by Elise Noble
“Then you missed the trial of the century. Carter pulled a remarkably similar trick on somebody else, only that time, he got caught. By us.”
Hallie’s hands flew to her mouth. “Ohmigosh. I can’t… Until now, I always thought there was a tiny chance that I had done something, that I just couldn’t remember… Are you sure it’s him?”
“Positive. I’ll call my attorney and get him involved, but with the video and the hair sample, it should only be a formality.”
It all made sense now. Dewer’s occupation—he’d been Carter’s competition. The business meeting in his calendar. A young woman used as collateral damage. Hallie had been Carter’s practice run, and if the Lexington police had investigated properly, they could have prevented a world of heartache.
But sometimes things happened for a reason. If Carter’s killing spree had been stopped prematurely, Dan wouldn’t have met her boyfriend or her son. Black’s attorney had also met his soon-to-be wife through the case.
And while everything The Banker had done made Black incandescent with anger, and he hated the fact that Eduardo Garcia was still minimally conscious, he’d never have found his family if those events had never happened. Balance. The world was about balance. The good and the bad.
And today, Hallie’s happiness was part of the good.
“Are you sure they’ll clear me?” she asked. “I mean, they could say we colluded or something.”
“They won’t.”
Black braced as she flung her arms around him. Hugs were usually restricted to Emmy, Dan, and occasionally Fia, but now it looked as though he’d have to add Corazon and Hallie to that list.
“Thank you. I’ll be able to get on with my life, and…and… I don’t even know what I’m gonna do.”
“How would you like to work for Blackwood?”
She loosened her arms enough to look up at him. “What?”
“An entry-level position in investigations. The job’s yours if you want it.”
Hallie’s work on her own case had been basic but thorough. She understood how to research. With training, she’d make a useful addition to the team.
Emmy appeared in the doorway. “Is there something I should know about?”
“I’m going to work at Blackwood!” Hallie squealed.
Emmy looked to Black and raised an eyebrow.
“We have another Carter victim.”
Black pointed at the screen, still frozen on the picture of Hallie and Carter in the bar.
“Fuck. Will this ever end?”
“Who knows?” The man had left a trail of dead bodies and chaos in his wake before he finally got caught. “But Dan has a new sidekick to break in.”
“So does Bradley. He’s got Isabella picking out fabric swatches for new curtains in the lounge. I’m not sure whether to be thrilled she’s stopped crying or handcuff the pair of them to the door handle.”
“If Isabella’s happy, I don’t care about damn drapes.”
“Fair enough. Are you coming for dinner?”
Black turned Hallie around so she faced the door. “Yes, we are.”
After dinner, Black sat on the leather couch in his study beside Emmy, idly swirling his Scotch around in its glass. The twenty-four-year-old Bruichladdich came from a small island off the Scottish coast, a Christmas gift from Nate last year. The Scotch, not the island. Black already owned an island. Emmy had stuck with wine, although Black had a feeling she’d need something stronger after this.
“So,” he said to Rafael, seated in an armchair opposite. “You owe Emmy some information.”
“I do.”
Emmy tensed, knowing what was coming. Who did she have to kill?
Black was more concerned with the logistics of the job. Last time Blackwood had gone after a murderer in Colombia, it had taken weeks of planning and a small army. How difficult would things be this time?
“Who hired you to kill Eduardo Garcia?”
“Floriana Garcia.”
“His wife?”
Emmy sounded as incredulous as Black felt.
For all his musings about Annabeth Dewer earlier, Floriana had been one person Black didn’t suspect. She’d stayed with Eduardo at Riverley, for fuck’s sake, and she’d always seemed devoted to her husband and stepsons, and Eduardo to her. Yes, she was his sixth wife so he didn’t exactly have a great track record, but Emmy had met a couple of the others and expressed her hopes that he’d finally found the right match. Seemed she’d been wrong. Boy, she’d hate that.
Rafael shrugged. “Sí.”
“Why? Why would she do that?”
“I didn’t ask that question. When I found out who the target was, I simply accepted the job. As I said before, I don’t like drug lords.”
“Wait a minute. How did she even hire you?”
It was a fair question. She’d always been a quiet woman, happy to stay in Eduardo’s shadow, and you didn’t hire a sicario like Mercurio by looking for recommendations on the internet.
“Floriana Gonzalez grew up in Medellín. In Comuna 13. She knew the right people to contact.”
Well, shit. One more thread had unravelled, and now they were tangled in yarn. What next? Emmy could hardly just shoot the woman, and Black would rather grate his own skin off than have that conversation with Sebastien and Marco Garcia. Thank fuck they had a guard in Eduardo’s hospital room; otherwise, the woman might have been tempted to finish her dear husband off by now.
“What’s the status of the contract?” Black asked. “Does she expect you to finish? Or is she likely to hire someone else?”
“She cancelled the contract right after I screwed up.”
“Shit. You realise it was her who shot you?”
No, by the look of him, Rafael didn’t. “Fuck. The bitch hired me then tried to kill me?”
“She’s got balls, all right.”
Emmy merely sighed. “Looks like we need to make a trip to Colombia in the near future.”
Rafael picked up the Scotch and poured himself a generous measure. “Yes. It looks like we do.”
Emmy grabbed the bottle from him and poured half the contents down her throat. “I’ll go pack my stuff.”
Black had been about to give her a lecture on knee-jerk reactions and why they weren’t a great idea when his phone buzzed with a message.
Mack: Roscoe Ward just bought a ticket to Bogotá. He flies from Sicily the day after tomorrow.
How satisfying it was when the puzzle pieces slotted into place. Black needed to get his bags packed too.
CHAPTER 48 - CORA
“CORA, I’M NOT sure I can do a long-distance relationship.”
Two weeks had passed since our first night together at Riverley. Lee and I had been curled up together on the sofa in the bedroom all afternoon, him reading a novel and me thumbing through a magazine, and now he decided to drop that bombshell?
I thought things had been going okay considering the circumstances. We spent almost all of our time together, his bruises were barely noticeable, and although I was still terrified of hurting him, we’d got as far as second base. And this morning we’d taken a shower together, purely because he couldn’t reach to wash his back, you understand.
Yes, there had been setbacks too. The day before yesterday, we’d gone on our first proper date—nothing flashy, just Mexican food at a local restaurant—and I’d had a funny moment when an older couple sat at the next table. A sort of sweaty, dizzy moment where my heart raced out of control and I couldn’t think or speak or breathe. A panic attack. Okay, it was a panic attack. The man had worn the exact same cologne as Alan, the pig of a man who’d been my first “client” at the pink palace, and I’d freaked.
Lee had got me out of there, tossing down a handful of bills onto the table as he half carried me to the door. And in the car, I’d cried. Not like a waterfall or anything, but enough that Lee hugged me tightly and apologised on behalf of all mankind.
So I understood why he might be reluctant to stay involved with
me, but that didn’t make his words hurt any less.
“But—”
He placed a finger over my lips. “Please, hear me out.”
“Okay.”
“I’ve been thinking. Hell, I’ve done nothing but think. I realise we’ve only just met, and the circumstances are far from ideal, but I can’t stand the thought of not seeing you for months. I’ve done some research, and it should be possible for me to get a migrant visa for Colombia.”
“You want to move to Colombia?”
He didn’t want to leave me? A huge knot of tension unravelled itself in my stomach.
“Uh, yes? You don’t sound too happy about that.”
“Only because I want to stay here.”
“In America?”
“In Virginia. Grandma wants to be near her son. I see it in her eyes. And Black’s whole life is here, so she’d never ask him to move to Colombia. And I think my brother wants to work at Blackwood. I know staying won’t be easy for me, and the visa application process is long and it might not work out, but I want to try because I can’t bear to be apart from my family or from you.”
Lee hugged me as tightly as he could with his bad ribs, then kissed me with plenty of tongue and I almost forgot what we were talking about. At least until he cupped my face in his hands and gave me a hesitant little smile.
“Cora. Honeybee. The visa thing… Do you think it would help if we got married?”
My legs almost gave way. Was he…? Did he just…?
“Lee, was that a proposal?”
“The worst one ever, but yes. Too soon?”
I didn’t know what to say, so I kissed him again instead. Of course it was too soon, but life could get snatched away from us in an instant—I knew that all too well. And when I thought of waking up next to Lee every morning with his ring on my finger, my happiness bubbled over and leaked out through my fucking eyes.
“Bee, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Everything’s so right I’m scared it’ll turn into a disaster.”
“Uh, is that a yes or a no?”
“A yes. A huge, big yes.”
And my teary acceptance wasn’t the only thing that was huge and big. As our kisses grew more heated, Lee’s cock swelled and pressed into my belly, and I didn’t want to wait any longer. Black was right. I needed to focus on the future, on the good in life. I pushed the bad memories further into the recesses of my mind then shoved Lee onto the bed.
“Shit! Sorry. Did that hurt?”
“With that look on your face, I don’t care about the pain.”
“What look?”
He wrinkled his nose.
“Tell me. What look?”
“Overachieving porn star meets sex-starved vampire.”
“Oh my…”
I wasn’t sure whether to slap him or gasp, so I settled for a fit of giggles.
“I’m not a porn-star vampire.”
“You can eat me alive anytime, babe.”
Where did I start? I was trying to decide when his expression turned serious.
“Cora, are you sure about this?”
“Yes. I’m not letting a bunch of assholes ruin the rest of my life. Of our lives.” I lay down beside Lee and nestled close. “I won’t lie. I’ll probably freak out at some point, and I’ll want the most boring sex imaginable for a few months, but I want it with you.”
“I always knew you were a secret romantic.”
“Shut up!”
I kissed him to emphasise my point, then sighed into his mouth when his hands began to roam all over me. I repaid the favour, careful to avoid his ribs and the scar on his abdomen and his sore cheek. There would be plenty of time for exploration later. We had our whole future to spend together, so invalid sex would do for now.
“This is a bit awkward,” he said. “My good finger’s broken, so I’ll have to try this left-handed.”
Well, it turned out Lee was ambidextrous, and his tongue worked just fine too. I bit my lip to stop myself from screaming as he sent me over the edge, then wriggled back around on jellied limbs to face him again.
Lee was the perfect mix of hard and soft. He had muscles, but not too many, the sweetest lips, the gentlest hands, and a gloriously solid cock nestled between his thighs. Then there was his kind heart offset by gritty determination and a clever mind.
“I love you,” I whispered.
“I love you too, honeybee.”
“How are we gonna do this? Should I go on top?”
“I think you’ll have to.”
Every nightstand at Riverley resembled a low-budget sex shop, and I selected a condom from the top drawer. Ribbed for extra pleasure. My mind would probably explode, but I didn’t care. Lee would help me to pick up the pieces afterwards.
He held my hands as I lowered myself onto him, and I gave myself a moment to adjust. Why rush? Lee was my freaking fiancé. I’d get to do all of this and more every single day. And when I did start to move, it was more than the simple race to get each other off that I’d experienced in the past. This was a meeting of minds as well as bodies, and when we both came—me first, then Lee with a heaving shudder—the connection only intensified.
Whatever crazy mix of desperation and emotions had thrown us together, it was where we were meant to be. I’d officially lost myself to this man.
There was only one problem. We had to tell my brother.
“I vote we get it over with,” I told Lee.
“Or maybe we could just elope?”
“Rafael would hunt us down, and there’s no way he wouldn’t find us.”
“Yeah, I know. Wishful thinking, I guess.”
After the sex, we’d snuggled for an hour, talking and laughing and planning our future. At one point, it all felt too good to be true.
“Tell me this is real.”
Lee feathered kisses up my jaw before he answered. “We’ve walked through hell and come out the other side. We’ve earned our happiness, bee.”
Logically, I knew he was right, but hell felt like a warm-up as we walked out of the bedroom to face my family. I’d rehearsed what to say—keep it to the basics, don’t let my brother spoil my good mood—but every single thought flew out of my head when we walked around the corner and found my grandma kissing Vicente.
What the actual heck? She was on her feet next to her wheelchair, her arms around his neck, and I didn’t know where to look. Beside me, Lee froze too, and we’d only managed to take half a step backwards when she opened her eyes and caught us staring.
Then she giggled. She actually freaking giggled.
“Don’t run away, Cora,” she said. Vicente turned too, holding Grandma up with an arm around her waist. “It’s time you found out.”
“How long…? I mean, has this been going on for a while?”
“About two decades.”
Holy shit. Grandma had a secret boyfriend?
“Does Rafael know?”
“I don’t think so. Sometimes, that boy’s blind to the things he doesn’t want to see.”
“Are you going to tell him?”
“We plan to do that tonight. No more family secrets.”
Oh, thank goodness. That took some of the heat off us. We could slip our news in afterwards then run. A few of my nerves dissipated, and I managed to smile.
“I’m so happy for you. For both of you.”
“As we are for you.” She took a deep breath, her dreamy look disappeared, and her steely gaze came back. “Well, we’d better go and face the music.”
Vicente lowered her into her wheelchair and made sure she was comfortable. Seeing them together, I realised I should have spotted their connection long before, but perhaps I’d been guilty of wearing the same blinkers as my brother. Now I shared a certain empathy. We all squashed into the elevator, and Vicente gave Grandma’s hand a reassuring squeeze. Time to face the music indeed.
Grandma laughed and chatted through dinner, which was more than I accomplished. How did she do it? Put on a mask and hide
her feelings like that? Black succeeded at the feat as well, as did Rafael when he chose to. Luckily, with a full table, nobody noticed when I just stayed quiet and ate Mrs. Fairfax’s pot roast.
The news that Alan had been mauled to within an inch of his life by an ostrich distracted me momentarily, and I joined in Emmy’s toast to all things avian, but three mouthfuls later, I was back to worrying again. When did Grandma plan to make her announcement? Or had she chickened out? Vicente topped up Rafael’s wine glass to the brim, and I realised their delay was tactical. They’d been playing this game a lot longer than I had.
We’d got through a mountain of profiteroles, which were undoubtedly delicious but tasted of sawdust to me, before she cleared her throat.
“I think it’s time we had a family discussion.”
Black went from relaxed to alert in the blink of an eye. “What is it? Is everything okay?”
“It’s more than okay. So much has happened, most of it good, but that’s left many of us with some big decisions to make.”
“How big?”
“As wide as the Caribbean Sea.”
“I’m signing the papers on an apartment in Medellín tomorrow.”
“You might not need to.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Vicente and I would like to spend some time here if we can. We’ve been tucking money away over the last few years, and it’s time to enjoy our retirement.”
“How much time?”
“That depends on everyone else’s plans, but a good amount. We’ve got alternate passports, so travel back and forth between here and Colombia shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll just have to be careful with visas.”
“I’ve made contacts over the years. Don’t worry about visas. But you keep saying ‘we.’ Is there something I should know?”
“Even after a tragedy, it’s possible to fall in love again, Mathias.”
My brother’s eyes widened, but Black only smiled.
“Then I’ll offer my congratulations. I should also mention that I’ve offered Rafael a job at Blackwood. He’s hesitated over accepting because he was worried about leaving you alone.”
“Rafael, is this true?”
Finally, Rafe relaxed his frown. “Yes. I’d like to move here permanently. Having an almost legitimate job would be a novelty, but I could learn a lot from Black.”