I exploded, slamming the phone against the side of the townhouse. I could hear him laughing which fueled my fight as I brought it back to my ear. “You don’t know anything about her or what we had...” I stopped, his words connecting in my head. “Wait, how do you know about our past? I never said anything.”
“Don’t act so smug,” he said while puffing on his cigar. “You should know by now you can’t hide secrets within a cartel. Eventually, someone’s gonna talk. Especially when it concerns the first daughter of Houston.”
“You’re lying.”
“Think so?” He indulged a dramatic pause before adding, “Why don’t you ask your little girlfriend how many fucks Mommy gave when Daddy tucked her in a little too long at night.”
The weight of a thousand fists crashed into my chest as a tortured memory claimed me.
May – Four Years Ago
I’d been waiting at our spot for over an hour, pacing the patch of grass next to the train tracks until there was nothing left but dirt. She was late. She was never late. Irrational fears ran through my head.
I’d kill anyone who hurt her, but first I’d cut their heart out.
Just as I headed toward my car to look for her, I heard the hard crunch of gravel and a car door slam. I glanced over my shoulder to see her running toward me, her long blonde ponytail disheveled and black streaks of mascara running down her face.
“Star, where the hell have you been? I’ve almost lost my mind waiting for you. I—” The rest of my tirade cut off as she threw herself into my arms, clinging to me as if I’d disappear.
“Leave with me, Matty,” she choked out, burying her face in my neck.
“Leave? You just got here.”
“No,” she sniffled, shaking her head. “I mean leave Houston. I don’t care where we go, just please take me away from here.”
My heart shattered as I pulled her off me and set her on her feet. “You know I can’t do that.”
Tears spilled from her beautiful brown eyes. “Do you love me?”
“What kind of question is that? You know I love you more than anything.”
“If you love me, you’ll leave with me.” Cupping her hands over her nose and mouth, she closed her swollen eyes. “Please, Matty, I’m begging you. I can’t stay here. You promised you’d never hurt me. I need that to be true.”
Her pleas broke me. What she asked was suicidal, but I’d risk anything for her.
Even death.
Taking her face in my hands, I pulled her against me and kissed her forehead. “Okay, mi amor, calm down. I’ll have to make arrangements first so meet me back here tomorrow night.”
She lifted her chin and bit her bottom lip, a small cut in the middle opening up and blooming red. “Do you promise? I need to believe in something, Matty.”
I kissed her again. “Believe in us, Star. Believe in me. Tomorrow we’ll leave this place behind, and it’ll be you and me against the world.”
Present Day
But it wasn’t. She faced the world alone while I rotted behind steel bars.
Blowing out a frustrated breath, I opened the door to find her pacing like a caged lion, holding her ripped dress together like a shield. I’d barely taken a step into the townhouse when she froze mid-stride and raised her chin, her matted blonde hair stuck to her cheeks. The primal ache from earlier subsided as the sad young girl I once knew gazed up at me with widened eyes. The earlier tepidness was gone and a flicker of something brand new lit behind the familiar flatness.
“We have to talk.” Closing the door behind me, I avoided her stare as I dropped my phone on a side table.
“He told you I’m hiding something, didn’t he?”
Although every emotion I had was tied up in fucking knots, a slight smirk still tugged at the corner of my mouth. In one five-minute phone call, my dimming star had exploded. I just wasn’t sure if her explosion would light up the sky or incinerate everyone around her.
With what I’d just learned, my money was on the latter.
“Why do you assume he’d say that?”
“Why not? Every man in my life has betrayed me.”
Pissed off at being included in that group, I turned. “I’ve never betrayed you.”
I hadn’t. Although I’d done a hell of a lot of immoral and evil things, I’d never once betrayed her. I couldn’t. Hell, she may have been the only person in my whole life who’d looked past the sicario and seen the man behind the gun.
“Are you sure about that, Matty?” She stared at me without blinking. It was as if she were afraid the moment she closed her eyes my mask would slip.
“Are you, Star?” My counter hit a nerve. Her battle-ready stance shifted, and her whole demeanor changed. Shoulders that moments earlier had tensed and drawn upward sagged and she finally blinked. A few seconds of silence stretched into a minute. Then another minute. Then another. Leighton and I weren’t compatible in any way that counted, but I loathed the silence between us. Emilio’s words had rattled me, but I was more concerned with reaching behind the wall she’d just fallen over and pulling her back.
It wasn’t because she needed me. I could pump myself full of all the chivalrous, white-knight bullshit I wanted, but that wasn’t my style. Growing up cartel had made me a realist, and a realist always knew who he was and the reasons behind his actions. At my very core, I was a selfish son of a bitch who needed her more than she needed me.
I also needed answers—ones she probably never intended on giving, but I was past the point of giving a shit. Wondering had robbed me of four years of sleep, but I now wasn’t sure I was prepared to hear the truth. Not only because I didn’t want my suspicions validated, but I feared the monster she would unleash by doing so.
“Why did you ask me to run away with you that night?”
Holding her dress with one hand, Leighton shifted away from me. “I told you already. I needed to get away from home.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“For God’s sake, I just couldn’t take it anymore!”
For the second time in less than five minutes, we stared at each other in silence. I fucking hated it. I was a Carrera. I demanded respect, but the blank look in her eyes, and a past I’d never been able to let go of afforded her a courtesy anyone else would’ve taken a fist for.
My patience.
“Leighton…” I moved toward her cautiously as if she were a caged animal. “What happened to you in that house? What haven’t you told me?”
For a moment, the slight quiver of her lip and dampness pooling in the corner of her eyes made me think I’d finally get the truth out of her. As much as I didn’t want Emilio’s words validated, I needed her confession or her denial. Even after everything I’d learned about her, time had done nothing to tame my need to protect her.
Depending on her answer, a man would die tonight. Slowly, painfully, and with the mercy of a thousand demons.
Leighton’s honey-brown eyes darkened as horrors replayed behind them I couldn’t see. She shook her head, her lashes fluttering closed and her hands fisting by her sides. I counted the seconds until she finally opened them.