“She’s not staying here,” Dimitri said, pulling me back. Alejandro opened his mouth, his anger seeming to ease some of the shaking as he glared at Dimitri again, but he wasn’t scared or impressed by my ex’s attitude. Dimitri was in front of me, tilting his head, and he crossed his arms, looking relaxed, but still guarded. “Maggie’s right. This is shit. The whole situation. You show up after a year ready to get your family back now? Why?”
“I don’t owe you…shit. I’m not explaining anything to you.” His laugh was humorless, bitter but to my ears it just sounded sad.
“But you owe me.”
“Exactly,” Dimitri said, ignoring Alejandro when he waved the gun at him. “Your fucking arms are so skinny it’s amazing you can lift that thing.” Teflon calm, he continued. “You get us here, stalk her, spy on me and mine, hack my data and here you are looking like a crackhead. There’s no way you pulled all this shit on your own.” He glanced at me, shrugging. “No matter how smart or talented you say he is, this isn’t the guy. No way is this the guy you told me about.”
“He’s…different,” I explained, not bothering to worry over Alejandro’s grunting protests or how he moved closer. “All I care about is getting my son back.”
“You’ll get him, baby, don’t worry,” Dimitri said, dropping his hands to his sides. “Just as soon as this asshole tells me who the hell has been helping him and why.”
“Nobody. I…I don’t need anybody...” He spoke with a bravado he couldn’t back up.
Alejandro was stubborn. Always had been and he forced Dimitri’s hand, charging forward, the gun lifted.
His reaction was instinctive. He blocked the hand and the gun, knocking it to the floor and clocking Alejandro in a move that was so quick I wasn’t sure I’d seen it right.
“Fuck!” my ex screamed, stumbling back until he landed on the floor. “You mother fuck…”
“I wouldn’t say that if I was you,” I warned him.
Dimitri kicked the gun out of Alejandro’s reach, kneeling in front of him as the skinny man lay on the floor, covering his bloody nose with the hem of his shirt.
“Bella…” he said, motioning toward the gun.
I picked it up, hating the weight of it, uncomfortable with how it felt in my hand, but Dimitri nodded, telling me in one gesture I’d be okay. He grabbed it from me, pulling back the slide to check to see if there was a bullet in the chamber before he turned it around and offered it to me. “Point this at him. If he gets twitchy, fucking shoot that asshole.”
I moved into Dimitri’s spot, standing with the gun between my hands, pointing it right at Alejandro’s chest. He looked so tiny and weak. I wouldn’t let any pity I felt for him make me lower that gun. This bastard beat up Vi and he took my baby. I didn’t care what he’d done to himself or what happened to him after this night.
“Maggie,” he tried, his voice craggy and broken. “Please don’t let him…”
“Shut up, hijo de las mil putas!” He jerked at the insult, lying flat on his back, one hand covering his face.
“She said you were a bitch.”
“Who said?” I asked, knowing he was trying to bait me, so I curled my grip on the gun.
“That waitress…the blonde. Paris.”
The laugh when it came shot from my throat without me realizing it. I clicked my tongue, my face heating just at the mention of her name. Toni had told me that Dimitri had turned her down. Then, Mrs. C. fired her for being so obvious around him and for being a nosey bully about me. But this? This was news. Unsurprising but still news to me.
“Paris helped you?”
“Reynolds…saw a picture of you at that restaurant. With the owners and a baby he said looked just like me. I’m not a stupid man. No matter what you think of me. I’ve been looking for you since you left me. When he asked the waitress about the girl in the picture, she called you the owner’s favorite bitch. Said you’d showed up a few months before with your baby begging for a job.” He made a face, squeezing his eyes shut. “Then she said you’d landed the job by fucking the owner’s son. I didn’t want to believe…but seeing you with that…fucking…”
“Paris is a liar. And she’s been after Dimitri for years. She’d say anything to make me look bad.”
Alejandro released a sigh that kicked up a coughing fit.
“Wait,” I said, wondering why Paris would keep something like this to herself. She could have used this to her advantage. Told me some suit had asked questions. It was her M.O. to run off and lie and tell Dimitri I was messing around with some patron from the restaurant. “Paris never said anything to me. Why? And…what about August? How does he…”
“She got paid off. And August…”
But however August figured into the situation, I didn’t know. Dimitri chose that exact moment to come through the door, leaving the back room, his arms weighted down with a yawning Mateo.
“Mijo!” I met Dimitri in the middle of the room, handing him the gun while I took my baby from him, kissing his face, inhaling him, holding him close. “Oh, thank God. Thank you! My sweet boy.”
There had been tension squeezing my limbs, my joints and every square inch of my chest since the moment we walked into my apartment and found Vi on that floor and Mateo gone. Now it eased. Now there was warmth again and a feeling that I’d never been more relieved. It got warmer, that sensation wrapping around me when Smoke curled his arms on my shoulder and he kissed Mateo’s forehead.
“Good,” he said. “It’s good…”
“He isn’t yours!” Alejandro said, scrambling to his feet. “She isn’t either.”
Dimitri stepped in front of us, circling around my ex, the gun hanging loosely in his hand. When he spoke, his voice was lower, calmer, but there was still a warning sharpening his tone. “They are mine in a way they’ll never be yours.” He scratched his chin with the muzzle of the gun. “You don’t get that?” When Alejandro only glared at him, his attention moving to me, to the monitors behind us, all around the room, Dimitri sighed, sounding tired and exhausted. “Just tell me who you got as back up, so I can take care of my business.”
“They are my business!” There was a vein pulsing on the side of Alejandro’s neck when he yelled at Dimitri and his eyes had taken on a wet, red look. As he stood, he pulled at his collar, wiping the moisture from his lashes. “They are mine. Mine. They belong to me!”
“The hell they do,” Dimitri said, his fingers curving around the gun. “You don’t abandon your family, asshole. You don’t exchange your woman for smack. You don’t treat the people you love like they don’t fucking matter!”
Alejandro winced at Dimitri’s accusations, slipping his gaze to me, the expression on his face hurt, as though he didn’t want to believe I’d spilled his secrets.
“Yeah, she told me. She tells me everything. She trusts me. I trust her. That’s what you do when you…”
“Don’t say it!” Alejandro twisted his head, covering his face. “I don’t want to hear this bullshit.”