Cora
The sound of her angry snarl ripped me from sleep. I bolted upright, and Penn lurched to his feet before his eyes had even opened.
“Get your fucking hands off me!” Catalina yelled from the other side of our bedroom door.
I didn’t fully process the what, when, or where of what was going on outside. But I knew the who and darted toward her voice.
Penn grabbed my arm, pulling me up short, roughly whispering, “What are you doing? Someone could be out there.”
I opened my mouth to say, Yeah, Catalina.
But he lifted a finger to his lips and ordered around it, “Shhhh… Stay here.”
That would have been fine and dandy if he hadn’t magically produced a gun.
What the hell…
“Penn, wait.”
He glared at me impatiently and snapped his finger before pointing deeper into the room. “Get. Back.”
I wasn’t fond of the whole “snapping and telling me what to do” thing, but I was quite attached to my pulse. If he was right about someone being out there, Penn had a gun and I had morning breath.
I was stubborn but not stupid.
Stepping away, I vowed to discuss the snap with him later, like when I was cutting vegetables with a very large knife—assuming I made it that long.
Silently twisting the knob, he cracked the door and peeked out.
I held my breath, my hand at my star as I started doing the math on where River could be in the apartment. I’d vaguely remembered seeing her and Savannah in the hall just before my countless emotional breakdown of the day.
Then my back shot ramrod straight as Drew’s growl floated into the room.
“You need to chill the hell out.”
Penn’s shoulders sagged and he blew out a ragged exhale, yanking the door open. “Jesus fucking Christ. What the hell are you two bickering about?”
Relief surged through me—prematurely.
“Oh, good. You’re awake,” Cat snapped, pushing past Penn. Her brown eyes landed on me, the light from the hall revealing an alarming amount of anxiety. “Get your shoes. We’re leaving.”
“The hell you are,” Penn rumbled.
“You guys can have Thomas,” she told Penn. “Kill him. Skin him alive. Hang him from the courthouse steps, I don’t give a damn.” She pointed at me. “But she and I, and all the kids, are leaving. Now.”
My stomach twisted. Catalina wasn’t known to be dramatic. She hurt, she cried, but she wasn’t Debbie Doomsday. So whatever had set her off had to be bigger than big, and it made me nauseated before I even knew what it was.
“What’s going on?” I asked. Penn moved to my side, his arm going around my stiff shoulders, but I only had eyes for Catalina. “Tell me.”
She looked at Penn’s possessive hold on me and flashed Drew a pointed glance before starting in. “Early this morning, a judge granted my father a temporary release to attend his sons’ funeral. As of twenty minutes ago, the correctional officer who was guarding him was found dead, with no sign of Manuel anywhere. It’s all over the news. A full manhunt is underway.”
My head spun as the blood drained from my face. Penn was there to keep me on my feet, but who was going to keep the world from falling out of orbit beneath us all?
“This doesn’t mean anything,” Drew said, propping his shoulder against the doorjamb, but he was anything but relaxed. His gaze was fixed on his friend, a silent conversation happening between them.
Catalina spun around. “Are you kidding me? In the wee hours of the morning, after my husband finds me for the first time in four years and fails to kill me, a judge signs off to have my father temporarily released from prison? Please tell me you are not stupid enough to think this is a coincidence.”
He rolled his eyes. “Thomas put Manuel away. Why the hell would he let him out now?”
“Shit, you are that stupid.” She slanted her head. “How have you made it this far without a brain?”
He arched an eyebrow. “Good looks and big cock. You?”
Penn and I watched their conversation like a tennis match. They’d known each other less than a day and it was already safe to say there was no love lost between the two of them.
“Jesus Christ,” Penn muttered. “Would you two can it for a minute? Catalina, talk.”
She flipped Drew off before turning to Penn. “Riddle me this. If my body was found fresh and floating in a river, who would the police assume killed me? The shattered district attorney with a golden reputation or my felon father who I testified against and has since killed a guard and escaped custody?” Panic settled in my stomach as she pointedly looked to each one of us. “Any guesses?”
“He’s the fall guy,” I replied, taking my own weight again. “Holy shit. Not only did he just paint an even bigger target on your back, he somehow took the heat off his own.”
“Bingo!” Catalina chirped, tapping the end of her nose.
My heart picked up a marathon pace as all the pieces started snapping together. “Oh. My. God.” I leveled my panic on Catalina. “Do you think—”
“Yep. Dear old daddy is sixty-five now, but even at sixty-one, he was in shitty health. Arthritis, too many years of drugs he passed on to Dante, too many extra pounds putting pressure on his knees. His mind is sharp, but physically, he’s ninety with one foot in the grave. No way he overpowered a guard and killed him alone.”
The room went static.
Penn stood taller.
Drew shoved off the jamb.
The hairs on the back of my neck prickled.
And Catalina stared at me, waiting for me to come to the same conclusion she’d already concluded.
“They’re working together again,” I breathed. “Thomas and Manuel. The staged escape and murder keep Thomas’s hands clean, but it gets a Guerrero back in play.” Not even Penn’s warmth could block out the chill in my veins. “Oh, God, he knows who you are.” I lurched away from him. “Oh, God, he knows who you both are. We gotta get out of here. We gotta leave—now.” I bolted toward the door, calling, “Get the girls ready!” I made it exactly two steps before a tattooed forearm around my hips yanked me back.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he snarled.
With frenzied hands, I pushed at his arm. “I have to get them out of here!” I looked at Catalina. “We need to go get the money out of the storage unit and run.”
“Agreed,” she replied with a curt nod.
It was followed by a boomed, “No fucking way!” Penn swung around in front of me. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“Move,” I snapped, doing my best to sidestep him with no luck.
“You’ve lost your goddamn mind if you think I’m going to stand here and watch you leave. I just fucking got you back.”
Frustration overtook me. “And who said you got me back, Shane?”
His face got hard as his whole body swelled with anger. “You did. The minute you fell asleep on my chest, your hand clinging to my shirt like you were afraid I was going to disappear, your body inching closer until you were on top of me, and breathing my name—and not fucking Shane, but my real name.”
“It’s not your real name!”
“It is because you called me that. I was no one before I walked into your apartment. You made me Penn. And because of that, I’m fucking yours. So don’t you dare tell me you didn’t come back to me. You can be as pissed as you want, as hurt as you want, as bitter as you want, but you felt it, Cora. The same way I did. The same fucking way we have always felt it.”
He was right. I’d always felt it with him even before I had known what that it was. But feelings didn’t change our circumstances. The truth didn’t make the lies disappear. And as much as I would have given anything to believe otherwise, love didn’t always conquer all.
“You have made every single decision for me for the last few months, and while some of those turned out great, others did not. I’m sick of letting everyone else dictate my life. Thomas is doing it. Manuel now too. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you join that cast.”
“I’m not trying to run your life. I’m trying to keep you from running out of mine.” He raked a hand through the top of his hair. “We can figure this out. Manuel is not the be-all and end-all. There’s no need to run anywhere. Not when we’re together.”
“Whether it’s now or later, it’s going to happen one way or another.”
“No. It’s not. I won’t let it. I am sorry, okay? I’ve told you that in every way I know how, but let me try it again. I fucked up, Cora. I admit that. But I can’t let you leave now. And that’s not me trying to run your life or make decisions for you. That’s me trying to be your partner.”
I’d thought about why I was mad at Penn a lot over the last day.
First, it was because of all the lies. Because… well, duh. That was never cool.
Then I thought it was because of more lies, specifically the ones where he wasn’t Penn but actually this rich, vigilante guy named Shane.
But right then, the real reason my heart was broken into a million pieces flew from my lips with the velocity of a nuclear warhead. “Until you leave again!”
His head jerked back. “What?”
“Okayyyyy,” Drew drawled. “I think Cat and I are going to give you two some privacy.” He ushered her out, leaning back in to say, “Penn, man, think about the house in Florida.” He tapped the doorframe twice, shot me a wink, and then shut the door.
Through it all, Penn never tore his irate gaze off me. “What do you mean until I leave again? I’m not going anywhere.”
I let out a resigned sigh. “Come on. Let’s be real here. Once all of this is said and done, you’re not going to be here.”
“Oh, really?” he asked. “And where the hell am I going to be?”
I swung my arms out to my sides, slapping my hands against my thighs as they fell. “I don’t know. Skiing?”
His eyebrows pinched together. “What is it with you and skiing?”
“I don’t like skiing. That’s what it is.”
“You ever been?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Because it’s expensive.”
“So it’s a money thing?”
“No, it’s a people thing!”
He scratched the back of his head. “Yeah, okay, I have no idea what we’re talking about right now.”
I groaned at his inability to follow the oh-so-obvious bouncing ball. “Have you ever seen Pretty Woman?”
His eyebrows popped so high that they nearly hit his hairline. “Unless this is your way of telling me that you’ve been working the street with the girls over the last few months, that’s not helping clarify anything for me.”
“I’m not like you, okay? We don’t have the same interests. We don’t even come from the same world. When this is all over, you’re going to realize how different we are.”
I was on the verge of more tears.
But Penn… Well, he smirked, dark and sexy. “Jesus, Cora. Now this I can handle.”
“Oh, fantastic. Handle away.”
He smiled. “Any chance you’ll come lie down with me so I can properly explain all the ways different can be good without you trying to put space between us like a chastity belt?”
Per my body: Yes. Absolutely yes.
Per my mind and thus my mouth: “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
His eyes twinkled with mischief. Taking my hand, he took a few steps back, pulling me with him. “Okay, well, that’s definitely a difference that we have. Because I think it might be the best idea I’ve had in a while.”
“No offense, Penn. But your last idea was faking your own death. I don’t think there’s a lot of competition in the great-ideas-you’ve-had-recently category.”
His smirk grew into a smile, and he continued backing up. “So you admit it’s a great idea.”
“Actually, I’m pretty sure I said the opposite of that.”
My pulse quickened when his heels hit the mattress.
His teasing gaze became heated, which sent a rush through my nervous system. God, I’d missed that feeling. It was like stepping out of the shade and into the sun. I’d thought I’d lost it when I lost him.
But he wasn’t gone.
He was standing right there in front of me.
His hand went to the back of his shirt and then he was suddenly standing right in front of me shirtless. “I personally think we need to strip this differences business down to a very basic level.”