Her Wicked Hero

by Caitlyn O'Leary

  * * *

  “She’s in a better place, Zed,” his grandmother said.

  She gripped his hand so hard, he almost cried out in pain. Abuelita needed him to be strong for her as they stood at this freshly turned pile of dirt. He was hot, the suit she had bought him for the occasion itchy.

  Zed looked up at all of the people who were at the gravesite. Mr. Fuentes from across the street. He was fat. Mrs. Robinson from the seamstress shop. She made really good chocolate chip cookies. Amy, a seamstress who worked for his grandmother. There were more people from the neighborhood.

  Nobody said anything about his mom even though it was her funeral. Delores Zaragoza was unknown to most people. They came to support him and his grandmother. Even though he was only in third grade, he understood that.

  “Now you throw your flower, Zed,” his grandmother told him.

  He looked down into the yawning black hole and threw the pretty yellow rose. It made him feel better, maybe it would make Mama happier.

  He heard a baby cry. He looked over and saw a woman holding a baby, standing away from the others, staring at Zed. She walked around the grave and came to stand in front of them. Zed strained to look at the toddler’s eyes.

  “Mr. Fuentes, please take Zed to my car,” his grandmother requested.

  Zed really wanted to stay and listen, so he bent down and pretended he had to tie his shoe. The lady asked if a man named Carlos had been by after Delores had died.

  “Don’t speak his name.” His grandmother spit on the ground.

  The young woman had started to cry, then so did the baby. The baby who was so important to Zed.

  “I need to find Carlos,” the young woman begged. “Hunter needs food.”

  Mr. Fuentes grabbed Zed’s hand and practically dragged him to Abuelita’s car, but not before he saw his grandmother give the girl some money and a kiss on the cheek. She also kissed the top of the baby’s head, then made the sign of the cross.

  When his grandmother got into the car to take them back to their little house, he asked, “Who were they?”

  “Nobody.”

  He stared intently at his grandmother’s sad and tired features.

  “Can they come live with us?” Zed asked.

  “Don’t be silly.” He watched as tears leaked down her face.

  When they pulled into their tiny little driveway, he saw Mrs. Robinson standing at their door with a plate of cookies in her hand.

  “Look, she brought you cookies,” he exclaimed, hoping his grandmother would feel better.

  “You’re such a good boy,” she smiled wearily.

  * * *

  Marcia stretched on the bed, and a sharp wind of possessiveness, protectiveness shot through him. She looked over at him, her eyes wide and luminous. Marcia’s laughter peeled through the room.

  “Yes?” he inquired, raising an eyebrow.

  She sat up in the bed and laughed even harder. He felt his own lips twitch.

  “You totally lost it. You went into total caveman mode.”

  He waited.

  She crawled off the end of the bed and walked over to him naked as the day she was born.

  “Do you know what was even better than that?” she asked softly as she sat down on his lap.

  “You loved every minute of it?” he asked drily.

  “Well, there is that. But you trusted me.” She did a fist pump. “And I trusted myself enough to go cavegirl.”

  “Yes, you did,” he grinned.

  They just looked at one another and smiled, realizing they had everything. She kissed the bottom of his jaw.

  “So where do we go from here?”

  “You can only go back to DC when we know Jefferies doesn’t have you in his sights. That’s not up for negotiation.”

  “So, until then?”

  “I want to tell you a story.”

  15

  Marcia got out of the shower and headed to the kitchen. It smelled fantastic.

  “Dinner and a story, I’m one lucky girl.”

  “You might not think so at the end. I’m going to be looking for advice,” Zed warned as he pulled a beer out of the fridge and went back to slicing bell peppers, zucchinis, and onions. He’d already left a glass of wine for her on the kitchen counter.

  “Women love giving advice,” Marcia assured him as she took a sip of the Syrah.

  She saw him hesitate.

  “Zed, just because you ask for advice and I give it, never means I’m going to be upset if you don’t take the advice. As a matter of fact, think of it more as if we’re talking things over.”

  She saw his shoulders relax.

  “Hunter Diaz is my half-brother, but short of DNA testing, I have no way of proving it.” He looked up from his slicing to see how she was taking the news.

  “Then how do you know?”

  “You. You coming into my life confirmed it.”

  Marcia was just about to put the wineglass to her lips, when she set it back down and stared at Zed.

  “I think I need some of that story time now. I’m totally confused. How do I have anything to do with Hunter being your brother?”

  “Marcia, I’ve trusted many of my gut instincts. I know I’m luckier than most men, and my team puts it down to my intuition which I know I get from Abuelita. But it’s been nothing like the day I saw your photo in that mission file. This wasn’t a matter of me falling in love with a picture, I saw your photo and recognized my soul mate.”

  Marcia’s world stopped. Zed had put down the knife and was looking at her.

  “You did?” she queried softly.

  “Yes.”

  Marcia tried to think of some quip she could make, something to lighten the mood. She stared at her man, helplessly. Life with this man just continued to get more amazing. She bowed her head, trying to keep things together, then she looked up at him questioningly.

  “I don’t understand how this relates to Hunter.”

  “I always believed Hunter was my brother, but I didn’t trust it. I didn’t trust in my grandmother’s gift until now.”

  “I know you said you mentored him out of the gang life in East LA, but are you saying it was because you believed him to be your brother?” she asked gently.

  “Mentored,” Zed laughed derisively. “I used that word, didn’t I?”

  Marcia nodded.

  “Ready for your story?” He threw the vegetables in the frying pan with the steak strips.

  “Let me set the table,” she said as she grabbed utensils.

  Quietly, they got the meal put together, then sat down at the table.

  “I’m ready,” she said after her third bite.

  “Two years after my abuela kicked my mom out of the apartment, she died. There was a funeral, and this woman and child showed up. I was only eight, but even I realized she wasn’t clean and neither was the baby.”

  Marcia winced. It must have been bad for a kid to have noticed.

  “The woman came up and asked about some man named Carlos I had heard mom and grandma whisper about in the past. That’s who this woman was looking for. Before she could say too much in front of me, my grandmother had Mr. Fuentes take me to our car.”

  Zed stopped eating. “Grandmother gave her money, but it wasn’t enough. I asked Abuelita in the car ride home who they were, and she said nobody.”

  Marcia winced.

  “I asked if they could come live with us. She told me no.”

  “So even at eight years old, you were trying to look out for him.”

  “Some help I was,” Zed’s mouth twisted. “Hunter is my best friend, Marcia. I know some of what his life was like with that woman and the man I thought was our dad. I should have forced Abuelita to take him in.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The name of Hunter’s father on his birth certificate is Hector Nuñez.”

  “So, not Carlos,” Marcia said.

  “No. But still, what’s on a birth certificate doesn’t mean anything, my fat
her’s name is left blank, and so was the father’s name on my mother’s birth certificate. That’s how we are three generations of Zaragoza.”

  Marcia couldn’t help but smile at the pride in his voice. She would have loved to have met his grandmother.

  “So, let me get this straight, you’re upset with yourself that, as an eight-year-old kid, you couldn’t have protected a child who could or could not be your brother when it was totally out of your control?”

  Zed gave a tight nod.

  “How did you meet Hunter later to become friends?”

  “I heard about a kid named Hunter when I was trying to find a way out of Las Nuevas Espadas. Once again, I couldn’t help my baby brother, so he was going down the wrong path.”

  “Stop already, tell me how you did manage to help.”

  Zed tipped back a long sip of beer, then looked at her.

  “I took leave when he was fifteen. I found him…” Zed rolled his neck and shoulder. “I did a ‘scared-straight’ on his ass.”

  “Huh?”

  “I kidnapped him. Just pulled him off Belmont Avenue, stuffed his ass in the back of a van, and took him to a safehouse I’d set up. I spent two days pulling in the big guns, showing him what kind of life he was destined to have—prison, death, or worse.”

  “What was worse?” Marcia asked.

  “Killing an innocent. Second to that was letting down the girl in his life. He just didn’t know a way out.”

  “Until you showed him one,” she said softly.

  “I told him about the ultimate gang. The SEALs. I told him he could get his shit together now and escape. It wouldn’t be easy, but it was possible.”

  “That’s a hell of a story Zaragoza,” she smiled. “So, this is how you helped your best friend, huh?”

  Zed flushed and nodded.

  “Did Hunter ever ask you why you singled him out?”

  “I said someone had done the same for me, and I was paying it back.”

  “And he’s never questioned that you two look alike?”

  Zed stared at her. “What do you mean?”

  Marcia stood up from the table and grabbed his empty plate.

  “Men are stupid.” She set both of their plates in the kitchen sink. When she turned Zed was behind her.

  “I thought it was just my mind playing tricks on me. You think we look alike?”

  “Gah!” She pushed at his chest until he backed up, then she marched the couch and plopped down.

  “Zed, aren’t you and Hunter as close as brothers right now?” she asked, looking at him from under her lashes. She watched him carefully as he stood over her. He was clearly agitated.

  “Yes.”

  “How would you telling him you think or have a voodoo knowing that you’re brothers change things?”

  He thrust out his chin. “He deserves to know I failed him.”

  Marcia thought her head might explode.

  “When did you fail him?”

  “He should have come and lived with me and my grandmother. Marcia, you have no idea how bad it was for him as a little kid before a wonderful woman took him in. It’s my fault.”

  Everything came crashing together. All the answers cascaded through her mind like when she was working on a complicated equation. The misguided sense of guilt he had about not being in two places at the same time on the beach today. It all stems from this. Zed took responsibility for everything, thinking he should have been able to save a two-year-old when Zed himself had only been eight.

  “Honey, please sit down, I’m getting a crick in my neck.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said as he sat down and pulled her into his arms.

  “So, you wanted my advice, right?”

  “Yes,” he said warily. God, she could tell he expected her to berate him.

  “Here it is. You should absolutely tell him what you think. You should tell him what you remember. Hunter will be overjoyed at the idea of the two of you possibly sharing the same blood.”

  He sighed.

  “But if you expect Hunter to berate you for not fighting for him as a toddler, you’re going to be mistaken. This will just be icing on the cake.”

  “You think?”

  “I know.”

  “That was really nice of Marcia to invite Aliana down for the weekend. Since Lottie moved, she’s been missing her girlfriend time.”

  The men were seated at the outside bar in a restaurant close to the mall. The ladies were going to be there soon to meet them for lunch. Zed watched as the calamari was put down on their table.

  “So, spill,” Hunter said. “Are you looking for some advice on how to propose?”

  “I think I’ve got that all covered,” Zed’s lip quirked, “but thanks.”

  “Something’s up with you. I would have figured after you came back from Virginia, life would be good. Knowing the ambassador in New York was bombed the next day kind of put the whole Jefferies thing to bed.”

  “No,” Zed said. “Knowing the Brockman’s being targeted was part of an overall effort and outside of Jefferies made me feel minimally better. I’m not going to feel completely better until Jefferies is dead. At one point, he had his sights on my woman. He might not be a psychopath like Raymond, but still he’s out there, and I’m not happy.”

  “What does Brockman say?” Hunter asked.

  “He agreed with Marcia when she called me an over-protective Neanderthal.”

  Hunter burst out laughing. “That sums you up nicely.”

  Zed took note of the text that came in on his phone and smiled.

  “You agree too?” Zed asked.

  “Hell yeah. Not that I don’t thank God for it. You saved my ass.”

  Zed stared at the younger man who was surely his blood.

  “No, I didn’t, Hunter,” he said hoarsely.

  Hunter’s gaze lasered in on him. “What the fuck do you mean?”

  “I should have done more.”

  “Jesus Christ, I wouldn’t be sitting here today, waiting for my woman to come out of Nordstrom’s if it wasn’t for you. What the hell are you talking about, Zed?”

  “I can’t be sure because I was only eight, but I’m pretty sure you and your mom came to my mom’s funeral.”

  Zed waited. He watched as Hunter processed the information.

  “Are you sure it was me? My mom?”

  “No.” Zed answered. “Yes.”

  “Now you’re just giving me whiplash,” Hunter laughed easily. “Zed, you’re about ready to give yourself a heart attack. Just spit out whatever it is.”

  “I’m pretty damn sure you’re my brother. I’ve thought that for years. I heard my mom talk about a man named Carlos as my father.”

  “The name on my birth certificate under father is Hector Nuñez,” Hunter said slowly.

  “I know.”

  “Zed, if you’ve checked this out, you know we’re not related.”

  Zed stared Hunter straight in the eye. “We are. You’re my brother. I know it now.”

  “How?”

  “These feelings are truer than anything written on a birth certificate. I just know. We can have a DNA test done.”

  Hunter’s black eyes stared at him for long quiet moments. Then he grinned.

  “The girls are going to love this.”

  “You don’t understand, I should have done more―”

  “Not this shit again. As your baby brother, it’s my job to get you to loosen up.”

  Zed leaned forward on his elbows. “Listen, I’m serious.”

  Hunter leaned forward too. He stared fiercely into his eyes, “I’m serious too, Zed. In my book, you’ve always been my big brother. Why do you think you were the first person I called when I needed help with Aliana? If there’s blood involved, that just means you can donate a kidney. Not one other thing has changed. I love you.”

  Zed swallowed. Ah hell, he was going to lose it.

  “What’d we miss?” Marcia asked as she dropped a shopping bag into his lap, her eye
s surveying Zed’s expression, then turning to Hunter.

  “I have a brother,” Hunter laughed as he pulled Aliana down beside him.

  “The red one,” he called out from the bedroom.

  “You peeked,” Marcia protested. She’d thrown the Nordstrom bag on his lap at the restaurant earlier that evening because she wanted to lighten the mood. She hadn’t expected him to look inside. Marcia shimmied into the slim, red sheath dress and walked out of the bathroom. Zed was lying on the bed with his hands behind his head. He looked like a sultan. Actually, he looked like a relaxed and content man, and Marcia couldn’t be happier.

  “God you’re beautiful.” She saw his truth shining from his eyes.

  The back of her neck prickled, and she turned around. She saw another frame next to the picture of his grandmother. It contained an old photo of her. She walked over and picked it up. Margaret Brockman had taken it years ago. She turned to Zed.

  “Is this it?”

  “Yep.”

  “It’s not even a good picture.”

  Zed was off the bed, putting on his tie.

  “The only picture that might take its place is you in a wedding gown.”

  She stopped fidgeting with the cleavage on her dress and looked up at him.

  “Wedding gown?”

  She saw his cheekbones flood with color.

  “I hadn’t meant to say that.” He came up to her and cupped her face and looked into her eyes. “Marcia, you know this is where this is heading, right?”

  She felt tears prickle. “I’d hoped.”

  “Well hang onto your hat and expect a proper proposal very soon because we’re going to be married before the summer is out.”

  “What?” she squeaked.

  “I just want this perfect for you and with things still unsettled...”

  “You only have another two weeks of PT.”

  “That’s one of the things.” He grabbed her hand. “Come on, we’re going to be late for dinner.”

  Marcia was swept out the door to his jeep where she waited for Zed to open the car door for her. While Zed was driving to the restaurant, Marcia wiped the palms of her hands on the hem of her dress. Was he going to propose tonight? It would be just like him to mess with her and make her think the proposal was still off in the future.