Seventeen
My phone rang in the dark, interrupting my first sleep since I’d been called out for Rawlinson’s job at two the previous morning. I glanced at Cam’s alarm clock, glowing red from his nightstand. Eleven o’clock at night. Shen had been dead twenty-seven hours. I’d been asleep for three.
My nap was just a tease, and I knew before I even glanced at my phone that it was over.
Groaning, I twisted away from Cam to free my good arm, then reached toward the nightstand to unplug my cell from the travel charger. Cavazos’s private number flashed on the screen.
Son of a bitch… What the hell did he want?
“Don’t answer it,” Cam mumbled, trailing one finger down my arm as I turned on the lamp. “You’ve earned a nap. Hell, you’ve earned a coma.”
“No choice.” When Cavazos called, I had to answer. I sat up, and Cam’s warm arm wrapped around my bare waist. “Can you…not talk?” I turned to give him an apologetic smile, and he nodded. But he wasn’t happy.
I pressed the accept-call button, and Cavazos was talking before I even had the phone at my ear. “What are you doing, Olivia?” He was pissed. I could tell by how smooth and low his voice was—the calm before the storm.
“Working.”
“You’re working? Right this minute? Getting paid?” he said, and my internal alarm sputtered to life and tried to wail.
“Yes.” I knew the lie was a bad idea even as I said it, but no matter what he thought or wanted, Cavazos didn’t rule my life, and he had no right to monitor every second of it.
Then the pain hit, right behind my eyes, and the room wobbled around me. And that’s when I understood. We’d found and disposed of Shen’s killer. My job for Anne was technically finished, and since she hadn’t paid a new retainer, I was no longer officially working for her.
I hadn’t just lied, I’d lied about my state of employment, a minor breach of my contract with Cavazos.
Shit, shit, shit!
“If you’re getting paid for whatever you’re doing with Caballero, you’ve expanded your services since our agreement,” he said, and my heart dropped into my stomach with an almost-audible plop.
He knew I was with Cam. Had one of his men seen us together?
I took a moment to weigh my options: feign ignorance, or unleash honest anger? I went with the best of both worlds: feigned angry ignorance.
“What the hell, Ruben?”
“Get dressed. There’s a car waiting for you downstairs. If you’re not in it in five minutes, I’m sending them in after you.”
Fuck. Fuck! He knew where we were. “You had me followed?”
“No, I had you tracked.”
Motherfucker! I stood and headed into the living room, in search of my clothes.
“What are you…?” Cam asked, standing naked in the doorway, but I silenced him with a look as I stepped into my underwear, the phone pinned against my shoulder, wincing at the fresh pain spawned in my arm by the movement.
“Is that him?” Cavazos said into my ear, sounding almost…eager. Hungry. He wanted a fight.
“Leave him out of this,” I said, pulling up my borrowed skirt.
“Leave me…?” Cam sputtered, and I scowled at him again, shoving my good arm into Vanessa’s T-shirt.
“Leave him out of this?” Cavazos said. I had to take the phone away from my ear to pull the shirt over my head, and I could still hear him yelling. “If your ass isn’t in that car in—” he paused, and I pictured him looking at his watch “—three and a half minutes, I’m going to pull him so far into this he’ll wish he’d never even met you. No piece of ass is worth the pain you’re bringing to his doorstep. Are you hearing me, Olivia?”
I sat on the couch next to Cam and pulled on my left sock, then shoved my foot into my boot.
“I said, are you hearing me?”
“Yes!” I shouted into the phone. “I fucking hear you! Three minutes.” Then I pressed the end-call button and dropped the phone on the coffee table. “Damn it!” Pissed beyond all control, I kicked the table with my booted foot and it skidded across the room, launching my phone into the wall. It hit the floor undamaged, unfortunately.
“Cavazos?” Cam righted the table as I pulled my second sock on, and I could see the flare of temper in his eyes.
“Yeah.”
“He called you in?”
“Yeah.” I shoved my foot into the last boot and laced it up like my fingers were on fire.
“Don’t go. You don’t have to go.”
I stood and met his gaze. “Anne’s no longer paying me. I have to go.”
“But you already reported to him this week.”
“Doesn’t matter.” I headed back into the bedroom to unplug my phone charger, and Cam followed, arms crossed over his chest. “He can request additional reports, at his convenience.” Or he could offer me side jobs, which I had to take unless they conflicted with existing work.
“That didn’t sound like a request to me. Did he say there’s a car outside?”
“Yup.” In the front room again, I picked up my satchel and shoved my phone charger inside, then bent for my phone, glancing around to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything. I’d have to leave everything related to Shen’s murder—I couldn’t take anything I wouldn’t want found in a search. Which meant my gun would have to stay, too.
“How the hell does he know you’re here?”
“Sometimes he has me watched. This time he had me tracked.”
“You’re serious?” Cam said, and I glanced at him with both brows raised in answer. “He wants more from you than a tracking job, Liv.”
“I’m aware. He just wants what he knows he can’t have—a pretty standard obsession for the rich and spoiled. But that doesn’t invalidate the importance of the work I’m actually doing for him.”
Cam stepped between me and the front door. “The Liv I knew would never jump just because some abusive asshole told her to.”
I exhaled slowly. “The Liv you knew didn’t have to jump. This one does.” He started to argue, but I put my whole hand over his mouth. “Stay here, Cam. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Just…stay in the apartment. Please.” He shoved my hand away, but I spoke over whatever he’d been about to say. “Swear.”
“Hell no. If you’re going, I’m going with you.”
“You can’t.” I tried to pull him away from the door, but he wouldn’t move. “Cam, you have three marks from Tower on your arm. If you come anywhere near Cavazos’s house, they’ll kill you….”
“They’ll try.”
“They’ll succeed. You can’t fight his entire security detail by yourself,” I insisted, and Cam tried to interrupt, but I spoke over him again. “And after you’ve tried and failed, Ruben’s going to take it out on me, for bringing you.”
Cam’s mouth closed, and his protest died. But he stayed in front of the door. “If he touches you, I’ll kill him.”
I sighed, hyperaware of the seconds ticking away while we argued. “He’s going to touch me. He’s been touching me for a year and a half, and there’s nothing either of us can do about that.” Except plot his ultimate destruction in new and sadistic ways.
“We can kill him.”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Maybe we can.” If I could sneak a weapon in and kill him with one blow. My mark would die along with Ruben, so there’d be no resistance pain—in theory, that was as close as I could get to an easy out. However, if I couldn’t kill him with one blow, I’d wish I’d died instead. “But even if we manage to kill Ruben, we’d never make it out of there alive. I have to go, and you have to stay here until I get back. I’ll be fine.”
Cam took me by both arms, below my bandage. “Olivia, you’re not listening.” He stared straight down into my eyes. “I can’t stand the thought of him touching you. At all. I can’t just sit here and wait for you to come back, imagining him all over you. Or hitting you. I can’t.”
I pulled free from his grip, wincing over the fresh pain in my left arm, and returned his steady, pained gaze. “I’m only going to say this once—get over it. If I can deal with the reality, you can survive imagining it. Now move. I have to go.” This time he let me pull him away from the door. I kissed him one more time, then stepped out of the apartment and closed the door.
Cam’s wordless shout of anger and frustration followed me into the hall, chased by the crash of something heavy hitting the wall.
I stomped down the stairs, cursing Ruben beneath my breath the whole way.
The car was a shiny black sedan, a stereotype on wheels. It was also double-parked and idling. As I stepped onto the curb, the back door opened and Tomas climbed out. He grinned. “I almost didn’t recognize you in a skirt.”
“That makes two of us,” I said, sliding into the backseat. He sat next to me, and the car was rolling before he’d even fully closed the door. “I didn’t think he ever let you out of the house.”
Tomas laughed. “I think he was trying to find a messenger you’d hesitate to kill.”
“Smart man.” I had a soft spot for Tomas, because he’d never leered at me, taken liberties while patting me down or made innuendos about my relationship with his boss. But that only went so far. “I’d have killed you in a second if you laid one hand on Caballero.” Assuming Cam didn’t do it himself.
Tomas laughed. “I believe you’d try.”
“You better believe I’d do more than that.”
He looked as if he just might.
Twenty minutes later, the driver parked behind Cavazos’s fortress, and Tomas patted me down in the driveway, while the driver went through my satchel. “A year and a half, and I’ve never once tried to sneak in a weapon,” I said, as the driver handed my bag back to me. “You know that, right?”
“Just followin’ orders,” he said.
I could swear he used to call me “ma’am.”
Tomas relieved the man covering the back door for him, and I continued through the kitchen to the back hallway. Cavazos had never received me anywhere but his office. In fact, I’d only seen a total of four rooms in the huge house—one of them a bathroom—and I’d never been above the first floor.
Exhausted, but even more pissed off, I stomped down the unlit hall, mining my own anger for enough stamina to get me through this unexpected tête-à-tête. I was so focused on the rage I was nurturing that I didn’t realize someone had stepped out of the darkened bathroom as I passed until a hand wrapped around my throat and shoved me backward into the wall.
“What the hell are you doing here in the middle of the night?” Michaela Cavazos’s piquant accent was thick with anger, and her words practically floated on a tequila cloud. She was drinking alone on a Friday night, while her husband was having me tracked.
When I tried to push her away, something cold and sharp poked my neck.
Shit. She’d finally lost it. My heart jumped so far into my throat I could practically taste it.
“I don’t know.” I swallowed, trying to ignore the blade poking me just below my jaw, praying it wouldn’t break my skin and give her access to even a drop of my blood. “Command appearance.”
“I know you are fucking him, and you will pay for it,” she slurred.
“I’m not…” The knife trembled in her grip, and my pulse raced so fast I could hear it whooshing in my ears. “I swear, Meika, I have never slept with your husband. And I never will.”
“Lying bitch.”
I exhaled slowly. “You’ve seen my mark. You know it’s not red.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s not fucking you. It just means you don’t have to let him.” The knife left my throat, though her hand did not. “The apartment. The bank account. The mark on your thigh. Those do not add up to innocence.” The cold blade lifted my left sleeve to bare the bandage she could probably barely see in the dark. “Fresh ink?”
“Unrelated injury. No ink at all.”
“So it’s just the one mark, whore?” she whispered, and I gasped when she used the blade to lightly drag the material of Van’s skirt up my left leg. “I’m going to cut it out of you, and cut your cancer out of my marriage….”
“For the last time, I’m not the problem in your marriage. And if you don’t put that damn blade up, I’m gonna start yelling, and you can explain why you’re holding one of his employees at knifepoint.” Normally I hate a tattletale, but then, I also hate being threatened with a knife, and she sounded drunk enough to forget there would be consequences for stabbing me.
Her blade stopped just above my femoral artery. Guess she wasn’t that drunk. “Shout, and I will cut you. Whatever comes after will be worth watching you bleed out on my floor.”
And I had no doubt she’d do it. She could slice my artery before Cavazos even made it out of his chair. “I’m not sleeping with him. If you don’t believe me, why don’t you take this up with your husband?”
“He is a man, and men are fools. This is a matter for the women.” The blade tugged my skirt higher, then we both froze at a shuffling sound from my left.
“Mommy?”
I turned my head to find Cavazos’s four-year-old daughter—Isabel—standing at the end of the hall clutching a stuffed giraffe, backlit with light from the kitchen.
Michaela hid her blade lengthwise in the folds of my skirt, pressing both her knife and the fist holding it between my thighs. I gasped, then bit my lip. “Go back to bed, niña. I will be there in a minute.”
Isabel stuck her thumb in her mouth, then tottered off again without a word. Probably half-asleep.
“I know you are sleeping with him, and I know who you are tracking for him, and I will not let you bring that bastard into my house.”
A door creaked open and light flooded the hall. “Michaela.”
She froze at the sound of her husband’s voice, and I looked up to find him standing in his office doorway, a silhouette backlit from within.
“Go upstairs,” Cavazos growled.
Still glaring at me, she stepped back and folded her knife with one hand, then turned and walked down the hall without a word to—or a glance at—her husband. I only exhaled in relief when she disappeared around the corner.
Cavazos’s gaze traveled over my attire and his brows rose in approval. “A skirt. I like it.”
I made a mental note to apologize to Van in advance for burning her skirt.
He gestured with one outstretched arm for me to go inside, then he closed the door behind us.
“Would you please tell your wife that you and I aren’t sleeping together?” He couldn’t tell her what we were doing, but he could tell her what we weren’t doing.
He frowned. “Where would be the fun in that?”
“The fun would be the part where she doesn’t stab me to death in my sleep. Your wife is psychotic.” I leaned against the back of a chair, hoping if I stayed standing, he’d subconsciously be less tempted to drag this out. It was a long shot, but I was desperate.
“Michaela is just angry. Anger does fascinating things to a woman—no two react the same.”
“Yeah, well, she’s overreacting. With a knife.”
He nodded with a small, almost nostalgic smile. “It was my wedding gift to her. The handle is ivory.”
Sick bastard. “Well, at least my murder weapon will have sentimental value.”
“That’s actually an honor, you know.”
“I’ll keep that in mind as my life flashes before my eyes. She knows who you’re looking for, Ruben.”
He perched on the edge of his desk, watching me. “That was inevitable, and it changes nothing. Nor is it the reason you’re here. Why have you spent the entire day west of the river?”
“Working.”
“With Cameron Caballero?”
“The job required the assistance of a name-Tracker, and he’s the best in the city.” Which Cavazos damn well knew.
“Required? So the job is complete?”
Shit. Careless phrasing had been the downfall of more than one fool attempting to stonewall Ruben Cavazos, and if I weren’t so tired, I never would have made such a novice mistake. “Um…yeah. The first phase. But that led to—”
“Have you fulfilled your obligation to the client?” he said, waving off my attempt at damage control.
“Yes.”
“Then you will say adiós to Mr. Caballero and return to your work for me.”
I had no choice about working for him—at least until I could get a new retainer from Anne—but… “You can’t keep me away from Cam.”
“Are you sleeping with him?”
“That’s none of your business.”
Ruben stood, stalking closer, and I stubbornly held my ground. “Everything you do is my business—I have a right to protect my investment. I want you to stay away from him, Olivia.”
“Then you should have written that into my contract.”
His fist flew. My face exploded in pain. I stumbled back from the blow, tripped over the clawed foot of the chair and went down hard on my right side. “You know how this is going to end. The game never changes, yet you keep playing.” He dropped into a squat in front of me and tilted my face up to inspect the damage while I ground my teeth together, breathing through the pain. It was bad, but not as bad as it was about to be. “Why do you do this to yourself, Olivia?”
“That’s what I was going to ask you.” I shoved him with my good arm. He went down on one hip, and I relished his ungainly fall and rare loss of poise. I pushed myself to my feet and kicked as hard as I could. My boot slammed into his ribs. He grunted in pain and I kicked again, then backpedaled when he made a grab for my leg. He was on his feet in an instant, storming after me, eyes alive with fury. Some sick part of him liked it when I hit back.
So did I.
“Are you trying to make me kill you?”
“Nah.” I backed around the corner of his desk and out of reach, adrenaline surging through me like tiny bolts of lightning. “But you were right—anger does interesting things to women.”
“So do I.” He lunged around the desk, holding his ribs where I’d kicked him, and I backed up until I hit the wall. But then there was nowhere else to go. Ruben was there in an instant. I tried to dodge him, but his fist slammed into my stomach and another breath was ripped away from me. I choked and half collapsed, but he held me upright.
When I could breathe again, I pushed him away and took another swing at his ribs—an angry afterthought that exposed the bandage on my arm. Ruben dodged the blow and grabbed my left arm, pulling me closer, squeezing my injury mercilessly.
I screamed as his fingers dug into both the entry and exit wounds, through the bandage.
“Done?” he asked, in a whisper against my ear.
I could only nod. There was still plenty of fight in me, but I’d had too little sleep and lost too much blood to give it my best, especially considering that he had the greater size and strength, and he could command me to stop whenever he tired of the game. I was never going to get the better of him without a weapon.
“What happened to your arm?”
“Got shot,” I gasped through the brutal pain he’d reawakened.
“Sit.” He hauled me toward his desk and shoved me into one of the chairs in front, where I sucked in a deep breath and held it, riding out the worst of the pain in my stomach and my arm. All in all, I’d seen better days.
“I want you back on my case, full-time,” he said, picking up our ongoing business discussion as if there had been no hiatus. “What’s your next step?”
“I don’t know yet. The name she gave you was fake. All of it, as far as I can tell. And you don’t even have a picture of her.”
“It was eight years ago. I was trying to hide her from Michaela, not provide evidence of our affair.” Though clearly his policy on extramarital recreation had changed at some point. “And that was before I realized the only women who can be trusted are woman under surveillance.”
“Fine.” I shrugged. “But without her blood, or her real name, or a photo, or proof that anything she told you about herself was actually true—including her fucking age—she can’t be found. She disappeared, Ruben. All I have to go on for your son is the middle name you gave him. I don’t know what else you want me to do.”
“I want you to find him!” Ruben roared. “I don’t care about her—I don’t even need to see her—but I want my son. You will find him for me, or you will be in breach of contract, and I will execute the consequences of that breach. Do you understand?”
Of course I understood. I’d thought of little else in the past year and a half. “There’s one other possibility, but you’re not going to like it,” I said, holding my arm, though that did nothing for the pain.
“No.” He gave his head one short, sharp shake for emphasis. “You’re not getting a sample of my blood.”
“Ruben, this may be your only shot. Other than the mother, you’re his closest relative, and since you’re both male, your blood’s going to be the closest in energy signature to his. I wouldn’t need much, and you’d have to be out of my range, so I wouldn’t be pulled to you instead. But at the very least, I should be able to tell if he’s alive, and if he’s within my range, I might get a general direction.”
He scowled. “Do you really expect me to give you a sample of my blood, then leave the city with it in your possession?”
I eyed him in challenge. “Do you really expect me to find your son?”
He closed his eyes and exhaled, and when he met my gaze again, suspicion rivaled determination in his eyes. “You’d have to take another oath, swearing to destroy the sample when you’re done and never, under any circumstances, use my blood for any other purpose.”
“Paper only,” I said. “No more marks.”
He nodded. “I’ll have something drafted in a couple of days—the contracts department is backed up at the moment, with my top Binder missing.”
“Fine. Are we done here?”
“For now. My driver will take you home.”
“My office,” I insisted.
“Good.” He nodded, and I decided to let him think I was heading to the office to work on his case. “Stay away from Caballero,” he called, as I headed for the door. “Or I’ll call you right back in.”
“Bite me,” I said, and he laughed, already picking up the phone to give instructions to the driver.
I closed the door behind me and had made it halfway down the hall, clutching my bruised stomach, before I realized I wasn’t alone. Again.
“You are never going to find her,” Michaela said, and I stopped in the middle of the hall, groaning on the inside.
I let go of my stomach—never advertise weakness—and turned slowly to see her leaning against an open doorway behind me. “Find who?” Feigning ignorance seemed like my best bet at the time.
“Tamara Parker. She is dead.” Michaela sauntered toward me, and I took a step back.
“Do I even want to know how you know that?”
Meika shrugged. “I had her killed years ago. For sleeping with my husband.”
Oh, hell.
“Please tell me you didn’t have the baby killed, too….”
Another shrug, and a small, callous smile. “I would have, but he wasn’t with her.”
“Does Ruben know?”
She shook her head slowly. “I’m saving the announcement for a special occasion.”
“You’re sick.” I turned my back on her and started down the hall again, but froze at her next words.
“Did you have fun on the west side today? Were you searched for Ruben’s mark?”
I turned slowly. “You…?” I demanded, and her cruel smile grew. “You started the rumors? Is that how you got rid of Tamara?”
She laughed, a brittle, delicate sound. “No, I had her shot. But he watches you too closely for that, so I had to get creative.” Her gaze narrowed on me. “Did anyone find the mark? Because they will keep looking, you know. They won’t let Ruben Cavazos’s spying whore wander in their midst, and when they find the mark, they will kill you.”
“They’ll have to kill me to find the mark,” I corrected, and she shrugged again.
“You’ll be dead either way.”