Chapter 3
BIT
Iwasn’t home twenty minutes before receiving an alert that my brother Salazar, who everyone called Snapper, had driven through Los Cab’s main gate. Since I monitored the security feeds, I knew when everyone arrived and left.
When he pulled up to the guest cottage I’d made my home, I was already standing near the open front door.
“Hey, man. How was the ball?” he asked.
“Shy a couple of Avila brothers. Don’t think you won’t be hearing from Alex.”
Snapper took the porch steps two at a time. “Anything of interest happen this year?” he asked when I waved him inside.
“Brix called you, didn’t he?”
“He said you thought you saw someone.”
“I didn’t think it. He walked in the side door while I was still on stage.”
“Who did?”
“The guy who tried to kill me.”
“O’Donnell?”
I shook my head. “Grogan.”
Snapper pulled out his cell and swiped the screen. “Couldn’t have been either of them.” He turned the phone around so I could see that both men were still in prison. “No one from FAIM or the Killeens will be eligible for parole for another ten years, at least.”
Each “family” Snapper had mentioned proclaimed ties to the Irish Mafia, not that they acknowledged an affiliation.
Shortly after I was attacked as part of a kidnapping scheme, the two rival factions had been taken down by the organized-crime division of the FBI in what was the culmination of a five-year investigation.
Two hundred and fifty people in total were arrested and prosecuted, although I had no idea how many were from FAIM or from the Killeens.
Most of the charges were drug-trafficking related, but the list of convictions included money laundering, witness retaliation, witness tampering, maintaining drug premises, illegal firearms possession, possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia, and finally, murder.
A few received life sentences without parole, but most, as Snapper said, would be eligible in ten years.
“I’ll never forget his eyes,” I mumbled, looking at the image my brother had pulled up on the screen. I used my fingers to enlarge the mug shot. It was the color of his irises that stuck with me. They were amber, and when the light from the cave’s sconces hit them, they’d glowed like cat eyes.
Snapper’s brow was furrowed when I returned his phone. “They are an unusual color.”
“Shared by less than five percent of the world’s population.”
“Is that right?”
I glared at him. I wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t true.
“Could it have been the lighting in the room?”
I glared at him again, then went into the kitchen. “Want one?” I asked, holding up a can of non-alcoholic beer rather than the regular-strength one I was having.
“I’m good,” he responded, making a face at the NA beer.
“You’re driving,” I muttered.
“Yeah. Also, not thirsty.”
“What are you doing now?” I asked when he focused on something on his phone.
“Checking the security footage from Norman.”
I wasn’t surprised my brother had gotten his hands on the recordings so quickly.
George Norman, whose winery hosted tonight’s event, was close friends with our uncle, Tryst Avila.
The two men had been members of a secret society called Los Caballeros, a brotherhood that had been in existence for several hundred years.
My ancestors had established the branch in the US when they came to the country in the seventeen hundreds; at the same time, they gave the name to our family’s winery.
All my brothers were caballeros. I’d joined a few weeks ago after Brix insisted I do in order to call an emergency meeting.
At the time, my next oldest sibling, Cru, was in Australia, visiting his fiancée, Daphne, who’d returned home after her father—a former caballero—had a stroke.
The family’s business, called Cullen House, operated out of Perth, Australia, and had started out in wine distribution.
Over the years, they expanded exponentially and, now, owned a majority percentage of the larger wineries in the country.
While Cru was there, he learned the chairman of the board of the multi-billion-dollar corporation, a man Daphne’s father hadn’t appointed, was attempting a hostile takeover.
Uncle Tryst, George Norman, and the eight other caballeros viejos, as they called themselves, had prevented the leveraged buyout and proved the now-former chairman was actually a corporate spy for Cullen House’s biggest competitor.
Brix had been after me to become a caballero for years, saying it was my familial duty. My argument had always been that the Avila family was already well represented by him and our four other brothers.
Since no one other than those initiated into the organization was permitted to attend meetings, much less call them, he’d finally gotten what he wanted by forcing my hand.
“Is this who you saw?” Snapper asked, holding his phone out a second time.
The man maneuvered his body as he approached the door, and when he rushed away from it, he did it in such a way that it was impossible to see his face—a telltale sign of a criminal.
“That guy has to be six-foot-two or -three at least,” Snapper commented. “Neither O’Donnell nor Grogan were that tall.”
“I know what I saw,” I said, rubbing my left temple when that side of my head started to throb. Severe migraines were a side effect of the hit I’d taken, one my doctors said would eventually diminish, but so far, it seemed like they grew more frequent.
When security alerts popped up on my brother’s phone and mine, I figured it was Cru returning from the event. Instead, Eberly’s profile appeared.
“Shit,” I said under my breath, not surprised that she’d showed up. She was probably wondering what the fuck had happened since I took off within minutes of her bidding twenty-five grand for a date with me.
“What do you want to do, Bit?” Snapper asked.
“You can take off.”
My brother squeezed my shoulder. “You sure?”
I jerked away from him, which made my head throb more. “I’m fine.”
“I’ll check in tomorrow. Oh, and Eberly arrived.”
“Tell her to come in.”
I heard the two of them talking as I flicked the lights off in the kitchen and living room. I’d started a fire as soon as I got home earlier, and it was bright enough to illuminate the space. I dumped the rest of my beer in the sink, then turned around to face Eberly when she walked in.
“Hey,” I said, resting my hands on the counter. “Sorry about taking off like that.”
“It’s okay. Brix said you thought you saw someone.”
“I was mistaken.” I squeezed my eyes shut when the pain in my head got worse. When I opened them, she was standing beside me.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Migraine.”
“Do you have a cold pack?”
“Yeah,” I muttered, pointing to the fridge.
“Does that help more, or does heat?”
“Both.” I couldn’t decide which stunned me more; that she’d asked or that I answered.
She opened the freezer, pulled out the pack, then grabbed one of the cans of iced coffee I kept on hand from the refrigerator. She held it up. “Will this help?”
“Sometimes.”
“Do you want to sit or lie down?”
I motioned to the living room, then held my hand out.
“Hang on. I want to wrap the pack in something, and I’ll pour the coffee into a glass. Go sit. I’ll only be a minute.”
“You have experience with migraines?” I asked.
“My mom had them often when she was sick. What about heat?”
“Bedroom. There’s a pad plugged in next to the bed.”
She handed me the cold pack she’d wrapped in a towel and set the coffee on the table.
“Where does it help the most?” she asked when she returned with the heating pad.
“Shoulders. There’s an outlet—”
“Shh. I’ve got this.”
Truth was every movement—even talking—hurt. “Bed might be better,” I said when I couldn’t find a comfortable position on the sofa. “You don’t have to stick around,” I added when I realized she was following me.
“I’ll help you get settled, then I’ll go.”
Eberly sat on the edge of the bed when I lay on my stomach.
She pressed the cold pack against the left side of my head and draped the heating pad over my shoulders.
I felt her hands move to the back of my neck, then her thumbs press on either side of the base of my skull while her fingers fanned and rested gently above them.
“Gates of consciousness,” I whispered as I felt the tension in my neck and shoulders loosen from the pressure of her thumbs.
It was the first time in the last year, when migraines plagued me sometimes several times a week, that anyone had recognized my pain or attempted to help me with it.
More, I’d never permitted anyone to do so. “Thanks,” I murmured.
“Shh,” she soothed, and within seconds, I fell asleep.
I woke periodically when she’d shift position or switched out the cold packs. Each time, I wanted to tell her again that she could leave, but I couldn’t bring myself to. Her touch was a balm like none I’d ever known.
When I opened my eyes sometime in the middle of the night, the pain was gone but Eberly wasn’t.
Her right hand still rested on the base of my skull, but her left arm propped her head up, and she was sound asleep.
Rather than wake her, I let my gaze linger on her beautiful face.
This would be the single time I would allow the woman to be in my bed, and I wasn’t ready for it to end.
I rolled over when daylight streamed through the window. By then, Eberly was no longer beside me. No doubt she’d already gone home. I rubbed my neck where her hand had been, knowing her absence was for the best, but wishing it wasn’t.