30. Eve
30
EVE
“ T oo many goodbyes,” I tell Dante with a sigh, watching him dress for the third time today and rewarding me with a reverse striptease that is equally as erotic.
“It won’t be like this forever,” he reassures, sliding his gun into the waistband of his jeans. He straightens up with a strange expression on his face. “I had a vision about making love to you like that the night we first met.”
“Before or after you held a gun to my head?”
“You, with your dark hair spilling all around me, and your nails shredding my back—”
“Did I hurt you?” I lift the bedsheet to hide my blushes.
“Sweetest pain I ever felt,” he says, his lips curving.
“Well, it’s not a vision anymore.” I kneel naked before him, wrapping my arms around his waist, laying my cheek on his chest and breathing in the heady scent of sex, sweat, and him. He hasn’t showered, and my guess is he has no intention of it. Like me, he wants to keep the smell of us on his skin for as long as possible.
He plants a quick, chaste kiss to the top of my head and unravels himself. “I need to leave, and I have to speak to Manuel first. He’s downstairs in the car waiting for me.”
“Go easy on him, Dante. The kindness you showed him all those years ago has left a big impression.”
He frowns. “What kindness?”
“When he was a boy…”
He shrugs. “I don’t remember. He must be mistaken.”
“Bullshit. You do remember. Stop dismissing yourself like that. Why can’t you accept that you’re not totally evil?”
“You’re the only one naive enough to think so.” He catches my lips in a brief goodbye kiss.
“I want you to take your knife back, too.”
“No, keep it.”
“Please, Dante. I have so much security. You’re in more danger than I am.”
He considers this for a moment. “Fine.” He picks it up from my nightstand and slides it into his back pocket.
“Return to me,” I say, pressing my palms to his face.
He exhales on the certainty of a promise. “Always.”
Unease is the only thing lying in wait for me when the front door closes. This isn’t some safe, boring business trip he’s taking. He’s traveling into the eye of the storm to seek out and murder his brother. The more I try and wrap my head around it, the more insidious it sounds .
Somehow, I need to find a way to entice him out of the shadows, to show him that there’s another way. Only then will his bloodlust lessen.
I flick through the pages of a book to distract myself, but I see Dante in every line. It’s his fault. He asked me to meld him with all my fictional heroes, to supplant his own failings with their strengths. But Dante Santiago is too complex a man for that. There is no one, imaginary or otherwise, who can match his beauty, his confidence, his presence. His strengths are too great, his weaknesses too deplorable. He’s the only man I see when I close my eyes.
I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I know it’s pitch black, and someone is tapping at my bedroom door.
“Se?orita?”
“Hang on a minute, Manuel!” I slip into my panties and grab an old gray college sweatshirt from the chair next to my bed. He knocks again. “Okay. I’m good.”
He enters looking guilty as hell. He thinks I’m about to rip the shit out of him for screwing my best friend.
“Are you hungry? I cooked pasta.”
“What, no hot date with Anna?” I drawl, trying to put him at ease. He rolls his eyes and shakes his head, but something tells me he’s not fully onboard with that plan. “I asked Dante not to give you a hard time…”
“He didn’t.” Manuel flashes me a quick grin. “But my first priority is you, se?orita. Perhaps when Se?or Santiago returns—”
The cell on my nightstand starts chiming. I tilt my head to see who’s calling, but the number is withheld. I bet it’s Dante on one of his crazy, high security lines that zips around the world forty-eight times before connecting.
“Hold that thought,” I say, answering the call. “Hello?”
“Miss Miller?”
“Yes.”
“Miss Eve Miller?”
Something about the caller’s heavy accent makes the skin on the back of my arms tingle, and not in a good Dante-like way. At the same time, I hear a faint knocking at my front door.
“I’ll get it,” says Manuel, heading into the living room.
I smile my thanks at him. “Who’s speaking, please?”
The voice chuckles. “You let that good-looking bodyguard of yours answer the door, Miss Miller, and all will be revealed.”
My smile vanishes in an instant. “Manuel, stop!” I scream, flying from my bed, not bothering to hang up. Every thought and impulse is on high alert. Dread is coating my insides with a chilly blue color. “Don’t open that door!”
But it’s too late.
It will always be too late.
The next few seconds play out in slow motion. Manuel’s hand is still resting on the handle, his profile half-lit from the light in the hallway, when I see his expression switch from surprise to anger. There’s a dull roar and a distant, piercing scream, and then the back of my bodyguard’s head is exploding in a cascade of crimson as his body is propelled backward into my apartment, coming to rest sprawled out across my glass coffee table.
More seconds tick by.
I can’t take my eyes off Manuel’s dead body. There’s nothing left of his head but a bloody stump. Reality hits me like a slap to my face, and my stomach roils in revulsion .
“My brother’s whore, I presume?”
Recognizing the same voice from the phone call, I drag my gaze upward. Three men are standing in my doorway, but I only see one. He’s tall and rail thin, olive-skinned with slicked-back hair, a solid jawline, and the same razor-sharp cheekbones that I’ve kissed a million times. I meet his cold, unflinching stare as random thoughts slice through my mind like shrapnel from a detonated bomb.
He’s in Colombia.
Dante promised me.
Is my security detail dead too?
“You’re a hard woman to find,” says Emilio Santiago with a sigh, stepping further into my living room. “I tortured every single man in Dante’s compound, and I still couldn’t discover the location of your rat hole.” Revolted, I watch him rake his gaze up my bare legs and linger over the heavy swell of my breasts beneath my college sweater. “Well, he’s got good taste. I’ll give him that.”
This makes his men laugh.
“W-what are you doing here?” I stutter, tugging down my sweater to cover as much exposed skin as I can.
He transfers his gun to his other hand and calmly shuts the door behind him. “So, you know who I am?”
I nod.
“Good. That spares us the painful, drawn-out introductions.” He glances around my small apartment, wincing in distaste at the colorful chaos of my overloaded bookcase, my collection of mismatched furniture, and the dark bloodstains spreading out across my favorite cream rug. “I’m afraid I don’t share Dante’s affection for this country, Miss Miller. I loathe both the place and the people.”
“Go back to Colombia then.”
This earns me a tight smile that never reaches his eyes. “I’m planning on it. Just as soon as my business here is done.”
“I can’t help you. I don’t know where Dante is,” I say, inching toward my bedroom.
“I know you don’t.”
My steps falter. Then what does he want with me?
I angle my wrist and slide my cell behind my back. If I can get to my room and barricade the door, it might buy me enough time to call for help.
“Would you like to hand me your phone now, Miss Miller, or do I have to break every one of those delicate fingers?”
I stare back at him, wide-eyed and innocent, with my heart pounding right out of my chest. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Diego, please show her how I deal with liars.”
The largest of his two men moves toward me with an unpleasant look on his face. Ripping the cell out of my hand, I see a blur of his fist before my left eye socket explodes in blinding agony. He pushes me to the floor as my hand flies to my face to staunch the heat that’s radiating like molten lava into my jaw. When I pull my trembling fingers away, they’re drenched in blood.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Not so pretty with a fractured cheekbone,” says Emilio, a note of satisfaction in his voice. “Still, I know how much my brother enjoys inflicting pain on his bitches. I’m sure you’re used to it by now.”
“How did you find me?” I gasp out, choking down the urge to vomit again .
“Dante shouldn’t put so much trust in his confidantes.” Emilio crouches down to bring his face level with mine. I recoil in horror against the wall. His cold, dead eyes are even more terrible close-up. His aftershave is bitter and overpowering, and my stomach starts roiling all over again. “Time to go, sweetheart,” he murmurs. “And guess what? You’re coming too.”