16. Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Fifteen
“ I knew it!” Dina pointed to her mother’s Audi in the parking garage next to her former mother-in-law's apartment building. The sleek black car straddled two spots in the most obnoxious way, further proof that her mother had been driving.
“Two spaces, huh?” Steve remarked with raised eyebrows.
“She’s special. Didn’t you know?” Dina rolled her eyes and pulled into the nearest open spot. “God forbid her car door get dinged.”
“That truck is familiar.” Steve motioned to the vehicle in question. “The orange Nissan?”
“It’s Jose’s. You’ve probably seen it in the employee lot where Beto usually parks.” When she killed the engine and reached for her purse Steve covered her hand with his. “I don’t think we should go in there guns blazing.”
Irritated that he assumed the worst, she shook off his hand. “I’m not a toddler that needs minding, Steve.”
“You’re right.” He removed his hand, and she instantly regretted being so snippy with him. More than anything, she missed the touch of his warm skin against hers.
“I’m sorry.” She clutched his hand. “I know you mean well.”
“I can be overprotective,” he acknowledged.
“And I can be overbearing,” she allowed.
“I like it when you’re a bit snippy with me.” Steve grinned, and her stomach did a little flip. “I’m not afraid of a woman who likes to be in charge.”
Flushed, Dina snatched her purse. “You better stop that before we get into trouble out here in this parked car.”
“I’d take a public indecency charge for you.”
“You’re impossible,” she huffed, face burning as she opened her door and all but scrambled out of the car. She breathed in the cool air and tried to slow her racing heart. He’s trouble—and I can’t get enough of him.
Steve wouldn’t let her lead the way. He did that annoying cop move where he placed his body in front of hers, blocking her view. S hielding me from danger .
The rush of excitement that accompanied that realization struck hard. Every chance he got, Steve proved he was exactly as he presented himself. Honest. Steadfast. Protective.
I want him.
I want him so badly.
But I don’t deserve him.
It was a painfully hard pill to swallow. All the mistakes, all the missteps, all the stupid decisions of her youth made it impossible for her to ever be with someone as good and wholesome as Steve.
He had a whole career dedicated to helping others, to obeying and enforcing the law. She was forever tied to a cartel hitman, and not just any hitman either. The exact evil psycho who had killed Steve’s grandparents.
“You have the loudest thinking face I’ve ever heard,” Steve said as they waited for the elevator to reach Mirta’s floor of the apartment building.
“What?” For a moment, she wondered if he’d misspoken an idiom that didn’t quite translate to Spanish. Other than his Texas drawl, he spoke Spanish like a native so she discounted that quickly.
“Your face.” He gently swept his finger along her cheek. “You get all frowny and dark-eyed when you’re thinking hard.”
She self-consciously touched the frown lines between her eyes. When she tried to touch the marionette lines next to her mouth, Steve stopped her with a roughly growled, “Don’t.”
“Sorry.”
He swooped in and kissed the apology right off her lips. She reveled in the romantic moment, wishing it could go on forever, but the elevator reached the right floor too soon.
“Let me go first.” Steve wasn’t asking. He stepped out of the elevator and led the way to the apartment. “4D, right?”
“Yes.”
Steve scanned the hallway, always alert and ready to defend. “I gotta admit. I expected something more for the mother of a cartel hitman.”
“He’s broke. There’s no money anymore.”
“Really? All of it?” Steve reacted with surprise.
“He spent every penny he ever made. He wanted to live like a cartel boss, but he needed my money to do it. Once my grandfather found out Diego was hitting me and I refused to leave, he cut us off.”
Steve winced. “I’m sure Diego didn’t like that.”
Dina rubbed the spot on her right side where Diego had kicked her so brutally during that beating. He’d broken multiple ribs and ruptured her eardrum. She still had bouts of tinnitus from that one. “No, he didn’t.”
As if he could read her mind, Steve stopped walking and placed a gentle hand over hers. “I could kill him for what he did to you.”
Staggered, Dina stared up at him with wide eyes. He wasn’t posturing. He meant it. “You’d do that for me?”
“For you. For Camila. For your family. For my family. For everyone else that piece of shit hurt.” He said it so calmly, so matter-of-factly.
“Well, if Diego comes for me, you might get that chance.”
“I suspect I will,” Steve replied somberly.
She shared his suspicion and prayed they weren’t about to come face-to-face with Diego as she knocked on the door. “Mirta!” she called out before rapping her knuckles against the door again. “It’s Dina. I know my mother is in there. Open up.”
At the sound of the lock disengaging, Steve nudged her aside, moving her out of the way. She let him take her place, holding her breath as the door opened.
“I figured you’d follow us here,” Jose said, standing sheepishly in the entryway of Mirta’s small apartment. He looked haggard, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep and his clothing unusually rumpled. “I didn’t have a choice, Dina. You know how your mother can be.”
“I do,” she acknowledged before shoving by Steve and Jose both to find her mother. She followed the scent of coffee down the cramped hallway into the open living space where she found her mother and suegra drinking coffee like old friends.
Dina was taken aback by the sight of her mother-in-law. Mirta looked so much older than the last time she’d seen her. She’d stopped coloring her hair, and it seemed much thinner, the white strands almost bare in some places and revealing patches of scalp. Her face wasn’t quite gaunt, but she’d clearly lost weight. Her skin seemed sallow and waxy.
She’s sick.
And, suddenly, it all made sense. She finally understood why Mirta had been so insistent on reuniting with Camila. She wanted to connect with her granddaughter before she was dead.
“Enedina,” Mirta greeted, using her full name in a way that felt absolutely grating.
“Mirta,” she replied frostily. Then, turning her attention to her mother, she asked, “Mama?”
As prim as a queen, Soila perched on the faded upholstered chair with her hands folded in her lap. Unlike Jose, she seemed fresh and bright in her plum blouse, tailored black trousers and embossed leather pumps. She’d coiled her hair into a sleek chignon, tucking in a vintage tortoiseshell comb as an accent. Looking just behind Dina, she smiled. “Good morning, Steve.”
“Good morning, ma’am.” He glanced at Mirta and nodded respectfully. “Ma’am.”
“My son’s replacement?” Mirta sniffed.
Dina bit her tongue. “Mama? Why are you here?”
Soila picked a bit of invisible lint from her trouser leg. “I decided it was time to handle this my way.”
“And what is my way ?” Dina pointedly looked around the apartment. “Paying Mirta a few million dollars in cash?”
Soila rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. As if I could carry millions of dollars in two handbags!”
“Well, you carried a whole bunch of it out of the bank this morning!”
“Did that little boy tattle on me?” Soila narrowed her eyes. “It’s my money! I’ll do whatever I like with it!”
“Including giving it to her?” Dina gestured to her former mother-in-law.
“Including giving it to her,” Soila agreed.
“Why?”
“Because we both want the same thing.”
“And that is what? Exactly?” Dina wondered, glancing between the two vexing women.
“To keep our granddaughter safe,” Mirta said.
“Really? That’s what you want?” Dina asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “After you got her counselor to manipulate her? To act as a go-between? To arrange little meet-ups?”
“I didn’t do that!” Mirta denied. “Chavela came to me! She told me that Camila wanted to know me better.” She started to tear up, and Dina refused to be moved by the show of emotion. “That’s all I’ve wanted for years! To be closer to my granddaughter! But you wouldn’t let me! Almost ten years, Enedina! You kept her from me for ten years!”
“Because you broke the rules!” Dina raised her voice. “I let have visitation and overnights, but I told you that if you ever let Diego speak to her it would be the last time you saw her. What did you do? You took her to that prison and let him touch her! Hold her! Take photos with her!”
“It was his birthday! He is her father!”
“No, he’s her sperm donor!” Dina argued. “He lost the right to call himself her father when he almost killed her!”
The entire apartment went silent. She could practically hear the heartbeats of everyone surrounding her, all of them holding their breath and waiting to see what she would shout next.
Dina swallowed hard, forcing down the bile that tried to erupt from her throat. Her voice quavered as she recounted the night that had changed her family forever. She couldn’t even remember how that fight had started. She thought it was probably something to do with her father or grandfather disrespecting Diego and Diego believing she hadn’t done enough to support and defend him.
They’d been in her childhood bedroom at the estate while they fought in harshly whispered tones. She’d been begging him not to make a scene, to wait until they were home the next day to do whatever he was going to do. To hit her. To kick her. To slap her. To scream at her.
But that had only made him angrier.
And then tiny little Camila had started to cry. It was a trigger for him. Hearing the baby cry.
It had happened so fast. One moment, she’d been rushing to grab Camila from her travel cot, to get a pacifier and quiet her down as fast as possible. The next, Diego had snatched the baby from her arms, torn her away like a ball he was stealing from another player.
And then...
“He threw her out the fucking window, Mirta!” Dina snarled the ugly truth. “He tossed her outside like a piece of trash!”
Mirta shook her head, refusing to believe it even now. Even after he’d pled guilty to child endangerment and attempted murder. “He slipped! She fell from his arms!”
“Fell from his arms through a closed window that he had to fling open? Fell from his arms after he ran across the room to that window?” Dina screeched, her head pounding at the horrific memory of what she’d witnessed. “If she hadn’t been swaddled and hadn’t fallen through those dense hedges, she would have died!”
“But she didn’t die! And he’s sorry for what he did!”
Dina balled up her hands as fury surged through her body. She wanted to scream, to throw something. She inhaled a shaking breath and used every last bit of self-control to say as calmly as possible, “He isn’t sorry. He will never be sorry. For anything, Mirta. He’s incapable of feeling sorry. He’s a monster—and you raised him.”
Mirta visibly shook in her seat. Her mouth twitched, and she blinked rapidly as if desperate not to cry. Eventually, she said, “He was like that from the day he was born. It wasn’t my fault.”
“Maybe,” Dina said, “but all the excuses you made for him are your fault. All the times you protected him when he was younger. All the times you spared him from consequence.”
“You know what he was like,” Mirta hissed. “You know how he could be. Even as a little boy, he was dangerous.”
“And yet you sit here and keep making excuses! You filled Camila’s head with lies. You put her at risk.”
“I didn’t know that he would ever get out!” Mirta shouted. “I thought we were all safe! He was in prison where he belonged. He could be controlled there. I didn’t see the harm in letting Camila reach out to him now. He couldn’t touch her from there.”
“Well, he’s not there anymore, is he? He’s out—and he wants to kill all of us! Even you!”
“He would never hurt me,” Mirta insisted weakly. “I’m his mother.”
“You’re delusional.” Dina shook her head. “He’d sell you for parts on the black market if he thought the money was worth more than the trouble of cutting you to pieces.”
“Dina!” Her mother chided. “Don’t be disgusting!”
“I’m being honest. I’m being realistic.”
“And so am I,” Soila replied. “That’s why I came here with the money. Mirta needs medical care. She wants to move into a quiet retirement community on the coast where she’ll be taken care of until...well... until .”
“And in exchange for the money?” Dina asked.
“There is no exchange of money,” Mirta revealed. “It’s going right back to your mother when we’re done with it.”
“A lure?” Steve said, stepping forward to join the conversation. “You’re going to draw him out by offering him money?”
“He needs money to escape. His plan to get help from friends didn’t work out,” Mirta admitted. “He calls me sometimes, always asking me to reach out to his old connections. They won’t even take my calls.”
“You get him the money—and then what?” Steve asked. “You call the police and have him picked up?”
“Yes,” Mirta said.
Dina noticed her mother guiltily averting her gaze. If Steve saw it, he didn’t mention it. What game are you playing Mama?
“He’s not stupid. He’ll be expecting that,” Steve warned.
“I’m going alone,” Mirta said, stubbornly lifting her chin. “He won’t hurt me.”
Dina pinched the bridge of her nose and smothered the string of ugly curse words dancing on the tip of her tongue. Blowing up at her former mother-in-law wasn’t going to help. Yelling at her mother for this dangerous plan wasn’t useful either.
Instead, she levelled a stare at her mother. The expression was so familiar. It was almost like looking in a mirror.
Intractable. Headstrong. Dogged.
Just like me.
Dina sighed and shrugged her shoulders. “Fine. You two seem to have it under control.” She glanced at Steve who seemed bewildered by her response. “Let’s go.”
“Dina,” Steve protested.
“We need to get home to Camila.” Dina didn’t want to argue with him. “We can talk in the car.”
“When can I see her?” Mirta asked, her eyes filled with hope. “I know I did it wrong, but she is my granddaughter. She’s all...” Mirta’s voice wavered, and she gulped. “She’s all I have left.”
“When Diego is back in prison, you can see her,” Dina decided. “Until then? She’s not coming near your or that school where your little friend Chavela works.”
“I didn’t use Chavela to get to Camila,” Mirta insisted. “She and Diego connected through a friend. They write letters. She went to visit him, and now they’re—.”
“Dating?” Dina guessed with disgust. Chavela always was a pick-me girl.
“I never thought Chavela would be dangerous to Camila,” Mirta continued contritely.
“You were wrong.”
“Yes.” Mirta shook her head. “I never imagined that such a nice woman could do anything so terrible.”
“She sent those two idiots to kill Beto and Steve?” Dina asked, wanting to confirm her suspicion.
“Probably.”
“And helped him escape from custody?”
Mirta shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Chavela’s cousin works in the prison where Diego was being held,” Jose interjected from behind her. “One of her brothers was in the cartel before he was killed. I’m sure she still has contacts with them. I don’t know when or why Chavela became friends with Diego, but it’s clear she used her family connections to help him escape.”
“But didn’t think far enough ahead to organize his escape from the country or the resources he would need,” Steve remarked.
“And it’s not our problem,” Dina said, taking Steve’s elbow in hand. “We should get back to the house. Mama and Mirta can sort this out themselves.”
Steve obviously didn’t agree, but he walked out of the apartment without argument. Only when they were in the elevator, did he finally ask, “Am I missing something? Is there a reason we’re letting those two old biddies plan some hairbrained scheme to lure out and trap Diego?”
“If my mother ever hears you call her a biddy,” Dina warned.
“The point still stands,” Steve replied.
“My mother is going to double-cross Mirta. I don’t know how, and I’m not sure I want to know how.”
“Which means your mother is in danger,” Steve insisted.
“She knows, and she came here without telling me for a reason,” Dina reasoned. “She doesn’t want me or you involved.”
“That’s what worries me most,” Steve grumbled. The elevator reached the ground floor, and he escorted her out into the lobby, his gaze constantly moving and scanning. She felt so safe with him, even with her crazy ex on the run.
I don’t want him to leave.
I want him to stay.
But he can’t.
And I won’t ask.
“Well, shit,” Steve swore softly when they stepped out into the late morning sunlight.
She stiffened, fearing the worst. Her eyes settled on the police cars waiting on the curb. A familiar face greeted them—Chief Inspector Morales who had been in Rafa’s office the day of Jasper’s birthday party.
“Captain Morgan, we need to talk.”