Chapter Twenty-One-Maria
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE-MARIA
T ears blur my vision as Luc races as much as he can through Jersey City traffic to the Medical Center.
My mother’s longtime friend and neighbor, Mr. Palermo, is the one who pushed that envelope through my door.
I’d given Mami my address and a burner phone to call, but I didn’t have it with me the past few days.
I’m ashamed I missed her call, and that she had to resort to getting Mr. Palermo to find me.
It’s just another reason I had to give up this charade.
“Easy, Baby Girl. Talk to me, tell me what’s happening, please.”
It’s the please that does it. That, and Luc’s big, warm hand pressing down on my thigh.
I hiccup and sniff, mopping my face with a tissue.
He’s waiting for me to answer. His steel gaze is on my profile as we sit at a red light.
And I feel the weight of it. It’s crushing me. Till it’s not.
I look at him, and I decide. Now, his gaze is comforting me.
“You have to understand, this is hard for me. For so long, I-I haven’t had anyone to trust,” I confess.
“You can trust me, Maria. I will always take care of you,” he says, and I feel those words wrap around my tiny, hopeful little heart.
I hope he’s serious. That he won’t hate me. But I know it’s time I gave him something.
Besides my virginity, my inner voice snarks back at me.
“My mother has cancer.”
“I am so sorry, Baby,” he says and squeezes my leg.
The silence stretches, and the light turns green.
“I didn’t know you had family here. Thought you were from out of town,” he says, but I know he never believed that.
Not with my easily distinguishable Jersey accent.
“This last round of chemo is taking its toll. But I haven’t been around much for her. I can’t be,” I whisper that last part.
“Why, Maria? Why can’t you be there for your mother?” he asks.
“First, well, I’m from here, you know.”
“From where?”
“New Jersey. I left six years ago after,” I pause, sucking in a breath.
“Why?”
“I kinda had to. See, my father worked for a bad guy, and he was killed because of it,” I confess.
“Who did he work for?” Luc asks.
But I can see in the way he’s gripping the steering wheel he knows I’m not going to say something like Walmart.
“A drug dealer. Papi was his top enforcer.”
Luc makes a dark, rumbling sound, and I know he is not happy.
“I was young, and it was all just normal. Just my everyday life. His odd hours. Having guns in the house. Strangers in and out. My parents were very much in love. Luc, my mother is the best person I know. If she didn’t question it, I wasn’t going to.”
“Why did your father get killed?”
“I don’t know. Everything was fine. Then, suddenly, it wasn’t.”
“And you came back here, to the Den, after six years on the run, for what? To trick us? To use me?” he asks, and it is like a knife through my heart.
“No! Luc, please! I need you to know I didn’t ever plan this. I didn’t plan us. Mami got sick, and I’ve been sending money. But this time, it’s so much worse, and I had to come back. I’m scared I’ll lose her.”
I sneak a glance at Luc, and his eyes are on the road. If it wasn’t for the slight twitch at the corner of his mouth telling me his jaw is clenched, I would think he had no feelings about this at all.
But he is mad. At me. And it hurts.
I know he has questions. But he bites his tongue.
He must be a phenomenal lawyer.
Unattached.
Steady.
Unemotional.
But it’s killing me to see him so expressionless.
Still, and he knows how to listen. And suddenly it’s like I can’t stop talking.
“I, uh, I was talking to one of his boss’ sons. Just flirting. It was all new. He got killed before my father. His two remaining sons were pissed off, and they blamed him. It was at my father’s funeral that the younger brother decided I was his property.”
Luc exhales, and it is ripe with disgust. I just don’t know who it’s aimed at.
But still, I continue.
All the guilt I feel for hiding and lying won’t let me do anything else.
“He, um, he tried to, you know . So, that night, Mami and I made a plan for me to run. And I did. For six years. It seems stupid, but he scared me. He still drops in on my mother under the pretense of checking in on his father’s old enforcer’s widow. But I know that’s not the reason,” I whisper, even though saying it out loud makes me sound so weak and stupid.
He still doesn’t talk, and we are just a few minutes away now.
“Luc, I know this looks bad,” I say, desperate to explain my side.
“I know you think I was trying to get Nico’s attention?—”
“I don’t want to know if you have feelings for Nico,” he growls, and I see the vein in his forehead throbbing.
“No! I don’t have any feelings for him at all! I mean, I respect him. And Anna is becoming my friend now, so, I like the fact that he’s good to her. But Luc, I never felt like this about him,” I blurt.
“Felt like what?” he asks, and I am trapped once more in his steel gaze.
“You know,” I whisper, but he doesn’t let me off the hook.
Maybe it’s the lawyer in him.
Or the viper.
Maybe they are both the same thing.
Predator.
Merciless.
Devious.
Cunning.
Luc is watching me, and I think he’s looking to see if I tell another lie.
But I am through with them. I haven’t got any left in me.
I know I should have kept my mouth shut. But it’s too late now.
“Maria, what did you mean when you said you never felt like this about Nico?”
The temperature in the car seems to jump ten degrees and I am sweating and uncomfortable, still cloaked in his way too long sweatpants that manage to cling to my ass but fall off my waist.
Shit.
This is really not how I imagined this conversation to go.
“You really want to ask me that now?” I ask, feeling raw and wrung out as he pulls into a parking spot in the Medical Center garage.
“Yes.”
That’s all the reply he offers. And it seriously pisses me off.
“Fine. You wanna know? I’ll tell you then.”
I turn my face, so I am looking at him. His expression is completely blank, and my nostrils start flaring.
I’m so fucking mad.
“I feel like maybe I am in love with you, you jerk!” I shout that last bit.
Then I open the door without waiting for him, and I slam it in his stupid handsome as fuck face.
Fuck this man .
How dare Luc put me through that when I’m worried about my mother! When I’m feeling so vulnerable and scared.
How fucking dare he!
I don’t look back. I just storm away.
But I should have known he wouldn’t let me get away with that, either. He grabs my arm and spins me around, then he cups my face and slams his lips to mine.
This man.
I swear to Christ every time he kisses me it’s like he is branding me. I want to push him away.
But I don’t. I can’t. Because I do love him.
It’s reckless. Idiotic, really. But I do.
“You say you love me then you walk away from me, Baby Girl? No. Never,” he says and wraps one arm around my waist, pulling me into his hard body.
Walls of muscle wrap around me, and I cry.
“I won’t let you do that, Maria. Not ever. I can’t fucking stand it when you walk away from me,” he grunts, and he’s kissing my cheeks now.
God.
He’s licking my tears away now.
Drinking them in.
Savoring them.
He groans, and I sway on my feet. But he is there, holding me up, and I am so fucking grateful.
I cling to Luc in the hot, damp garage, absorbing his strength, leaning on him.
“I got you.”
He does have me.
I really think he does.
“Come on. Let’s go see your mother,” he says.
And I follow like a docile lamb.
Like his good Baby Girl.
I want to be his so damn bad.