Not the response he’d expected. “You should be ashamed,” he ground out, his jaw trying to lock itself around words his mouth didn’t want to form.
“You seem to forget I wrote the playbook on emotional withdrawal.” She sat up, sheet clutched to her chest. “If you want to get rid of me, you’re going to have to do better than that.”
He forced his hands to relax, opened them against his thighs in an effort to at least appear in control. “Answer the question. The file?”
“Okay. I didn’t read the file because I didn’t need to,” she told him, dragging the sheets with her as she moved to sit on the side of the bed and look up at him.
Again, not what he expected. “What does that mean?” he said, even though he had a pretty good idea.
“That means I already knew … Cartero.” She looked him in the eye. “I know everything, and I knew it long before Croft threw that file at me, so you can spare me the dramatics.”
He stared at her for a moment before shaking his head. “I don’t know what’s more pathetic: the fact that you just spread your legs for a monster,” he said, turning toward her fully, pushing a disgusted look onto his face, “or the fact that you spread them knowing I was a monster all along.”
She went pale seconds before red flooded her cheeks. “Is that it? Is that what this is all about? You think you’re some kind of monster?” she said with a small shake of her head. “You think that somehow, if you push me hard enough—if you’re a big enough prick—you’ll save me?”
“I’m not a prick.” He leaned into her, practically roared the words in her face. “I’m a murderer, Sabrina.”
She went still, eyes filled with a terrible sort of understanding that he’d have given his life to take from her. “I know what monsters look like, Michael, and I know how they behave. They pull you in; they don’t push you away.”
“How?” he said, even though how didn’t matter. “Who told you I was El Cartero?” The name got stuck in his throat, latched on, and for a second refused to leave his mouth. He hated it. Hated who it made him. Most of all, he hated that it was El Cartero—not him—who had the guts to do what needed to be done now.
“Ben.” Sabrina must’ve accurately read the expression on his face because she sighed again, raking trembling fingers through her long dark hair. She was afraid of him.
Good.
She shook her head. “It’s not his fault. None of this has played out the way he planned,” she said. “You want to blame someone, blame me.”
“Oh, I do. I blame you.” As soon as he said it, he knew. These were the words that were sharp enough to cut her. These were the words that would make her bleed and in that moment, he hated himself more that he’d ever thought possible. “For Frankie. For Lucy … for everything.”
She went still, her eyes bright with the sudden rush of angry tears, seconds before she launched herself at him. He took her head on, let her hit him more than once—sharp, heavy blows that brought pain and blood—before he spun her into the wall, corralling her arms to pin them high above her head, his wide palm and long fingers circling her wrists, squeezing them together.
The sheet was gone, tangled around their feet, leaving her naked. Exposed. He fought the urge to let her go. Every instinct he had was screaming, telling him this was wrong. So terribly, horribly wrong.
He pressed his full length against her, shoved his knee between her legs, forcing them apart, pushing himself into the juncture of her thighs. He smiled down at her, used his free hand to mop up the blood that trickled from his nose and mouth. “You done yet?”
She swiveled her wrists against his hand, trying to pop the lock he had on her. “Why don’t you let me go and find out?”
“I don’t think so.” He tightened his grip, felt the bend in her bones as he twisted the smile into a grin, made himself laugh at her. “You wanted Cartero, Sabrina.” He trailed a finger along the swell of her breast to tease its tip. “Well, now you’ve got him.”
“Fuck you,” she snarled at him, chest pumping, breath ragged against his neck. “And if you think you’re scaring me, think again. This isn’t scared. This is pissed.”
“Well, that’s an easy fix.” He pushed his hand between them, started to work the fly of his cargos open, even though he knew he’d rather die than hurt her.
“You’re not going to hurt me, Michael,” she said, nailing him with a gaze that saw right through him. “You can’t.”
“Oh, yeah?” He leaned into her as he slipped the last button from its loop, his mouth hovering above hers. “Why is that?”
“Because you love me.”
He let go of her, so fast and abrupt that she staggered under the sudden pull of her own weight. He turned away from her, rubbing his hands on his thighs before giving in, allowing them to crank themselves into fists even as he resisted the urge to punch himself in the face.
“You love me, and all this?” She threw her hands in the air, he knew because he heard them slap against her thighs a second later. “All this is just your wacked-out idea of a rescue.” She sighed, a shaky breath that told him she wasn’t going to give up so easily. “Please tell me. Just tell me what happened. We’ll figure it out together.”
Do you really think she can survive us both?
Michael stared out the window, watching the sun break over the horizon, wanting nothing more than to turn to her. To ignore everything he knew to be true and just be with her. Tell her the truth. He almost did it. He almost gave in.
Instead, he forced himself to finish it.
“Love you? I don’t love you,” he lied. “I’m infected by you.” He turned on her then and spat a mouthful of blood on the floor between them. “Lark was right, you’re a goddamned disease. You’ve ruined me—” He slammed a fist against his skull, hard enough to scatter stars across his field of vision. “Mind-fucked me six ways to Sunday.” He dropped his hands to the front of his pants to close his fly, button by button, concentrating his attention on his working fingers so he wouldn’t have to look at her. Could she see them shaking? Did she know how much he regretted the things he’d just done and said? “This is over, you and me—you understand? Done.”
“Lark might’ve been right about me, but Lucy was wrong about you.” Her tone pulled his gaze up to her face. She glared at him, spine straight, arms at her sides, chin tilted in a challenge that made him feel small. Like she was looking down on him. “You’re nothing but a coward after all.”
He held her glare and shrugged. He pretended her words and the look she was giving him didn’t slice him clean to the bone. “Yeah? Glad you’re finally getting the picture,” he said before he turned and walked out, leaving the door standing wide open when he left.
Fifty-Three
Michael let himself in through the front door in an effort to avoid Miss Ettie and her all-knowing eye. He could hear her moving around in the kitchen, opening drawers and shutting them again. The low rumble of Lark’s voice was answered by her soft, lilting tone. Through the doorway connecting the kitchen to the dining room, he could see the Kotko boy sitting at the table, skinny legs dangling from the seat he perched on. At least he was sitting in an actual chair today.
The kid must’ve sensed him because he turned, pinning Michael with that dark vacant gaze of his. It lasted for less than a second, but he’d felt it. Connection. Recognition.
Michael looked away. Unwanted memories pushed at him from all sides. Things he’d tried his whole life to hide from.
You’re nothing but a coward after all.
No one knew just how true that really was.
“Miss Ettie is looking for her gardening shears.”
He looked toward the stairs to see Ben standing at the foot of them. He thought of the shears, of what he’d done with them. “I’ll buy her a new pair.”
Ben laughed, but the sound died as he cocked his head a
t a curious angle. “You okay?”
“What? Yeah. Fine.” He moved, squeezing past his partner to mount the steps to his room.
“I want to know what happened,” Ben said, catching his arm as he passed. For a second he thought he was pressing him for details about his night with Sabrina. Then he remembered what he’d been doing before that.
“Let me get cleaned up,” he said, forcing himself to look his partner full in the face. Ben did a quick appraisal before letting him go. As he’d hope, the kid had attributed the cut lip and swollen cheek he was sporting to his trip to Reyes’s warehouse last night.
“Make it quick,” Ben called over his shoulder on his way to the kitchen, leaving Michael alone.
He made his way to his room and let himself in, shedding his clothes immediately. Lifting his shirt above his head, he caught the smell of her on his skin. Felt the dizzying flash of heat as blood rushed from his head. For a moment he saw her. Felt the way she’d moved under his hands. Under his mouth.
The way she’d looked at him when he’d told her that he blamed her for his sister’s death.
He tossed the bloodstained shirt on the floor and worked the front of his pants open, kicking his boots off as he did. It was over. Done. He’d made the right choice. For once in his miserable life, he did the right thing. So why did he feel like shit?
He glanced at the window that faced her house, spotting the binocs that he’d handed to Ben before he’d left the night before, propped on the sill.
No wonder Ben hadn’t given him shit about his walk of shame or asked where he’d been all night. He knew because he’d probably watched the whole fucking thing. He took an angry swipe at the binocs, meaning to knock them off the ledge, but they somehow ended up in his hand. He raised them to his face and suddenly Sabrina was there in front of him, so close he felt like he could reach out and touch her.
She was sitting on the side of the bed, wearing a dark blue robe, hands in her lap. He could see the ugly red rings his fingers had left on her wrists. They were beginning to fade, but he could still see them, plain as day. He’d hurt her, in more ways than one.
None of it mattered. Not if he didn’t let it.
He yanked his pants off and headed for the bathroom. Starting the shower, he stepped under the rush of hot water, scrubbing furiously with the bar of soap until his skin felt like it was ready to peel off. He waited until the water started to cool before turning it off. He was wasting time he didn’t have, attempting to delay the inevitable.
He toweled off before dressing, pulling on a pair of cargos and the first shirt he found. Dialing his phone, he listened to it ring, ignoring the feeling that each tone built in the pit of his stomach. Under normal circumstances, calling Livingston Shaw was not something most people in his position would do. His circumstances were far from normal.
“Michael, is everything okay?” Shaw’s voice, alert and rested, was more curious than concerned.
“It depends on your definition of okay, Livingston,” he drawled. “If you ask me, the situation you’ve gotten yourself into is pretty fucking far from okay.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” The curiosity smoothed out, filling cracks. Hiding holes. But Michael could hear it; Shaw was worried.
“It’s over. Reyes called me last night. He told me everything. That you hired him to kidnap Leo Maddox. That the Cordova hit was ordered by him.”
He took Shaw’s silence as confirmation.
“He told me something else … ” He dropped his voice in to a mock whisper. “A secret.”
“Do tell.”
“Leo Maddox is dead.” He blended truth and lie perfectly until even he couldn’t distinguish one from the other. “And your perfect plan—whatever it was—has gone to hell.”
Fifty-Four
“Here? Shaw is coming here?” Lark’s voice pealed off the walls, a baritone bell filled with trepidation. “This is bad. Fucking bad.”
Michael couldn’t blame him. The last time they’d faced Livingston Shaw together hadn’t ended well for either of them.
“Would it’ve killed you to stick with the plan?” Ben said, leaning back in his chair to glare up at him.
“It’s the same plan, I just hit fast forward.” He shot a glance over Ben’s head, his gaze landing on Sabrina. She’d been here when he came downstairs, standing as far away from him as she could get, hips leaned against the counter, watchful dog at her feet. She’d performed some sort of emotional triage—tying off her feelings about everything that had happened between them over the past eight hours, letting them atrophy. The look she gave him was relaxed. No anger. No hurt. It was as if the last night never happened.
He envied her.
“How long?”
He looked down to find Ben watching him and gave him a tired shrug. “Who knows? Ten, twelve hours at the most.”
“You know too much,” Ben said, his tone ringing with certainty. “He’s going to kill you.”
“Not before I kill Reyes. Your father is smart enough to want that tie good and cut, and he knows I’m the only one who can do it.” He shrugged. “Who knows, maybe if I manage to bring the Maddox boy back, he’ll change his mind.” He took a look around the room and knew he hadn’t managed to fool any of them. They all knew the truth. No matter what kind of miracle he managed to perform, as soon as it was over, Michael was as good as dead. “Reyes is keeping the kid on his private island. That’s where I’m headed.”
“How do you know?” Lark said.
“A little birdie told me,” he said before filling them in on the what had happened the night before. His infiltration of Reyes’s operation. His confrontation with Estefan. His late-night conversation with Reyes himself. He left out the parts that really mattered: that Reyes had threatened Sabrina and that Estefan was looking to overthrow his father. Ricin capsule or not, Lark was still a liability.
“This whole thing has been a setup, from start to finish.” He looked at Sabrina. “The fact that you found Leo Maddox’s doppelganger. That he was dumped in a house tied to Alberto’s operation. Reyes wanted us here; he wanted you involved.” He left the rest unsaid. That she was in danger—always would be in danger as long as he was around.
Ben looked at his watch and stood. “If I know my father, he’s already halfway here. That ten- or twelve-hour window he gave you? Cut it in half,” he said, taking charge of the situation. “Sabrina and I are going to go meet her contact for the death certificate on the Maddox kid.” He shot a look at Lark. “You ready to make the Internet your bitch?”
Lark grinned, flexing his fingers. “It’s what I do best.”
“Good. I want to know why my father targeted the Senator’s grandson. He didn’t have him kidnapped for shits and giggles. You have three hours to find out why,” Ben said.
Lark nodded and stood, ready to work.
“Before you go,” Michael said, tossing him a flash drive.
Lark snatched it out of the air and gave it a glance. “What is it?”
“A list of every scumbag Reyes sold a kid to. I want every single one of them burned,” he said.
Lark gave him a lopsided grin. “I’ll put it on my to-do list,” he said, heading for the sunroom where he’d set up shop.
As soon as Lark was gone, he looked at Ben. “What about me?” he said. “I’ll be damned if I’m just gonna sit here and play fattened calf.”
Ben smirked. “I have a video conference set up with the Senator at nine o’clock. You can take it. Fill him in on what’s happening.”
Michael shook his head. Leon Maddox wasn’t going to listen to a word he had to say. He’d been branded a traitor to his country and had worked as a hitman and personal guard for the drug lord responsible for kidnapping his grandson—neither of which exactly inspired trust. “You really think that’s a good idea? No way is Maddox going to talk to me.”
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“You’d rather go with her?” Ben cocked his head in Sabrina’s direction. “Right. Like I was saying, I’m gonna go grab my jacket.” With that he was gone, leaving the two of them alone.
He looked out the window, watching Miss Ettie lead Alex around her garden. The boy shuffled after her, head cocked to the side like he was listening while she jabbered on about her flowers in a language he didn’t even speak.
“Do you know why I went to see Phillip last night?”
Caught off-guard, he redirected his gaze. Looking at her, he shook his head slowly. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. She reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled something out. The red silk pouch.
“After I killed Wade, I thought it was over. I thought I’d won, gotten my life back. And then he started talking to me,” she said in a low voice, like she was afraid to wake someone who was sleeping in the next room. “Every day, he got louder and louder, closer and closer until he was here.” She touched the side of her head. “Living inside me. I couldn’t get rid of him.” She dropped her hand. “You don’t have to tell me how crazy I sound, trust me … but Phillip’s cousin, the one you met last night, she saw it. She saw him,” she said, her fingers tightening around the pouch. “She called him a Gae Dokkaebi—a ghost.”
“What’s in the pouch?” he said, even though he didn’t want to ask. Didn’t want to care.
“Tea.” She looked down at the bundle of red silk in her hand. “When she gave it to me I thought she was crazy, but it worked. When I drink it, Wade’s quiet. It’s like there’s a wall between us… one I can’t hear him through.” She frowned for a moment before looking up at him. “But he’s still there. I can feel his … weight inside my head. Scratching at that wall between us. Trying to push his way through.” She grinned. “Crazy, right?”
He thought of them—all of them. The friends he’d lost. The family he’d failed. All of them dead because he’d been too selfish or too stupid to save them. “Not even a little bit.”
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