Chapter 16
sixteen
Cole
Idon’t know why I find myself so irritated with Charlie.
She’s right. You don’t tell a literal stranger about a difficult past right off the bat.
I’ve come across plenty of domestic abuse survivors in my line of work, and most victims don’t like talking about the shit they’ve endured at the hands of their abuser.
Some just don’t like being reminded. Others are ashamed of having stayed in a bad situation for so long.
I know how these motherfuckers work. Guys like Jason are methodical.
They slowly but surely trap their victims until escape is near impossible.
Isolate and manipulate these women until they’re out of options.
Charlie wouldn’t be the first girl to fall for a charming stranger who later turns out to be a violent piece of shit.
And she wouldn’t be the first to find herself caught in a web of criminal activity by association.
This shit doesn’t happen from one day to the next.
It happens gradually, over months, and in some cases, years.
Confiding in someone you barely know isn’t easy, especially when you’ve been mistreated for over a decade.
And that’s essentially what we are. Strangers.
Even if we’ve started to form some type of bond.
I shouldn’t be angry at her for wanting to protect her secrets, but I am.
Even now, having exerted myself by first digging a hole for that goddamn cat, and then walking for miles in an effort to comb the area surrounding the resort to make sure I haven’t missed anything, I’m still on edge.
Vibrating.
I even grabbed a bite to eat and took an extra-long shower to wash away the remainder of last night’s poor choices, hoping it would give me enough time to get my rage under control before facing her again.
Having located my phone when I searched her place, I know she’ll call if anything feels off, but I can’t delay the inevitable any longer.
Slinging my overnight bag over my shoulder, I pull the door closed behind me and slowly make my way back to the main building.
I know why I’m dragging my feet. I’m pissed at myself for somehow getting myself involved in yet another situation that could potentially cost me a person I’ve come to care about, and I’m dreading being around Charlie.
I’m aware I dropped a major bomb before I bolted out of there, and knowing her, she’ll have questions.
If I expect her to be an open book in order to keep her safe, it’s only fair for me to give her something in return.
I haven’t talked about my loss with anyone other than Mads and the therapist that was assigned to me by my employer, and the thought of having to rehash it all makes me sick to my stomach.
But I can’t keep bottling it up. The whole point of coming here was to stop trying to outrun my grief and finally make a pointed effort to deal with my trauma.
And maybe talking about it with someone who wasn’t involved in the case, or personally connected to it, wouldn’t hurt.
I shoot her a text, letting her know I’m outside her place, and it only takes a few seconds for the door to swing wide.
“Anything unusual while I was gone?” I ask once we’re upstairs.
Dumping my bag next to the couch, I drop into the worn cushions.
Scooby immediately plops his giant head into my lap, and I give him a good scratch before sending him to lie on his bed.
I hate to say it, but the big goof is growing on me.
I like the idea of Charlie having him around as an extra layer of protection, even if he seems pretty useless as a guard dog.
He might not attack an intruder, but maybe he’ll take him out at the knees in his excitement, giving his owner a chance to escape.
Sometimes, a few extra seconds are all you need.
“I would’ve called if anything was amiss. Water?”
I give her a nod and watch her cross the room to retrieve a couple of bottles from the fridge.
She’s changed into something more comfortable.
Some type of oversized T-shirt that hangs off one shoulder and teases me with the barest hint of her cleavage.
She’s wearing a pair of leggings that hug her curves, and I scrub both hands over my face to keep myself from ogling.
Her feet are bare, her toenails painted a bright pink, and somehow that only makes her more endearing.
Her hair is pulled up into her trademark messy bun that may look like a complicated updo, but probably only takes her a few seconds to secure.
A few loose tendrils frame her freckled face, and the urge to pull her to me, hug her close, and assure myself that she’s okay is so strong it’s unsettling.
“Have you eaten?” she asks, thrusting the flimsy plastic bottle in my face before she drops down on the other end of the sofa, drawing her knees into her chest and leaving about a foot of space between us.
“I had a quick grilled cheese. I’m not too hungry right now.”
“Let me know if that changes. I made stew earlier, and there’s plenty of leftovers.”
“Thanks,” I say before we both fall silent, glancing at each other every so often while we sip our waters.
“So, are you going to tell me, or are we going to act like you didn’t say what you said and watch a movie instead. Because I’m good either way, but I won’t pretend I haven’t been thinking about what happened to your wife.”
I cup the back of my neck and consider taking the easy way out by asking her what type of movies she’s into, but I’ve never been a coward. I opened Pandora’s box when I told her about my wife’s passing, and, deep down, I think I did it because I want her to know.
“Elena and I got married young,” I begin, and don’t miss the way she immediately sits up a little straighter, leaning in like she can’t believe I’m actually going to talk about myself, and doesn’t want to miss a single thing.
“We met in the group home I got dumped in when the state got tired of moving me around foster homes because of my behavioral problems.” I curl my fingers into quotation marks, rolling my eyes to make it clear what I think of the description.
“They liked to call me difficult. I call it refusing to lie down and letting my foster fathers wail on me without at least trying to defend myself, but that’s neither here nor there. ”
I fiddle with the cap of my water bottle, keeping my eyes on the mundane task so I won’t have to see the inevitable look of pity on her face before I forge on.
“Ultimately, it worked out in my favor because I much preferred the group home. It was there that I met my best friend Maddox. We bonded quickly—pretty much became inseparable—before he introduced me to Elena. I fell for her hard and fast, and we became quite dependent on each other during our stay at the home. I knew the moment we met she was my forever,” I say, and glance at Charlie just in time to watch her eyes soften at the admission.
“I married her straight out of college and loved every second of our life together. Sure, we had our ups and downs, mostly due to the dangers of my profession,” I say and blow out a heavy breath when Charlie quirks a questioning brow.
“She didn’t love that my undercover work took me away from her for weeks, sometimes months at a time, but we made it work.
When she told me she was pregnant with our first child, I was ecstatic, and doting on our daughter became the highlight of my days.
But when Emily had just turned two, I was assigned one of my biggest cases yet.
A major milestone for my career. One that would take me deep into the underbelly of a well-known criminal organization.
My handler suggested me as the primary agent due to my heritage and the fact that I was fluent in Spanish.
I talked to my wife, because it would once again take me away from my family for an unknown amount of time with little to no contact.
In the end, she knew how important it was to me to help take that piece of shit down, so she encouraged me to go for it.
Which is how I ended up working for a man called Mateo Gonzalez. ”
“The name sounds familiar,” she tells me with a thoughtful expression. “Wasn’t he a well-known arms dealer? His death was all over the news a few months ago, if I remember correctly.”
“That’s the one. Even though the weapons weren’t my primary focus at the time. I was more interested in his son’s little human trafficking side hustle,” I tell her, as the old familiar hatred begins to flare in my chest.
“Anyway, I was with Mateo for about eight months. Started at a low-level position and quickly worked my way up the ranks. Became pretty close with his son, Carlos. I proved myself to him enough times—thanks to the bureau feeding me intel—that he began to trust me, and I was this close to busting his operation wide open.”
Holding my thumb and forefinger about an inch apart, I shake my head with regret, remembering the day everything came crashing down around me.