by Elise Noble
“I want to stay too,” I blurted. Everyone stared at me, and I gripped Lee’s hand for support. “I’m going to marry Leander. We can get jobs and rent an apartment together.”
Rafe’s frown came back. “Corazon, you met the guy a month ago.”
“I know. But I… I… I just know, okay? And it’ll be easier for me to get a visa.”
“You’re marrying him for a fucking green card?”
Support came from an unlikely corner. “I married Black for a green card,” Emmy said. “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”
“Technically there was also some encouragement from Nate and a considerable amount of alcohol involved, Diamond.”
“Yeah, yeah, but it was the visa discussion that started the ball rolling.”
Black held up his ring finger. “Fifteen years and counting. Sometimes I want to kill her, but on the whole, it was a good move.”
Emmy nodded her agreement. “Absolutely. I can’t deny that I’ve considered suffocating him in his sleep on occasion, but he looks good on my arm at parties.”
“Wait until you fall in love, buddy. It’s like getting hit by a truck, except you can’t even jump out of the way.”
My brother barked out a laugh. “Entanglements are easy to resist.”
“That’s what I thought when I was your age.”
“Did you seriously just say that?” Emmy asked. “You sound like an old man. Next thing we know, you’ll be sitting there with your pipe and slippers telling us what happened ‘back in my day…’”
“Refer to my earlier comment about wanting to kill my wife.”
She elbowed him in the side. “He loves me really.”
“Enough arguing,” Grandma said. “We should be celebrating. Dores and Isabella also want to stay. Can you help with that?”
“I’ll make the arrangements.”
“What about me?” Mercy asked. “Do I have to go back to Colombia alone? I don’t even have a passport.”
Black shook his head. “No, you don’t have to go back to Colombia alone. It seems we have some plans to make. Accommodation to sort out, a wedding to arrange…”
A squeal came from behind us, and I turned to see Bradley gripping the doorjamb so hard his knuckles were white.
“Did somebody say wedding?”
A collective groan went up from around the table, and Emmy spoke first.
“Yes, but we’ll have plenty to keep you busy without playing wedding planner.”
“You said I could have an assistant.”
“Who you’ll have to train and supervise.”
“I’m excellent at multitasking. Who’s getting married?”
I tentatively raised a hand. Bradley scared me a bit with all his enthusiasm.
“Oh, you’ll make a stunning bride. I’m thinking a cream strapless dress and dusky pink roses.”
“Bradley, she doesn’t even have a ring yet.”
He gasped, and his hands flew to his cheeks. “No ring? Do you want classic or quirky? I know some excellent designers, and—”
“Bradley! Stop talking and go hire yourself an assistant.”
“Okay, okay.” He turned to Isabella. “Are you looking for a job?”
Izzy stared back at him, wide-eyed. “Me?”
“You’re excellent with colour, and wouldn’t you just love to pick out flowers?”
Oh, go on, Izzy. She’d signed up for nursing school because she thought she should, not because she wanted to. At heart, she was an artist. She loved to create.
“I’m not sure…”
“How about a temporary arrangement to start with?” Emmy suggested. “See how you get on?”
Finally, Izzy smiled. “I think I’d like that.”
“Amazeballs.” Bradley put his hands on his hips. “Now we can discuss the wedding. Have you thought of a theme? How about something tropical?”
“Uh…”
“Bradley, we’re eating dinner,” Emmy said. “Either get a plate and join us, or sod off and order wedding brochures or whatever it is you do.”
He backed away, and I heard him muttering to himself down the hallway. What had I been let in for? One thing was for sure—I wouldn’t be having anything pink in my wedding. Just thinking of the colour left me nauseous. And if anyone dared to suggest a finger-food buffet…
“Don’t worry,” Emmy said. “He can act over-the-top, but as long as you rein him in from time to time, he really is good at organising things. And we also need to sort out where everyone’s going to live. Black and I have been talking too, and we may have a solution. Originally, we were assuming you’d want holiday homes, but it’ll work if you want to stay permanently too.”
Black took over. “We value our privacy, and every time a parcel of land comes up for sale nearby, we buy it so nobody else can. We own a dozen or so properties bordering the Riverley estate, and they’re all sitting empty. Most of them need renovation, but you can take your pick. Or we have empty apartments in Richmond if you’d prefer.” He reached over to take Grandma’s hand. “Having you around… I’d like that very much.”
My uncle was offering us a house? An actual freaking house? This day officially went down in history as the best of my life. Renovations would be fun with Lee. Anything would be fun with Lee.
“Best day of my life,” he whispered, echoing my thoughts.
Even my brother didn’t look totally pissed off. A truly memorable day indeed.
The sun shone the next morning as we piled into SUVs and drove into the countryside. Black wasn’t kidding about the number of properties they owned—everything from a dilapidated cabin that needed to be torn down to a neat ranch house on a small plot to a farm with half a dozen outbuildings. They surrounded the Riverley estate, a sort of no man’s land between the Blacks and the outside world. Only two plots were occupied—one by a friend of Emmy’s, his girlfriend, and their baby daughter, and another by Ana and her family.
“Can we truly have any of these?” I asked Black.
“Yes, but Marisol gets the first choice. Don’t worry about the state of them. Bradley will arrange all the repairs.”
Or in Grandma’s case, a complete rebuild. Her eyes lit up when she saw a tumbledown cottage with a view over a small lake.
“I always wanted to live by the water again, but I’m not sure the cottage is suitable for a wheelchair.”
“Then we’ll build you a place that is. It won’t take long.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“No, but I want to. I’ve got more money than I can ever spend and years of us being apart to make up for. A new house is only a small part of what I’d like to give you.”
“Could we build an annex for Dores and Isabella?”
“We can build anything you want.”
Grandma pretended she wasn’t crying, but she totally was. Vicente passed her a handkerchief when he thought no one was looking.
Rafael chose a sprawling house with a separate barn. A project, he said. A lifetime’s work, more like. He’d confessed that he’d spent most of his time in Medellín living with Vicente while they trained together, so having his own space would be new for him too.
And I was looking forward to having him around. Rafe smiled more now.
Hallie and Mercy decided to start off by sharing an apartment in town. Neither was ready for the isolation of the Riverley estate, but I relished the thought of living among the trees and wildlife again, albeit in a cooler climate than Valento. At least there would be fewer bugs.
“Which place do you prefer?” Lee asked.
“The house next to Grandma’s.”
A solid two-storey brick-built home with big rooms and good light. And eighties decor, but we could change that. Most importantly, it was near the people I loved, and it wasn’t stucco like the pink palace or glass like Nevin’s party pad. One of the places Black had shown us, I couldn’t even step over the threshold because the hallway had a tiled floor that reminded me of Radcliffe’s.
“How about you?” I asked Lee.
“It doesn’t matter, because we’re having the one you like.”
“But—”
“I love you, and I’ve already got everything I want. We’ll take the brick house.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. It was in my top three, anyway.” He leaned closer to kiss my hair. “Plus it’s got plenty of space for a family.”
“You want a family?”
“It’s on my wish list. Do you?”
“One day.”
Right now, I already had more family than I’d ever dreamed of. And soon I’d have a husband too.
CHAPTER 49 - CORA
“IS EVERYONE READY to go?” Emmy asked.
She’d been pushing for a trip to Colombia for over a week now, and I didn’t quite understand the urgency. Yes, I wanted to chop Roscoe’s dick off and beat him to death with the soggy end, but I was so happy in Virginia. Why upset that balance?
Ten of us would be making the journey. Lee had offered to provide some much-needed moral support, Rafael and Vicente needed to pack up their belongings as well as Grandma’s, and when Mercy and Izzy heard we’d be confronting Roscoe, they insisted on joining us. Black was coming too, of course, and Sofia tagged along with Ana for a vacation. Or so they claimed.
Ana scared the crap out of me. I’d met her last week when she appeared beside Emmy at dinner, and although she’d been polite, every vibe she gave out said touch me and die.
Hmm… Perhaps I should introduce her to Roscoe?
“I’m ready,” I said.
Lee slipped his arm around me. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“No, but I might as well get it over with. Thank you for coming with us.”
He pressed a soft kiss to my cheek. “For better or for worse, right?”
Freaking heck! I was engaged, and I still could hardly believe it, even though I had a diamond ring that reminded me every time it caught the light. A simple, half-carat solitaire on a platinum band, nothing too flashy, even though Bradley had tried to convince me I wanted a rock the size of a golf ball.
“Definitely for better.”
I’d left Colombia as a prisoner on a grotty boat, but now I flew back on a private jet. The bigger of the two Emmy and Black owned, apparently, and I pinched myself as we climbed on board. Judging by Izzy’s and Mercy’s expressions, they felt the same way as I did.
Sofia sat opposite me on the flight, and every so often, she gave me a reassuring smile. Two days ago, I’d sat down and talked to her, really talked, and she’d confessed that she used to run honeytrap stings for the government, sleeping with men to get access to secrets and evidence they couldn’t obtain by any other means.
“Didn’t it make you feel icky?” I asked.
“Honestly? Yes. But every time I did it, I was laughing inside. They fucked me, but I fucked them over, and not only that, I got paid a hell of a lot of money in the process.”
“If you had the choice, would you change anything about the way you’ve lived your life?”
“Only my childhood, but that was out of my control. My adult years? There’ve been ups, and there’ve been downs, but I’m in a good place now. No, I wouldn’t change anything.”
That was how I felt. In a nutshell, as Lee would say.
Yes, I was still overcome with nausea every time I let my mind stray back to what I’d done in those bedrooms, and vivid nightmares woke me every other night. But when I compared what I had before I flew to Barranquilla with what I had now, the price was worth paying. I’d never forgive those men—never—but I wouldn’t hate myself for what I’d done.
In a strange way, I was proud of my achievements.
And as the jet descended over Medellín, I was kind of looking forward to fucking Roscoe over.
“Shh!” Izzy said, but I couldn’t help giggling.
This was like waiting for a surprise party, except we were in Roscoe’s apartment and I was pretty sure he was going to die at the end of the evening. A girlie night, Emmy called it, and Black had grudgingly agreed to us going it alone. Ana had picked the lock and let us in earlier, and now we hid nervously behind the door in the kitchen while we waited for Roscoe to get home. Sofia and Emmy had offered to fetch him, or, as Emmy put it, “Rowr. We’re gonna act like cougars.”
“I can’t decide whether to kick him in the teeth or set his nuts on fire,” Mercy said.
“No fire,” Ana said. “Not unless we dismantle the smoke alarm first.”
Surely she was kidding? Uh, she didn’t look as though she was kidding.
“What about—”
“Quiet. They’re on their way up the stairs.”
The front door crashed open and hit the wall, followed by laughter. I peeped into the living room and saw Roscoe between Emmy and Sofia, laughing as Sofia rubbed a hand over his chest. A gloved hand. But Roscoe looked as if he’d been drinking, so he didn’t realise what was wrong with that picture, and two seconds later, he had a needle sticking out of his left biceps. Sofia pushed the plunger on the syringe all the way in.
“What the…?”
“We invited some friends over. Hope that’s okay.”
“Huh? This is my fucking apartment.”
“Oh, I know, but since you don’t seem to place much importance on personal boundaries, we figured you wouldn’t mind.”
“I don’t unner…unnerstand.”
His words slurred a little as Emmy and Sofia lowered him onto the sofa and beckoned in our direction. Alcohol? Or was whatever they’d given him starting to take effect?
“Come on out,” Emmy said. “Roscoe’s dying to hear what you’ve been up to. You’ve got about five minutes.”
I’d remember the look of shock on his face until my last day on earth, which would be a lot further into the future than Roscoe’s.
“Hi. Do you remember us?”
He tried to struggle, but Emmy and Sofia held him down, one on each side. Ana wrapped an arm around his neck for good measure.
“Mercedes, Isabella, and… Well, you knew me as Catalina, but that’s not really my name.” Oh, this was fun. “I’m a friend of Izzy’s, and when I realised she was still alive, I went through you to get to her.”
“The police found a hand wearing my ring,” Izzy said. “Whose hand was it?”
“Some girl… I don’t know.”
Izzy picked up a lamp and walloped him between the legs. His eyes bulged and watered a bit, but he still shook his head.
“I swear I don’t know.”
Emmy took the lamp away and carefully replaced it on the side table. “Try not to break anything, yeah?”
Okay, I wouldn’t break anything, but I had brought Roscoe a small gift. Concentrated wasabi paste, all the way from Japan. Akari, Hisashi’s mother and my new aunt, had got her brother to send it by express courier.
“Open wide.”
Ana forced Roscoe’s lips apart, and I squirted a generous amount into his mouth.
“Enjoy.”
Lee said I was sweet like honey, but to Roscoe, I was sweet like the wasabi he’d fed me on our first so-called date. Now he coughed and spluttered but in slow motion.
“What did you inject him with?” I asked Sofia.
“Curare. I cultivate the vines myself. Mercy, do you have anything to say? He won’t be with us for much longer.”
She crouched down, and Ana shifted her grip to hold open Roscoe’s drooping eyelids.
“I hope you rot in hell.”
Emmy turned businesslike. “Right, I think we’re done here. Girls, do me a favour and wait over by the front door. Don’t take your gloves off.”
They’d done this before, that much was obvious. Emmy scrawled out a note and set it by the body, and Sofia stuck the needle back in Roscoe’s arm and pressed his fingertips onto it while Ana headed into the kitchen. I heard a sharp intake of breath followed by the clink of ice in a glass, and she came back with a tumbler full of clear liquid. Aguar
diente?
“He might have lied about the hand,” she said as she set the glass onto the table beside Roscoe. “The other one’s next to his ice cube tray, the head’s resting on a tub of ice cream, and there’s a foot and what looks like a part of her ribcage in with the frozen vegetables.”
Freaking hell. And he’d suggested I come over to his apartment for dinner? What would he have done if I’d accepted? Made sure to only use fresh ingredients?
“Fuck.” Emmy picked up the pen again, so matter of fact. “Hold on. I need to add an addendum to this note.”
“Won’t they analyse the handwriting?” I asked.
“Honey, there’s a dead girl in his freezer. Nobody’s gonna care whether he killed himself or not. Trust me.”
With Roscoe out of the picture, we could finally relax and enjoy a few days in Medellín. Black had just bought a wheelchair-accessible penthouse in Poblado, and Izzy and I needed to divide everything in our old apartment into three groups. Things we wanted to move to Black’s new apartment, which was to be a holiday home for all of us, things we wanted to take back with us to Virginia, and things to throw away.
But first, I needed to call Esther. She’d been the only person who believed in me at the start of this nightmare, and I needed to thank her for everything she’d done. And Juan, my old boss. He’d been good to me, and I felt guilty for leaving with barely a word.
“Esther?”
“Cora? Is that really you? I’ve been so freaking worried.”
“Yes, it’s really me.”
“What happened? You stopped answering your phone, and I didn’t know whether to try and find you or call the police, and then Roscoe vanished too. Juan didn’t know where you were either, just that you took two weeks of vacation, so I told him your grandma died in case he tried to fire you.”
Oh, Esther. “It’s a long and crazy story.” Of which she’d get the edited version. “Do you want to meet for dinner?”
“Our place?”
“Okay. Can I bring my fiancé?”
People in Cali probably heard her screech, and it was a miracle my eardrums didn’t burst.