The first thing Cash said to me when he came back in the room was that he’d set up a stronger protective detail around Helena. He’d brought in two more guys to stay on both the mom and the dad at all times, as well. The Cortez family was set up with enough security that they practically couldn’t pick their noses without someone knowing about it.
He also informed me that Antonio had gone dark. While his business dealings were happening without a problem, the man himself had vanished. No one had seen him since he’d thrown a big fit about his girlfriend being taken.
With Helena protected and my business with Cash over, I thought about where I was going to go next. I thought about where I wanted to go, but I didn’t feel like I deserved a place that would make me happy to visit. Instead, I thought about places that I didn’t like, determined to put myself through whatever hell I could manage. I’d visited a lot of places with Antonio and I’d never liked the times we visited Texas. It reminded me too strongly of my broken childhood and then Helena’s kidnapping.
I couldn’t be in the same state as Cash, though.
Maybe I’d just throw a dart at a map and set out like people did in movies. Their endings always seemed to work out for them. Maybe I’d end up in one of the Dakotas, running a little clothing store or something. I didn’t know. I just knew that I had to do something.
Cash was quick to burst my bubble, almost like he’d been reading my mind and had decided to ruin any plans I could get to. “Antonio will come after her. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday. I won’t let that happen.”
I looked back at him from where I’d been standing at the window. “That’s what the protective detail is for, right?”
“I can’t keep all of my men there for the rest of her life. We have to eliminate the threat.” He shook his head. “I have to eliminate the threat.”
I turned back to the window, not actually looking at the cars driving past the parking lot on the main highway through the tiny town we were in. I pressed my knuckles to the warm glass and dragged it down, making lines in the fog from the rattling AC unit beneath it.
It seemed a fitting punishment to devote my life to keeping Antonio away from Helena. He’d leave her alone if I wasn’t asking any more questions about her and I agreed to do whatever he wanted. I knew that pieces of me would steadily die until I did, but I could do that for Helena. I owed her that.
It was the only answer I could come to. It wouldn’t be possible for us to eliminate Antonio, as Cash said. Antonio was always thick with men around him and he always had at least a few guns on him. He was prepared for attacks, which was why he never got hurt when they happened. He was too evil for us to conquer.
“I’ll go back to him.” The words were whispers past my lips, but I meant them as surely as if I’d screamed them in Cash’s face.
“What?”
I wiped my hand through the fog and clenched it into a fist, the moisture wetting my palm as I turned to face Cash. “I’ll go back to him. If I’m not digging for information about Helena, he’ll leave her alone. He won’t have a reason to hurt her, not that I think he would’ve anyway. He sent her to a good home. He didn’t want to hurt her. If I come back and just…do whatever, he’ll forget about her. It’s the best option we’ve got to be sure he’ll leave her alone.”
“You’re fucking nuts, aren’t you? Jesus! Were you always this out of touch with reality or did living with a psychopath for all these years do that to you?”
I shrugged and turned back to the window. “It’s the only way to make sure she’ll be safe for good.”
“He’d kill you on sight.”
I watched an older man walk past the back of Cash’s truck and stumble. He caught himself and then carried on. “Then he’d have no reason to go after Helena. It’s a win-win for you, isn’t it?”
When he didn’t reply, I looked back to find him standing right behind me. His mouth was open like he was going to say something, but he snapped it shut and frowned instead.
“Let me go back, Cash. I don’t care what happens to me. As long as she’s safe. Let me go and it’ll be over.”
He grabbed my arms and pulled me away from the window. None too gently, he put me on the bed and cuffed one of my hands to the headboard. “Stay.”
I looked up at him and scowled. He was kneeling on the bed over me, in a position that I would’ve died to be in with him at some point in my life. At that very moment, I wanted to knock him out. I arched my back and thrust my hips in an effort to buck him off of me, but it just resulted in me rubbing myself against him.
A flare of arousal shocked me and froze me to the bed. I stared up at him with wide eyes, my face heating. My body was a traitor. Or maybe it was just loyal to the man who’d originally touched it. Either way, it wasn’t good.
Cash’s brow furrowed and he climbed off of me like I was fire. He stalked to the door and spoke to me while facing it. “I’ll be back soon.”
I was too stunned to yell at him before the door slammed. I stared at the door for a few seconds and then swore. I looked down at my body and shook my head in disgust. It had terrible taste in men.
“And where the hell do you keep going?!” It was stupid to scream after a man who’d already gone, but it made me feel better.
My nerves were shot and even the smallest sounds in the room were grating. The antique alarm clock on the bedside table opposite me, the water dripping in the bathroom, the muffled sound of talking from the room next door. It was all too much.
I yanked at the handcuffs as hard as I could, using my free hand to pull at them, too. The bedframe creaked, but held firm. I worked at it until my wrist was raw and I was covered in a sheen of sweat. When the people in the room next door stopped talking and started knocking their bedframe against the wall, I tugged harder.
Their moans grew to an impressive volume and just as Cash opened the door to the room, a shrill woman’s voice rang out. “Oh, fuck me, baby! Make me come so hard I go blind!”
I dropped my head back against the wall and laughed, unable to help it. The tension in my body snapped and I suddenly felt like a stretched-out ponytail holder, unable to hold anything in shape. My body shook as I laughed until I cried.
Cash stood in the open doorway, the sun shining in, silhouetting his body. He was silent as he stood there.
“That’s it! Right there! Yes, fuck me! Fuck me like you fuck your wife!”
I laughed even harder, snorted, and then laughed even more. It was surreal and the most inappropriate thing that could’ve happened in the moment Cash chose to walk in. I wiped tears from my eyes with my free hand and blew out a trembling breath when I finally finished laughing.
“Well. Of all the things that could’ve happened the moment you chose to walk in, that was definitely an interesting one.” I rattled my handcuff. “But, on a more serious note, I need to go to the bathroom.”
Cash stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else. Out of the shadow, I could see that his face was one of a man thoroughly beaten down by life. He looked sad.
“Go.” He said after uncuffing me. “Hurry up.”
I went as fast as I could while trying to avoid touching anything in the tiny bathroom. It was all covered in a layer of filth and what looked like black mold. When I came back out, Cash was on his side, facing the window, in bed. I tip-toed to the bed and sat down on what would be my side, if I stayed.
I had no plans to stay, though. I had to do something to help. I had to go back to Antonio and make him leave Helena alone. I situated myself in the bed, far enough away from Cash that it didn’t feel dangerous to be that close, but still in the bed, so he’d think I was going to sleep, too.
I was mentally counting the seconds in my head until I could flee the room when Cash acted. In a flash, he was over me, grabbing my hand and handcuffing my wrist back to the bed. He hovered over me for a second, his eyes too dark to read, before going back to his side, like nothing had happened.
I caught my breath and growled. “Cash. You don’t need to handcuff me.”
“I think I do. You’re thinking so loud over there that I can practically hear your thoughts. You’re staying here. Go to sleep. We’ll figure the rest out tomorrow.”
I reached out and smacked the back of his head, just to find my free hand being handcuffed, as well. “Oh, come on. Seriously, Cash? Let me go. This is crazy. I’m not going to sneak out. I don’t have any money or a phone to call for help. I’d never make it anywhere like I am.”
He turned his back to me and tugged his shirt over his head before settling back on his side. “I learned to sleep in the most unpleasant conditions in the SEALs, Clara. You can talk at me all you want, but I’m going to sleep.”
I couldn’t ignore the hint of whiskey I smelled as he moved or the scars I’d never seen on his back. I traced over them with my eyes, shocked to find how many there were and how bad some of them looked. “The SEALs give you those, too?”
Cash glanced back at me over his shoulder and held my gaze. “Some of them. Doesn’t matter. Go to sleep, Clara.”
“You went out drinking tonight. How are you going to take on Antonio if you can’t avoid the local bars?”
I’d pushed a button. I knew it as soon as his big body stiffened. I held my breath as he rolled over to face me. He was too close, close enough that I could feel the heat of him rolling into me, making me hotter than I already was.
“I didn’t go out drinking. I sat at a bar and stared at a shot of whiskey until I felt like I could walk away from it. And because life is just sweet like that, on my way out, someone bumped into me and spilled their shot on me. I didn’t drink. I don’t need you judging me, though. Especially since you’re such a fucking screw up.”
I blinked back tears and nodded. “Okay.”
Cash groaned and rolled back over. “Just don’t talk, Clara.”
“Yep.” I closed my eyes and tried to suppress the urge to cry. Every part of me that had ever cared about Cash hurt from his words, but thinking about it over and over again wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I needed to make a plan and figure out how I was going to get away from him.
Just when I cleared my head, the noise from the room next door started up again. This time, it was more moaning and wall bumping. The couple had stamina and a good rhythm, I decided, as I listened.
Cash growled from next to me in bed and flipped over onto his back. “What the actual fuck.”
I tucked my face into the crook of my arm and hid my joy at knowing he was annoyed and couldn’t actually sleep through anything.
Being there, next to the man I thought I’d never see again, listening to another couple go at it, I couldn’t help my body’s reaction. My nipples pebbled and my hands clenched against the desire to press my thighs together tighter. Flashes of memory flitted into my brain of my first time with Cash and I almost groaned out loud. What was wrong with me? The man had made it clear that he hated me and I was lusting after him. I needed help.
Cash’s faster breathing caught my attention, though. Without having to look over at him, I knew he was experiencing the same thing as me. The circumstances we’d put ourselves in was affecting us both.
I did my best to roll away from him, needing more space than was between us. Whatever had been between us before was dead and gone. I was an idiot for even thinking about it. There were bigger things on my plate that I needed to be concerned about. Thinking with my vagina wasn’t going to get me anywhere. Not to even mention that if I actually tried to touch Cash, he’d probably laugh in my face.
With my arms twisted awkwardly above my head, I buried my face into my pillow and didn’t allow myself to wonder when the bedding had been last washed.
“Yeah, baby, ride me like that!”
It was a long night.