“You don’t get it, do you, Carrera? My life is over regardless of what you do.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” What bullshit could the ADA have to compare to sending the only woman I’d ever loved into the hands of a sadistic killer?
Even more sadistic than me.
A resigned sigh crossed the line. “Manuel Muñoz came to me two months ago and threatened my sister’s life. Man, she’s only twenty-one and still in college. He swore he’d kill her if I didn’t agree to find some way to get a tracking device on you.”
Eden’s St. Michael medallion.
Shit.
“What does Nash Lachey have to do with all of this?” And just because it’d been bothering the hell out of me, I added, “And how do you know Eden?”
“The guy I was putting pressure on to turn on you ended up flipping out on me. I tried to warn him, but he wouldn’t listen. They killed Eden’s brother to show him they could get to anyone at any time.” He paused, his voice cracking as if unsure about delivering the rest. “Only the man freaked out and ran.”
“And Eden?”
“Man, we used to fuck, all right? It meant nothing. Cherry never let it mean anything. I guess being frat brothers with her ex-husband ruined anything we could’ve had.”
Fire filled my chest as my breathing came faster and harder. Images of Brody Harcourt in bed with Eden clouded my vision and a compulsive need to break every bone in his body took hold of me.
“You have nothing with Eden. Do you understand me, Harcourt? You never fucking touch her again.”
“Fine, yes. Now, give me the access code to the app that’s tracking her GPS.”
Focusing on saving Eden, I gave him the information. “One thing I don’t understand,” I said, a thought hitting me. “Old man Lachey was supposed to get a permanent reminder from the Carreras to pay his debt. I never authorized a murder. How did Manuel Muñoz know what was happening that night at Caliente?”
Silence filled the line for more than a few heartbeats before he finally answered. “You didn’t turn your phone off, Val. You called me that day to threaten me to divulge info about Nando Fuentes’ involvement with the DEA. I heard your whole conversation about roughing up Lachey. I passed along the info to help save my sister.”
I could feel the muscles in my neck cording with unleashed tension. “So, during our whole conversation, you’d already flipped, you asshole?”
“He threatened my sister, Val. Surely, you can relate to family being targeted.”
I knew what he was doing. The attorney in him tried to appeal to my human side, but with Eden gone, I no longer had one. “Yeah? Well, now he’s going to rape and kill Eden.
“Man, don’t say that.”
“Was the run for the DA seat worth it, Brody?”
“Fuck you, Carrera. You don’t live the kind of life you live and get to judge me. It doesn’t work that way.”
“Santa Muerte, Harcourt.”
“What?”
“Santa Muerte.” I imagined breathing in the deepest scent of citrus and vanilla when I clasped the rosary around Eden’s neck. “I don’t need to judge. We all stand face-to-face with death eventually, and Santa Muerte judges us all for our own actions. I’ve made peace with the sentence I’ll be handed. What about you, Brody? How do you think you’ll be judged when death comes calling for you?”
Before he could answer, I disconnected the call. As I stood there staring at the phone, the bombs of the conversation exploded at once, and I kicked it across the room. Watching my phone skid across the tile floor, it hit me.
Brody Harcourt heard the call about collecting the debt from Lachey.
Non-Carrera men came into the hardware store and freaked out Eden.
The scapegoat wouldn’t take Muñoz’s tracking device from Brody.
The bottom of my stomach fell out, and I scrambled for my gun. “Mateo! Gather whatever men you can in one room, now!”
This wasn’t just a kidnapping. It was a sadistic, sick game.
And Eden was the star.
Chapter Thirty-One
Eden
“Edie, what the hell are you doing? Get down from there. You’re going to break your neck!”
Ascending one more branch, I plopped down and hung from my fingertips onto the jagged bark. “Didn’t you read the archives, Nash? There’s no death certificate. God, how could I have been so stupid?”
He tilted his chin, squinting into the afternoon sun. “So, climbing a tree like a spoiled brat makes it better?”
“Piss off.”
Chuckling, he swung his long arms and legs around the trunk and folded his muscular forearms around the thick branch underneath me within seconds. “Look kiddo, so Mom took off. Yeah, it sucks, and she’s a worthless piece of shit for it. But do you really think suspending yourself like some sort of monkey makes it any better?”
“I’m the one that caused her to leave, Nash,” I whispered, my voice cracking as my arms started to shake from the tension.
Nash just smiled. “No, you didn’t. She left us long before you were born. She just walked out because she couldn’t handle living with a living example of everything she’d never be.” For the first time since learning the truth that had devastated my world, a smile broke through the tears. “Now, how about you get down from there before you pull your arms completely out of their sockets, and I have to miss football to take you to the ER?”
A combination of a sob and a laugh escaped my lips as I dangled from my fingers, dropping toward a lower branch. “Pain in the ass.”
“Brat.”
Opening my eyes proved to be more and more difficult each time I tried to do it. Beyond the crushing pain in the back of my head and above my eyes, the first thing I noticed was that I couldn’t feel my hands or feet. After attempting to move them, a sharp tingling sensation shot through my limbs, causing me to twitch.
Why do my arms hurt so much?
I felt weightless and heavy at the same time, which confused me so much that I forced my eyes into submission. Everything was black on top of dark. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.
Which was my first clue that things were very wrong.
A gravelly clanging had me swallowing the panic growing in my throat. I couldn’t find my hand. It was tied above my head, along with the other one over a support beam with the floor barely dusting underneath my feet.
They’d hung me from the rafters by a chain.
Rope and metal cut into my already scarred and mangled skin so tightly that blood ran down my arms in wet trails. In a futile attempt to loosen the ties, I tried wiggling, which only twisted the chain. The chain’s length had been carefully measured during my unconsciousness to make it short enough to restrict my movement, but long enough to prevent my arms from snapping.
The pain of everything I’d been through hit me in the awkward position, amplifying my injuries. Logically, I knew calling for help would be useless. However, regardless of how remote I knew the location had to be, I did it anyway.
“Is anyone out there? I’m an innocent American! Anyone? Help!”