Chapter 24
twenty-four
Natalia
“Please say yes.”
I press the cell to my ear with my shoulder, using my free hand to push the massive mansion’s door open.
Figures that Matias doesn’t lock his front door.
Why would he, though, when he’s got at least a dozen armed men around his house?
Anyone else would’ve pissed themselves at the entourage along the hidden driveway.
But after growing up the way I did, seeing the welcoming party almost feels… safe.
God. I really need to get therapy.
“Alma, I won’t know anyone there. You know I have a hard time talking to people I do know, let alone strangers.” My best friend clucks her tongue.
“This isn’t about you, Natalia! Think about me. Sitting at Daniela’s wedding, all by myself, knowing all my cousins are making fun of me in the group chat because I’m still single!”
I walk into the cavernous house, eyes flitting across the open floor plan, relaxing when I don’t see anyone around.
“I don’t think you bringing another woman is going to help. They’re going to think we’re lesbians.”
“Who cares? I need the moral support.” Alma sighs. “Titi Marcia is still trying to get me with that guy she set me up on the date with. He won’t leave me alone. I need you.”
I laugh, walking to the large, black marble counter in the center of the minimal kitchen and dropping off the heap of food I made at home. Soup, rice, I even made cupcakes to try and cheer up Santos, whose sight still hasn’t returned. It’s coming, the doctor said.
Just not soon enough. I’m hoping the food will make him at least a little happy. Because there hasn’t been much to lift his spirits lately.
“I don’t know, Alma. I’ll think about it. There’s just so much going on.” I tell her, looking around the kitchen for some serving spoons.
“You owe me.” My friend crows. “I had to put up with that oaf friend of yours for hours while you were jumping his friend’s bones.”
I snort. “You begged to come over.”
“You didn’t tell me how insufferable he was!”
“He lost his sight. Give him a break. He’s going through a lot right now.”
“Yeah.” She snorts. “He’s going through a lot, all right. A lot of ass.”
I pause. “What?”
“He was voice-to-texting every woman in his phone trying to get pity sex—that’s after I turned him down, by the way. He told me, ‘The only reason you’re volunteering to watch me on a Friday night is because you’re not hot enough to be outside—thankfully for you, I’m blind!’!”
My jaw drops. “He didn’t say that.” Santos? Sweet, goofy Santos?
“Oh, he said it, all right.” She huffs. “I took his phone away. I should have pushed him into the pool.”
“I…am so sorry he said that. I’ll talk to him.”
“Oh, who cares. It’s not like I’ll ever see his dumb face again.” There’s a silent beat on the other end, and then: “You think I’m hot, right?”
“Of course, Alma. You’re gorgeous.” And I mean it. Alma gets attention everywhere she goes. And the last thing I need is Santos giving her a complex. Raised voices pitch from the darkened corridor off the living area, and suddenly, I know exactly where the ungrateful patient is.
“Let me call you back. I’m going to deal with him.”
No one flinches when I barge into the office.
“You’re really dumb if you think—” Santos breaks off, slowly turning towards me from his seat at Matias’ desk.
I try not to look at Matias, but something in my heart races when the bored expression is wiped clean off his face the moment he sees me.
Our chat in the warehouse office dances in the back of my mind, just like it has since that night.
I can’t stop thinking about his words. Can’t get his heated gaze out of my head.
Every time I close my eyes, it’s all I see.
“Who’s there?” Santos says slowly. “I smell food. Natalia, is that you?”
“It is me, but the food is gone. I threw it into the valley!” I yell, dropping into the chair beside Santos and smacking his shoulder. “Alma told me what you said to her!”
He cowers in his seat, holding up his hands as Matias leans back in his seat with an amused look.
“Ow! Stop that! This is abuse!”
“Abuse? Abuse is what I’m going to do to you if you don’t apologize, Santos! Who looks at a person nursing you at your worst and uses it as an opportunity to poorly proposition them for sex?!”
Matias leans forward. “You tried having sex with her friend? Santos, we talked about this.”
The man of the hour crosses his arms, a petulant expression on his face. “You two aren’t my parents, you know. You can talk all you want, I don’t have to listen. And I wasn’t really going to sleep with her.” He huffs. “She wouldn’t help me roll up my joint. I just said that to piss her off.”
I roll my eyes. “Well, I’m pretty sure you gave her a complex. You’re going to apologize!”
“Okay!” He says, shrinking away from me. “Jesus, you have a temper.”
“My friend is really pretty.” I tell him, miffed. “She’s beating men off with a stick, and you’re not going to sit around this big house making her feel bad about herself, you hear me?”
Santos pauses. “She’s pretty? What does she look like?” Matias reaches across the desk and slaps him behind the head.
“Who cares, you dick? You’re blind.”
“Not for long. Let’s go have some lunch, Natalia. You can call your pretty friend on the phone and I’ll tell her how sorry I am.”
Matias scrunches his face. “You’re not sorry. You’re horny.”
Santos stumbles out of the office, pretending not to hear him, and we share a look. Santos is trouble, and I need to keep him away from Alma at all costs.
Matias leans back in his chair and watches me for a moment, his gaze warm, like getting me alone with him in an enclosed space is exactly what he’s been waiting for.
Oh, no. “I brought food for everyone. It’s in the kitchen, when you’re ready to eat.”
“You cooked for me?” My face heats at the tone of his voice. Food always meant something more to him. Something territorial. Something intimate.
“I made food for all of us.” I say quietly, shrugging.
“You should bring me a plate.” He says teasingly, and something in the way his eyes gleam makes me think I’ll be the one getting spread over his desk if I dare to come back with food.
A crash from the kitchen saves me. I jump to attention, giving a fleeting smile. “Maybe later?”
In the kitchen, Santos stands over a shattered plate, shifting his weight from one foot to another as he tries not to step on broken ceramic. I usher him into the living room and plop his lunch in his lap, waiting until he starts eating to sweep up the mess.
“We really should get you a nurse.”
Santos stops mid-bite, his gaze in the distance like he knows it’s no use trying to look at me.
“Don’t bother. I’ll be back to normal soon.” I press my lips together, leaning on the kitchen island and watching him. Although he’s been recovering spectacularly in all other areas, his sight is the only thing that hasn’t managed to bounce back.
“I can kind of see shapes now.” He squints. “So I’m better already.” Santos reaches down to scoop rice with his spoon, moving so aggressively he almost knocks half the food off his plate.
“You’re right. That is progress.” I tell him gently, fixing myself some soup and coming to sit with him on the pristine sectional. The plush fabric sinks beneath me, and I watch the sun setting high over the hills before having a bite.
“Besides, I need to get better. I need to get back to work.” He says firmly. “Matias needs me.”
Something tugs at me at the knowledge that Santos wants to be back out not to make more money, but to be there for his friend.
“Just focus on resting.”
“No.” He shakes his head and looks over his shoulder. “Matias cooked up some crazy ass plan that’s going to get him killed. I told him to knock it off, but he won’t listen. My accident got him spooked. He’s not thinking rationally.”
I pause, putting down my spoon and turning to face him. “What are you talking about?”
He turns to me, like he just remembered I’m sitting next to him. “Maybe you can talk some sense into him. He put the word out to make a sale. A big sale. We’ve been sitting on a stockpile, girl.” My eyes widen. Surely, this isn’t the elusive shipment Bryce has been foaming at the mouth for?
“The one you were visiting the day you were attacked?”
He snaps his fingers. “Exactly. And he wants to sell it all in one rip. We had a plan for that shipment. And he’s throwing it all to hell now, it’s going to get him killed.
We still don’t know who did this.” He says, waving at himself.
“It could have been one of our guys, for all we know. And all this talk of that fucking shipment is going to make people reckless.” Right before things went to shit with Papa, there was this shimmer of restless energy.
It was like no one was able to sit still.
There was strife and quarrel everywhere I went.
The dreadful pit in the base of my stomach now feels the same, too. And suddenly, that confusing conversation at the warehouse between Westfall and Paco when no one was looking comes to mind.
“Do you really think one of your guys did this?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”
I think hard before saying anything, because I know speaking out of turn can get someone killed.
“When Matias brought me to the warehouse a few days ago, I was moseying around without him. He was talking business with Toledo, and no one really paid me any mind. I saw Westfall having this weird conversation on the phone.”
Santos pauses mid-chew. “What do you mean, weird conversation?”
I bite my lip and sigh. For all I know, the poor young accountant is still trying to clear his name from the proverbial noose I threw around his neck. I can’t be wrong about this. But what are the chances that my shot in the dark is actually right?
“I saw him arguing on the cell with someone. But he was speaking really quietly. When he saw me, he ended the call and got back to work. It was probably nothing. I heard the guys talking about his crazy girlfriend. It was probably her fighting over something stupid.”
Santos turns to me. “What language was he speaking?”
I purse my lips, trying to remember. “Definitely not Spanish.”
“No, duh. He’s as white as wonder bread.”
I smother a laugh. “I’m not sure. I think I heard English, but I couldn’t hear what he said.”
Besides me, Santos hums. “Then he wasn’t talking to his girlfriend. His girl is Polish. Each time they argue, we learn a new Polish curse word. It wasn’t her.”
The sofa sinks beneath me when I lean into it. “Oh, shit.”
“Sounds about right.” He turns to me. “When Matias gets back, you need to go in that office and work your magic on him. Talk him off the edge.”
I crane my neck to look in the direction of his office. “What do you mean, when he gets back?”
“I think I heard him leave when you were making a mess in the kitchen. He had a big meeting with Toledo today.” The soup in my stomach curdles.
“Maybe I can call him.” I reach for my phone, freezing when it starts vibrating in my hands. Sylvia’s face comes up on screen, and I decline the call so fast I almost feel guilty.
I just need a second.
When I try calling Matias, Sylvia calls again, and this time, I know better than to decline her call.
“Sylvia, I’m kind of busy right now, can I just call you back?—”
“Where are you?” Her voice is sharp and straight to the point. I climb to my feet, looking out over the hills and trying to smother the nervous canter in my chest.
“Just out and about. What’s wrong? Is everything okay?”
“No, Natalia. I got a phone call yesterday. From a so-called Agent Bryce. He’s wondering if I’ll assist in an undercover investigation you’re helping him with.” Oh, fuck.
Fuck.
I press the cell to my forehead for a moment, trying to cook up the right thing to say.
“Come home, Natalia. I’ll be waiting for you.” Is all she says, and then the call disconnects.
Icy pinpricks slither up my back as Santos looks in my direction, and suddenly, I’m not sure how much he heard.
“What’s wrong? Who was that?”
“My landlady.” I lie. “There’s something going on at my apartment. I have to go.” I need to make Sylvia understand what’s happening before she does something stupid. Like find a way to get to Matias and tell him everything.
I’m not done with him.
“Who’s going to be here with me?” I scramble to my feet, throwing on my shoes and trying to figure out if Santos can be trusted to sit still long enough without getting himself killed. An idea forms, and I scramble to shoot a text to Alma before running to the door.
I’ll go to the wedding. Just watch Santos this afternoon. Emergency.
“Start practicing that apology—and pray Alma accepts and doesn’t kill you. I’ll be back!” The phone pings, but I’m too short of breath sprinting to my car to pay it any mind.