Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 80139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Falcon fell for Savannah, his parole officer—already someone he shouldn’t have been messing with—and then we found out she was part of the Bianchi crime family. All that did was draw my oldest brother in more.
Raven fell for Savannah’s brother Vinnie because apparently one criminally complicated romance wasn’t enough for this family. And Hawk went for Daniela, a woman ten years his junior, who happened to be married to Vinnie at the time.
And now here I am.
A fourth Bellamy, naked in a brothel bed in Colombia, trying not to feel anything for a man who helped put me in a cell before deciding to become my personal guard dog with a guilty conscience and a very talented mouth and dick.
It would almost be funny if it weren’t my life.
I close my eyes.
No.
I’m not falling for Cruz.
I’m in harm’s way. I need to remember that. Vega still wants me. Zabala is probably furious. My family has no idea where I am. I don’t even know my precise location, beyond somewhere dangerous in a country where too many people owe their loyalty to dead men who refuse to stay dead.
I can’t untangle my feelings for Cruz until I’m back in Texas and safely in my own home.
Cruz shifts again, and the sheet slips lower on his waist. I can’t help looking. The man is a god.
I don’t want to sleep, but I’m freaking exhausted. Drained in a way that feels almost peaceful.
Cruz lies on his back now, one arm behind his head, the other resting near me but not touching. I sigh and snuggle against him.
The second I do, his arm snakes around me.
His body is warm. Alive. Real.
I shouldn’t find it comforting, but I do.
For the first time in days, I let myself fall.
I let myself fall against the man who is my captor.
And it’s the safest I’ve ever felt.
26
CRUZ
I wake with clean sheets tangled around my legs and Robin Bellamy curled against my side.
Then yesterday comes back.
All at once.
Fuck.
I really got myself into it this time.
I turn my head carefully.
Robin is asleep with one hand curled near her mouth, her dark hair spilling over the pillow, her lashes lying against her cheeks.
My stomach knots.
She looks peaceful.
I lie there for another minute, listening to her breathe. I don’t regret getting her out of there, but for a moment I think about what it all means.
Vega has spent years trying to get leverage over the Bellamys. Years. Money, threats, back channels, old debts, men in suits, men with guns.
Then Robin fell into his hands.
And I took her.
I opened the cage.
Vega will have my head for this.
Not a figure of speech.
He’ll literally take my head.
Zabala will help. He’ll enjoy it too. He’ll say he knew I was weak. He’ll say he knew the girl got under my skin. He’ll say I forgot who I owed.
Maybe he’s right.
Maybe I did forget.
Or maybe, for the first time in a very long time, I remembered something. That I’m human.
I stare at her again.
She’s not mine.
But God help me, waking up with her body wrapped around mine feels like fucking home.
I erase the thought quickly.
I need coffee.
I need a plan.
I need clothes.
Carefully, I untangle myself from her and slide off the bed.
I dress as quietly as possible, pulling on yesterday’s clothes because I don’t have anything else. The shirt is disgusting, but Señora will have something for me. I find a notepad and pencil on the small table near the window.
I tear off a clean section and write.
In the kitchen getting coffee.
—Cruz
I leave the paper on the pillow beside her, where she’ll see it when she wakes, and quietly open the door.
The hallway is dim. The house smells different in daylight. Less perfume. More coffee and the faint sourness of liquor spilled sometime before dawn.
A man snores behind one closed door. Someone laughs softly behind another.
I head downstairs to the kitchen. Señora Valentina is at the kitchen table. She wears an overly elaborate red and pink robe. Her black hair is wrapped in a silk scarf. Gold hoops hang from her ears. She taps her nails against her heart-shaped mug.
All the mugs here are heart shaped.
Every single one.
If a client spends the night, he gets coffee in a heart mug in the morning.
Love by the hour. Breakfast included.
Señora V looks me over once slowly and grins.
Oh, God. I’m just remembering now. Her room is below where Robin and I are staying. I was so tired and stressed that I didn’t think about it.
I stop in the doorway. “Please don’t.”
She wrinkles her nose. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was drinking my coffee.”
“With that face.”
She purses her lips, but her eyes sparkle. “This is my face, mijo.”
I walk to the counter and reach for the coffee pot. “Too early.”
“It was too late, actually. Nearly dawn by the time the two of you quieted down.”