19. Robin
ROBIN
Cruz doesn’t say anything when he unlocks the cell. He pushes the door inward, and for one second I just stand there, staring at the gap between the bars and the corridor beyond them.
“Come on,” he says quietly.
My pulse races, but I step forward anyway. I mean, what the hell else am I going to do? We may both be killed if Vega or that creep Zabala find us, and if it’s the latter, I’m pretty sure my fate won’t be pretty.
They can send photos to my family, wait for the Bellamys to cough up a few hundred million. I have no doubt they’ll pay, but I’ll be a shadow of myself if I play along with Vega’s game.
And Vega will forever know he can extort my family for money. You can’t put that toothpaste back in the tube.
Cruz reaches for my hand.
I almost pull back.
Almost.
But he knows this place, and I don’t. He’s the only reason I’m not bleeding on the floor right now. So I put my hand in his, and he leads me out.
We head through a corridor with low ceilings. Cruz moves quickly, but not so fast that I stumble. His grip on my hand is steady, but that means nothing. A steady hand can lead you into hell or out of it.
He takes a hard left, and we walk into a stone labyrinth. Seriously. I feel like I’m in an Indiana Jones movie.
Cruz takes another left and then a sharp right. My shoulder grazes the wall. The passage splits ahead of us, three dark mouths opening in different directions. Cruz doesn’t hesitate. He chooses the middle one and pulls me with him.
My stomach is a mass of nerves. “How do you know where you’re going?” I whisper.
“I just know.”
Not exactly comforting, but who the hell else can I trust? At least this way, if I don’t make it, I have a chance of dying with dignity.
The thought should scare me more than it does. I’m on adrenaline overload.
Maybe this is the part where the heroine in the horror movie follows the one man who seems slightly less monstrous, only to learn he’s been leading her deeper into the slaughterhouse the entire time.
Except I’m not a heroine.
I’m a woman who got cocky.
A woman who thought she could break into someone’s house because she has a rich last name. Someone who thought she didn’t need backup or a trail of breadcrumbs. Someone who didn’t learn her lesson the last time this happened.
Sure, I was trying to help, trying to be useful to my family. Still trying to prove myself to my mother.
Fuck. I hate that thought. Hawk and I have it in common, and it’s led us astray more than once.
I squeeze Cruz’s hand before I realize I’m doing it.
He rubs his thumb against my knuckles. It’s not exactly a caress. Still, I feel it everywhere.
And I hate that I feel it. I hate that my body is reacting to a harmless touch while I’m being led through a stone maze beneath God only knows what kind of criminal fortress.
But this is survival. Or at least this version of it.
I know a lot about survival, thanks to my twin sister. I remember Raven in bed. Thin. Pale. Being ravaged by cancer rather than some cartel psycho.
Cancer took my twin and hollowed her out while the rest of us stood around wishing and praying we could stop it. I remember watching her sleep and being afraid to blink because the sister I shared a womb with, a childhood with, might simply decide she was too tired to go on.
And I couldn’t save her. That’s the part that still hurts. I’m her twin. Her other half.
But I wasn’t a match. Neither were Hawk or Eagle.
Falcon was, thank God. Donating bone marrow to Raven even got him out of prison early.
If he hadn’t matched, Raven would have kept fading until she was gone.
She never would have met Vinnie.
Which actually could have spared us a whole new disaster, with his ties to the Bianchi crime family. But maybe that disaster needed to happen.
Maybe those secrets needed to be unlocked.
Except they nearly cost my father his life.
God, I can’t think about him without the world tilting. He’s supposed to be the strong one. The one who’s impossible to break. Then, out of nowhere, he tried to kill himself. Totally out of left field.
What pushed him? What made him decide that death looked easier than—
Cruz stops. His hand tightens around mine.
Red fear grips the back of my neck as a figure steps out of the corridor ahead.
My heart stops.
Zabala.
Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.
Terror clutches at me everywhere—my hands, my feet, my knees, my gut. He was supposed to be on a break. Did Cruz lie to me? Have I been duped?
Zabala drops his gaze to our joined hands. “Well,” he says. “This is interesting.”
Cruz doesn’t flinch as he steps slightly in front of me. “Lock issue,” he says.
Zabala’s eyebrows rise. “Lock issue?”
“Her cell door isn’t catching right.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes.”
Zabala looks past him at me. “And you’re moving her yourself?”
“Vega’s orders.”
Cruz doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t act protective. He doesn’t give me anything except the steady pressure of his hand around mine.
“It couldn’t wait?” Zabala asks.
“You want to explain to Vega why the hostage was kept in a cell with a faulty lock?”
Zabala looks me up and down, his eyebrows furrowed. “I wasn’t informed.”
Cruz shrugs. “You want to be informed, take it up with him.”
My heartbeat is so loud I’m sure they can both hear it. Every inhale feels too shallow, every exhale too loud.
Zabala looks at Cruz. Then at me. Then Cruz again.
I don’t know what he sees. I don’t know if Cruz is a good liar or if Zabala is just arrogant enough to assume no one would dare cross Vega under his nose. Maybe both.
Please be both.
Zabala rakes his gaze over me, and somehow I feel even dirtier.
“Why does she look so pretty?” he asks. “Wasn’t she supposed to be beaten up tonight?”
My throat closes.
“I was looking forward to tomorrow,” Zabala continues. “Taking the photos of her naked bruised body.”
I say nothing, because if I open my mouth, I’ll either scream or spit in his face.
“I’ll take care of it once she’s moved,” Cruz replies, his voice cold and detached.
“Will you?”
“Yes.”
“She doesn’t look frightened enough.”
I almost laugh. It would come out hysterical, so I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood.
Zabala reaches for my free hand. I try to pull back, but he holds on and lifts it to his lips.
My stomach heaves.
His lips are warm and damp. Then he slowly drags his tongue over my skin.
Vomit claws up my throat. I stop breathing. I stop being a person.
“I’ll miss this pretty little face,” Zabala says, looking up at me. “But broken women are a lot more fun to play with.”
I force the nausea down.
I want Cruz to kill him. Hell, I want to kill him myself.
Not hit him.
Not shove him.
Not threaten him.
Fucking kill him.
Zabala releases my hand.
I snatch it back, but I can still feel his lips and tongue. I will scrub my hand raw if I survive this.
When.
When I survive this.
Zabala looks at Cruz. “Don’t make her too ugly before tomorrow.”
Cruz inhales. “I don’t take orders from you. Now get the hell out of my way.”
Zabala smiles and continues the other way. “Sleep well, Robin.”
I swallow but I don’t look back.
I won’t.
Cruz keeps walking.
Not fast at first. He continues like nothing is wrong. Like we’re exactly where we’re supposed to be, doing exactly what we’re supposed to do.
Only when we turn the next corner does his pace change.
He stops in a shadow.
I drag air into my lungs.
I don’t throw up.
Small victory.
Cruz lets go of my other hand. “I’m sorry,” he says.
“For what?” I ask, though my voice barely works.
“For not beating him into a goddamned pulp.”
A laugh breaks out of me. Sort of. “That would’ve been bad?”
“It would’ve made this harder.”
I nod. I know he’s right. We have to play along. That’s how we stay alive.
“I get it,” I say, though secretly I wish he’d pounded the life out of that creep.
Cruz reaches for my hand.