TWELVE
Luce
I wasn't lying when I said I didn't do anything to deserve her.
My entire life was ugly, filthy, dark, and awful.
The only thing I touched was evil, with the soul purpose of getting rid of it, sure, but there weren't any gloves thick enough to keep that shit from touching you, from getting under your skin too.
I didn't have any right to touch anything beautiful, knowing damn well that I risked ruining it with my filth.
And Evan, yeah, she was fucking beautiful.
I had no business putting a finger on her.
But there was no going back for me from that first time she told me she wouldn't ask about the scars. I had tried to fight it here and there; I knew it was best for her to see that I was not the man for her, to want to put some space there.
No matter how I tried to pull away though, there was simply no denying the connection, the way her eyes went bright when she talked to me, went hungry when she looked at me.
I knew I should have regretted it; I should have been coming up with ways to untangle myself from the situation for her good, but no, I was going to the little all-night convenience store that served food that was better than half the restaurants back in Navesink Bank to bring some sustenance back to her, so she could gain her strength, and we could go another round or three before morning.
Fact of the matter was, I didn't fuck around a whole helluva lot. The not wanting to get undressed shit limited the options for dipping the wick. But I was no starry-eyed virgin. I had been around the block. So when I say I know that nothing, fucking nothing had ever felt like that before, I knew what I was saying.
I wasn't a romantic. I didn't even understand the concept of flowers and candy. I didn't have the words that many men did.
But I wasn't walking away.
I always walked away.
It was smart to walk away.
It was better for her that I walk away.
I just couldn't, and didn't want to, do that this time.
It was probably going to blow up in my face. Some day, after I likely got in way too goddamn deep, she was going to see all the ugly, she was going to realize she didn't want it mucking up her life, and she was going to leave.
That, well, I was in-touch enough with myself to know that shit was not going to feel great.
But those were the consequences. And I was thinking I was maybe willing to face them up.
Some day.
After I had gotten to enjoy the fuck out of her for as long as she would allow it.
Which was why I caught myself smiling like a fucking fool as I closed in on the door to our room, a bag full of dinner, drinks, and snacks to hold us over until we hit town the next day to meet her mother.
Nothing seemed amiss.
I walked in, figuring she was in the bathroom.
But then I moved to put the bags down on the small desk just inside the door.
And my eyes caught sight of the bat, laid out across the floor where it most definitely did not belong.
The bags dropped from my hands, the tops slipping off the stew containers and spilling dinner all over the floor.
But I was barely even aware of that.
Because that bat... it had fucking blood on it.
And Evan was missing.
"Fuck!" I yelled, slamming my fist backward into the wall, the pain ricocheting up my arm, somehow managing to ground me.
I moved across the room, getting my cell, grabbing my hoodie, and a wad of cash, and heading out, knocking on the doors to the side of the room, clearly waking everyone up.
No one had heard a thing.
Of course not.
I tore back down the street, my heart hammering in my chest, trying not to get too ahead of myself. Wherever she was, whoever had her, they couldn't be far off.
I needed to fucking focus.
I needed to keep my cool.
We were in mother fucking Brazil.
I didn't know how shit worked. I didn't know who the major players were. I didn't know why someone would take her. I didn't know how not to get caught if I went sniffing around. I didn't know dick.
But I did know one thing.
I couldn't do shit without the right tools.
"Yo," I called to a group of men standing outside the convenience store I had just left. Every town had the type. Didn't matter if they were black, white, Latino, Asian; it didn't fucking matter. You knew the type when you saw them. They could be in wifebeaters with their underwear hanging ten inches out of their jeans, or they could be in tracksuits, or dress shirts. It didn't matter. You could spot them. There was just a vibe in the air around them. There was a laid-back cockiness to criminals. "Yo, anyone speak English? Falar inglês? No?" I asked when they all turned, giving me a once over. "Fuck. Alright. I need a gun. A... arma," I tried, reaching into my pocket to wave the money. "Jesus Christ. Tell me who can get me a mother fucking gun."
"Hey, amigo, you need to take a breath. A aí?"
A aí?
What's up?
"My girl was just taken from my mother fucking motel room. I need a gun, and I need to know the players in this bumfuck backward jungle town. That's what's up. So if you're not who I need to be talking to, point me where I need to be."
"Or what?"
"Or I will pick up that broken beer bottle right there," I said, pointing to the ground near my foot without looking, wanting to keep my eyes on the trio, "and I will slit your jugular," I said to the main guy, "take that knife you have in your belt and stab the other two of you. My reputation might not precede me in this place, but trust me when I say you do not want to fuck with me. So I will repeat myself one more time. I need a gun, and I need to know who might have a problem with Alejandro Cruz."
There was a hush following that name, making me realize maybe I should have brought it up before right that moment.
One of them men in the back mumbled estuprador.
Rapist.
The other said envenenador.
Poisoner.
So my reputation didn't mean shit, but his sure as shit still did. Apparently, word hadn't made it this far that the rapist poisoner was long dead.
And, if I wasn't mistaken, and I fucking wasn't, there was a certain level of fear in their voices when they said those words.
"You work for Cruz?" the leader asked, looking me over again.
"And Cruz's daughter was just taken. You want me to go back, pull him away from business, and tell him you stupid fucks wouldn't help me get a gun, and point me in a direction? That what you are telling me? I'd be happy to go get..." I started, turning to walk away.
"Whoa! Wait. Okay, amigo. No need to call o chefe. You want a gun? You can have my gun," he said, reaching behind his back to pull it out of his waistband.
"Does it work?"
As an answer, he raised it above his head and fired off two shots.
You knew the people inside were used to these guys because they barely even flinched at the sound of gunshots.
"It works."
"Bullets. And information," I demanded, slapping the pile of cash into his hand as he handed me the gun with the other. "Who wants Cruz to suffer around here?"
One of the guys in the back snorted. "All the fathers of the girls who he put his hands on maybe?"
"Yeah, I get it," I said, tucking the gun away. "He's got a bad rep. But I think you shitheads know that if you don't start giving me some answers, that if one goddamn hair is out of place on that girl's head, that he will drag his ass down here, get each of you strapped to a chair, then get his jollies off by finding new and inventive ways to make you pay for her pain and suffering."
"Fuck, man," the leader said, holding up his hands in a defensive gesture, letting me know just how bad a rep Cruz actually had on the streets. When you looked around online, you had to figure that at least half of the shit was hearsay, was embellished.
In the case of Alejandro Cruz, apparently, all the information was on point.
"Talk," I demanded, pointing the gun at him. "Or I start with the dick and work my way around other, more vital organs for such an ugly fuck."
"The Diaz crew," he rushed to say, voice actually fucking shaking. So whoever they were, they were low level. Dealers or pimps, not people used to having guns pointed at them.
"Who are they? Where are they? Why would they want her?"
"Cruz came through, I don't know... ten years back or something. He was hired by some nobody dealer with a big ego to take out the leading cartel around here."
"Let me guess," I said, putting the gun down, "the Diaz crew."
"Took out Luis Diaz," the guy agreed, nodding. "But not before he held down his wife and daughter and raped them in front of the man."
I felt my jaw tighten, wishing I could have resuscitated the fucking bastard so I could have killed him myself.
"Who would be left? Who would come for her for revenge?" I asked, teeth grinding so hard that a pain shot up to my temples.
Because if the crime was rape and murder, the revenge would most likely be the same. Eye for an eye.
I needed to get to her.
Five goddamn minutes ago.
If that mother fucker touched her...
No.
I couldn't go there.
I had to shut it down.
I had to keep a clear head.
The only reason I had survived so long in the criminal underbelly was because I kept my feelings out of shit. I went in cold and calculated. I kept my head on straight. I handled my shit.
I could feel later.
Right now, I needed to shut it the fuck down.
"The crew disbanded, went on and joined the new o chefe to keep food in their stomachs."
"All except who?"
"Diaz's only son. Miguel. He was seventeen at the time, out on a job. Comes home to find his mom and sister broken, his father murdered."
"Where do I find Miguel?" I asked, raising the gun when they paused, looking at each other, pointing it at his dick, and cocking it.
"Whoa! Okay. Calm down, amigo. Back the way you came, you saw that big house on the hill on your way? That is Diaz's place. His father's place."
I turned to go walk away, but then turned back. "Where did Cruz kill Diaz?" I asked, figuring if this was going to go, it was going to go exactly how it did a decade ago.
"Guest house out back," one of the guys in the back supplied.
"Good. Now if I find out that Diaz got tipped off about me coming, what you imagine Cruz would do to you will mother fucking pale in comparison to how I will make you suffer. Got me?"
"Compreendo!" the leader said, holding up his hands.
Convinced they were scared enough, that I had enough headstart, I reached out, took the knife from the guy's belt, turned, and fucking ran.
Try as I might, as I ran, the thoughts swirled, the ideas of what could be happening to her rushed through my mind. I knew she had already been bashed, likely on the head, by the bat. For that and that alone, the bastard was going to get what was coming to him.
But it had been at least twenty minutes.
The shit that could have happened to her in twenty minutes...
No.
Fuck no.
I couldn't let my mind go there.
Because for the split second that it did, my vision flashed so red that I had to stop moving because I couldn't see a goddamn thing.
I took a deep breath and pressed forward, completely shutting down my brain. It was something I was good at. It was something I had needed to do countless times in my life. Not when taking out scumbags. No. I was fully present during all that. No. I'm talking about before that, before all the killing, before taking up the cause of vengeance for all those people who couldn't fight back.
Like me once upon a time.
If I could shut it down back then, then I could shut it down again. Just for another eight minutes, tops. Eight minutes of keeping my mind blank. Then the second I got inside that guest house, I was opening everything back up.
While I understood Diaz's desire for vengeance, while I respected wanting an eye-for-an-eye for shit as whacked as what Cruz pulled on Diaz's sister and mother, you did not get that revenge by hurting other innocent women.
You did not get an eye-for-an-eye using your cock as revenge on someone who never did a goddamn thing wrong. You know, or at fucking all.
Because there was no other word for that but evil. Marrow deep evil.
If he was willing to do that shit then, well, he was every bit as big a dirtbag as Alejandro.
And he was going to die a slow, painful, brutal death for even thinking he could do something like that to Evan.
God help his ass if he actually accomplished any of it.
The red flashed over my eyes again, making me need to shake my head, and take a deep breath before I could move on, rushing past the massive three-story home belonging to the dead Diaz.
A house like that was built to be protected, was built on a hill so guards could see for miles all the way around.
But since his father's business collapsed, Miguel Diaz obviously could not rebuild the ranks, thanks to them jumping ship, and likely a heavy presence from the rival cartel that took over.
There were no fucking guards.
All there was was the far-away sound of wolves, some night insects, and my thundering heartbeat.
I heard it as I rounded the small guesthouse. It was set back from the main house by about an acre. It was a small, rectangular building the size of Evan's mother's place, squat, with only two windows and a door out front. Nothing fancy, but as I crouched down beside it, I heard it.
A scream.
Evan's scream.
At that point, there was no keeping the anger down, no keeping a cool head.
The rage bubbled in my veins as I rounded on the door, taking the gun into my right hand, and the knife into my left, then raising a foot, and slamming it into the door, sending the shitty thing flying open.
"Fodssse!" the man who must have been Miguel Diaz yelled, springing backward from the crumpled form of Evan on the floor.
Miguel Diaz was darker-skinned with long black hair, dark eyes, and a medium build. And maybe if he didn't have Evan's shorts around her ankles, maybe I could have said he was reasonably good-looking.
But being as her shorts were around her ankles, all I saw was ugly.
"Yeah, fuck is right," I agreed, voice low and vicious. Because not only were her shorts around her ankles, but she was openly bleeding from her temple where, I assumed, the bat had struck her hard enough to knock her out since no one had heard any screams from her as he dragged her away. Her other eye was blackened, her lip split and swollen. There were bruises around her wrists from, I assumed, being held down.
"Think you're lost, amigo," he said, standing fully, and I wasn't sure if I could feel relief yet that his pants were fastened.
I could have simply been too late.
"Luce?" Evan's pained, desperate voice reached my ears, making my eyes move to find her frantically trying to drag her pants back up her legs, furious tears streaming down her face.
"Can you walk?" I asked through gritted teeth as she shakily moved to stand. I took a breath as she stumbled slightly, knowing I needed to keep it together for her sake. "Come here, doll," I said softly as she started moving across the floor. "You take this," I said as she got close, pressing the gun at her.
"You..."
"Take this gun and go outside," I said, voice soft, but firm. I needed her to follow orders. I needed to get her safe.
Because I was about to blow.
And she needed to be as far away from that as possible.
"And if you see anyone but me, you fucking empty the clip into their bodies. Okay?"
Her eyes went up to mine, making my stomach clench hard when I saw her bottom lip tremble as she moved to take it.
"Okay?" I repeated as her hand closed around it.
She gave me a tight nod, and moved almost robotically toward the door.
"What now, amigo? You have no gun."
"I don't use guns, amigo," I said, switching the knife to my right hand. "I like working with my hands."
"As you can see from your little girlfriend out there," he said, his head tipping to the side, "I do too."
"Oh, shithead, that was the wrong fucking thing to say."
I let it out then, the rage.
He must have underestimated me because when I flew at him and plunged the knife into his side, just under his lowest rib, just deep enough to hurt like a mother fucker, but not deep enough to cause any actual damage, his eyes went round as hell.
People did tend to underestimate me.
I wasn't a huge guy. Tall, sure, but thin, wiry, unassuming-looking.
No one thought the skinny guy in a hoodie with pale computer-geek skin was any kind of threat.
But, fucking hell were they wrong.
They were always shocked when the bag went over their heads, or the garrote around their throat, or the knife to the jugular.
It was like they all thought I was a bunch of talk.
Just some shithead who got off scaring people.
So it was always a shock.
"Just an inch deeper, and angled upward, and I'd be hitting lung. They'd fill up with blood, and you would suffocate from the inside out. It's a particularly awful way to go. So that seems like a fitting end," I told him. "Just not yet," I added, yanking the knife out, twirling it into my hand, cocking a fist, throwing every last bit of strength I had into the blow to his jaw, sending him flying to the floor.
"You protect her?" he screamed from the floor. "After what her bastard father did?"
"Key words there being her bastard father," I said, standing over him, waiting for him to make a move to stand. "She wasn't the one who put her hands on your mother and sister."
"He needs to pay for what he did to them!" he shrieked. "My sister, she killed herself three weeks later. Slit her wrists so deep that there was no repairing them. My mother died from the heartbreak! He needs to know that pain."
"See, now," I said, shrugging back into the coldness, the darkness like a favorite shirt, feeling much more comfortable in it. "That is why I am the vigilante, and you are just some two-bit schmuck so blind with rage that he can't see all he is doing is hurting more innocent women."
"Vigilante," he hissed, spitting a molar and a healthy mouthful of blood on the floor as he pushed up to stand. "Yeah, right."
"See, given the proper time, I'd let you stand a little mock trial, give you a chance to come clean, to turn yourself in, or choose death. I would take the time to get some lye, heat it up, melt you down. But I got a woman outside who needs me. So we are going to do this the fast, brutal, bloody, messy fucking way."
Then I charged, plunging the knife into his chest and stomach six times before he could even cry out.
I didn't often use knives.
They were a torture instrument unless it was a quick slice to the jugular so they could bleed out in a matter of seconds.
I didn't get off on pain.
I wasn't a fucking psycho.
I wanted people to pay with their lives for the misery it had brought to the world.
Usually, it was done as painlessly as possible.
Not this time.
This time it was personal.
This time it was about him putting his ugly hands all over the most beautiful fucking thing I had ever been lucky enough to have in my life, something I didn't deserve, but cherished nonethefuckingless.
For that, for putting those marks on her perfect face, for putting those tears in her eyes, for putting that quiver of fear in her voice, yeah, he had to pay.
It was a testament to my own darkness that his cries, that his begging, that his useless apologies, that the sounds of him literally choking on his own blood, blood that was saturating my hoodie, did nothing to me.
It simply didn't penetrate.
Because all I could see was Evan's face.
All I could hear was the desperate way she called my name.
All I could think was what thoughts she must have had swirling through her head when she woke up alone, with a throbbing head, in an unfamiliar room, with a man there who didn't even see her as a person, just a body he could exact vengeance on. She had to have thought of me, maybe even cried out for me while his hands struck bruises into her flawless skin. And there had to have been hopelessness. Because Evan was a smart woman. She knew it was a foreign country. She knew I didn't have contacts here. She knew the only parts of the language I knew were the parts I had heard her say, or the people on the TV say. She knew that I would have no idea who took her, or where, that she was completely and utterly alone, and at the mercy of a man who, as he was peeling off her clothes, she knew wanted to rape her.
Maybe, for a split second, maybe she even thought she deserved it. Because her emotions were still raw about Alejandro. Because there was guilt there for the atrocities he had committed while she blindly followed him around the world. Maybe she thought it was a fitting punishment for her ignorance.
That. Shit. Would. Not. Stand.
If he made her think that way, if he made her question her own right to say no, to not have something forced upon her, then he deserved every moment of agony I inflicted upon him.
"Paula?" he gasped, eyes going huge, wondrous.
He thought he was seeing his dead sister.
That was a surefire way to know they were close.
The brain misfired in the last moments, brain cells dying off, creating visions that weren't real.
"Afraid not," I said, pulling the knife back, ready for the final blow, done, beyond done. "There is no afterlife; you just die." With that, with that last, final, brutal blow to not only his psyche, but his heart with my knife, Miguel Diaz had joined the ranks of Alejandro.
And good fucking riddance to bad fucking rubbish.
There wasn't a guilty bone in my body as I wiped the knife clean of fingerprints with his shirt and left it, as I walked to the sink to wash most of the blood off my hands.
There was nothing I could do about the fact that my shirt was literally saturated with blood. But it was dark out. Even if we happened upon someone on the way back, they wouldn't likely be able to see.
The evidence, well, that would have to be dealt with later.
Right now, what mattered was Evan.
On that thought, I turned, moving back toward the door, and stepping out into the humid night air.
I heard a click.
"Ev, it's me," I said, voice soft, moving toward the sound, coming from the side of the guest house where I had crouched just twenty minutes before. "It's me, doll," I added as I stepped into view, reaching to place my hand on the top of the gun, pushing it so the barrel was facing the ground before pulling it out of her shaking fingers.
I tucked it into the back waistband of my jeans, lowering myself down in front of her, not reaching for her yet because I wasn't sure if that was the right move. "It's over, okay? It's all over."
"He... he..." she stammered, shaking her head, trying to take a deep breath, but it made her entire body shake with the effort.
"Ev," I said, softly, but even I heard the pleading in my voice. Hearing it, maybe understanding how unusual it was for me, her gaze rose. Her eyes were red, the lids swollen, but she was holding back another wave of tears. I didn't want to ask. It felt wrong. It felt like I was asking something that was none of my business. But at the same time, I needed to know. I needed to know because I needed to know if I was going to be enough, or if maybe I needed to bring her to her mother's, to get help from someone who would understand. So I had to ask. "Did he rape you?"
The words tasted like battery acid on my tongue.
They made her cringe backward too even as her eyes closed for a long second and she swallowed hard, making my stomach lurch, sure what her answer was going to be.
But then her eyes opened, clear, her voice when she spoke was even. "No," she said, tone firm. "He was going to," she said, nodding a little frantically, losing the small bit of control she had over her swirling emotions. "He even told me he was going..."
"Sh," I said, shaking my head, reaching out for her face, tilting her chin up. "I was never gonna let that happen, okay?"
"You didn't know where..."
"Well, I found out," I said, forcing a small smile that I didn't feel in the least, but knowing my own dark mood was of no use to her.
"How?"
"Can we maybe talk about that back at the motel, doll?" I asked, stroking my finger down her cheek. "I need to do something about this cut to the side of your head, and you gotta be wanting some pain medicine right about now. Think we can get moving?"
She nodded, taking my hand when I offered it to help her up. "You smell like blood," she informed me, tone a little empty.
"Yes."
"He was screaming."
My stomach tensed as we started walking.
I knew this day would come.
I knew that at some point she would see beyond the guy who made her laugh and think and would take her on cross-countries adventure.
I knew that she would only be able to accept me for a short time before she saw who I really was.
Maybe I had been hoping, though, that it wouldn't be quite so soon.
"I know, Ev," I agreed, keeping my eyes forward as I tried to press the pace faster, wanting to get back to the motel and out of sight as soon as possible.
I knew that someday, someway, somehow, I was going to end up in jail or dead for my actions. I did very much prefer, though, that the jail wasn't in fucking Brazil.
"Am I a terrible person for being glad he's dead?" she asked after a long, drawn-out silence that had my heart thrumming hard against my ribcage.
I stopped short, turning fully to her, noticing it took her an excruciatingly long moment to make eye-contact. But I wouldn't answer until I had it.
"Evan, he wanted to rape you. He wanted to shove something inside your body. If that something was a knife instead of a dick, would you be questioning your right to wish him dead right now? I don't care if you wanted to slice off his cock with a dull butter knife, then shove it up his ass, and make him write a twenty-page dissertation on the concept of consent while he writhed in un-lubricated agony. I still wouldn't think you were a terrible person. Rabid dogs can't be tamed, Ev. They need to be put down."
"So you put him down."
"Yes."
"Do they bother you?" she asked, feet planting, seeming to need to hash this out, right there on the side of the street.
"The men I kill?" I clarified.
"Yeah."
"I have a lot of demons that bother me, doll. These men are not one of them. I believe in what I do. I believe in ridding the world of people who only bring evil into it, even if that makes me evil in turn."
There was a long, excruciating silence following my words where Evan was just watching me with eyes I suddenly couldn't read.
Then she spoke, and her voice had more conviction than I had ever heard before. "You're not evil."
"Doll, you don't...."
"You saved me tonight," she cut me off. "You didn't have to do that. And you told me the truth about my fath... Alejandro. And my mother. You made me come here to meet her. You took time out of your life to make my life better. Evil people don't do that, Luce. Evil people just get off ruining peoples' lives. You might exist and work within a gray area, but you lean more light than dark."
With that little nugget, she turned, and started walking again, leaving me there standing dumbly for a long minute before I pulled it together and followed her.
"Shower," I demanded as soon as we walked in the door.
"I'm so tir..." she started to object, and my heart dropped.
I wanted to tell her that it was okay, that she could just climb into bed, that she could nurse her pounding head, and get a good nights' rest.
But I had to keep my head on straight.
In Navesink Bank, I could have called in someone else to do what had to be done that night so I could stay with her. In Brazil, I was on my own. If we wanted to get out of this country without spending a decade in prison, I needed to do everything by the book.
"I know, babe, I know. But you need to wash off the blood and evidence. Scrape under your nails. And I need your clothes."
It hadn't exactly escaped me that she was in my shirt. It was one of the first things I had noticed when I burst in that room, after the injuries and missing shorts.
She put on my shirt.
She had plenty of her own, but she wanted to wear mine.
I wouldn't claim to be an expert on women, but I was pretty sure that shit was clear.
"Oh, right," she agreed, eyes clearing a little. "You're..."
"I can wait until you're done," I said, nodding at her to go ahead, figuring she wanted a few minutes.
Honestly, I did too.
I needed to figure out how to get rid of the body. And our clothes. I needed to handle any possible loose ends.
Evan came back out a few minutes later, wet, and so much more pale than before. "Wait," I said when she went to go to the bed. "I know," I said when she whined. "I know, doll. I just need to put something on that cut. It's gonna get infected."
I pulled her back into the bathroom, finding some peroxide in the cabinet, watering it down, and pressing it into all the open cuts on her face.
"You're leaving," she mumbled as she watched me.
"Not for long," I promised. "An hour. And you're keeping the gun and the door locked. I just want to make sure we don't end up spending any time in some backward Brazilian prison."
"Okay," she said, giving me a nod, understanding even if she didn't like it.
"One hour," I promised, walking with her back to the bedroom, pulling the blankets up when she laid down. I placed the gun on the nightstand, rummaged in my bag for some aspirin, and handed it to her.
I grabbed clothes, running into the bathroom, showering so fast that I was pretty sure I scratched my own damn skin in a rush to get the blood off. I took the liner out of the trash, throwing both our clothes in it, and went back out.
She was already out cold.
With a lump in my throat, I made my way out, making sure the door was locked, and making my way back to the Diaz house at a dead run.
I stripped his body and threw it into the bath, running the water toward scalding and pouring half a bottle of bleach on him. I didn't plan on the body being found until it was good and decomposed. But you could never be too careful.
I took all our clothes into the small top-and-bottom laundry in the closet, putting them in with about a third of what was left of the bleach as well as twice the laundry detergent that was actually needed. The bloodstains would turn orange. But I wasn't worried about that. The purpose was destroying the evidence. Once it was gone, the clothes were going to be burned.
As they washed and dried, I cleaned up the blood on the floor and walls, finding the familiar action almost comforting.
Body cleaned, clothes dried, I grabbed a wheelbarrow, tossed him in, took the clothes in another bathroom liner, grabbed a shovel, and made a move toward the woods behind his property.
So maybe I lied to Evan when I said an hour. It took me almost an hour to clean. It was going to take another hour to find a location, dig a grave, then discreetly burn the clothes at another location.
Then and only then could I make my way back.
"Here," I said, stopping outside the convenience store, getting more food, discreetly dropping off the other hoodie I was wearing in the dumpster out back, then approaching the men from the night before. "All yours. Don't worry, I didn't use it," I said when he eyed me. "Turns out she was out for a fucking walk," I said, rolling my eyes. "At two in the goddamn morning."
"Candelas são loucas," the leader snorted. "Making you run all over like a maniac. Hope her father beats her ass."
"Careful," I warned, making them all stiffen. "You don't want that talk getting around to Alejandro."
With that, I made my way back to the motel, finding Evan still passed out, the bruises even deeper after time, and yet again stripping, then washing and bleaching my clothes.
I was finally, finally content that things were handled at least enough for us to be able to spend a few hours with her mother, then get the hell back onto US soil.
As soon as fucking possible.
I didn't like not knowing the major players. I didn't like not having backup. True, I never used it in Navesink Bank, but it was there if I somehow did need it; no questions asked. There would be Barrett, Jstorm, Alex, Pagan... any number of people I had helped over time. They would step up with their various skills and help me in any way I needed.
I needed to get back to that.
But I knew I couldn't just wake up Ev and force her to hop two buses and a plane when she was just hours away from a beating and almost-rape. She needed time. She needed sleep. She needed to keep her plans with her mother. She needed a little softness.
I was beginning to know her, so I knew she wouldn't need a week before she would crawl out of bed. She was going to get some sleep, get some food in her stomach, talk it out with her mom, then she was going to be ready to compartmentalize that and move forward.
She was resilient.
And, as much as I hated to give the bastard any credit, it must have been at least in part from the way Alejandro raised her.
I had barely gotten in bed with her, closing my eyes, when I felt her fingertips hesitantly touch my bare arm.
"You're here."
My arm slid around her hips, pulling her closer, keeping her against me tight.
"Yeah, doll. I'm right here."
And I had the oddest, strongest, almost overpowering feeling that that was where I would always want to be.
That shit?
Yeah, it was insane.
But I let myself think it as I fell asleep with her in my arms.