31. Amorette
AMORETTE
A knock came at the door, and I hopped up to see who it was. I’d been locked in this apartment for almost two weeks, with barely any contact with the brothers.
I was being a coward, but it was easier for me this way.
The second day I was in here, a security worker showed up then proceeded to install a keypad on the door. I wasn’t sure it was so much an alarm system as it was a way to communicate if I needed it.
He’d shown me three buttons.
Andre, Parker, and Grey.
There was a fourth button, but it wasn’t labeled.
Was that supposed to go to Lafe? Did they plan to leave me here long-term?
The way my brain warred with my conscience, that might not have been a bad thing.
I tried to open the door, but then I remembered it was locked from the outside.
“Come in,” I called.
Only one snick sounded before the knob slowly twisted open. Blanca stood there. I glanced down at her hands, expecting to see groceries, but they were empty.
When she cleared her throat, I realized I’d been staring at her.
“Sorry, come in.” I stepped back, but she shook her head.
“Walk with me?” she asked hesitantly, staring at my nose.
“Yeah, uh, sure. Give me a second to get dressed.” I left the door open as I quickly changed out of my pajamas and into a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt. Then I grabbed a pair of flip-flops from the closet.
Andre, of all people, had brought me a number of things before I went to bed. He didn’t speak, he didn’t even look at me. He just set the bag down inside the door, sighed, and left.
“Ready,” I said, blowing a strand of hair out of my face as I stepped into the hallway. “Um…” I didn’t have a way to unlock the door. Or lock it.
“I have the key,” she said in her accented voice. It was softer today than the first time she’d entered the apartment. It was also less sharp than when she dressed me down in the bathroom.
She shut the door and locked the bottom lock. When she turned around, she waved it in the air. “I would give it to you, but…” Her gaze traveled to the wall beside me.
“I’m enemy number one. I get it.”
“No, you’re not.” She took a deep breath, then started walking down the hallway. Not toward the commons, but the other way. “I think you’re only in there because you asked to be.” Her sweetly accented voice twined around me.
How did she know that? She hadn’t come back with us.
“You know this is where they keep visitors they don’t want here, right? It’s a pretty cage that turns into a glorified prison whenever they need it to be.”
“And how often does that happen?” We passed a dozen doors before we reached the one at the end. How many times had these rooms been completely full?
“Not as often as you’d think. But you shouldn’t be staying up here. It gives the men the wrong impression.” She lowered her voice as she pushed the door open, revealing a pristine concrete stairwell.
This was nothing like the dirty stairwells in DC.
“Are the men dangerous to me?” I wasn’t sure I believed her. More like I was curious what her answer would be.
She shook her head vehemently, her dark shiny hair sliding over her shoulders from the motion. “No. Absolutely not. Not with the brothers’ clear obsession with you.”
I doubted them putting me in the apartment that doubled as a cell proved any kind of obsession. If anything, I was an inconvenient problem they weren’t sure what to do with.
A hint of a smile flirted with my lips. I was always a pain in Grace’s ass. Looked like the same could be said for these men too.
“I don’t think you’re reading that right.”
“Oh, I am. They never bring their women back here. That Lafe smuggled you in says as much.” At the bottom of the stairs, she pushed the door open to the outside. The thick, humid air seemed to stick to my skin as we entered the courtyard.
Blanca pointed to a path that led to the outside wall. Following her instruction, I went ahead of her. As the path widened, she joined me back at my side.
“I don’t think I see it your way at all.”
She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. That’s how everyone here sees it. But it just takes one…idiot…to mistake the meaning of you in that wing.”
Two guards came into view as we neared a metal door. Blanca made a demand in Spanish, and they nodded as one used a key to open the door. It swung outward. Again, Blanca let me precede her.
The two men were young, but fit. Similar to the men I’d seen at the warehouse with all those evil assholes. I stared just as hard at them as they studied me on my way past them.
Because old habits die hard, I tried to get a glimpse into their character. Were they bad men? Did they hold any decency or regard for women?
I sighed, facing forward once I was past the wall. The one thing this experience taught me was that not everyone was who they seemed. Throughout my life and career, I’d banked on being a good judge of character, but I was starting to realize I didn’t know as much as I thought I had.
Things weren’t so black and white.
If they were…
Ugh. I needed a break from my thoughts.
On this side of the wall, the trees and foliage were thicker, even with the small houses not so far away. It was cute, quaint. Almost like stepping back in time fifty years.
“The beach is this way. I thought you might like a change of scenery,” she said, hesitation sticking to her soft words.
“After being cooped up in the apartment, this is great. Thank you.”
We walked in silence, and once we made it to the white stretch of sand, she walked us right up to the edge of the water, the soapy foam licking over my toes.
“Thank you,” she said as she turned to face me.
The wind from the ocean was strong and seemed to whip her words into the void.
No one outside of our small bubble would ever hear what she said to me.
“You didn’t have to save me, but you did.
Especially after I said…” She paused as if she had lost her words.
With a renewed fire in her eyes, she shuffled closer.
“You didn’t have to do that. So…thank you. ”
I nodded, wiping the side of my palm across my eyebrow and down the side of my cheek. The words you’re welcome sat on the tip of my tongue, but how could I tell her that, when I struggled so much with the decision to take that man’s life?
Her gaze snapped between each of my eyes until she was satisfied with what she saw. Then she sat down right in the wet sand and motioned for me to follow suit.
I did, and we probably sat there for an hour. The sand swept out from under me as the tide got higher and higher. The sun started to dip in the distance, streaking soft oranges and violets across the sky.
The salt in the air, the breeze on my skin, even the chilled water lapping at my legs…
Reminded me I was here. I was alive. Life seemed simple here on the shore. Like I wasn’t a monster for not even hesitating.
It was a reset I needed. We’d see how long it lasted. My thoughts had been so loud in the apartment I’d eventually numbed myself to them. This was…
This was nice.
All too soon, someone approached. His form was small and grainy but became more apparent the closer he got.
Grey.
My heart flopped in my chest as he ran toward us. Dressed only in a pair of gym shorts, sweat glistened off his skin from the setting sun.
He approached like he knew we’d be out here.
Grey sent Blanca a pointed look and she stood, wiping the wet sand from her shorts as much as possible.
“We might not ever be friends,” she said. “But I wanted you to know that I was wrong about you.”
I watched Blanca head back toward the wall as Grey dropped down next to me.
He looked good. His blond hair dark from sweat and slicked back. His face sharpened by shadows and his light green eyes bright from the reflection on the water.
“Are you over your tantrum now?”
I sputtered. How had I just been thinking about how much I missed being around him when he was a literal asshole?
“Tantrum?” I leaned away from him, afraid I’d punch him if he kept up his asshole remarks.
Sighing, he splashed water away from us. “Come on, mamí. You’re upset over something that you should be celebrating. If Blanca hadn’t wanted to take you on a walk, you would still be sitting in the apartment, wallowing in self-pity.”
My mind whited out. The way—He—Fuck.
“I took a life, Grey! Do you understand that? I fucking took a life like it was nothing.” My pulse thrummed in my ears and my hands shook.
“It wasn’t for nothing.” He looked at me like I was the densest person he’d ever met.
Yeah, well, I didn’t understand him either.
Like watching a movie reel, tiny specks of blood sprayed over me. I watched a breathing body fall limp to the ground.
“Then what was it for?” I whispered, looking at him through hot tears. “Why was death the necessary action?”
Grey took my chin in his hands and gently, but firmly, pulled my face toward his. Dipping closer, he looked deep into my eyes with zero sympathy, and I wasn’t sure what to do with that.
“Because you’re still here. I’m still here. Blanca is still here.”
“But he didn’t have to die!” I shouted, digging my hands into the wet sand to anchor myself.
“So fucking what! If you hadn’t killed him, I would have.
Or Andre. Or any one of us. Because that’s the world we live in.
” He dropped his hand like I burned him.
“I can’t fucking talk to you. Come on. We’re going back to the compound.
And you’re not going back to that fucking cage.
Pick where you want to go, but not there. ”
He stomped up the sand, apparently secure in the knowledge I’d follow after him.
And I did. I followed the bastard because I was weak. Right? That was the only reason I could think of for why I’d blindly listen to him.
Or maybe, a voice whispered in the back of my head, I didn’t want to find out what happened when I didn’t listen. I’d done that before, and I’d nearly gotten myself abducted. Again.