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  “I thought you’d feel compelled to protect her. Instead, you handed her to him on a fucking platter.”

  Another blow. Javier’s strong hand again. Finn’s teeth were starting to feel loose. There was blood in his mouth, and all he could do was swallow it down.

  Across from him, Lars made an angry sound. Javier ignored him, giving his hand a hard shake.

  He hoped his jaw broke Javier’s fucking fingers.

  “Had he taken her…”

  Javier grunted when he hit Finn again.

  The world spun a little when he set his head straight. He could hear blood rushing in his ears, and a distant whine that came from nowhere and everywhere. Keeping his eyes open was difficult, and the amount of blood he had to swallow was making him sick.

  “If that mamahuevo had gotten away with my Elle…?” Javier ripped away the gag, as if realizing Finn might drown before he could land another few sets of punches on him. “You’d already be dead,” Javier whispered.

  Finn pushed blood out of his mouth, shaking his head like a dog. “So kill me.” Finn had to force the words out, and they were so mangled he doubted Javier could understand.

  But the man bent low, getting on eye level with him, and then laughed. He spun away from Finn, hands thrown in the air like Finn had just told the one with the priest and the rabbi, and then swung back and landed a fist so hard in his jaw he heard something snap.

  For a moment, he thought it was his neck. But then he felt the jagged edges of a tooth in his mouth, swimming in the blood, and almost swallowed it down before he managed to catch it against the roof of his mouth with his tongue.

  Javier leaned in again, eyes ablaze with a maniacal light, and said, “Soon, Mr. Finn. But for now, you’re more valuable to me alive than dead.”

  He was in the process of standing, half twisting to Lars as if he’d decided it was time to include him on the afternoon’s entertainment, when Finn spat out his tooth. It ejected from his mouth in a spray of blood, most of which painted the side of Javier’s face and his crisp linen suit.

  Javier held out his hand like a man who’d just had gutter water splashed on him from a passing car. He turned back to Finn, and slowly wiped his face against his shoulder.

  Javier’s next punch was so hard, it knocked him unconscious. But before that always-eager darkness claimed him, he heard Lars make an angry sound in the back of his throat.

  70

  Some kind of cartel leader

  Cora had barely been awake for half an hour before there was a knock at her bedroom door. She sat up in bed, wincing when the movement tugged at her knee, and gathered the sheets around her. She was wearing a loose t-shirt and a pair of summer shorts as pajamas—after having rifled through her walk-in closet for close on ten minutes trying to find something that didn’t make her look like a swim wear model at a boudoir photo shoot.

  Javier pushed open her bedroom door and came inside. His dual shadows, rifles tucked behind them as if they weren’t expecting any trouble from her, sidled into the room and took stations on either side of the door.

  “Morning, mi reinita,” Javier said, beaming. “Another beautiful day.” He swept a hand toward her balcony, but she didn’t bother turning her head. “I trust you slept well?”

  “¡Vete al infierno!” she sneered.

  A flash of anger crossed Javier’s face, but it disappeared almost immediately. “I will ask the doctor to prescribe stronger pain—”

  “I wasn’t in pain,” she lied. “Where are they?”

  “Your…lovers?”

  How she loathed the term he used to describe Lars and Finn. She supposed it wasn’t far from the truth, but he made it sound dirty. “Where are they?”

  “Elle,” Javier said, coming to sit beside her on the bed. “I am not here to talk about them.”

  “Then leave,” she said. “Because until you tell me—”

  “There is something I must show you,” he said, as if she hadn’t even spoken. “Do you need crutches? There will be a fair amount of walking involved.”

  “I can’t walk,” she snapped. “And I won’t eat, and I won’t—”

  “I can make you eat,” Javier said. “It requires more effort than if you were just to eat by yourself, but never think I will let you starve, my dear Elle.”

  This all would have been so much simpler if he ever broke that mask-like composure. But he could have been a guy having an inane conversation with someone at a bus stand for all the emotion on his face.

  Just that same, studious smile.

  For the man that had everything…

  “Just tell me if they’re alive,” she said quietly, and wished she hadn’t. But maybe, if a show of strength wouldn’t work, a show of weakness would. That kind of twisted logic was all she had left now. She’d never had to play mind games with someone. Never had to out-think someone who’d been doing this for years, if not decades.

  “Elle,” Javier crooned, reaching out and touching her hair.

  She almost drew back, but controlled her spine just in time. He’d touched her yesterday too, and when she’d pulled away from him he’d slapped her.

  The second slap had hurt more than the first. On first appearance, he didn’t look to be a violent man. But after feeling the apathy in that hand, she knew slapping her was the least creative thing he could do to get her attention.

  To have her obey.

  “You know I care deeply for you, don’t you?”

  He wanted her to nod, perhaps even tear up, but she couldn’t. Her body had frozen at his touch, and it was like trying to move concrete. If she tried any harder, she might just crack.

  “Likewise, I would never kill someone you cared for.” The lie bled into his eyes and made the smile on his face turn brittle.

  Maybe not now. Not yet. So they were still alive, but for how long? Until he couldn’t use them to force her to do his bidding anymore?

  “What do you want to show me?” she asked.

  She hoped he thought it was curiosity. But if she could get out of her room, maybe she could get information. Even a snatch of conversation could prove helpful. About Finn, about Lars. She hadn’t expected that flash of ethereal pain in her heart when Lars had been pressed against the gravel yesterday.

  You used his heart as a punching bag.

  Maybe she had, but so had they. They were on their way out of her, leaving her behind, until a strange, twisted fate had brought them back to her. And she knew, without knowing how, that Lars felt as deeply for her as Finn. It was like the loyalty she felt pouring off Finn, especially when they’d been on the run. Just the them two against the world. That fierce possessiveness, almost a jealousy, that had turned him into such a terse, unforgiving protector.

  “With your father…” Javier glanced away, and for a moment she could almost imagine that there was a tenderness—a sadness—in those dark eyes. But then the moment passed. “It’s time you start taking your position more seriously, Elle.”

  Her position in the cartel, of course, now that she truly was capo.

  Javier got to his feet and clicked his fingers. One of his sicario bodyguards slipped out of the room and returned a second later with a pair of crutches.

  “Can I dress first?” she asked coldly, watching as the man brought the crutches and set them against the back of the settee.

  “Of course.” Javier touched her shoulder before sliding his fingertips down her arm. “I’ll be just outside.”

  Before he left her room, he added, “But do hurry.”

  Javier stood waiting in the corridor for Cora when she emerged a few minutes later dressed in jeans and a light sweater. If he disapproved of the frumpy outfit, he didn’t say. He seemed in a rush to get where he was going; she could barely keep up on the crutches. It was her first time in a pair—she’d been surprisingly adept at not breaking bones as a kid—and her movements were clumsy at best. It probably didn’t help that she kept glancing around, trying to seek out a maid or anyone else besides
Javier and his bodyguards. Even Silvia would have been a welcome sight.

  But the villa was deserted. She didn’t see a living soul all the way from her bedroom to the doors that led to the stables. When she saw their direction, she stopped walking.

  “I can’t ride,” she said.

  It wasn’t just because of her leg. She doubted she could ever get on a horse again; not until she somehow forgot the intense trauma of being thrown.

  Javier clicked his tongue, not slowing. “I underestimated your riding abilities. It’s obvious I should never have allowed you onto one of my steeds.”

  Somehow, she was more pissed off that he called his horses steeds—like he was a damn knight—than at the fact he thought she couldn’t ride.

  But she wouldn’t get any closer to seeing Finn and Lars if she didn’t keep up appearances. And right now, she had to appear to be a dutiful goddaughter. Fascinated with whatever it was Javier would show her. Bright eyed with admiration at what an amazing man he was.

  She’d even lick his shiny shoes if it meant she could see her men again.

  The thought was acidic, but she couldn’t stop it any more than she could ignore it. Maybe it was just some kind of post-traumatic stress that made her crave the sight of those two men so badly. Whatever it was, it would either fade or it wouldn’t. And while it was this strong, it would take energy she didn’t possess to fight it. She had to save her strength. What for, she didn’t know.

  Her body, her entire being, felt like a coiled spring.

  71

  Trapped in the castle

  Light played across Lars’s eyelids until they flickered open to slits. It was bright as heaven in here, wherever ‘here’ was. He forced his gaze to focus and found the edge of a window. The illumination came from there; the entire windowpane shone with white light. A tree’s shadows moved across the slats of the metal blinds.

  He glanced to the side and tried turning his head a little. Even that small movement made pain shoot through his temples like someone was hammering a nail through his skull.

  Some quack had performed a lobotomy on him, hadn’t they? Had they at least gotten rid of his demons?

  He wanted to laugh. Couldn’t summon the will.

  Milo had the demons, not him.

  Milo.

  His throat was raw dry, his mouth stuffed with invisible cotton. He slid his tongue around his palate, but even that hurt.

  Why did his face feel so stiff?

  An aching arm lifted, and he touched fingertips to his cheeks. Swollen. Hot. Flesh too tender for him to do more than brush his fingertips against it.

  Someone had fucked him up good. Someone dressed all in white.

  That trickle of memory turned into a flood.

  A linen suit splashed with blood. A pissed off angel who’d lost his wings, and no fucking wonder since he’d obviously been batting for the other theological team all along.

  He couldn’t summon the memory of a face, hard as he tried.

  With a monumental effort, Lars pushed himself up.

  His vision cleared a little.

  A room. Familiar. Hospital-like in its clean lines and minimalist sterility.

  The steady bleep-bleep of machinery drew his eyes. And then he looked down at himself. Heart rate monitors snaked from his chest, an IV drip from a vein in his arm.

  The fuck…?

  Before the blood-soaked man in white, what was there? Nothingness, and then…Angel.

  That Latino motherfucker had betrayed them. Again. But for the last time.

  The motel. That seedy room where his heart had thumped so hard in his chest he thought it would explode. Fear. Not for himself, but for Cora. That Zachary West had found them, and would take her. Would do to her what he’d no doubt done to Angel. Because he’d seen the bruises on that guy’s body—they were fresh, still healing. So violent as to be perverse.

  A soft murmur of voices came to him. Then footsteps.

  A darkly tanned face swarmed into focus. Lars blinked at it, his eyes moving down to a crisp white coat. For a moment, he wondered why there wasn’t blood on it.

  “Jesus,” he muttered. “Where am I?”

  “Texas.”

  “I’m in a hospital?”

  “Close enough, Mr. Eklund.” The doctor gave Lars a humorless smile.

  “Where are they?” he asked, trying to prop himself up.

  The medic shrugged, making a note in his file. “Why don’t you focus on recovering, Mr. Eklund?”

  “Fuck you, where are they?” Lars wished his voice was steadier.

  The doctor looked up and sighed. Then he gave his head a shake and moved to the other side of the room.

  A few feet away, a curtain had been drawn around another cot. The room held four, all their curtains drawn, but he’d thought he was alone.

  The doctor pulled away the curtain.

  Lars tried to sit straighter, but that made the room spin.

  Milo lay prone on a cot, a pipe down his throat and two more up his nose. Beside him, a machine pumped oxygen into his body. His face was bruised and lumpy and swollen. There were stitches above his eye and through one lip. Some of his hair had been shaved, and more stitches were evident in that strip of pale skull.

  “He’s in a coma,” Lars said.

  It wasn’t a question, but the doctor still nodded. “Chemically induced. Until he’s more stable. There may be some memory loss, perhaps even brain damage. We’ll know in a few days when the swelling goes down and we bring him out. For now, he just needs rest. And a lot of it. You both do.”

  The doctor started pulling the curtain closed, but Lars let out a rough, “Please.”

  The man glanced at him, a slight frown on his forehead, and then left the curtain open as he walked back to Lars.

  “Cora?” Lars asked, managing to tear his eyes away from Milo a few seconds later.

  “You mean, Eleodora?” the doctor corrected calmly, running the back of his pen against a nearby monitor before jotting down another figure on his file.

  “Is she all right?”

  The doctor’s frown deepened. “Why wouldn’t she be? She’s with Don Javier.”

  Lars let out a grudging laugh that turned into a cough. “’Course.”

  The doctor cocked an eyebrow at him, and then went over the bed opposite. Lars caught a glimpse of a man lying in the cot before the doctor pulled the curtain closed behind him. The two men murmured at each other, but too low for Lars to make out anything.

  Lars’s eyes flashed back to the window, to the tree’s shadow. He couldn’t keep staring at Milo, wondering if that pump would malfunction and stop sending that valuable air into his lungs.

  God, what a fuck up.

  Why were they still alive? Was Javier going to use them as collateral?

  But they’d managed to break Cora out once; how could he know they wouldn’t do it again?

  He watched the tree’s shadow as the sun rose, and then sank again hours later.

  Did she even know they were still alive? Would she care if they weren’t?

  His heart squeezed in his chest, and he lay a trembling hand on it.

  Jesus, now he was getting feels. Which was the last thing he needed in his fucking life. He let his head flop to the side and stared across the room at Milo.

  Looked like they’d both been dealt a shit hand this time.

  72

  So fucking special

  Javier’s hands chilled the back of Cora’s neck as he guided her ahead of him. Her crutches click-clacked against asphalt; they’d driven in a golf cart what felt like close on thirty minutes, winding through Javier’s compound as they headed further and further away from the villa, before reaching their destination.

  Here, a small parking bay had been laid out in front of a pair of wide gates that blocked whatever was behind them. Natural rock formations created a rough wall that spread out to both sides. Those gates rattled slightly; a wind had picked up on the last few minutes of the drive, as if th
e lack of any human structures teased Mother Nature into a playful mood.

  When Javier’s sicarios unlocked the gates using an electronic keypad, a dry wave of heat slammed into Cora.

  There were a pair of cameras on poles beside the gates. They turned a little when Javier led her forward.

  A chain link fence lay straight ahead, with another gate and more cameras. Again, Javier’s men opened the gate for them, but this time they didn’t follow Javier when he herded her inside. There was a short flight of concrete steps leading to a platform. But Cora couldn’t look away from what lay beyond. The size alone was too staggering to comprehend.

  Row upon row of white flowers in an endless sea of sage-green.

  She’d never seen poppies before, but that was all they could have been. Nothing else made sense. There were metallic structures built along the rows, as if screens could be pulled over the rows of plants to protect them from the sun, the rain…or DEA agents flying by in helicopters.

  A railing spanned the length of the platform and both sides of the stairs. When she felt cool steel beneath her hands, she realized she’d grabbed a hold of the railing for balance.

  “Your father was never fully upfront with you.” Javier released the back of her neck and came to stand beside her. He gripped the railing too, but his face was carved with a pride so deep it made his eyes sparkle when he turned to her.

  The air out here was so warm, but so dry.

  She couldn’t speak, could only watch as Javier turned back to his crop. In the far distance, she could see figures moving about, but they were mere specks in a sea of white and green.

  “He was always too old fashioned, your father. When we were starting out, we smuggled weed and coke over the border, like everyone else.”

  Javier glanced at her, then at the crutches. He took them away from her, resting them against the railing and drawing her closer with an arm around her shoulders.