Chapter 19 Mateo
MATEO
Did she just say escort for the Bratva? I turn and look over at Tomas.
His face is as blank as mine before he shakes himself out of it. “We might need to have a seat for this conversation,” Tomas suggests.
Zoe nods sadly.
I grab her hand and link our fingers together as we walk back to the sofa where we just were. Seems like a million moments ago when I was deep inside her, where nothing mattered but her pleasures.
We take our seats, Zoe and I on the sofa and Tomas on the one across from us.
“I was owned by the Bratva,” Zoe starts slowly.
“How did you know?” I ask.
Zoe looks down at her hands again, that same nervous gesture she had when she first came here is now back again.
“An old client was there last night with a woman I worked with. He was surprised to see me there as he was told I had moved on. He was very insistent on how much he missed me. That he missed our time together. It was a shock.”
“Did he touch you?” I ask, trying to hold back my anger. I will kill anyone that touches her without her permission.
She shakes her head but the way her hands twist tells me that’s a lie.
I’ll kill him.
“His date was a woman named Ruby. She explained that we were in the same situation. Both of us were taken from home and thrust into a life neither of us asked for. Each new piece of information sparked a dormant memory in my mind. Bit by bit they began filtering through. It was overwhelming and distressing.”
Thank goodness for this Ruby woman. I’m going to need to find her and thank her for helping our girl out like that.
“Ruby explained how an ex-boyfriend had taken me to Russia. I thought I was going there to meet his family and, in essence, I did but it wasn’t what we would consider family.
He kidnapped me, stole my passport, and locked me away in an apartment.
He tried forcing me to work for him, and Ruby said I wouldn’t do it.
That I fought back with everything I had to not become one of his jewels.
I tried and failed so many times to escape that they threatened my sister.
Gracie is her name. One of my ex-boyfriend’s friends began dating my sister, and they threatened me with her safety so I would comply. Eventually I did, Ruby explained.”
Fuck. That’s horrible.
“Did Ruby know how you ended up at the bottom of our gates?” I ask.
Zoe shakes her head. “All she knew was that they had told her and the other girls that I was dead.”
Other girls? Words escape me listening to Zoe’s story.
“What happened to Ruby?” I ask
“She went back into the party with that man. I tried to get her to come home with me. I needed to save her, but she refused. She was adamant that I needed to run. That they would come and kill the both of you. Ruby said they would stop at nothing if they found out I was still alive.”
“And that’s why you think you need to go? Because Ruby said they would be after you?”
Zoe nods.
I turn and look over at Tomas as he’s remained quiet this whole entire time.
“Do you have nothing to say?” I question him.
Tomas looks up at me, the lines between his brows are pulled tightly.
“Seeing Ruby again triggered all your memories?” Tomas asks Zoe.
“Tomas,” I warn, not liking his tone.
Zoe’s eyes widen hearing the accusation in Tomas’s voice.
“Yes.”
“All your memories?” Tomas questions her.
“Not all but most,” Zoe answers honestly.
“Have you been lying to us?” Tomas asks.
Zoe gasps at Tomas’s accusation.
Just as I am. “What the hell are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that Zoe works for the Bratva. The same people who have been terrorizing my brother and me over our hotel contract in Mykonos,” he states angrily.
I’d forgotten about all that. Tomas had kept a lot of the details from me, choosing to keep it between his brother and himself while I got ready for my first art exhibition. It all happened right before Zoe turned up.
Fuck.
Now I understand Tomas’s thought process.
“What are you saying?” Zoe asks, looking up at him with blue eyes hard as steel.
“Are you a honey trap?” Tomas asks honestly.
Both Zoe and I are taken aback by his question.
“You seriously think I beat myself up, gave myself memory loss all to what? Steal something from you?”
“Tomas, you’re being irrational. Zoe is not connected to those men.”
“I’m being irrational? Those men nearly killed our project manager. They tried to send another employee to jail. They poisoned another’s dog. They ran someone off the road. Not once, not twice. I’ve lost count of all the things they have done to my employees,” Tomas shouts at me.
Zoe plays with her hands nervously while listening to Tomas’s tirade. I understand Tomas’s concerns. I had no idea things had gotten that dangerous for his employees. That is terrifying, so I get he is coming from a place of worry for them, but this is Zoe. Our Zoe.
“I think I should go,” Zoe says sadly, standing up off the sofa. She still has the blanket wrapped around her. She’s still naked from earlier.
Tomas nods as he folds his arms across his chest.
I watch the woman that I love walk out of the room. And probably out of our lives too. I’m torn between the two of them.
Standing, I turn my attention to Tomas.
“What?”
“You’re just going to let her go like that? You’re not going to talk about it? That’s it?” I ask him.
“Maybe we don’t know who she is, Mateo.” His voice is like stone.
“Yes, we do. We know that woman in there is a part of us. She lives right in here.” I thump my hand over my heart. “In a spot right next to you.”
Tomas shakes his head. “This is what they do. They research their competition. Find their weakest link and use it against them.”
“For what? What would her end game be?”
“Them getting the land cheaply. Enrique told us that the Bratva use the Greek Islands as a trade route for their products. They have to find ways to launder their money. A hotel is a legitimate way.”
“And what about Zoe’s story. You think she beat herself up to a bloody pulp and then threw herself at our gate?”
Tomas stills, refusing to answer my question.
“There are flaws in your fucking logic, my love. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I’m going to get to the bottom of this. And our Zoe is not a honey trap.”
“I don’t know what to believe. These people would stop at nothing to get what they want.”
Stepping toward him, I reach out and place my hands on his shoulders. “I hear you. But this time I think you’ve jumped to conclusions. You’ve had a shock. We all have. Let me check in on Zoe and then we can come back together and talk about this calmly.”
“Maybe you’re right. I’m going to give Enrique a call. I think he needs to know about this.”
I squeeze Tomas’s shoulders. I’m not going to argue with him in this moment as it’s not going to get me anywhere. Leaving Tomas in the living room with his phone, I head down toward our bedroom in the direction Zoe went. I step into our bedroom and see Zoe madly packing.
“Where are you going to go?” I ask, making her jump.
She has an overnight bag and is packing essentials. She’s dressed in a pair of dark denim jeans which show off her ass perfectly. Now is not the time, Mateo. A white shirt is pulled across her perfect tits. Her blonde hair is piled up into a high ponytail.
“I don’t know, but it’s for the best.”
“The best for who?” I say, resting against the door jamb as I cross my arms over my chest.
“Mateo, don’t fight me on this. It’s for the best. Tomas hates me. He thinks I’m a spy. Ruby warned me that you would be in trouble if I stayed. I can’t let that happen. I have to go to protect you.”
Now we were getting somewhere—she’s running scared. Walking into the room, I take a seat on the edge of the bed.
“We can protect you, Zoe.”
Zoe shakes her head. “Look at what they have been doing to Tomas already. If they know I’m alive they will do so much worse to you. I can’t let them do that.”
I grab her hand, stilling her. “And what will they do to you if they find you?”
She looks down at our joined hands, then pulls them to her lips and kisses my knuckles. “I’ll be okay. Don’t worry about me.”
Then she drops my hands and moves away from me.
Don’t worry about her. Is she crazy? I love her with every fiber of my body. Does she think I’m going to give up on her that easily?
Jumping up, I wrap my arms around her, halting her movements. “Please don’t go, Zoe,” I beg of her.
“I have to.”
“No, you don’t. You think you’re doing the right thing, but you’re not. We are better together. The three of us. Strength in numbers and all that shit.”
Zoe’s arms tighten around me as she buries her face into my chest. I can feel her body shake as she sobs. Picking her up in my arms, I lay her down in our bed. The same bed that’s sheets are rumpled from our previous night of lovemaking.
“It’s going to be okay. I promise you. Whatever we need to do to keep you and your family safe we are going to do it. Tomas is a fucking billionaire. He can afford the world. And me, I don’t do too badly either,” I explain to her.
She burrows herself in closer to me.
“Look, I know Tomas was a bit of a dick tonight, but he loves you. We both do. When the shock of who you really are wears off and Enrique tells him you have nothing to do with the men hurting him, he will relax. I’m not siding with him, but just before you came into our lives, things had been strained with this Mykonos venture.
It’s the reason we were spending the summer here in Ibiza away from it all. ”
“It’s the truth,” Tomas says from the doorway as he steps into the bedroom.
Zoe and I sit up on our elbows as we watch him walk toward us cautiously.
“I’ve had some time to think about what’s happened, and I’m sorry,” Tomas tells Zoe.
“Hearing your story triggered me, and I snapped, and you caught the brunt of my anger over these fuckers.” Tomas takes a seat at the end of the bed.
“If they are the same people that kidnaped you, then I will use every single euro I have to bring these assholes down.”