Chapter 40
forty
Matias
“I think we should fire your lawyer.”
I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. “I already told you, Santos, there’s only so much she can do with the charges pressed against me.” I glance wearily at his face. “Did you drive here? Can you see yet?”
“Man, relax. I got dropped off—but the doctor said I’m almost as good as new. We’re talking about you and your lawyer here. I’m just saying.” My best friend leans back in the metal chair of the visitation room. “No bail? I think if we hired someone else, we would have gotten you out already.”
“Do you know how hard she worked just to get me the chance to see you?” I blow a breath. “You have no idea what it’s like.”
“Yeah, I don’t. Because your stupid ass decided to get arrested without me. Even Natalia got in on the action before I did.”
The name brings unbidden images to my head.
The guilty look on her face right before the FBI busted in. The way she kept trying to tell me something. The unshed tears when they stuffed me in the back of that squad car.
The way she didn’t even flinch when that agent thanked her for turning me in.
I don’t want to believe it.
But she didn’t deny it. Didn’t argue. Just stared at me with vacant eyes and tears streaming down her face. Mentally, I know she betrayed me. I connected the dots, but the bluster isn’t there yet. Because none of this feels real yet.
“You know she just got out on bail?”
I cut Santos a look. “What are you talking about?”
“She went ballistic on some agent after they carted you away. Got locked up for assault on an officer, or some shit like that.”
There’s a story there, but I don’t think I want to know it. “Santos, when she calls you…tell her not to come.”
“Is this because of that lie going around that she’s the one that turned you in? Come on, man. Don’t believe it. It’s cop psychology one-oh-one. Turn you against your girl.” The way he says it so flippantly makes my shitty lunch curdle in my stomach.
“I don’t want to see her.” I insist.
“She’s a mess.” He says, and the words make my breath catch in my throat. The cacophony of feels stack, on one top of the other, until it feels like I can hardly breathe. Until I can’t tell where my feelings begin and end.
“Santos—please. Not right now. I only have a few days until I get transferred to super max. I just want to lay low until I’m settled in.”
“Fine.” He holds up his hands. “How are you, then?”
I shrug. “It’s prison, man. People know not to fuck with me, I don’t fuck with them. Food tastes like sawdust—orange looks terrible on my complexion.” I murmur, the heaviness in my chest easing when Santos grins at my joke.
“Orange looks great on brown skin.” He says. “Don’t think about it too hard. You’ll be out before you know it.” Santos raps twice on the cold metal table, and then climbs to his feet. “Someone else is here to see you, so don’t go anywhere.”
I tense. My best friend notices, rolling his eyes and walking slowly to the door.
“It’s just Toledo, man. Stop acting like a high school girl." I glare at him as his hand stretches to feel for the doorknob. His vision is getting better, almost back to normal now. At least one of us will be able to go back to living life like none of this happened.
When I’m finally alone in the room, I lean back in my seat and try to make sense of my feelings. I want to be angry—furious. But I’m more angry at the coiling curiosity in the pit of my stomach when Santos brought up Natalia.
I can’t be angry at her, for some reason, and the realization makes me feel like the most pathetic fool on the planet. Because if I saw her now, well, if I saw her?—
The door swings open. Toledo’s head pokes in, blue-black hair swaying with the movement. Except it’s not my enforcer.
I’m going to string up Santos by his balls.
Because as Natalia pushes past the doorway, my heart gets stuck crawling up my throat.
Emotions slam into me, each one more confusing than the last. Unadulterated, gleeful joy, at being able to have her in arm’s reach after days apart.
Anger at the way things ended—at the fact that she is the reason for my downfall.
And at the top of it all, a heavy blanket of hesitation.
I’m not quite sure of who I’m sitting in front of anymore. I don’t recognize her.
My chair scrapes across the floor when I get up to leave.
“Wait, Matias!” Her voice is sweet like a bell. “Just let me explain?—”
I can’t. I just can’t sit across from her right now?—
“Please.”
Her voice sounds so defeated—so much like that night in the hospital—I freeze. Turn to look at her. Natalia’s eyes are filled with unshed tears, her face wrinkled in a childlike frown.
“I’m so sorry.” She breathes. “I didn’t mean for everything to—to end up like this. I…” She bites her lower lip, searching for the words with a deep sigh and plucking at the tears in the corners of her eyes.
“Talk.” I tell her roughly, unable to stand the silence. Miserably, pathetically, hoping she has a good reason for whatever the fuck happened the day of my arrest. Because I can handle prison. I can handle all of this shit.
But I don’t know how to handle losing her.
“Can we sit?” Natalia urges, stumbling to a chair and motioning me to do the same. It feels physically painful to lower myself into the chair—my heart is racing too fast for me to sit still—but I force myself to do it anyway.
For her.
“Why?” I blurt out, hating how my voice sounds. Like I care. “We’ve been over for years, why would you worm your way back into my life to get me in prison?”
“Were we?” Her voice gets louder, pitching in a restless way.
“Every time I thought we were done for good, you went ahead and interfered in my life. Something small, something meaningless. But it meant everything to me. I just…I couldn’t get over us.
And then Agent Bryce showed up, and he waved these pictures of you looking happy with other women, like you made a new life without me, and it killed me inside.
” She says heavily, staring at her hands on the table.
“It killed me that…that you left me…and you were happy with someone else. While I stayed up every night hoping just to dream of you.” She sniffs, tears rolling down her face.
“When he showed me those pictures, all I could think was ‘what does she have that I don’t?’” Her voice is so broken my anger starts to waver. I reach between us, cursing myself even when I take her hand in mine and squeeze.
“I never—there were no other women, Natalia.”
“I know that now. It’s just…by the time I realized Agent Bryce’s ploy…I was in too deep. I couldn’t bring myself to leave you.” She flings a strand of hair out of her face, giving me a cautious look. “Being with you is the most alive I’ve felt in years.”
I am embarrassingly easy, when it comes to her, I realize. Because the words soothe over the anger, smothering it until there’s hardly any bluster left. I sigh, clinging on to her hand, loving the way she takes my one hand in both of her small ones and studies my fingers.
“I tried to use my information from the FBI to protect you, as best as I could.”
“Is that how you connected the dots, about Ernesto?”
She nods. “I’ve been dying to tell you. I tried—multiple times—but the timing was always wrong. And then, when I finally worked up the courage, the FBI just waltzed in.” Natalia makes a frustrated sound. “I had no idea that it was a set up, you have to believe me. I didn’t know.”
I think back to the shell-shocked look on her face, and nod. “…I believe you.”
The words sit between us for a long moment. Natalia takes a cleansing breath and straightens her sweater.
“I’ve been talking to the lawyer. It’s going to take some time, but…we’re going to get you out of here.”
Her tone is so hopeful, it’s laughable. I grin humorlessly at her enthusiasm, noting the time on the clock above her head. Won’t be long until the correctional officers cut our time short.
“I’m not getting out of here.” I hold up my hands, motioning to the orange jumpsuit. “This is it. You’re going to have to get used to the idea of being without me.”
She frowns. “That’s not funny, Matias.”
“I’m not laughing.” I say firmly. “I’m over telling you what to do, Natalia.
But we can’t have the life we dreamed of anymore.
So unless you’re into the thought of people watching us fuck through a camera on a conjugal visit, this is all I can do for you.
” I don’t mean for my tone to get so hot, so hopeless. But Natalia doesn’t flinch.
“I’m not going anywhere, Matias. Be mad all you want. I understand. But I will get you out of here.”
“You’re the one that got me in here.” I say blandly, hating how I should hate her, but don’t. “You can’t just bend the world to your will, you know that?”
She pauses, leaning back and smiling. Not her normal sweet smile. Something more calculating. Something almost…uneasy.
“We’ll see about that.”