34. Cruz
CRUZ
For one full second, I think I misheard her.
I must have.
Robin Bellamy can’t possibly be standing in the hallway of a brothel with blood on the floor downstairs, terrified women rushing past us, Zabala dead on the porch, Senora Valentina dead in the foyer, and Vega’s men likely already being dispatched to finish what Zabala started, telling me we need to continue our conversation.
But she is.
She stands there in that too-large robe with her chin lifted, hair falling around her face, eyes too bright, mouth too firm, and she looks at me like she’s not being completely unreasonable.
“You were about to tell me why Vega wanted that body,” she says.
I stare at her. “Robin.”
“No.”
“Do you understand what’s happening?”
“Yes.”
“No,” I say, stepping closer, keeping my voice low so the women hurrying down the hall don’t hear the panic rising in it. “I don’t think you do.”
“I understand perfectly.”
“We have maybe an hour,” I say. “Maybe less before Vega’s goons descend on this house and burn it to the goddamned ground.”
Her face tightens.
Good.
Let the truth be ugly enough to move her.
“We can’t stand here and talk,” I continue. “We need to leave. Now.”
“I realize that.”
“Then move.”
“No.”
Mercedes rushes past us with a small suitcase in one hand and a pair of shoes in the other.
Her eyes are red, but she’s not crying. Esmeralda is behind her, ushering two younger women down the hallway, whispering instructions too quickly for me to catch.
A door bangs open upstairs on the third floor. Someone sobs.
The house is unraveling.
Every second matters.
And Robin won’t move.
I drag a hand through my hair but stop when I remember my fingers are sticky with blood.
Christ.
“Robin, please.”
She straightens her shoulders. “I need to know right now if I can trust you.”
The hallway seems to stretch between us.
“You can trust me to get you out.”
“That’s not enough.”
“It has to be.”
She crosses her arms. “No, Cruz. It doesn’t.”
I look down at the floor because looking at her is becoming dangerous. Everything about her is dangerous right now. Her fear. Her stubbornness. Her insistence that truth and trust matter when men with guns are probably loading into vehicles as we speak.
I should throw her over my shoulder and carry her to the car.
I stalk toward her, ready to hoist her up.
“You said you were on assignment in Texas. You said you did several things.”
I grab her.
“Put me down!”
“No. Talk while we move, if you want. I’ll answer all your questions. But we’ve got to leave now!”
“You’re impossible!” she yells.
“Says the woman who thinks it’s reasonable to sit around and have a fireside chat while bloodthirsty terrorists could attack us at any fucking moment.”
“Fine!” She beats her fists against my already sore back. “You moved a dead body because Vega told you to.”
“Yes.”
“It’s not exactly noble.”
“No.”
“But it’s not evil.”
I say nothing.
“Not by itself,” she adds.
“Yeah. Whatever.” I walk down the stairs as quickly as I can.
“And you helped abduct me,” she says.
“Yes.”
“But then you rescued me.”
“I tried.”
“You did.”
“Fine.”
“And killing Zabala is a plus in that camp as well.”
Something twists in my stomach.
A plus.
Such a strange way to phrase a man’s death.
But I understand what she means. Zabala came here to kill. He killed Senora V. He would have killed Robin. He would have killed every woman in this house if it served Vega’s purpose.
I stopped him.
I killed him.
Both are true.
“Was there anything else?”
We reach the bottom of the stairs. “There’s no time. Fuck. I wish you were wearing clothes.”
“I don’t care about clothes,” she says, still pounding on my back. “Was there anything else you did in Texas? Something I should know about?”
I close my eyes.
Fuck.
Not now.
Not now.
Not now.
The thing I didn’t tell her.
The thing between the body and her abduction.
We reach the bottom of the stairs and I put her down.
“What did you do?” she demands.
“We need clothes. I know where they are. The laundry area. We’ll get them there and then we’re out of here.” I grab her hand and yank her toward the back of the house, where the stairs to the basement lead to the laundry.
“Tell me,” she demands again as I open the door to the basement.
“You’re not going to like it.”
She rolls her eyes. “That’s becoming a theme.”
“Robin—”
“Tell me.”
I pull her down the stairs, click on the lights. The washing machine and dryer are in the far corner. I pull open the dryer. Thank God. Clothes.
Fuck. No men’s clothes. But a ton of clothes for Robin. “Choose,” I say.
“What are you going to wear?”
“What I have on.”
She cocks her head. “You’re covered in blood.”
“Not the first time.” I point to the dryer again. “Find something comfortable. You’ll have to go barefoot. Maybe find some socks.”
She harrumphs as she sorts through the clothes more slowly than I’d prefer. “Keep talking,” she says.
I sigh. “I received a tip from Vega.”
Robin pulls out a blue dress and discards it. Then a red one. “These are all dresses.”
“This is a brothel,” I remind her. “Keep digging. They do wear casual clothes when they’re not working.”
She finds a blue sweatshirt, discards the robe—I try not to stare at her gorgeous body—and pulls it over her head. “Keep going.”
“He told me someone in the area was acting erratically. Someone was close to discovering secrets he didn’t want made public.”
“What secrets?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yeah, right.” She pulls out some gray sweatpants and throws them at me. “These are huge. Put them on.”
“For the love of—”
“Put them fucking on!” She turns back to the dryer. “And…?”
“I swear. I don’t know what secrets he was talking about.”
“Whatever.” Robin finds a better-suited pair of sweats and pulls them on.
“But I do know they were about Vega and…”
She finds socks. “And…?” she says again.
I exhale. “Vega…and your father.”
She inhales sharply, dropping one sock. “My father?”
“Yes.”
She bites her lower lip for two seconds. Then, “I told you to put those damned sweats on. And keep talking.”
I take off my bloody jeans and pull on the sweats. They’re roomy. A john must have left them here. “My job was to observe this person.”
“This person.”
“Yes.”
“Who was he?”
I don’t answer her question. Instead, “I watched him for several days. Learned his routine. Where he went. When he was alone. Who checked on him. When he was vulnerable.”
She puts on both socks and then roots around again in the dryer. For what, I don’t know.
“I was told not to kill him,” I say.
She groans. “Very generous.”
“I was told to make it look like something it wasn’t.”
“What?”
“An overdose.”
Robin rises quickly, nearly hitting her head on the dryer door. “An OD?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
I don’t want to say it.
I say it anyway because the sooner I do, the sooner we’re out of here.
“I measured out a quantity of narcotic. Enough to incapacitate. Enough to create a scene that would be interpreted a certain way by anyone who already knew his history.”
“His history.”
“Yes.”
Her breathing changes.
Faster now.
Shallower.
“My target had a history of drug use,” I say. “That’s why Vega chose that method. It would be believable.”
“Did you give it to him?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes flash. “How?”
“He was outside. Alone. I came up behind him and knocked him out.”
She takes a step back. I keep going because if I stop now, I may never finish.
“I injected him after he was unconscious.”
She gulps, her hand on her lips.
“I did not kill him,” I say quickly. “Zabala is the only man I have ever killed.”
She stomps her foot. “Stop saying that like it makes you innocent.”
“I’m far from innocent,” I say.
“That’s the fucking truth.”
“He survived,” I say.
“Who was it?” she demands.
I say nothing.
Her eyes widen. “Cruz.”
I can’t make my mouth form the name.
Not with her looking at me like that.
Not with Vega’s men coming.
Not with Senora V dead because of every wrong road I ever walked.
“Who was it?”
The basement seems to tilt.
I look toward the stairs.
She slams her hands against my chest. I’m sore from the fight with Zabala, but I feel no pain.
“Who was it?”
“Robin—”
She digs her fingers into my shirt, into the blood and torn fabric.
“Tell me!” she says. “Who was it?”
I can’t breathe.
Some part of her already knows. I see the answer forming in her eyes along with the desperate hope that she is wrong.
I want to lie.
For the first time since I chose to tell her the truth, I want to lie so badly it hurts. I’d give my life to spare her this.
But I promised her the truth. So I’ll tell her. And though I saved her life, I will now lose her.
I take a deep breath in, pausing before I deliver the words that will end whatever potential exists between us forever.
“It was your brother. Eagle.”