God, I needed a drink.
My head snapped up so fast the room blurred. Holy shit, that was exactly what I needed.
I searched the kitchen again, this time focused and methodical. By the time I plopped down next to Brody, he was half-asleep, his forehead pressed against his opposite knee.
“Rise and shine, counselor. It’s time to play doctor.”
He popped one eye open. “Is this a joke?”
“Nope. Take off your shirt.” Rolling my eyes at his smirk, I held up a pair of scissors. “You wish. I need to make a bandage.”
He narrowed his eyes, clearly not trusting a word out of my mouth. Not that I blamed him. But he didn’t have much of a choice, and he knew it. I waited as he opened one agonizing button at a time, and the minute the fabric slipped off his shoulders, all the air sucked out of the room. He paused, raising an eyebrow at my choked gasp, our eyes tangling with ferocity.
“Are you all right?”
I forced my eyes away from his chest and settled them on the blood coating his arm. His beautiful unmarred skin was now stained a deep scarlet. Luckily, most of the bleeding had slowed down, only a trickle of red still snaking down in a jagged trail toward his wrist.
He was right. It was a flesh wound, but a few inches to the right and we wouldn’t have been having this conversation. Pushing it out of my head, I busied myself cutting his shirt into strips, trying to ignore the heat of his stare. Setting them out in front of me, I forced everything out of my mind but the task at hand.
“Face forward and put your elbow on your knee.”
He did as I asked without arguing. Wadding up a few strips of his shirt in one hand, I picked up the bottle with the other and unscrewed the cap with my teeth. I’d barely tipped the neck when he flinched, and his elbow knocked against the side of the glass, dousing my legs instead of his arm.
“Hold still and stop being such a baby.”
He gritted his teeth and scowled. “It fucking burns.”
“It’s eighty proof vodka,” I snapped. “It’s supposed to fucking burn.” Done coddling him, I trapped his injured arm between my forearm and his knee and turned the damn bottle upside down, watching most of what was left splash on his skin.
He sucked in a harsh breath, muttering a slew of intelligible curses, but didn’t pull away. I didn’t know whether it was out of trust or necessity and I didn’t care to dig deep enough to find out. Keeping my head down, I cleaned, dried, and wrapped the remaining strips around his arm until there was nothing left to do. No reason left to touch him.
Rubbing my thumb across the secure knot I made in the bandage, I gave his shoulder a soft pat. “There, I think you’ll live.” Gathering the scissors and empty vodka bottle, I started to stand when he grabbed my arm.
“It was supposed to be yours, wasn’t it?”
“What?”
Lifting his uninjured arm, he motioned around us. “This place. You knew the code because he bought it for you.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Adriana
I swallowed hard while taking in his tightened jaw and pinched expression. “Brody, come on, don’t do this.”
“What happened between you and him?”
“Does it matter?”
He released my wrist, a flicker of emotion crossing his face before a vicious laugh wiped it away. “Considering it rained a fuckton of bullets in the middle of his nightclub tonight, I’d say, yeah, it matters a lot.”
Sighing, I set the supplies down and rubbed my palms up and down my still damp legs. I didn’t want to have this conversation now. I didn’t want to have this conversation ever. But it was naïve to expect Brody to stay in another man’s house without demanding answers. But how did I give him answers to a question I still didn’t understand myself?
I considered lying, but what was the use? We were too deep into this for such barrier tactics to work, and I had too little time to reap the benefits even if they did. Stepping off the final two steps into the living room, I crossed my arms over my chest. “I met Cristiano when I was nineteen,” I said, staring out the sliding glass doors at the falling rain. “He was a low-level runner trying to work his way up the ranks by doing all the wrong things. He had a chip on his shoulder and a problem with authority. Esteban and Manuel hated him, but in less than a year, he was our highest earner, so there wasn’t much they could say. Cris was one of the few who didn’t think the path to the top detoured through my pants.” I laughed. “In fact, he hated me.”
“You do have a pattern.”
I glanced over my shoulder and shrugged. “You know how it goes. Tell a kid they can’t have a piece of candy, and they want it twice as much. When I wasn’t attending universidad, I hung around him and—”
“Let me guess—you wore him down until he fell in love.”
“Actually, I pissed him off so much he ratted me out to Esteban.”
“You’re a glutton for punishment.”
“What can I say? I love candy.” Flashing him a lethal smile, I cocked a hip against the back of the couch. “Esteban was so impressed he had the balls to do that, he took the time to get to know him and ended up making him a top sicario. I guess that was what finally pushed us together. Two years later, we were engaged, and he was about to make him a lieutenant.”
“But, he didn’t.”
I shook my head. “No. Esteban died two days before it was supposed to happen. By default, Manuel took control of the cartel, and Cris’s chance was gone. Manuel was already threatened by him, so he took immense pleasure in denying his rank. That was the beginning of the end.”
“So, how did he end up with El Palacio?”
I narrowed a suspicious gaze at him, wondering what angle he was pushing. However, he lost the snide tone and seemed genuinely interested in the answer, so I opened up and spilled my most private secrets to the one man who’d proven he couldn’t be trusted with them.
“I didn’t have the power to make Cris a lieutenant, but no one could stop me from giving him one of our clubs. El Palacio is one of the cartel’s biggest money laundering fronts. Every Muñoz deal eventually runs through him. Manuel may have pushed him out of the inner circle, but I got the last laugh.” My eyes drifted toward the ceiling. “In the end, Cris had more inside information and power than any lieutenant ever could.”
“So why the split? Did you get cold feet?”
“No, he did.” The shocked look on his face made me chuckle. “It was for the best. I’m not cut out to be someone’s wife. You said it yourself; I’m selfish. Marriage is about compromise, and I’m not sure I know the meaning of the word. He’s better off without me.”
Brody turned away, his voice rough. “I’m not so sure. I saw the way he looked at you.”
My breath hitched, but it had nothing to do with what he said and everything to do with what he didn’t. I had no idea how Cristiano felt about me, and I didn’t care. He was part of my past, a part of my life I’d long since buried along with Marisol Muñoz. My reaction came from the possessive shift in his tone. The subtle growl in his voice. The corded muscles in his neck that snapped to attention along with his clenched jaw.