My house was big. There were twists and turns and awesome places to hide. There was also a pipe that ran down the side of it. I’d gotten in trouble many times for climbing down it like a fireman. I liked to pretend I got called in the middle of the night to a huge blaze and was the only hero who could put it out. I’d open the window, wrap my legs around it and slide down, then hide out in the cellar until the ‘fire’ was over.
Or until papá stopped being angry.
Tonight, the fire was real.
Somewhere along the way, I’d lost the man in black. Opening the window, I heard mamá scream again then a loud blast. I wanted to cover my ears, but I couldn’t and hold the window too. So, I focused on jumping to the pipe and closing it behind me.
Once inside the cellar, I pulled my knees against my chest and covered my ears, drowning out the last of the screams until I fell asleep.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Eden
Houston, Texas
Present Day
Tears rolled down my cheeks faster than I could wipe them. He’d painted a picture I’d never be able to erase from memory. My heart bled for the little boy, waiting in a dirty cellar for a mother who’d never come for him.
I fought to find my voice. “You mentioned a baby…Ana. What happened to her?”
“No one ever found my sister’s body. I can’t think about that, Eden. I never have.”
Releasing the tear-stained pillow, I rolled over to face him, taking his hand in mine. “Why did you turn to cartel life after knowing what happened to your family, Val?”
Dropping his chin, the skin around his eyes bunched in a pained stare. “Why’d you not leave with your father after known criminals killed your brother in front of you?”
The question took me by surprise, as did the intensity of his gaze. In that instant, I understood him more than probably anyone ever had. The wall I’d built between us crumbled as the abomination I’d created in my mind of Valentin Carrera—El Muerte—fell away, revealing only a man who’d loved and lost.
A man who’d sought revenge for a family member brutally taken from him.
Just. Like. Me.
Before I could stop to think about it, I pushed off the mattress and straddled his lap, the T-shirt riding the tops of my thighs. As if magnetic, his hands automatically pulled to my waist, resting low against my hips.
Hooking a finger under his chin, I lifted his darkened eyes to meet mine. “Take me to Mexico.”
“Eden, I can’t. Weren’t you listening? I won’t take the risk.”
“Val, I’m not your mother, and you’re not six years old.” Forcing power into my voice, I took his face in between my palms. “Do you think I’m weak?”
“Of course not.”
“Do you believe whatever this is between us is worth fighting for?”
Pulling away, he closed his eyes and drew a tired breath. “Eden, come on—”
“Do you believe we have something worth fighting for?” I repeated, enunciating each word.
Opening his eyes, raw pain shot through them as he held my face in a mimicking grip. “I can’t go through the same thing again. It’ll kill me.”
“Me too,” I agreed, my voice shattering. “That’s why you can’t leave me behind. If we go, we go together. I have nothing left here, Val. The only two things I have to live for are revenge and you. If you leave, you take them both.”
His breath came rough and heavy, and he closed his eyes again, tightening his hold on my cheeks as he pressed our foreheads together. “You’re so stubborn, Eden.” Pulling me closer, he tilted my chin, opening his mouth and brushing it repeatedly over the outside of my mine. “You’re so fucking stubborn.”
Fire raced through me as he traced my jawline with barely-there kisses, trailing them down my throat and back up again. Groaning, I threw my head back, reveling in the touch of his lips on my heated skin. As his tongue grazed the underside of my chin and raked across my bottom lip, need exploded within me, drawing from the powerful connection we’d forged with one conversation.
Trailing my hands down his chest, he swallowed my low moan as he captured my lips in a hungry kiss that I had every intention of drowning in. I welcomed it, pouring every ounce of fear for our combined safety into it—our tongues tangling in a battle of dominance neither of us cared to win.
“I need you, Cereza. But this time, this is on your terms—all or nothing.”
The honesty in his voice, and uncharacteristic willingness to hand over power finally crumbled the last of my remaining walls. Breaking the kiss, a small smile curled one corner of my mouth before it claimed his again. “I’m all yours.”
With a low growl of my name, his hands bunched the bottom of my T-shirt and pulled it over my head, tossing it to the floor. Holding me protectively in his arms, he lowered me onto the mattress. His weight stole my breath, but I welcomed every theft.
As he made love to me, he groaned broken Spanish in my ear. I had no idea if the words were dirty or endearing, and honestly, I didn’t care. All I knew was that Val and I had passed an invisible milestone in whatever was happening between us.
And tomorrow, we’d pass a real one into the border of Mexico.
“Eden, wait.”
With a backpack full of clothes and supplies and one full of artillery slung over my shoulders, I paused in the kitchen on the way out to the SUV the next morning. Val instructed me to pack light. That hadn’t been a problem since he’d borrowed all of three outfits from his soldier’s wife. Hopefully I’d have a moment in Mexico to at least buy something else to wear that halfway covered my ass.
“Did we forget something?”
Wincing as he set his own bags down on the barstools, Val shook his head and shoved his hands in his pockets. “No, I just…”
The vet made Val’s much bitched about visit earlier in the morning, and other than a few stitches, antibiotics, tetanus shot, and temporary hearing loss, he’d miraculously escaped major injury.
Intrigued by his uncomfortable stance, I dropped my own bags and met him at the kitchen island with my hands on my hips. “You’re not changing your mind. I’m coming with you.”
“No, nothing like that. I don’t go back on my word, Eden. Know that about me, if you know nothing else.”
The veins in his arm bulged as his hand tightened around something in his pocket. Narrowing my eyes, I leaned my elbows onto the bar and twirled the end of my ponytail around my finger playfully. “What’s in the pocket, Carrera?”
The lines around his mouth deepened. “Look, I know all that stuff with your dad and the medallion had to have been rough to hear. You thought it was a genuine gesture. How were you to know you’d been used, right?”
“We don’t know that for a fact, Val,” I corrected, straightening as tension ran through me. “There’s no proof he knew either.”
“Right.” He nodded, pity in his eyes. “Anyway, I know how much that thing meant to you.”
“Okay.” I eyed him cautiously.
“What I’m trying to say is…well, I don’t want you to feel like…shit, here.” Jerking his hand out of his pocket, he pushed his fist toward me and held it until I extended my palm. Immediately, his fist opened and a flat, gold link chain fell into my hand.