The day is useless. A shit-ton of work waits for me, but every paper I take into my hands ends up being tossed on the desk as my thoughts wander back to the girl I keep imprisoned. In fact, I can’t stop thinking about her since I left her room yesterday after I found out how she became the person she is in her soulful eyes.
Good thing the motherfucker is dead, or I would have locked up Leonara and gone on a killing spree until I held his severed head in my hands.
Taking the package from my desk, I put it in my safe where it will stay until Leonara’s birthday.
After I found out about the valuable painting, I had my men searching for it immediately. Turned out Sofia hid it in the Fuerte Baluarte Museum within the frame of another painting. Not the best hiding spot considering Piero knows all about hiding things in paintings, but thankfully, my men got their hands on it first.
“Señor DeLuca,” Mariana calls, halting in the door frame. “Dinner is ready.”
“Thank you,” I say before calling Emilio. “Bring her down.”
For the first time in years, the dining table is set for two people, one seat on each end. Latin music plays in the background, and the smell of Mexican delicacies hangs in the air. The lights are dimmed, various candles throwing a soft glow on the silver dinnerware. I wear dark jeans and a black shirt for the occasion, and I make sure I look presentable before Leonara appears in the doorway.
For a second, the sight of her takes my breath away. I knew she’d look stunning in the dress I gave her, but now that she stands in front of me, she surpasses all expectations.
The black silk bodice draped over one tattooed shoulder hugs her upper body like a second skin, melting into a mini skirt from the hip down. Layers of chiffon flare around her legs, the transparent fabric showing her thighs and buckled ankle boots. Gathering from the scowl on her face, she’d rather wear her own clothes, but she never looked sexier.
“This is a bad idea,” she comments after taking in the scene.
“What?”
“I don’t do this stuff. I wear military pants and Converse. I eat fast food in bed and get food stains on my clothes all the time. I’m not good company, believe me.”
I let the last part of her comment slide, thinking I never had better company in my home. “Didn’t any man ever take you out?” I ask with a grin, as usual amused by her easy attitude.
“I never had a man,” she blurts as if she doesn’t have a care in the world, rendering me speechless.
She never had a man? What does that mean? As in she never had a relationship? She has a thing for women? Or… she never had sex?
I’m glad Leonara has no clue about courtesies and sits down instead of waiting for me to shove a chair under her sweet butt, oblivious to the emotions conflicting on my face. I gather my composure while she examines the set of cutleries as if she’s never seen anything alike.
“You look stunning, by the way.”
She squints her eyes as if not trusting my words but accepts the compliment with a tentative, “Thanks.”
“Wine?”
“A beer,” she demands causing me to snicker. I should have known I can’t impress her with a bottle of Casa Madero Chardonnay right from the oak barrel.
“Sure.” Fetching two Coronas from the mini fridge, I hand her one.
After taking a sip, she grabs her spoon and starts loading her plate with everything within reach—pork, rice, seafood, chili, quesadillas—not waiting for an official invite, of course. She’s so busy swallowing down the food, she doesn’t even notice me watching her like a hawk. She munches and slurps, and I chuckle inwardly as she uses her hands more often than the cutlery to get the food into her mouth.
“I’d be careful with that,” I warn when she shoves her spoon into a bowl with spicy salsa.
“Why?” Not waiting for my reply, she pops the spoon into her mouth. Grinning, I watch her face contort and tears well up her eyes. “Jesus, this is fucking hot!” she exclaims, grabbing her Corona and emptying the entire bottle.
I laugh. “Sorry, I should have warned you. Eat the cinnamon rice, it will help.” She accepts my advice and reaches for the rice bowl but stills suddenly, her eyes growing wide in shock. “What’s wrong?” I ask, but she doesn’t answer, setting the bowl slowly back on the table.
“Uh, I think something’s on my back,” she says hesitantly.
I frown, confused, but then I see it—a hairy leg appearing under her ear. My heart drops as I realize a tarantula makes its way over Leonara’s bare shoulder.
“Don’t move,” I caution while keeping an eye on the fist-sized animal.
“Okay…” she says in an uncertain yet calm tone, watching me striding in her direction. “It feels like a spider.”
“A tarantula,” I clarify and sit down next to her. “They are not deadly, but they can bite, and some are allergic to their venom.”
To her credit, she doesn’t even flinch as the spider makes its way over her skin, but its front legs tangle with her hair, causing Leonara to hiss slightly.
“All good,” I comfort her. “Just keep still.”
Slowly, I raise my hand and brush the strands away from her neck. For a moment, I have trouble concentrating on the task and not fantasizing about licking her skin.
The movement seems to irritate the animal, and it quickly changes direction, scrambling down Leonara’s collarbone and dangerously close to her neckline.
“Uh… Daniel?”
“Shh, keep calm,” I say, although there’s no reason considering she hasn’t screamed once. “Sorry, but I have to do this,” I mumble in apology before resting the edge of my hand on the swell of her breasts. Leonara sits stock-still, but her chest heaves, making me nearly lose my focus.
“There you go,” I croon as the animal finally crawls into my palm, and Leonara breathes out in relief.
“That was weird.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Oh wow, she’s beautiful,” she says to my surprise, leaning closer to examine the spider with its eight, brown-striped legs.
I chuckle at her saying ‘she,’ not ‘it.’ “She is. They rarely bite, but they have their own defense tactics when they feel threatened.”
“Like what?” I smile as Leonara stretches out her hand and strokes the spider’s fat body.
“They use their hind legs to scrape barbed hairs from their abdomen and fling them at their enemy. It can cause a nasty rash.”
“Really? That’s so cool,” she gushes, not in the least bit afraid. “How did she come in?”
“It’s not the first time I found one around here. They like to hide in the trucks transporting fruits. Maybe she hid in a banana carton in the storage room.”
“Can I draw her?” Leonara looks up at me with her huge, turquoise eyes twinkling with excitement.
“Uhm, sure.” A heartbreaking smile lights up her face, and she jumps out of her seat, dashing upstairs to get her utensils while I set the spider on the table and put a bulgy glass over it.
A minute later, she comes back down and starts to draw, not sparing me another glance as she loses herself in her art. For a moment, I wish she’d look at me with the same admiration while she scrapes her teeth over her lip ring in concentration.
She growls all of a sudden, furiously rubbing at a black line with her fingertip. “This pencil is crap.”
Chuckling, I take another sip from my Corona. No date has ever been more entertaining. “Is it?”
“It’s too hard. Feels like drawing with a scalpel.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I want my phone,” she demands, changing the subject with lightning speed.
I sigh, shaking my head. “That’s out of the question, sorry.”
“I just want to send one message. If you don’t trust me, then send it for me.”
The funny thing is, I do trust her, I realize, but I can’t take any chances. I live a dangerous life, and I have an identity to safeguard. “Who do you want to contact?”
“My friend. I just want to tell her that I’m okay because knowing her, she’s going crazy with worry.”
“Tell me about her.”
“Kendra?” She looks at me briefly from under her lashes before resuming to move her pencil. “She’s the complete opposite of me. Self-confident, optimistic, communicative, pretty…” The sentence trails off. I’m close to correcting her about the last part but don’t want to interrupt now that she’s finally opening up to me. “She saved me.”
“How so?”
“She was there for me when no one else was,” is all she reveals.
I ponder over her words for a second. “I’ll make you a deal. You answer all my questions, and I’ll let your friend know that you are in safe hands.”
“Am I?” she counters, eyes glued to the paper.
“Have I given you any reason to doubt me?”
Her eyes dart up to mine. “What about our last deal? I still have no fucking clue why I’m here.”
“I’m going to keep my promise, don’t worry.” She takes a moment to search for the truth in my eyes before giving in with a nod. “Tell me how it happened.”
For a second, I fear she might throw a tantrum, but she keeps her composure. “How what happened?” she asks, feigning to be in the dark about what I want to know.
“You know what I mean.”
“Why should I tell you of all people?”
“Because unlike all people, I don’t try to fix what’s not broken.”
Victoria managed to give me insight into the files of her therapist. In short, it says Leonara has a shattered personality that is beyond repair. I don’t believe her. Leonara just needs someone to help her shoulder the burden.
My words affect her because she sets down her pencil and gives me a steel-hard look. She makes this jerk with her shoulder again, but it’s only a slight movement.
“Marcus was my father’s best friend. When I found out my father smuggled drugs, we had a fight. That night, he left me alone with Marcus.” It takes every ounce of strength to keep my composure. Gathering from the flat tone of her voice, Leonara handles her past way better than me.
“He came into my room and took me from behind. And with behind I mean…” She trails off, searching for words, and it’s all I can do not to shatter the bottle in my hands. “Let’s just say, I’m still a virgin.” My face freezes in shock. Twenty years and still innocent? I shouldn’t be surprised considering the asshole ruined her, body and soul. “My father didn’t believe me, so I left.”
“Where did you go?”
“There was nowhere to go. I lived on the streets for a few months, and then I met Kendra.”
My thoughts are already elsewhere. “How did he die?”
“Funny story,” she says with a chuckle. “A year later, he got drunk at a party, hit his head and fell into the ocean. The blood attracted a shark that bit him in two. A pity I didn’t keep the newspaper article,” she adds as an afterthought. “Now it’s time to keep your end of the bargain. Why am I here?”
I don’t answer immediately, needing time to bring my thoughts in order. How can someone be so vulnerable yet so strong at the same time?
This girl is definitely one of a kind. She’s authentic. She’s pure. There’s nothing she hides, nothing she tries to disguise except the scars of her past buried underneath a masterpiece of body art.
“I want to find your father.”
“I don’t know where he is,” she prompts. “I didn’t know where he was most of the time when I was a child. He was rarely home. What do you want from him?”
“He dealt on my territory.” And he’s responsible for your mother’s death, I add mentally, but I’m not ready to break it to her yet.
“Your territory…” she repeats with a mocking grin. “And what will you do with him should you find him?”
Taking another sip of my beer, I smack my lips. “Haven’t decided yet.” It’s obvious she doesn’t care if I let him be or bury him alive. In her eyes, Piero died a long time ago.
“As I said, I don’t know where he is.”
“This is why you’re here. He’ll come for you.”
My words cause her to throw her head back and bark out a loud laugh. “You want to use me as leverage? You don’t know Piero Alvarez. He doesn’t give a shit about me. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but your plan is nuts.”
Sadly, she’s right. People like Piero are the scum I’m dealing with every day. “Let that be my concern.”
She gives me a skeptical look, one I return with my well-trained poker face. “Okay, so what then? You’ll let me go? Just like that?”
“Yes. My men will see to it that you return home safely.”
Strangely, I don’t like the idea of her leaving. I shouldn’t think of her as anything other than a means to an end, yet she became so much more ever since she stepped over my threshold.
She brings life into my heart, even if hers is as black as mine, which reminds me that she’s still in the dark about what happened to her mother. From what Victoria found out, Leonara was close to Sofia before she left, and I have no idea how Leonara will react.
Then again, prolonging the inevitable won’t do me any good. Leonara is unpredictable, and I know next to nothing about her, but one thing I do know—she values honesty. Besides, at the latest on her birthday when she holds the painting in her hands, if not sooner, she’ll find out the truth anyway.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” She squints her eyes in suspicion.
“There’s something you need to know, but I… dammit, I should be the last one to tell you this…” I mumble in frustration, raking a hand through my hair.
“What?”
“Your mother, she… she’s dead.”