29. Robin
ROBIN
Cruz is gone.
Not physically. Physically, he’s sitting right there at Senora Valentina’s kitchen table, but he’s also somewhere else.
Somewhere dark.
And for some ridiculous reason, I don’t like it.
I don’t like watching him disappear into himself.
Which is stupid.
Merely yesterday, I was tied to that disgusting cot, waiting to find out whether this man was going to hurt me, sell me, kill me, or use me as bait.
Now I’m sitting here in a borrowed robe, drinking coffee in a brothel kitchen, worrying because he looks sad.
I snap my fingers in front of his face. “Hey. You with us?”
His lips part. “Yeah,” he says. Then he clears his throat.
“Convincing.”
He blinks a few times. “I was just thinking.”
Mercedes clicks her tongue. “Oh, listen to him,” she says. “He was just thinking.”
Esmeralda sighs. “A broody man. Pensive. Tortured. Staring into the distance.”
Mercedes leans toward me, lowering her voice as if Cruz can’t hear every word. “Women love that, you know.”
“I’m learning,” I say.
Cruz looks down into his coffee.
Is he blushing?
No way.
Cruz Moreno does not blush.
Except he absolutely does.
A faint flush touches the high bones of his cheeks, almost hidden beneath his dark complexion but not quite. It’s subtle, but I see it, and something warm moves through me before I can stop it.
“Look at him,” Mercedes says. “So serious. So handsome. Like he’s carrying all the sorrows of the world.”
“Maybe he is,” Esmeralda says.
“Or maybe he’s trying to look interesting.”
I can’t help it. I grin.
Because now I can see it too. Cruz sitting on some moss-covered rock beside a babbling brook, his gaze fixed on the water as he contemplates the cruel intricacies of life. Maybe with his shirt open at the throat. Maybe with wind ruffling that black hair.
I swallow.
Nope.
Absolutely not.
I am not thinking about Cruz by a babbling brook. I am not thinking about his shirt open. I am not thinking about his dark features, his full lips, his too-beautiful face, his soulful eyes.
Not happening.
I sit up straighter and wrap my fingers around my coffee cup. I cannot let my guard down.
He helped me. Yes. He got me out of that dank cell. He drove me through the night. He brought me to a place he believes is safe.
But he also worked for Vega.
He still knows things he hasn’t told me. And I have too much at stake to be stupid.
Whatever is happening in Colombia isn’t separate from what’s happening back home. I feel it in my bones. I set my cup down.
“Cruz.”
He meets my gaze.
“Can I talk to you privately?”
Cruz nods. “Sure.”
“We need to figure out our next move,” I say. “We can’t stay huddled up here forever.”
“You can stay as long as you need,” Senora Valentina says.
I smile at her. “I know. And thank you. Truly. But I don’t want to put anyone here in danger.”
Mercedes waves a hand. “Danger is always coming and going. At least this time it brought a handsome man and a pretty girl.”
But I can’t forget the truth.
Vega is not some jealous boyfriend who might show up and shout on the porch. Adriana is not just a bitter woman angry that her hostage escaped. These people have money, men, weapons, connections. They can reach into police departments. Immigration offices. Prisons. Families.
They reached all the way to Texas.
They reached into my life.
And if they find out Cruz brought me here, what will they do to these women?
To Senora Valentina, who lied for us without hesitation?
To Mercedes and Esmeralda, who are laughing now because they don’t understand the full shape of the threat sitting at their kitchen table?
Or maybe they do understand.
Maybe women like them understand danger better than anyone gives them credit for.
Still, I don’t want to be the reason anyone gets hurt.
Cruz pushes his chair back. “Come on,” he says quietly.
But before either of us can stand, Mercedes slaps her palm on the table. “Wait.”
Esmeralda gasps. “Oh, yes. Wait.”
I look between them. “What?”
“We do this with every new person,” Mercedes says.
“Do what?” I ask.
“A reading.”
“A reading?” I repeat.
“Yes.”
I blink. “Like tarot cards?”
Esmeralda wrinkles her nose. “In a way.”
Mercedes rises from the table and goes to a drawer near the stove. “But we use regular cards. No need for that fancy shit.”
Senora Valentina sighs, but she doesn’t stop them.
Cruz rubs a hand over his mouth. “This is new.”
Mercedes returns with a deck of cards, sits down, and shuffles them. “Who first?” she asks.
“Him,” I say, pointing at Cruz.
Cruz lifts a brow.
Mercedes grins and sets the deck on the table. “Cruz first.” She taps the deck. “Cut.”
Cruz hesitates but then reaches forward and cuts the deck once.
His hand is big against the cards. Strong fingers. Scarred knuckles. A small nick near his thumb I hadn’t noticed before.
I shouldn’t be noticing his hands.
Mercedes takes the top card and lays it face down on the table. She looks at Esmeralda.
Mercedes flips the card.
Ace of Hearts.
For a second, no one speaks.
Then Mercedes slaps Cruz’s arm.
Cruz frowns. “What?”
“Oh,” Esmeralda says. “Oh, Cruz.”
“What?” he asks again, this time with impatience.
Mercedes turns the card toward him. “Ace of Hearts.”
He sighs. “I can see that.”
“It means love,” Esmeralda says.
“Love,” Mercedes repeats, drawing out the word.
Cruz looks at me.
Oh, God…
No.
No, no, no.
Of all the cards in that stupid deck, there is absolutely no way they just drew that one for him.
“It just means a beginning,” Cruz says. “Luisa used to do this when I was little.”
Mercedes points at him. “I’m doing the reading. It means what I say it means.”
Esmeralda leans toward me, smiling. “Ace of Hearts predicts he will find the love of his life.”
Cruz looks down.
He’s blushing again.
I have to look away. I stare at the table. At my coffee cup. At a scratch in the wood. At literally anything except Cruz Moreno and his handsome, blushing face.
This is absurd.
A card means nothing. A random card from a regular deck pulled by two women who clearly enjoy making Cruz uncomfortable doesn’t mean fate has entered the kitchen.
Please.
I’m not the love of anyone’s life.
I’m a woman who followed a lead she shouldn’t have followed, got herself captured, mouthed off to dangerous people, and is currently hiding in a brothel wearing another woman’s clothes.
Not exactly destiny material.
Besides, Cruz and I have known each other for what? Days? Days full of fear, threats, locked doors, running, lies, and whatever the hell this feeling is between us.
Mercedes gathers the card back into the deck and looks at me. “Now you.”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Yes,” Esmeralda says.
“I don’t need a reading.”
“Everyone needs a reading.”
“I really don’t.”
Mercedes shuffles again. “The ones who say that need it most.”
Senora Valentina mutters something in Spanish under her breath that I don’t catch.
“Cut,” Mercedes says, setting the deck in front of me.
I stare at it.
I don’t believe in fortune-telling.
I don’t believe a deck of cards can see the future.
But my hand still feels strangely heavy when I reach for the deck.
Maybe because Cruz is watching.
Maybe because after everything that has happened, the idea of one more unknown thing waiting to be revealed makes my skin prickle.
I cut the deck.
Mercedes takes the top card and flips it.
Ace of Spades.
The room changes, as if half the air is sucked out of it.
Mercedes gasps and covers her mouth with one hand.
Esmeralda does the same.
The playfulness drains from both their faces so completely that my pulse skips.
I look at the card.
I don’t know much about playing-card symbolism, but I know enough to understand this is not getting the same delighted reaction Cruz’s card got.
“What?” I ask.
Neither of them answers.
Cruz has gone still.
Very still.
His eyes are on the card, his expression unreadable again, but the muscle in his jaw has tightened.
“What does it mean?” I ask.
Mercedes lowers her hand. “It can mean many things.”
“That’s vague.”
“It is supposed to be vague,” Esmeralda says, but her voice is softer now.
“No. What does the Ace of Spades mean?”
Mercedes swallows. “It can simply mean finality.”
Finality.
The word lands cold in my stomach.
“Or,” Esmeralda says, “that something is about to change.”
I let out a small breath.
Okay.
That isn’t necessarily bad.
Change can be good. Change can mean escape. It can mean leaving Colombia for good. It can mean getting back to the United States, back to my family, back to a life where I understand the rules. Maybe not a safe life—clearly safety was an illusion all along—but at least my life.
A change of scenery would be a good thing.
I can go home. I can tell my brothers everything. I can find out what happened to Belinda. I can help Daniela.
Finality.
The end of this nightmare.
Maybe that’s all it means.
But as soon as the thought of home forms, another one follows.
Going home means leaving here.
Leaving Cruz.
Why does that make my chest ache?
Ugh.
No.
Absolutely not.
I do not have feelings for Cruz Moreno.
I have complicated emotional baggage from a terrifying experience involving a physically attractive man who saved my life after participating in the system that endangered it.
That is not romance.
That is not destiny.
That is not the Ace of Hearts doing whatever the hell Mercedes thinks it’s doing.
“What else?” I ask.
Mercedes blinks. “What?”
“You said it can mean finality. Change. What else can it mean?”
Senora Valentina again says something under her breath in Spanish.
Cruz leans forward. “Robin—”
“No.” I keep my eyes on Mercedes and Esmeralda. “Don’t do that. Don’t all look at each other like I’m too delicate to hear whatever superstition you’re suddenly afraid of. It’s a card. Tell me.”
Esmeralda reaches across the table and touches the edge of the Ace of Spades with one finger as if the card itself might be dangerous. “It doesn’t always mean this,” she says.
“Mean what?”
Mercedes looks at Esmeralda.
Esmeralda looks at Mercedes.
Then both of them look at me.
Their voices are hushed when they answer in unison.
“Death.”