The Bargain

by Lisa Cardiff

  Speechless, I shuddered, and bile burned the walls of my throat. If I stopped to think about it, Ignacio’s confession wasn’t surprising. I didn’t believe anyone could make it to the top of the cartel without committing countless murders. I turned my head to the side, fixing my vision on the passing landscape, praying this car ride ended soon. “How can you live with yourself?” I whispered more to myself than Ignacio.

  “I don’t have a choice. Once you’re in a cartel, the only way out is prison or death.” He brought the car to a stop and turned off the ignition. “But I don’t like either of those options, so I fight to maintain what’s mine.”

  “You could disappear.”

  “Not anymore. I’m too high up the food chain, but that isn’t the point of this drive.” He tapped me on my leg, and my eyes met his. Any amusement I had seen in his eyes earlier this morning had disappeared. They were a black hole, sucking me into a void of emptiness. “The only way to bring your enemies down and save yourself is by annihilating their whole infrastructure: their police protection, their soldiers, their friends, their families, and their assets. You kill them before they can kill you.” He pointed his finger directly in front of the car. “Dario’s son.”

  Twenty yards in front of us, a boy, not older than seventeen, was tied to a lamppost. His bloodied head lay sideways next to his feet, and a pig’s head was placed on top of his corpse. A knife was buried in his chest, affixing a piece of white paper to his body. The sign said, “VC captura y exucutes traidores.”

  “The Vargas Cartel captures and executes traitors,” Ignacio whispered almost reverently. “The turf war between the Vargas and Alvarez Cartel has begun. Every cartel has a calling card of sorts. What do you think of ours?”

  For a split second, I didn’t do anything. My mouth gaped open, silently straining for air. I stared at the horror in front of me, my mind swirling with disbelief even as time slowed to a meager crawl. Then, the gravity of the vision in front of me struck me like a bolt of lightning, and my mind shattered into a million pieces. Air rushed into my lungs, and I screamed and screamed some more until my voice gave out, because I didn’t know what else to do. When my shrieks of terror morphed into a soundless whisper, I buried my head in my hands, my entire body shaking.

  At some point, Ignacio started driving again, but I refused to open my eyes. I refused to look at him. It was official: I was living in a nightmare.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  One sunset turned into four, and before I realized it, four days had elapsed since my drive with Ignacio. I had slipped into a routine, which did wonders for my obsessive need to schedule and organize my life down to the last detail. More importantly, it kept my mind off the murder scene Ignacio showed me, and I pretended as though it hadn’t happened—at least until I fell asleep. Then, the nightmares overwhelmed my unconscious mind, and I rarely slept more than four for five hours.

  Javier brought me a light breakfast every morning at eight. I swam laps until my muscles ached. Then, I read books from the comfort of a shaded lounge chair by the pool. I showered at three in the afternoon, and I ate dinner at five in my room.

  Ignacio invited me to join him for dinner every night, but I declined. Even though I wondered if I’d see Ryker at dinner, my need to avoid Ignacio overshadowed my desire to see Ryker. I wasn’t ready to see Ignacio. I didn’t know if I’d ever be ready.

  After dinner, the torture began—not physical but mental.

  The first night, it started with a simple splashing noise in the pool around ten at night. Curious, I had peeked out my curtains, and I saw Ryker swimming laps in the pool. Every night since, I had left my drapes open while I sat in the comfort of my bed with the lights off, watching Ryker swim back and forth for nearly an hour.

  He knew I watched him, but he never acknowledged me. He never let his eyes drift to my window. He never waved. He swam and then returned to his room. It was like I didn’t exist, had never existed. Maybe it was better that way…for both of us.

  “Can I come in,” Ignacio pushed the door open to my room as I finished my last bite of breakfast.

  “Sure.” My hands shook as I placed my spoon on the tray, and I moved to stand up from the bed.

  “You don’t have to get up.” He walked past me to the window overlooking the pool, pausing there with his back turned to me and his hands clasped behind his body. I was grateful he didn’t sit next to me on the bed. I waited for him to say what he needed to say and leave. I hated being in the same room with him.

  “You’re leaving tomorrow. Before breakfast. It’s all arranged,” he muttered.

  I clutched the folds of my skirt and nodded, unable to look at him even if it was only his back. “Okay.” I forced myself to remain calm and keep my voice even. He scared me and tied my mouth in knots. When I looked at him, I saw a monster. A soulless, heartless monster.

  He cast a glance over his shoulder, and a small smile tugged at the corners of his normally grim mouth. “We finished negotiations yesterday. I planned to tell you at dinner last night, but you declined as usual.”

  “Sorry,” I lied, but I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t want to be alone with him. Even sharing the same room and air filled me with a sickening rage.

  “No, you’re not.” He spun around and leaned against the wall. “I get it. You think I’m a bad person because you don’t think I feel any guilt over the things I’ve done, the people I’ve killed.”

  The statement hung in the air, weighing it down. I drew my knees up to my chest and rested my head on my knees. “Is there any other way to look at it?” I asked, my voice hardly a rasp.

  Pushing away from the wall, he expelled a heavy breath and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I improve the lives of the members of my cartel. I make sure they adhere to a code of ethics, which includes embracing family values. None of my members abuse drugs, and if they do, we clean them up and then they work for me to repay the favor of saving their lives. My members attend mass regularly. I give loans and gifts to local schools, businesses, farmers, and churches. We are so much more than a cartel smuggling drugs. We are a social organization. We bring order and meaning into the lives of the poor.”

  “Really?” Stunned by his admission, I didn’t know what to say. I never considered a cartel might do as much good and as it does bad. Not everything was black and white.

  “I help people. The Vargas Cartel is a necessary evil, but you wouldn’t understand. How could you? You’ve never lived in Mexico. You’ve never been poor and without resources.”

  “No, I haven’t,” I admitted.

  “We don’t kill women. We don’t kill innocent people, only those who deserve to die.”

  “Nobody deserves to die.” My gut lurched as I said the words. I killed a man. I did it in self-defense, but maybe I had lost the moral authority to judge Ignacio the minute I pulled the trigger.

  “Your innocence is almost charming.” A condescending smile spread across his face. “Have you talked to Ryker?”

  I shook my head. “No, not since he showed me to this room, but I’m sure you already knew that.”

  A lopsided grin pulled at his mouth for a second. “The cameras.”

  “Yes, the cameras,” I snapped, not even trying to moderate my voice.

  “So you’re planning to walk away without saying another word to him.”

  I swallowed over the sudden tightness in my throat. “That’s what he wants.”

  His nearly black eyebrows arched. “Are you sure about that?

  “Yes.” My voice faltered, and I sounded unsure, confused even. “But even if it isn’t, you made it clear that you’d ruin my life if I didn’t stay away from him.”

  He nodded. “Ah, we’re back to the video and the cameras.” He strolled across the room, his hands in his pockets. “Maybe that’s what is wrong with your generation.”

  “What?” I answered, not understanding why I bothered prolonging this conversation. How in the hell would he know if somethin
g was wrong with my generation? He was a sick and twisted murderer.

  “You’ve been handed everything without working for it, so you’re afraid to go after what you really want in life. You settle for mediocrity when you should go after your dreams. Mediocre spouses. Mediocre careers. Mediocre lives.” He shook his head, disdain dripping from his voice. “How boring.”

  “And murdering your way to the top of a cartel was your dream?” I taunted, the smugness in Ignacio’s voice grating on my already threadbare nerves.

  “Being the best at whatever I did was my dream.”

  “And you’re the best.”

  “I’d like to think so.” The declaration sounded almost serene. He opened the door. “Have your things packed and be waiting by the front door at seven in the morning. Take care, Miss Covington, and good luck with your life.” He paused with his hand on the doorknob. “With whatever you choose or don’t choose.”

  What the hell did that mean? “And if I choose Ryker?”

  “Then you choose Ryker.”

  I rubbed my hands together. “You won’t do anything to stop me.”

  “No. I got what I wanted.”

  “And what was that?”

  “Your compliance until I could secure Rever’s release. I’ve secured his release, so what you do or don’t do isn’t my concern.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Ignacio plans to release me tomorrow,” I said when he reached the end of the pool. Drops of water glistened like stars on his tanned skin.

  His muscles tensed, but he didn’t acknowledge me. He dove back under the surface of the water, going back and forth at least six more times. Desperate for him to acknowledge me, to talk to me, I shrugged off my sundress, exposing my white bikini. I lowered myself into the pool, waiting by the edge for him to finish his laps.

  “I wanted to say goodbye,” I said when he surfaced again only inches from me.

  “You need to go.”

  I ignored him. “You haven’t said one thing to me in five days.”

  “That’s by design.” He sidestepped me, moving toward the steps exiting the pool.

  “Stop.” I wrapped my hands around his biceps, refusing to let him walk away from me again, refusing to let him do anything but look me in the eye and talk to me. “Why won’t you talk to me?” He kept his head turned, not meeting my gaze. “You can’t even look at me.”

  The awkwardness between us was palpable, and I hated it. For some reason, I had deluded myself into believing he cared about me. I shouldn’t have tried to talk to him. I should’ve stayed in my room and waited for my last hours in captivity to expire. I had read too much into the time we spent together, which was ridiculous on my part, given the circumstances of how we met.

  I shifted nervously from one foot to the other waiting for him to say something…anything.

  “Hattie,” he said, his gray eyes finally locking on mine. “Why’d you come?”

  “You’re right, I should go. This was a dumb idea. I don’t know what I was thinking. If you wanted to talk to me, you had many opportunities to do so. I’m forcing you—”

  “Shut up, Hattie.” He pressed a finger to my mouth holding it there. “I don’t know what you’re thinking.”

  “That I should’ve stayed in my room. That I don’t belong here.”

  “Neither do I.” He dropped his hands to my shoulders, and he had this lost look on his face. My heart twisted. “I’ve never felt comfortable here. I hated the summers I spent in this house. I hated my dad’s life, and I hated Rever. We were close in age, but we were never friends…more like polite enemies with an unspoken agreement to tolerate each other.”

  His eyes looked translucent in the moonlight. I couldn’t tear my gaze from his face, and he didn’t look away either. My body soaked up the attention. Physical awareness zipped between us like a live wire, and a warm glow shimmered through my nerve endings. Instantly, I tamped it down, doing everything to stop it. I couldn’t go there again…for so many glaringly obvious reasons, not the least of which was my dignity.

  I took a small step back, but he moved forward, and before I knew it he had me pressed against the wall, his legs tangling with mine beneath the waist-deep water. His arms circled my waist, shackling me against his chest. My insides jolted the minute our bodies made contact, and with that small touch I was already aroused, my body wanting his. My breasts ached. Liquid desire pooled between my thighs, and my heart raced frantically inside my chest, echoing wildly in my ears.

  I buried my face in the crook of his neck, unable to look at him for one more second. I had wanted him, craved him, for the last five days, and now that his arms were around me, I was scared. “I’m going to leave,” I murmured against the side of his neck. “I just wanted to say goodbye, and now I did.” I took a deep breath, drawing his now familiar scent into my lungs for the last time. Then, I wedged my hands between our slick bodies, pushing him away from me forever.

  Binding my wrists with one hand, he lifted my chin, forcing me to look at him. Really look at him. What I saw robbed me of thought and buckled my knees. It was too much. I squeezed my eyes closed. “No. You should stay.” He brushed a kiss across my lips, my forehead and my eyelids. With four sultry caresses, he tore down all my walls, crumbling any lingering resistance. “Don’t you want me?” He nuzzled my ear and tremors danced down my spine, setting me ablaze. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”

  Want him? I had never wanted anyone as much as I wanted him, and not just in the physical sense. How could he think otherwise? Panic warred with desire at that realization, and I froze. I didn’t know what to do. How did I move forward?

  Then he kissed me—fully, deeply, desperately. I was cast adrift, senseless to anything around me but the push and pull of his mouth and the delicious swirl of his tongue as it chased mine in a circle of lust. If I didn’t know everything between us ended tonight, I would’ve have wept from the beauty of the moment.

  I slipped my legs around his waist, locking my ankles behind his back, whimpering as my core collided with the hardness of his erection. His hands cupped my breasts over the small triangles of my swimming suit. I arched, inviting him to do more.

  Not waiting a second, he unknotted the ties holding the back of my top together and slipped it over my head. He tossed it on the side of the pool and then his hands were back on my breasts, roughly toying with my nipples until I was breathless and aching with the pain of emptiness.

  “Ryker,” I moaned, recklessly grinding my pelvis against his, against the thickness of his erection beneath his swim trunks.

  He pulled the tie on one side of my bikini bottom and then the other, and they floated away from my body. His finger slipped inside of me, moving with wicked intent, in and out and back again. We were on a rollercoaster of desire and everything was moving too fast for my mind to process it.

  “I missed this. I missed you,” he whispered, nipping the delicate edge of my earlobe. His confession spiraled through me, and my heart skipped a beat, even though I knew I should ignore his words. Pretend I didn’t hear them. Pray I unheard them. It’s only tonight, I reminded myself. Wanting more, claiming this meant anything, was insane. It would destroy me. Destroy my life. Destroy me for anyone else.

  I unlocked my ankles and shoved his swim trunks down his legs, not wanting to wait another second before he slid inside of me. I didn’t want him to stop…to pull back. He’d done it before and I couldn’t bear it if he stopped. I needed it. I needed him. I needed closure to whatever we had over the last three weeks, and this was the way I intended to get it.

  He anchored my legs around his waist again, but this time I felt every inch of him, skin on skin, solid and pulsing with unfulfilled desire. I lifted my arms, wrapping them around his neck, pulling him closer, begging him with my body to take what we both needed…what we both wanted.

  Then, he drove inside of me, stilling for a second, not moving. We both blew out a long, exaggerated breath of relief, our foreheads touching,
our eyes connecting, our hearts beating together in perfect synchronicity. I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t want to know. I was afraid the knowledge would kill me.

  “Ryker,” I murmured, sounding more than a little lost.

  He nodded. “I know.”

  He pulled out, pushed in again, and then slid out once more. I tightened my legs, pulling him closer, hating the split second where I lost that primal connection to him. He slid his hand around my hips, cupping my backside, and then he moved fast and hard. My back pounded against the walls of the pool, scraping my skin, but I hardly noticed.

  Distantly, I heard the slapping of the water as it lapped over the tiled ledge of the pool, and the small noises of birds and insects in the jungle surrounding us. But most of all, I heard the sounds of us.

  Skin slapped against skin.

  Exhalations mingled into one solid stream of desire.

  Moans chased moans.

  I curled into him, trusting him to keep me afloat, not just physically, but mentally too.

  Hot, glowing fire blazed through my body coalescing in my core. I was close. So close. My nails raked his back. An answering shudder wracked through his body. Our pleasure climbed to completion in unison, coiling tighter and tighter with each thrust and roll of his hips.

  Then, I climaxed, fast and hard. I screamed, not caring about anything. Not the cameras. Not Ignacio’s security team. Not tomorrow. Not my freedom. Nothing except the feel of Ryker inside of me.

  His mouth captured mine, drinking the tortured sounds of my pleasure as spasm after spasm rocked through me, each one milking him to his completion. And then he came, following me into oblivion.