by Logan Fox
9
Forgive Me
“I can’t do this anymore,” Cora said, pushing away the stack of papers.
“What, read or sign?” Lars asked, pushing the pages back to her.
Finn allowed himself a small smile. Lars had been egging her on for close to an hour now.
“I have a headache,” she whined, pushing it away again.
“Those assets aren’t going to unfreeze themselves, young lady.” Lars pushed the pages back.
“I don’t think they’re frozen—” Finn began, but Lars cut him off with an irritated wave.
“Look, La Sombra,” Lars said. “I get it. You’re overwhelmed, and simply feel incapable of fulfilling your filthy rich duties.”
She’d collapsed onto her arms, but tipped her head up to scowl at him. “Do you have a problem or something?”
“Who, me?” Lars touched his chest. “Never. No. I love rich people. Think of me as your personal gold digger.” Lars shoved the pen between her fingers.
“Lars,” Finn said quietly.
Lars rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Fine.” He threw his hands up as he left the library, but at least the door didn’t slam behind him.
There was too much of that going around these days.
“Take a break,” Finn said, trailing his fingers along her arm.
“At least someone’s on my side,” Cora mumbled as she got up. Bailey came around the table, collecting up the papers as Finn guided her to the door.
“Seriously, though, what’s his problem?” Cora asked.
When she looked in his direction, Finn shook his head. “He has issues with rich people.”
“Why?”
“He had wealthy parents.”
“I don’t see how—”
“They neglected him. He developed a drinking problem. Then they kept throwing money at it, hoping it would go away.”
“And it didn’t?” Cora asked, staring up at him with big eyes.
“No, it did. He was just doing it to get to them. Problem is, they were too rich to pay attention.”
“Wow,” she murmured, leading the way out of the library. Finn followed her, scanning the gardens as they made their way toward the stairs heading to the villa’s second floor. Opposite them, one of the staff was busy trimming an unruly rose bush, but that was the only movement around.
So, Javier had been broke. Was he still? Finn had a few questions he’d like to ask that lawyer, if the guy would speak to him. Cora’d made it pretty damn clear the three of them could be trusted, but lawyers had a way of twisting things.
Fuck it, he was sounding like Lars.
Cora led them into her bedroom, but instead of going to slump on the bed like he’d expected, she went into the en-suite and began running a bath.
He came up behind her, rubbing his hands over the top of her arms. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” she murmured. She turned to him, giving him a warm—if faded—smile, and laid her hands on his chest. “Do me a favor, would you?”
“Anything,” he said, lifting her hand and kissing her knuckles.
“Take Bailey. Go have a drink or something.”
He frowned at her, taking a step back so he could study her. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” she said, but in a voice that weighed a thousand pounds. “Just…ask him to tell you what he told me.”
“Cora—?”
She stripped. “I’m okay, Finn. Just…let me have a soak. I’ve got a lot to think about.”
He caught himself giving her bare back a nod, as if he’d just accepted an order from a queen.
But we have, haven’t we?
He pushed away the voice, and forced himself to head out the bathroom.
“Oh, and Finn? Can I have my underwear back?”
“Nope,” he said, pushing the door closed behind him.
He heard her frustrated growl, but it didn’t make him smile as wide as it should have. Bailey was stacking the half-signed papers on Cora’s table, not even looking as if he’d been reading them.
Because he was a good guy, or just fucking good at pretending?
“Let’s give her a bit,” he said, grabbing Bailey’s shoulder in a hand.
“You sure? Shouldn’t we be—?”
“I’ll send Lars up to keep guard.” He clapped his hand on Bailey’s back and then strode ahead.
The sun hung low and sullen in the sky when they arrived on the roof. Finn made himself a cup of coffee at the bar while Bailey cracked open a can of beer. They stared at each for a few seconds before Bailey pointed out his radio. “You gonna call Lars?”
Finn shrugged. “You do it.” Then he turned and walked out onto the roof.
It wasn’t that he was letting his guard down—anything but. If Bailey was coming on board, then he’d have to step up.
Finn heard Bailey talking over the radio, and smiled faintly as he sipped his coffee. Bailey still didn’t know how call signs worked, and Lars was a fucking stickler for them. He took almost five minutes to get Lars to head up to Cora’s room, and when he came outside his face was blotchy with the effort.
“Sorted?” Finn asked, trying to hide his smile behind his cup as he leaned forward and rested his arms on the banister circling the roof.
“Yeah, sure,” Bailey replied briskly, before downing half his beer. “Said he’ll be up as soon as he’s done with the lion.”
“Whoa, easy there,” Finn said, straightening.
Bailey frowned at him as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You got something to say?”
“No,” Finn said, ignoring the man’s prompt. It had been a strange day for everyone—this wasn’t the time to piss over each other territory.
Not that Bailey had any.
“I got something to ask,” Finn said.
“So ask.” Bailey turned to the view and took another long swallow of his beer.
“What were you talking to Cora about today?”
Bailey shifted his weight, but didn’t turn to Finn. “That’s her business.”
“Which makes it ours.”
“Ours?” Bailey cocked an eyebrow at him.
“You still don’t get it, do you?” Finn turned his hand in a circle. “We’re all in this together. You know something, we all have to know it.”
“I fuck her, you all have to fuck her?” Bailey murmured, but just loud enough for him to hear.
“Now you’re getting it,” Finn said, taking a step closer. “And I wasn’t going to bring it up, but what you did back there, that’s something you won’t ever do again.”
Bailey gave him an uneasy glance before taking another swallow of beer. “Look, man, this is all kinda—” Bailey waggled a hand “—this is all kinda fucked up, okay? Give me a break.”
“If you don’t like it, then leave.”
Bailey opened his mouth, but then looked as if he changed what he’d been going to say. “Sofia wasn’t Cora’s sister. She was Javier’s daughter.”
Finn turned his head a little, studying Bailey over the rim of his cup as the man drained the last of his beer. Then he crumpled the can in a hand, turned to Finn, and said, “He’s also the one that set up the Rivera family’s kidnapping.”
“Javier had an affair with Cora’s mother?”
Bailey gave him a grim nod.
“But why kidnap his own daughter? Did he want her back?”
But before Bailey could answer, Finn stabbed an index finger in Bailey’s chest. “No, wait…Sofia died, didn’t she? She didn’t make it out.”
Bailey nodded.
“Why would he kill his own daughter?”
Bailey stared at him with surprisingly intent gray eyes. “Maybe he’d only ever wanted one daughter, and she wasn’t Sofia.”
. . .
As soon as Cora heard her bedroom door close, she climbed out of the tub again. She padded, naked and wet, across her room to the dressing table.
Pointedly ignoring the stack of papers she still
had to sign, she drew out the drawer as far as it would go. Her fingers fumbled along the underside until they touched a folded piece of paper. She tugged it free from the tape sticking it there and ambled back to the bathroom.
She didn’t sigh when she slid back into the warm water; every ounce of pleasure the bath could give her was suddenly void.
Cora held the folded note in her hand, staring at it as the bubbles around her hissed out of existence.
When her fingers trembled, she opened the note.
Mi corazón.
My heart.
Her eyesight blurred. She blinked hard, cleared her throat, and forced her eyes back to the page.
More than anything in the world, I wish I didn’t have to write this letter. But, sadly, there are things in this world that were never in my control.
I wish I could have seen you one last time. To explain, or at least attempt to explain, why I acted as I did.
I raised you the only way I knew how. I realize now that it wasn’t good enough, and I apologize for that.
I love you, mi corazón. I have always loved you. If you doubt that, even for a second, then remember this…
Even though you abandoned your mother and sister to a fate worse than death, I forgave you.
Likewise, I trust you will find it in your heart to forgive me for what I’ve done to you.
Love,
Papa.
Cora’s lips parted. Her breath hitched once, hard, and then her eyes flew to the top of the letter again.
She read it again. Slower. Pausing at the end of each sentence.
But it read the same.
Even though you abandoned your mother and sister…
Forgive me for what I’ve done to you.
10
Worshiping the Devil
Neo’s leg bounced. A soccer match was being broadcast on the flat screen, but he stared through that glossy surface - seeing nothing.
“He’s going to call,” Sylvia said, but even the usual calm reassurance in her voice was evidently missing.
“And then what? What the fuck am I supposed to tell him?” Neo sat back in a rush, both hands in his hair. “I don’t have the heroin. It all got burned. It’s ash. What, am I going to give him ash?”
“Calm down, Ne—”
He sprang to his feet. “Stop telling me what to do!” He stabbed a finger at Sylvia. “You got me into this. If it wasn’t for you—”
“Then you might have been dead already,” she said, rising slowly to her feet. She was tall, so she could look him straight in the eye even though she wasn’t wearing heels.
That pissed him off.
“Someone’s owed a shipment,” she said, toying with the collar of his t-shirt. “If you didn’t make contact, they’d probably have put a hit out on you.”
“They wouldn’t get here. He probably doesn’t even know where we are. Dad was careful to—”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Sylvia mused, sliding her fingers over his arm as she stepped around him. “Havie let his guard down a lot the past few weeks.”
“How is this better?” Neo yelled. “By calling, I’ve just gone and accepted that fucking debt, or whatever arrangement they had.”
“Maybe he’ll take something else instead. Money, or property—”
“That’s your answer?” Neo tried to grab her as she slipped past him, but she moved her shoulder out of reach with practiced ease. She padded over his room’s thick carpets as she headed for the refrigerator alongside his small breakfast nook.
She passed the Lamborghini on the way, and wrinkled her nose. “Smells like something died in here,” she said, and then opened the fridge.
“Sylvia! What am I supposed to tell him?”
“Make him an offer,” she called back, taking out a can of soda. “You’re capo now. You can give him whatever he wants.”
Neo opened his mouth, but then closed it again. He put his hands on his waist, nodding.
“I am capo,” he said, but more to himself than to her. “I’ll make him an offer—”
His phone rang, and he almost bit his tongue how he jumped at the sound. He snatched the phone off the coffee table, inhaled deep, and answered as calmly as he could.
“This is Neo.”
“I trust you’ve had enough time to work through your ‘number’s?” the man on the other end of the line put a sarcastic emphasis on what Neo had spouted out before hanging up on him the last time they’d spoken.
“Yes, I have.” Neo watched Sylvia walking back to him, as lithe as a gazelle. Well, as lithe as he’d imagine a gazelle to be. “Your shipment isn’t ready.”
“No?” the man asked, sounding unsurprised. “When will be it ready, then?”
Neo knew little about heroin; he’d always been more of a coke guy.
“Three months. Give or take.”
The man laughed in his ear. It was an unpleasant sound, but it went on too long, and cut off abruptly instead of tapering like true mirth.
“Tomorrow,” the man said.
Neo’s blood grew heavy, draining from his face and settling in a cold pool in his stomach.
“Tomorrow,” he parroted.
There was such a sucking silence, Neo glanced at the phone to make sure they were still connected.
“I…I can’t. Not—I mean, maybe if you give me a—”
“Tomorrow,” the man repeated slowly. “Our usual meeting place.”
“No, look—” Neo cast a pleading gaze at Sylvia, and she twirled her hand to encourage him to keep talking. “Please, there must be something I can give you. Money. How much money would the shipment have been worth to you?”
“Money?” The man let the word roll off his tongue. “I don’t want money. Your father and I had a deal.”
“Yes. You had a deal with my father. He’s dead, you know he is.” Neo tried to rein back his voice, but his heart was pounding so hard that it felt like it would shatter any instant. “In my mind, that cancels the deal.”
Another laugh, but this one bitterly short and cold. “No, my boy. A deal is a deal.”
“Then you get your drugs from Cora. She’s the one that killed him, not me. I shouldn’t have to pay for what she did. You call her and you tell her she killed the man you had a deal with.”
He looked at the phone again. The call was still connected, but the silence sucked at him like a black hole.
“The rumor is true?” the man asked.
“What rumor?” Neo snapped.
“Eleodora Rivera has been made capo alongside you?”
Neo struggled for a moment with his answer. As much as he wanted to lay every fucking ounce of this shit on Cora, he didn’t want to admit he was sharing the throne of El Calacas Vivo either.
“She’s my wife,” he said.
“And capo?”
“No woman will ever rule this cartel.”
“Interesting…” The man made a humming sound, and let out a long, expressive breath.
“You will deliver the shipment to me tomorrow before—”
Neo cut in with a harsh, “I just told you—”
“If not…”
His mouth clamped shut, nostrils flaring as he tried to clamp down his frustration. It wasn’t that difficult — he was coming to realize that the man on the other end of the line was anything but a hired gun. In fact…he was wondering if he wasn’t speaking to someone high up in a rival cartel, perhaps even the mafia, judging from his strong American accent. But why in heaven’s name would his father have made a deal with the mafia? Javier had his own connections to supply his product throughout most of the southern states of the US. Involving a third party just meant splitting profits.
“And if I can’t?” Neo prompted, when the man remained silent.
The quality of the man’s voice changed, as if he’d begun to smile.
“Then you will bring me Eleodora Rivera instead.”
11
Come hither
Cora’s hand jerked at a hard kn
ock to her bedroom door. She rushed to her feet, water streaming from her as she splashed across the floor and shoved the letter between a stack of towels on a nearby hamper.
Another knock, harder than before.
It wasn’t one of her men—they had the access code to get into her room even if she locked it. She wrapped a towel around herself and padded into the bedroom.
“Who is it?” she yelled.
“Neo,” came the muffled reply.
“Come back later.” She went inside her walk in closet and hunted out a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt to wear.
She was hopping into the jeans when her bedroom door opened.
Cora spun around, fumbling with her shirt as she tried to yank it over her head. Neo appeared in the closet’s doorway, glaring at her.
She bundled the shirt against her chest, shielding herself. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? How did you even get in here?”
“We have a problem,” Neo said.
“Get out!”
But Neo came in instead.
“Out!” she yelled, aiming a kick in his direction. “I’m getting dressed.”
“Nothing I haven’t seen before.”
“What?” she spluttered, trying to move around him so she could dart out the closet and—possibly—lock him inside until her men came back.
Wait…where the hell were her men?
“Finn!”
“Just you and me, chica,” Neo said, and for a moment he sounded just like Javier. She shuddered involuntarily and twisted away from him, yanking her shirt over her head. When she turned back, she wanted to climb straight back into the bath and wash off the feel of his eyes.
“What’s so important it couldn’t wait?” she demanded, backing out of the closet. The last thing she wanted was being trapped in a confined space with Neo.
He had a strange look on his face, like a wary predator that had just came across something it didn’t quite know if it should classify as prey yet.
Her Taurus lay on the dressing table. The small cheese knife she’d stabbed into Javier’s heart, by her nightstand.