands?”
“How did you know about Hector Diaz?”
He smiled again. Pulling a stack of papers from his lap, he spread them out in front of me. Giving them passing glance, I recognized them as crime scene photos.
“Oh, Leighton,” he said, amusement and pity in his voice. “You told me.”
“What? I did not—”
Memories of a rain-soaked day sharpened to a crystal-clear dagger to the heart.