26. Cruz
CRUZ
I wake with clean sheets tangled around my legs and Robin Bellamy curled against my side.
Then yesterday comes back.
All at once.
Fuck.
I really got myself into it this time.
I turn my head carefully.
Robin is asleep with one hand curled near her mouth, her dark hair spilling over the pillow, her lashes lying against her cheeks.
My stomach knots.
She looks peaceful.
I lie there for another minute, listening to her breathe. I don’t regret getting her out of there, but for a moment I think about what it all means.
Vega has spent years trying to get leverage over the Bellamys. Years. Money, threats, back channels, old debts, men in suits, men with guns.
Then Robin fell into his hands.
And I took her.
I opened the cage.
Vega will have my head for this.
Not a figure of speech.
He’ll literally take my head.
Zabala will help. He’ll enjoy it too. He’ll say he knew I was weak. He’ll say he knew the girl got under my skin. He’ll say I forgot who I owed.
Maybe he’s right.
Maybe I did forget.
Or maybe, for the first time in a very long time, I remembered something. That I’m human.
I stare at her again.
She’s not mine.
But God help me, waking up with her body wrapped around mine feels like fucking home.
I erase the thought quickly.
I need coffee.
I need a plan.
I need clothes.
Carefully, I untangle myself from her and slide off the bed.
I dress as quietly as possible, pulling on yesterday’s clothes because I don’t have anything else. The shirt is disgusting, but Senora will have something for me. I find a notepad and pencil on the small table near the window.
I tear off a clean section and write.
In the kitchen getting coffee.
—Cruz
I leave the paper on the pillow beside her, where she’ll see it when she wakes, and quietly open the door.
The hallway is dim. The house smells different in daylight. Less perfume. More coffee and the faint sourness of liquor spilled sometime before dawn.
A man snores behind one closed door. Someone laughs softly behind another.
I head downstairs to the kitchen. Senora Valentina is at the kitchen table. She wears an overly elaborate red and pink robe. Her black hair is wrapped in a silk scarf. Gold hoops hang from her ears. She taps her nails against her heart-shaped mug.
All the mugs here are heart shaped.
Every single one.
If a client spends the night, he gets coffee in a heart mug in the morning.
Love by the hour. Breakfast included.
Senora V looks me over once slowly and grins.
Oh, God. I’m just remembering now. Her room is below where Robin and I are staying. I was so tired and stressed that I didn’t think about it.
I stop in the doorway. “Please don’t.”
She wrinkles her nose. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was drinking my coffee.”
“With that face.”
She purses her lips, but her eyes sparkle. “This is my face, mijo.”
I walk to the counter and reach for the coffee pot. “Too early.”
“It was too late, actually. Nearly dawn by the time the two of you quieted down.”
I ignore her as I pour coffee into two mugs and say nothing.
I sit across from Senora Valentina.
She leans forward, eyes bright. “So…”
“No.”
“It sounded like you and your not-girlfriend had a very good night.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
She lifts her eyebrows. “I said not-girlfriend.”
“You said it like that means something else.” I take a drink of coffee.
Strong and black. Perfect.
“She’s sleeping?”
“For now.”
“Good.”
I look back at her. “Thank you for the room.”
“Anytime, Cruzito. This is still your home too.” She tilts her head. “You look like her this morning. Like Esperanza.”
My mother’s name jolts me. It always does. “Thank you,” is all I say. My mother, after all, was beautiful.
Two women enter the kitchen a moment later.
One is tall and curvy, wrapped in a black lace robe with her hair piled on top of her head.
She has sleepy eyes, dark skin, and the satisfied expression of a woman who has already survived the morning’s worst. The other is shorter, with coppery hair, freckles across her nose, and a green satin robe tied loosely at her waist.
Both stop when they see me.
The tall one lifts her brows.
The redhead’s mouth curves.
Senora Valentina gestures with her mug. “Mercedes. Esmeralda. This is Cruz Moreno.”
“Cruz,” Mercedes says. “Well. Good morning.”
Esmeralda leans one shoulder against the doorframe. “Very good morning, apparently.”
Senora V bursts out laughing.
I take another drink of coffee and wonder why the hell I didn’t stay upstairs with Robin.
“These are newer girls,” Senora V says to me. “After your time living here.”
“Living here?” Esmeralda asks.
I set the mug down. “A long time ago.”
“Cruz is the son of Esperanza Moreno,” Senora Valentina says. “One of the best. Best heart in this whole house. Best legs too, God rest her.”
I narrow my eyes. “Valentina.”
“What? It’s true. She knew it.”
Mercedes sits at the table and smiles at me. “So you were raised here?”
“Partly.”
“Interesting.”
“Not that interesting.”
“Oh, I disagree.” Esmeralda moves to the coffee pot.
I need Robin to wake up.
No.
I need Robin to sleep.
No.
I need to leave this kitchen.
Mercedes pulls cash from inside her lacy robe. She counts a stack, peels off bills, and slides them across the table to Senora Valentina.
“Your ten percent,” she says. “Guy was decently attractive, so that was nice. Took off in the middle of the night, though.”
Esmeralda pours coffee into a white mug painted with red roses. “Mine was easy.”
“Easy?” Senora V asks.
“A couple.”
Mercedes perks up. “Fun?”
“Almost. Then they started arguing halfway through.”
“About what?”
Esmeralda smirks. “Whether he was enjoying himself too much.”
Senora Valentina snorts.
Esmeralda sits, tucks one leg under herself, and pulls cash from her robe pocket. “They left early. Paid for the full night. Nice people. I hope they work it out.” She hands her share to Senora V.
“God bless jealousy,” Mercedes says.
“And upfront payment,” Esmeralda adds.
They clink heart mugs.
Mercedes turns her attention back to me. “So, Cruz Moreno, raised in a brothel and still blushing at breakfast.”
“I’m not blushing.”
“You are a little,” Esmeralda says.
“I’m tired.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Senora Valentina points at me. “He was in the pink room.”
Esmeralda’s eyebrows shoot up. “Next to mine?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” Her grin turns wicked.
I shoot Senora V a look. “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I’m close.”
Mercedes props her chin in her hand. “So it sounds like you’re a gifted lover as well.”
I nearly choke on my coffee.
Esmeralda’s smile widens. “Wife? Girlfriend? Fiancée?”
“No.”
“No to which one?” Mercedes asks.
“All.”
“Ah,” Esmeralda says. “Complicated.”
I stare at my mug. “You have no idea.”
Senora Valentina’s smile fades slightly.
Mercedes leans back. “Is she beautiful?”
I don’t answer.
“Very complicated,” Esmeralda says.
I push back my chair. “I should take this upstairs.”
“What?” Mercedes asks. “And deprive us of meeting her?”
I rise. “That’s the plan.”
I can’t sit here any longer. I need to think. Plan. Call someone. Find out how close Vega is to discovering where we are. But before I can decide which bad choice to make first, Robin appears at the bottom of the stairs in an ivory robe.
“Where’d you get that?” I blurt out.
“I had Luisa leave it for her outside your door,” Senora V says.
Robin’s hair is loose and tousled, falling in dark waves around her face. Her eyes are still heavy with sleep, but I can tell she’s alert. She scans the room and her gaze lands on me.
She looks like a goddamned angel.
And I know with a certainty that sinks straight into my bones that I’m in more trouble than Vega could ever make for me.
Vega may take my head.
But Robin Bellamy is going to take everything else.