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)
“They never do,” I say. “Not in the way you want them to.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No.” I exhale slowly. “It’s a warning.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t need a warning. I need the truth.”
The truth.
Fine. I can give her pieces of it. Enough to condemn me. Maybe enough to make her stop looking at me like there’s anything in me worth saving.
I continue massaging my aching jaw. “I was in Texas for several weeks before you and I came back to Colombia.”
She scoffs. “You make it sound like we’re on a vacation. You and I didn’t come anywhere. You brought me here.”
She’s right, of course. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just tell me, and don’t sugarcoat a goddamned thing.”
“Fine.” I exhale. “I was in Texas for several weeks before I took you. Does that work?”
“Yes. What were you doing there?”
“Working for Vega.”
“I assumed that.”
“There were duties. Various things.”
“That’s vague.”
“I know.”
“Don’t do that.”
I glance away but then force myself to look back at her. I have to own what I’ve done. I owe her that much. “One of those duties was you. The last one. Abducting you.”
Robin stares at me. “You…” Her voice catches. She swallows. “Wait. You brought me here? As in, only you?”
“Yes. I thought you knew that.”
“Maybe I did.” She rubs at her forehead. “I guess I haven’t put it all together in my head yet. I’ve had other shit on my mind. I mean, I knew you were my captor. I knew you were guarding me. I knew you were working for them. I knew you were part of it. But I didn’t know it was all you, with no one helping.” She gazes at me. “So you were the one who drugged me at that house.”
“It was all me,” I say, still determined to own it.
She sinks into the couch. “Okay. What were you doing before that?”
“One of my first assignments was to retrieve something for Vega.”
“What?”
“A body.”
Robin freezes. “A body,” she repeats.
“Yes.”
“Where did you dig him up?”
I hold her gaze. “An old barn on Bellamy Ranch.”
She swallows. “You exhumed a body from my family’s ranch.”
“Yes.”
Her hand drops from her throat. “How?”
“With shovels and a lot of muscle. How do you think?”
Her jaw flexes.
“The body had been buried beneath or near the old barn. Vega requested it back specifically. Not as evidence to destroy. Not as a loose end to erase. He wanted the body returned.”
“To him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I was just following orders.”
“Please.” She scoffs. “Do not say that. I was just”—air quotes—“following orders.”
“Well…I was.”
“So were the people who worked for Hitler.” She tents her fingers in front of her face. “Fuck, Cruz.”
She’s not wrong. But what the hell does she think? That I’m some saint dressed in criminal’s clothing? “You asked, Robin. You wanted the truth. This is me. I’m owning it. Am I proud of it? Fuck, no. But this is me.”
She crosses her arms. “Cruz.”
“I’m telling you what you want to know. If you can’t handle it, tell me now.”
She swallows. “I can handle it.”
“I believe you can. And yes, I had my orders. This is the life I led until… Well, until yesterday.”
She nods. “I understand. Go on.”
“I arranged transport. Vega had a mortician in Austin on his payroll. The body was kept at a morgue for the last few weeks while other matters were handled.”
“Other matters,” she repeats.
“You. Adriana. The transfer back here.” I lower my voice. “When we returned to Colombia, the body came too.”
Robin furrows her brow.
“Do you know who it was?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “My brothers thought they knew who it was.”
“Which brothers?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It might.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Robin—”
“They were wrong.”
I wait.
She gives me nothing else.
No name. No explanation. No hint of what that body means to her family or why it would matter enough for Vega to risk recovering it.
I could push.
I want to push.
Not because I need to know for myself, but because anything tied to Vega, Bellamy Ranch, and a secret body in an old barn may be the difference between getting Robin out alive and walking her straight into another trap.
But I’m the reason she’s here, in danger. I don’t have the right to demand her secrets five seconds after giving her a handful of my own.
She pulls her robe tight around her. “Do you know why Vega was interested in that particular body?”
“I—”
A knock cracks through the house.
Three blows against the front door.
Every muscle in my body locks.
Robin’s eyes go wide.
The knock comes again.
My blood turns cold.
In the distance, Señora Valentina’s voice rises from the foyer.
“I’ll get it.”
No.
The word tears through me before I can speak it.
I feel it first.
That animal instinct I learned in Vega’s world surges up my spine.
We aren’t safe.
Why the hell did I spend this time talking to Robin, making plans? Telling her my damned life story? I knew better. I knew we needed to get out of here.