by Fox, Logan
Bailey didn’t beg for mercy. He just propped himself onto his elbows and glared up at the stranger with furious determination. He replied to whatever the stranger had asked or said, but she couldn’t hear anything over the sounds of her struggles, the breath tearing in and out of her mouth.
Cora yanked at her arm, but her father just kept dragging her toward the manor. She dropped her legs out from under her, and that brought her father up short, but only for the time it took him to turn around her lift her from the ground by her waist. “Please,” she whispered, tears streaming down her face. “Please don’t kill him.”
“It’s already done,” Tony Swan murmured.
The stranger took aim with his pistol. Cora squeezed her eyes shut, a sob jerking her body hard when a gunshot sounded through the air.
* * *
An hour ago, when Finn had answered the phone at Argos Protection Services, he’d had no idea that he’d already be at the business end of a pistol deciding whether someone lived or died. Honestly, he always hoped it was the case; that brief flare of violence was the only paint in his otherwise drab, grey world. Blood gave him a taste for life. A taste which slowly faded again over time.
Something inside him — the darker part of him he called his beast — paced frenetically at just the thought of spilling this man’s blood.
But who was he? Why had he been up in the hayloft with that slip of a girl? Too many questions, and with his client already several yards away, no immediate answers would be forthcoming. The information he had to hand was sparse and had been provided with the suspicion bred of someone who trusted no one. A glorified babysitting gig. Transporting his client’s daughter from Arizona to Texas — no stops. All Tony Swan had been willing to say on the subject was that the person he’d employed as her bodyguard had been ‘let go.’
And now, here he was. Five-seveN aimed at a stranger’s head, and the echo of that girl’s screams still ringing in his ears.
Despite how much his beast loved snuffing out human lives, he liked to think they were deserving of death. That they’d done something other than just fucking someone’s daughter to qualify for their shortened span on this earth.
He shouldn’t care, but sometimes he couldn’t stop himself.
“What’s your name?” Finn asked. Names weren’t necessary, but their intuitive answer helped people relax.
“Bailey,” the man said.
Why wasn’t he pleading for his life? The girl had seemed more hung up on this Bailey guy living than Bailey was. It didn’t make sense. Not unless he felt guilty about something.
Maybe it was his time to die.
“Why’d Swan say you betrayed him?” Finn asked.
Bailey’s eyes glittered. In the last of the light, the shadows falling over his face made it hard to know if the man was angry or despairing.
“You don’t understand,” Bailey said quietly. “She’s in danger.”
“Yeah, no shit.” Finn took careful aim with his pistol.
“Wait,” Bailey belted out.
And there it was. Everyone always begged in the end. He’d been a fool to think this man wouldn’t.
“She’ll never be her safe.”
Finn frowned at the man. He still didn’t have his hands up, yet didn’t seem determined to fight his way out of this. Resigned, not despairing. “What did you do?” Finn grated in his ruined voice.
Bailey’s face fell. “You can try. Please, try. But...” the man’s eyes darted up to the stable’s ceiling before fixing on Finn again. “It’ll be like trying to keep plutonium safe. It’s dangerous, fragile...and everyone wants to get their hands on it. Whatever you do, don’t trust anyone. Especially her uncle.”
“Trust no one except you. Got it.” Finn cocked his head, adjusted his aim, and squeezed the trigger. “See you on the other side, Bailey,” he said, as the man’s body slammed into the stable’s floor.
2
Two Bullets
The manor’s interior dazzled with marble floors and golden banisters. Fresh cut flowers in expensive arrangements filled the vast entrance room with their scent. A maid walked past in an adjoining room and gave Cora and her father a small, rigid curtsy when they approached. Cora’s father took the stairs two at a time, dragging her behind him.
She’d stopped struggling, but didn’t protest the firm grip on her arm; she’d never seen such fury on her father’s face before. She never wanted to again. If she could have vanished, she would have.
They ascended the second-floor landing. Her father led the way, shoes now soundless on the thick carpeting. Her father pushed her inside her room, standing in the doorway as she stumbled to get her feet under her.
“Get your bag.” Her father’s accent was strong today. It had faded in the years after they’d left Mexico. Some days — those days when he was actually at home — it was hardly noticeable. Her father’s black eyes never gave anything away, but his voice…
She moved across the room in a daze, felt under her bed, and dragged out her bag. The backpack looked faded and well used, like those drop bags in the movies that criminals kept ready in case shit hit the fan. Except this one had no papers in it. No ID, no passport.
Cora Swan was a ghost, just like her father.
Striding across her room, she went to her nightstand and ripped open the drawer. “Why’d you do that, Papá?” she asked as she glanced over her shoulder at her father, wishing desperately that her voice didn’t shake so much.
“You spit on my rules, Cora. Again, and again, and again.”
She ducked her head, unable to stand the churning darkness in his eyes.
“I do this for you. For your protection. Is this something you cannot or will not understand?” His nostrils flared. “How long have you been fucking him?”
Her cheeks tingled when the blood drained from her face. “Papá,” she whispered, imploring him to stop.
“Did he ask you questions?”
“No, Papá.”
“What did you tell him about me? Did he ask after my schedule? Where I was? Who I saw?”
How the hell could she, if she didn’t even know? She shook her head and lifted out a gleaming pistol. She released the Taurus’s slide, field stripped its barrel and spring before reassembling it. She could still remember the day her father had given her the pistol. The reluctance so evident on his face that his daughter had to have a firearm close at hand to protect herself with.
Her father sighed. “You think I don’t want you to be happy?”
She had thought that more than once. She walked across the room to the small table against the wall. On it stood a foot-high statue. It was high-quality, neatly painted. A ceramic depiction of a skeleton clothed in rich, red robes. It held a globe in one hand, a scythe in the other. A glass of water stood to one side, a red votive candle to the other. It had been burned almost to the base. Nearby, two more votive candles, one black, one white, both hardly used. Two coins had been placed on a plain white saucer in the middle of the table. They looked incongruous beside a pair of bronze-colored bullets. But gazing at Santa Muerte’s altar didn’t have the same soothing effect it usually had. Instead, she realized the glass of water she’d put down as an offering was almost empty.
Señora de las Sombras had been thirsty today.
Taking the bullets out of the saucer and sliding them into the Taurus’s magazine, she did a quick check on the fifteen-round magazine before dragging up the back of her baggy hoody and nestling the Taurus into the curve of her lower back. She took a pack of chewing gum from her pocket, shook out two pellets, and arranged them carefully in the saucer. All three votive candles went into her backpack.
“When you are of age, then you can make your own decisions. Until then, you are my daughter, and you will obey me, Cora. Even when you think I’m wrong. Even when you think I don’t love you.”
She clenched her jaw. Nodded and forced herself not to start crying. She went over to Santa Muerte’s altar and fed the two bullets
from the saucer into her pistol’s magazine with a murmured, “Gracias, Santisima Muerte.”
Then she turned to her father, sliding the strap of her bag over her shoulder. “What happened?”
A shadow darkened the hall behind her father.
He looked like he wouldn’t answer her, and then he squeezed his eyes closed with a hand as he let out a sigh. “I received another death threat.”
“So?” she snapped. “You get them—”
“With the coordinates of our home.” He took away his hand. “They know where we are. Which means we’re no longer safe here. We’re going to Javier’s villa in Texas. Finn—” Tony waved in the direction of the blue-eyed stranger “—is accompanying you. You’re driving in a different truck. If they’re after me, I don’t want—”
“And Bailey?” she asked, voice cracking. “Why’d you—”
“Someone told them where we were, Cora!” Tony whipped his hand away, half-turning to the door as if he wanted to stalk out. “And then I find you in the fucking hayloft with that—”
“He’s got nothing to do with this, Papá!”
“Had,” Tony corrected in an icy voice. “Traitors don’t deserve to live.”
Tears pricked at her eyelids. To stem them, she pulled her hair into a hasty ponytail and made for the door. Her father’s cell phone rang, making her jerk to a halt as she pressed a hand to her pounding heart.
Tony answered with a murmured, “Buenas noches.” Then he made for the door to take the call but paused before reaching it. “¿Sí?”
She looked up. Finn stood beside her father, scanning the room. The man’s eyes flitted to her, dismissed her, and then began a slow scan again.
Her father walked out of her room.
She studied Finn in his absence, trying desperately to think of anything except the lead slowly filling her belly. He couldn’t have been older than thirty. He was built like most of the men who worked with Papá — a tall wedge of a man with more shoulders than were strictly necessary. His hair was military-short, his face shaved clean. With his thick brows and sharp nose, Finn might have been handsome had his face seemed capable of any expression except faint suspicion. And if she hadn’t seen the way his muscles had anticipated the pistol’s recoil with such deadly efficiency in the stable when he’d shot Bailey.
“¡Mierda!”
Cora jerked, glancing across the room as her door swung open.
Her father came back inside with a deep frown between his black brows. “I must go to Sinaloa tonight.”
Her hands clenched in her lap. Mexico?
He watched her for a few seconds, finger tapping audibly against his cellphone’s cover, and then he glanced aside at Finn.
“This changes nothing. Understood?”
Finn nodded.
“Bring her,” her father snapped as he strode out of her room. “We should have been gone already.”
Finn looked up at Cora, eyes the color of dirty ice. When he came for her, it was with the ruthlessness of an avalanche.
“Don’t touch me,” she managed in a tangled voice as she took a hurried step back.
The man swept a thickly-muscled, condescending arm toward her bedroom door. “Ms. Swan.”
His voice was so rough, he probably ate gravel for breakfast.
* * *
Outside the manor, her father made Finn wait at the foot of the broad steps leading to the ornate double-doors. Then he took hold of her wrist, drawing her away from the SUV. Thank God; she couldn’t take the feel of Finn so close to her anymore. She could feel things when that man got too close to her. Some kind of heat — subtler, but more consistent than body warmth — and a tension that made her muscles stiffen. Maybe it was just the thought of how placid he’d been when he’d killed Bailey. Perhaps it was his size — Finn was big enough that she probably should have been intimidated by him.
But, like Bailey had always told her: the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Bailey was a foot shorter than Finn, but he’d had no problem tossing her or any of the ranch hands he’d used to practice with to the ground. He’d used their weight, their momentum, their assumptions against them.
Her training had been cut short when her father found out about it, of course.
Cora rubbed her palms over her eyes. She wouldn’t cry. Not now, not in front of her father. A hand closed over her shoulder and squeezed.
“This is for you,” her father said, voice as grave as his eyes.
A necklace dangled from his fingertips. She took it from him when he held it out. A large pendant, shaped in the likeness of Santa Muerte, dangled from the chain.
“It’s a bit big,” she said, turning it over in her hand. There was the faintest line running through the middle of the molded shape — a manufacturing defect?
“Listen carefully to me, Cora.”
Cora looked up and stiffened when she saw her father’s face. He wore a severe expression, mouth in a thin line, eyebrows almost touching.
“Papá?”
He drew a visible breath and grasped the necklace’s pendant. Eyes never leaving hers, he pulled it apart. Inside was a thumb-drive encased in dark, brushed steel — a stark contrast to the pendant’s champagne-colored exterior.
“You must keep this safe for me.”
Cold snakes coiled in her stomach. “What is it?”
“Something very important.” He hesitated, and then closed his fingers over the thumb-drive. “I cannot leave it here, and it won’t be safe for me to take it across the border.”
Her eyes widened. “What’s on here?”
He ignored the question. “No one can know you have this. Not even Javier.”
The necklace felt too heavy. Tió Javier. Or was she supposed to call him ‘El Guapo,’ The Handsome, like everyone else? He’d been at the manor less than a month ago, having dinner with Papá. “Why are you sending me to him?”
“It’s safe there, Cora.” He slid the thumb-drive back inside the pendant. “This does not leave your sight, understood?” He fastened it for her, his fingertips tickling the nape of her neck when he tightened the clasp. He glanced at where Finn stood. When he looked back at her, his eyes had gone cold and dead. “No one can know.”
She managed a nod, but just barely. Her whole body was stiff.
“I will see you in two days.”
He laid his hand on her shoulder again. The gesture was far from comforting — not when his eyes were still so lifeless.
Cora roused her voice with an effort. “Why do you have to go back to Mexico?”
For a moment, she thought he wouldn’t answer her. He didn’t always, although lately, he’d been sharing a little more each time she asked.
“My cousin, Benito.” Her father looked down at his hands. “He passed earlier today.”
She hadn’t heard the name in years, but that did nothing for the icy dread that was slowly consuming her. “How did he die?”
Her father looked away.
“Did they kill him?” They, meaning anyone. Everyone. They were always there — a silent, unseen threat. They were the very reason she was trapped here. The very reason she had to trek across the country in the middle of the night with a stranger to a family friend.
“It was a car accident.”
“I’m so sorry, Pa—”
“The funeral’s tomorrow.”
“But they can’t expect—”
Irritation tightened his eyes. “He is family. I must—” He cut off, squeezing his lips closed as if he refused to let the rest of the words come out. “You will be safe with Javier until I return.”
She surged forward, grabbing her father’s shirt in a fist. “Papá, please!” she whispered urgently. “I don’t have to go anywhere. I can protect myself. Let me stay here—”
“I’d put you on the fucking moon if I could.” His words slammed over her like a prison cell’s door.
She pulled away from him then, absently grasping the pendant when it thumped against her breastbone.
Her father let out a sigh. He was rubbing his eyes when she looked up at him again. He drew her close and pressed his lips to the top of her head. There was a wave of intense pressure behind her eyes. Tears. But she wouldn’t let him see them — he always became so angry with her when she cried. She blinked hard, forcing them away.
“Mi corazón…”
She hadn’t heard his voice so soft, so loving, in months. Her teeth clenched. Her chest was too tight for her to breathe.
“Look at me.”
She forced her eyes up, blinking hard.
“You are my everything.” He cupped her face in his hand. “Should something ever happen to you…”
“Nothing will happen to me, Papá,” she whispered.
He stroked her cheek with a thumb, cocking his head and staring at her as if he could somehow see back through time to the six-year-old version of her. Or, perhaps, he saw Sofia, her sister. Naomie, her mother. They all bore a strong resemblance to each other. Same dark hair, same golden eyes. Honey. Papá had always complimented her mother on her honey-colored eyes.
“When I come back, we’ll take a vacation. Somewhere with snow. You like snow.” He swiped a tear from her cheek. “Please don’t cry.”
“Yes,” she managed, pulling free from his hands so she could wipe away her own tears. “I like snow.”
“Then we’ll go somewhere with lots of it. You can ski, and what—what’s this thing—” Her father pressed his lips closed and looked away, seeming irritated he couldn’t remember the word.
“Snowboard?”
“You can snowboard. But I need you to stay safe until I get back.” He put his hand over the necklace, pressing the pendant into her breastbone. “And this. You keep this safe until I see you.”
“Yes, Papá.”
“Good girl.” He ran a hand over her head and walked toward the furthest SUV. One of his bodyguards climbed out to open the back door for him.
“Papá?”
He paused, twisting to look back at her. He was graying at his temples, but that just made him look stern; the deep wrinkles at his eyes and mouth, sterner.