Chapter 19
Shep leapt into the room just as Carlotta swung her weapon toward him and squeezed off a shot.
“Dammit sideways!” Stumbling backward, he lifted his arm and gazed at the track the bullet had torn through a fold in his favorite shirt.
“Linus?” Carlotta rasped. “Linus Shepherd?”
“What the hell! Ya tryin’ to kill me?”
“What are you do here?”
“I came to save you.”
“I told you, Sofia is not here.”
“Yeah. And you’re the worst fuckin’ liar in the… “ he began then motioned wildly at the pistol. “Will you point that thing somewhere else?”
She did so, turning shakily back toward the couple in the bed.
“D-don’t shoot!” the boy stuttered, but Carlotta advanced, gun held steady in both hands now.
“What is it you have done with my sister?”
“Your sister! Your…” the kid began then, swiveling frantically toward the girl beside him, begged. “Take it off.”
“What?”
“Please!” he begged.
“Oh,” the girl said and, reaching up, tugged the wig from her head. Beneath, her hair was as black as octopus ink.
“Hola,” she said.
“Sofia!” The gun drooped in Carlotta’s stunned fingers.
The boy smiled. The expression was jumpy, lopsided, but he gave it a game try. “You must be Carlotta,” he guessed.
She blinked, floundering, wordless.
“I am so very glad to meet you. Sofia, she tell me much—“ he began, but a snarl escaped Carlotta’s lips. She raised the gun again.
“No!” Sofia rasped and, scrambling sideways, shielded the scrawny boy with her body. Which, as luck would have it, was naked…and fairly stunning. And where, Shep wondered foggily, were the glasses and the bushy hair. “Wait! Carly,” the girl soothed, twisted over the boy with one hand raised like a white flag. “This is Rafael. Rafael Peya.”
Carlotta actually stumbled as if she’d taken a blow to the body. “The gardener’s boy?”
“Sí. We met at the cantina. Hadn’t seen each other for years.” Sofia laughed. “At first, I didn’t even recognize him. But when I did…” She paused, beamed, shrugged.
A growl escaped Carlotta’s lips.
“We’re…we’re going to be married,” the boy assured him, but if he thought that little piece of news would soothe her ruffled feathers, he was sadly mistaken.
“Over my dead body!” Carlotta snarled, tightening her hands on the grip. “Or yours.”
Sofia’s brows lowered. Her expression darkened. The glasses and the bushy hair weren’t all that was lacking, Shep realized. The girl’s renowned sweetness also seemed to be AWOL. “I knew you’d be like this!” she spat. “Always, you are the pushy one.”
Carlotta fired back in Spanish. Her sister rose to her knees on the bed, her tirade just as fierce.
Carlotta stepped forward, gun still aimed dead center on poor Rafael’s chest as Sofia leapt to her feet, straddling the boy’s prone body like a slim Amazonian warrior.
It was then that Shep found his senses—or more likely lost them—and stepped into the fray. “Hey! Ladies…” He was neither brave enough nor foolish enough to suggest that, in that moment, he used the term rather loosely. “What’s goin’ on here?”
“This is my sister!” Carlotta hissed.
“I sorta gathered—“
“And the bastard son of a spawn,” she spat, “with whom she is living in sin.”
“Living in sin?” the girl scoffed. “Do you hear yourself? You sound a hundred years old. Living in sin! Can’t you see I love him?”
“Love!” Carlotta snapped. “You are too young to know what—“
“I’m almost seventeen! Yet you treat me like a child. Like a…” She waved wildly, making her breasts bobble slightly. “A slave or a nun or a—“
“You are yet sixteen! When I was your age—“
“You were a prude. Just as you are now. But I won’t be wasting—“
“Alright…” Shep placated. “Let’s all just simmer down a little. Sofia…nice to meet you.” Honest to God, this had to be the weirdest little SNAFU he’d ever found himself embroiled in. “But maybe ya’d better put on some clothes so we can talk this through like—“
“You’re Linus, aren’t you?” the girl asked. “Linus Shepherd.”
“Yeah, but nobody calls me—“
“I told you,” Sofia said, half turning to the boy who still cowered beneath her. “Didn’t I tell you?” she asked then shifted her warm-chocolate gaze back to Shep. “I knew you’d come.”
For a second, Shep wondered what kind of rabbit hole he’d fallen into, but he found his tongue and managed to move on. “Listen, your sister’s been kinda…” He wobbled his head. “She’s been sorta concerned that—“
“Sí!” Carlotta snapped and shoved the pistol into the back of her still-wet jeans. “I was worried that you were being raped and tortured and sold into slavery. Not that you had lost your mind and were throwing your life away. Whoring like a Jezebel who—“
“Whoring!”
“Hey, now!” Shep soothed. “Let’s not go sayin’ anythin’ we can’t—“
“How can you tolerate such a self-righteous prig?” Sofia asked, turning to Shep again.
“Well...”
“She lied about you,” Sofia continued.
Carlotta countered in warp-speed Spanish.
Sofia snorted before speaking to Shep again. “She said you were somewhat handsome. What she did not say is that you’re hotter than hell.”
“Sofia Angelina Padilla-Osorio!” Carlotta snapped.
“But I knew she wanted you.”
“What are you speak about?” Carlotta rasped.
“You!” Sofia said, jabbing a finger at her sister. “And him. You were miserable after he returned to the States, and you know it.”
“I was not—“
“Blaming yourself for his injuries. Second-guessing every decisions. And all the while believing you owned Tevio your loyalty. Thinking you owed him your life! With me…with most…you are the bossy one. But with Tevio, you are like the tiny mouse. Timid. Uncertain. Jesus! It makes me—“
“You will not take our Lord’s name in—“
“But you don’t! Don’t you see, Carly?” She took a step forward…and goddamn if she wasn’t still naked. “Tevio isn’t what you think he is. I, too, believed he was all that is good, but he is not. We can’t live under his thumb any longer.”
“She’s right.” Rafael’s voice quavered. Still, Shep was pretty damned impressed the boy had the balls to open his mouth at all. “Señor Tevio is not a good man. My father, he, too, will not admit this. But your sister…she is brave and—“
“Who asked you to speak?” Carlotta snapped.
The poor kid’s shoulders drooped, and Shep was pretty sure that beneath the bed sheet, other body parts were suffering the same ignominious fate.
“You’re too stubborn to see it,” Sofia accused. “But it’s true! We must leave Inrida. Must leave Colombia altogether. We’re not safe there, and I knew you wouldn’t leave if I but asked you. So I made a strategy. Learned of Linus Shepherd’s location. Already, he had planned a trip to Florida. Did you know this? It would be no hardship for him to go a bit out of his way. Thus I invented a story. No different than those mystery novels you devour. I planted all the clues so carefully. It was kind of a game. I knew you would worry. But I was sure you were smart enough to follow the clues, smart enough to go to Shepherd for help. And I hoped you would enjoy the journey. The gardens, the food, the—“
“Wait,” the boy demanded, befuddlement rife in his tone. “I thought you told her you weren’t in danger.”
“Yes,” Sofia admitted happily. “See? That was the brilliant part. My sister’s smarter than she realizes. I knew I had to be crafty to convince her to come.”
“Ya set this all up yourself?” Shep asked. “Just to lure her here?”
“I know her well,” Sofia admitted. “And I hoped like hell she wasn’t foolish enough to come alone. Not when she was acquainted with someone like you. But I didn’t know her lover would be so”—she eyed him up and down—“delicioso.”
Shep raised his brows…along with other parts. Carlotta’s innocent little sister wasn’t so innocent…or so little.
“Thus you lied?” Carlotta hissed.
“Sí, I lied!” Sofia snapped back. “Which I would not have had to do if you weren’t so pigheaded, so blind. If, for once, you could see that you can have a life. That you deserve happiness. That Señor Tevio is not what he seems. He is Timoteo Santiago. Nothing but a criminal. Nothing but scum that should not be allowed—“
Her tirade was cut short as someone stepped into the room.
“Tsk tsk…” said Santiago and shook his head with fatherly disappointment.