Chapter Ten
“How was your day?” Camila asked Hammer as she lay in bed that night.
He’d come in a few minutes after she had.
He’d changed and slid into bed as if they did this every night.
She’d stiffened but when he just tucked one hand behind his head and closed his eyes, she’d watched him in the dim light coming in from the window for a moment, relaxing when he didn’t move or touch her.
“Fine. Did you go shopping, get everything you’ll need?”
“We went out for a few things but ordered more. I didn’t want to spend too much but Winter kept insisting if you wanted us to have a limit, you would have said so.”
“She’s right. Any idea how much you spent?”
“I think it was two hundred. That was way too much but she wouldn’t let me stop.”
Hammer snorted.
“That’s nothing. I expected at least double that. Are you sure you got everything you need?”
“I think so. I’m not used to a big wardrobe. I’m fine with just a few days’ worth of clothes.”
“If you say so. But if you find you need something, anything, just let me know. We’ll make sure you get it.”
She lay quietly, her mind spinning.
“Why?” she asked a while later, not really knowing how much time had passed.
“Why what?” Hammer’s voice had gone husky and his words slow.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were asleep already. Never mind.”
“No,” he shifted, rolling to face her, though she couldn’t see more than just his silhouette. “I’m awake now, tell me why what?”
She watched his outline for a moment, trying to decide how to put this. How to say what she wanted to know without causing offense.
“Why did you take me? If it wasn’t to get some kind of revenge on Papá, I don’t understand. And what are you going to do with me now that I’m here?”
Hammer sighed. He rolled onto his back and covered his eyes with one arm.
“A couple of months ago we, meaning the club, stumbled across a man who was a piece of—,” he cut himself off, hesitated a moment, then continued, “shall we say, less than a stellar human. He had a habit of kidnapping girls, beating and abusing them until he had them docile enough to suit him, then he sold them. He’s no longer a problem, but I’ve been trying to find the women he sold. ”
Camila was quiet for a moment, letting his words process.
“And you think Papá purchased her.” It was a statement, not a question.
And even as she said it she considered the idea.
Was Papá capable of buying and selling people as if they were cattle?
She had the answer almost as soon as her brain had formed the question.
Of course he would. She only had to look at how he’d treated her and Maria, and using Maria to keep Camila in line.
Yeah, she could see her father involved in human trafficking.
Wasn’t he basically looking to sell her off in some way that benefited him?
What was the difference in getting money now or favors for years? It was still selling her.
“I know he did. I knew it was a long shot that she was still there. The purchase went through months ago. But I had to try.” He was silent for a moment and she wondered if he was looking for the words to continue or if he was thinking about the girl he had been looking for.
“Did you know her well?” she asked. The missing girl must have been a girlfriend, or maybe his sister, for him to be that sure and still looking for her after so long.
Hammer shook his head. “Never met her. Didn’t know she’d even disappeared until months after the fact.”
She went quiet as she tried to figure out why he was hunting for this woman so hard. Was she special to him in some other way?
“I don’t get it,” she said eventually.
“I’m not sure I can explain it. I just had this drive. To find her. To get her free if I could.”
“What is her name? I don’t meet a lot of people, and I don’t recall Papá bringing anyone around but maybe I’ll remember if you tell me?”
“Her name is Brittney,” he described her, or at least what she’d looked like when she’d disappeared, then he told her what kind of shape Miranda had been in when they’d found her.
Neither had really helped. Camila didn’t remember anyone her age around the compound in over a year. Not that they couldn’t have been there. It was a large building and an even larger property. It’s entirely possible Brittney was there, and Camila had never seen her.
“What now?” she asked.
Hammer sighed. “I don’t know. I had already tried to find a trail where he might have moved her or sold her to someone else, and hadn’t found any. I knew it was a long shot that she would still be in Nogales, or at least at your dad’s place in Nogales, but I had to go. I had to try.”
“And are you going to keep looking? Are you still trying to find her?”
“I’m not going to quit looking, but I’m bumping it down in my priorities.
” He lifted his head and looked at her. “Chances are high she’s not even alive anymore.
I know that, but I can’t just stop looking.
I can’t just give up on her. Everyone else already has.
I can’t be another who forgets about her.
But the trail is cold. I don’t know how much more I can find.
” He shrugged and continued to stare up at the ceiling.
She watched him for long minutes, wondering what came next.
She wanted to ask again but didn’t want to come across as uncaring.
He’d just opened up and shared a lot with her.
She didn’t want to repay that by being more focused on herself than anyone else but the imaginary band around her chest that kept her from breathing too deeply, that kept her from relaxing entirely, seemed to be getting tighter and tighter the longer she hung in limbo.
“I made you come with us because I thought it would hurt him. or that’s what it started out as, mostly.”
“Started out? Mostly?” Camila wasn’t sure she wanted to know what he meant, but she couldn’t keep herself from asking. He turned his head to look in her direction, though since she was closer to the wall, in the shadows, she wasn’t sure how much he could see.
“You were too eager to get out of there. It was like you’d just been waiting for a rescue.
Or maybe just a chance to get away without getting Maria hurt.
That, along with the bruises, told me you might have had different chains, but you were just as much a prisoner there as we thought Brittney was.
” He fell silent, seeming to watch her for a full minute before he spoke again.
This time his voice had gone soft, as if he didn’t want to put the words he was about to say out there, but he had to ask anyway. “Do you want to go back?”
“What? No.” she took a deep breath and turned to look up at the ceiling herself. “You’re right. I wanted out. I’ve wanted out for as long as I could remember but I refused to be responsible for him hurting Maria.”
“You never were. That’s all on him.”
Camila glanced toward him and let one corner of her mouth quirk upwards as she spoke. “I can see that, but it’s not how I was raised. Papá always used those I cared about to control me, and he used me to control Mama, at least until it stopped working.”
“I’m sorry if this is painful. Can I ask what happened? You and the housekeeper were the only ones in the house—did your mom leave?”
“She tried. She tried to leave and to take me with her. But Papá somehow found out. He came home early and he stopped us. He told her that no puta was going to take his child away. That’s when he started hitting her.
That wasn’t the first time I’d seen him hit her, or that he’d hit me.
But this time he didn’t stop. He didn’t hit me that time, but he made me stand and watch as he ‘taught her a lesson’ he said. ”
“How badly did he hurt her?” Hammer reached over and covered her hand where it rested on top of the blanket on her belly with one of his.
“He killed her.” The words came out as barely a whisper.
Camila ignored the tears that fell silently from the corners of her eyes and trailed to her hairline before disappearing.
He shifted beside her, and it wasn’t until his arms went around her and tugged her against him, then his words against her ear that she realized what he was doing.
“I’m sorry you had to see that, carino. That’s something no one should have to see.” He held on to her.
Camila pressed her face against his chest and took a deep breath.
It felt like some dam inside her, the one holding back her emotions, burst. The slow tears that had been leaking from her eyes turned into deep, heart-wrenching sobs.
She curled her hands in his t-shirt and held on as the barrage of feelings overwhelmed her.
She cried and cried, gasping for air now and then, and eventually calming until, while she still leaned against him, she no longer sobbed, but only let out an occasional hiccup.