Chapter Thirty-One #2
“If an accidental gunshot wound was the cause of his death, then I’d agree.
But since a heart attack is what took him out, we need to work with that.
” Alex played with the stem of her wineglass.
“Dad dies and Melissa pops some bubbly and dances naked in the house, only to learn that Dad completely shafted her in his death.”
No one disagreed.
“Chase and I laid bets on how fast she’d be hooked up with another sugar daddy.
Hell, she’d lived a billionaire life. Five million probably made her feel like she was in the soup line at the homeless shelter.
But that isn’t what Melissa did. She managed to buy out Yarros and earned a seat on our board.
Which I’d have to admire if I was on the outside looking in.
If she’d been in a loving relationship with Dad, she might have been given shares in the company that would at least maintain some of her lifestyle. ”
“Only Dad didn’t know how to love,” Chase said.
“Hence the shafting. If she relieved the Italy safe of its monetary value but left the passport and the documents, she either had her eye only on the shiny objects in the safe and didn’t bother looking at what was in the documents.
Or ... purposely left the documents because they were useless to her. ”
“She wouldn’t know a CIM if it bit her in the face,” Piper stated.
“Agreed. She sits in our board meetings acting like she understands what we’re talking about, but she’s clueless.”
“Melissa only walks in that room to make you both uncomfortable,” Piper suggested.
“Mission accomplished. She doesn’t want control of Stone Enterprises. She wants the money. I say we give her an olive branch.”
“Elaborate,” Chase said.
“We give her back something she thought was owed, and maybe she feels comfortable enough to ask for something else. We tell her we know about the safe in Italy and have considered that she might be the one who took the money in it ... but hell, how can we blame her? As far as we’re concerned, she deserved it. ”
“To serve what purpose?”
“To see how she responds when we suggest the money in it was gained from illegal activity. Is she shocked? Complacent? Did she have any clue about what Dad was up to?”
Hawk stared at Alex with a smile on his face.
As much as she wanted to ignore that look of pride in his eyes, she couldn’t.
“And if she denies the stealing from the safe?” Piper asked.
“You don’t press it,” Hawk said. “You’re not looking for a confession.”
“We’re looking for so much more.”
Hawk followed Alex when she pleaded exhaustion and her desire to go to sleep.
Thankfully, she didn’t deny him. He had to come to some kind of agreement with her.
They walked through the door to her room, and Hawk closed it behind him.
She crossed the room and stood by the window, looking out at the darkness beyond.
“I can’t keep doing this,” Hawk admitted.
She didn’t turn, didn’t look at him. When she spoke, it was soft and pained. “I understand.”
Hawk hesitated. “You do?”
“I think we can both agree that I need more protection now than ever. I’m sure the other members of your team are quite capable of keeping me safe.”
Hawk froze. “No, Alexandrea.”
She turned, looked at him.
The sadness in her eyes punched him in the stomach.
He strode toward her and took her hands in his. “I can’t keep this distance. I’ve been walking through the days since Colorado, trying to figure out how to fix us.”
For a minute she said nothing.
“You can’t fix anything without letting me in. Let me in, Hawk.” Her eyes shifted back and forth between his.
“It’s not that simple,” he said.
“Then there is nothing to fix.” Alex tugged at her hands, but he didn’t let go.
He took a breath and told her what he could. “Yes, I’ve had bad dreams ... hell, nightmares. Yes, they are linked to my past. But now is not the time to work it out, Alex.”
“There is never a perfect time to work through trauma.”
He let go of one of her hands and brought his to her cheek. “You already have a threat to your well-being. You don’t need to add me to the mix. Do you know how many times I have damned myself for what happened in Colorado?”
“You didn’t mean to.”
“That sounds like an abused woman making excuses for her abuser.” His hand fell to her shoulder.
“Abuser? Is that what you think you are? It was a dream.”
“I pulled my gun on you. I could have—”
She gripped his arm. “You didn’t. If you truly want to fix us, you need to let that guilt go. Tell me what happened.”
“Haven’t you had enough for one day?”
Alex let her arm fall. “Unless you’re going to reveal some unforgivable premeditated crime, I want to know. I need you to trust me. We can’t have a relationship if there isn’t trust.”
It was Hawk’s turn to let her go and look out the window into the darkness.
Alex stood next to him ... silent.
“It was Guatemala.”
“When you were shot?” Alex asked quietly.
He nodded. There was no way to come clean about Gabriella without sounding like a manipulative ass.
“Her name was Gabriella. She was the cartel boss’s daughter. We had a ... I don’t know what to call it. It wasn’t a relationship in the way you think about relationships.”
“You were lovers?” Alex asked.
“Yes. She wasn’t married. Her father didn’t care who his daughter slept with, and our relationship put me in a greater position to get my job done so I could get out of there.”
“You used her.”
Hawk leveled his eyes with Alex’s. “I would love to tell you that I didn’t. But the truth is, we used each other. I wouldn’t have gone there if she was some innocent bystander. I don’t believe in sexual collateral damage.”
A strangled smile rested on Alex’s face as she sat on the edge of her bed.
Hawk continued.
“If it wasn’t for Gabriella, I wouldn’t have lived for five minutes after they put a bullet in the head of the kid that took fifty bucks.
I was released from the cell a week after they put me in.
They threw me in my room, told me to clean up .
.. fed me. Part of me thought I was being given my last supper.
Another part thought maybe they believed me.
I had maintained my innocence and they believed me.
Twenty-four hours after I was released from the cell, Gabriella came to me.
She said she pleaded with her father. Told him I wasn’t a spy.
I told her that I’d be tested again. That her father wouldn’t be happy until I murdered or raped someone.
She encouraged me to do what her dad wanted.
To be that kind of man. To earn her father’s trust so we could continue being together. ”
“That’s sick.”
“I agree. But to buy myself time, I told her I would do it. She stayed with me that night. I knew I had a short window of time to get out of there. I’d planned my escape, only I fell asleep.” If only he had kept his eyes open.
“Shouts at the door of my room had me rolling out of bed and reaching for my gun. Only my weapon hadn’t been returned to me.”
“Your nightmare,” Alex whispered.
Hawk nodded.
“Emilio, Gabriella’s father’s second in command, held her at gunpoint.”
“What?” Alex said.
“He came in the room, kicked the door shut. Told me to start talking or he’d waste Gabriella and put the gun in my hand.”
Hawk felt awful at the look of horror on Alex’s face.
“It took my head a minute to catch up with what was happening. There was a silencer on the gun Emilio held. Which made me believe he was working alone. Santiago would kill him if he threatened his daughter. Only Emilio had a thing for Gabriella and never liked the fact that she and I got together. Using her to get me to talk started to make sense.”
Alex sat quietly and listened.
“I maintained my innocence. Told him to put the gun down. Gabriella was crying, begging that I do something. Tell Emilio what he wanted to hear.”
Hawk blew out a breath.
“Then I realized that I was naked, and she was dressed. We’d fallen asleep together. Gabriella wasn’t telling me to save her, she was telling me to give Emilio what he wanted.”
Alex’s jaw dropped. “She set you up.”
Hawk nodded.
“I knew then that Emilio wasn’t going to hurt her. He was making demands. I told him I’d cooperate. I found my pants, my shoes. I said I’d talk to Santiago directly. I got closer. Gabriella looked relieved.”
Hawk rubbed a hand to the back of his neck. “I went for the gun. Emilio was dead before he hit the floor.”
Alex filled her lungs and let it out slowly. “And Gabriella?”
“She’d retreated to the other side of the room. She had a gun. Only she wasn’t a killer. I knew that. She watched as I grabbed a bag I had filled before she’d come to my room and jumped out the window. I didn’t head straight to the jungle.”
“Why?”
“I needed Santiago and his men to focus on something more important than me. The cartel loved their liquor. The higher the octane, the better. I’m amazed at how quickly things can catch fire in the middle of the rainforest.”
“You went for the weapons,” Alex assumed.
Hawk shook his head. “I set the house on fire. The walls were filled with cash. With everyone trying to put the fire out, they wouldn’t go after me.”
“Then how did you get shot?”
Hawk shook his head with a harsh smile and even harsher laugh.
“I underestimated Gabriella.”
“Oh my God,” Alex said.
“She shot me as I was jumping on a motorcycle. And then watched me leave.”
“She didn’t want to kill you.”
“I don’t know. She almost succeeded. The gunshot was survivable.
The infection, by the time I was treated, nearly took me out.
The movies always paint delirium as this traumatic experience someone goes through until a fever breaks.
What they get wrong is how much it lasts after the doctors are gone and only a physical scar remains. ”
“And now you relive that night.”
“Yes.”
“Will these people come after you?” Alex asked.
“Those that are still alive think I’m dead.”
“What do you mean? Did the fire kill them?”
Hawk shook his head. “The man Santiago reported to wasn’t happy about his loss from the fire. When they found out that an American agent had infiltrated, they weren’t happy. The cartel did what they do. They wipe the slate clean and start over. Santiago was part of that collateral damage.”
“And Gabriella?”
Hawk rubbed his fingers together. He could practically feel her blood on his hands. “She was never going to live a normal life. The family she was born into wasn’t something she could ever divorce. If we hadn’t been lovers, she may not have suffered her fate—”
“She tried to kill you,” Alex said in his defense.
“And yet I’m alive, and she is not.”
Alex walked over and reached for him. “She wanted you to be a murderer for her. How many times did she look away and ignore, or participate in ... someone else’s death?
You said so yourself, she was never going to live a normal life when her family was part of the cartel. You are not responsible, Hawk.”
He knew that on some level.
“As much as I hate how this has hurt you, how it haunts you in your dreams, I would worry more if you were completely unfazed. It shows you’re human and you care.”
“I didn’t want any of this to touch you.”
“I see that clearly now. Knowing where you’re coming from explains your desire to keep us secret. Why there was any hesitation to be together in the first place. But I’m not her. And other than the fact that she and I both had asshole fathers, I think that’s where the similarities end.”
Hawk placed his hand on her neck. “You are nothing alike.”
“I wish I could guarantee that you’ll never see someone with a gun to my head.”
“Fuck, Alex. Don’t say that!”
She squeezed his arm. “If you ever did. You’ll know it’s not because I’m betraying you.”
Hawk folded his arms around her and buried his head in her hair. “Don’t ever say that again. Don’t put that picture in my head.”
“That isn’t your nightmare?”
He wanted to deny her.
“I can’t sleep beside you, Alex. Not right now.”
She drew back to look at him. “I figured that out. I don’t think I could sleep if there was a loaded gun by our bed.”
“And I can’t protect you if there isn’t one. You need my protection more than my snores.”
She huffed out a short laugh.
Hawk placed a finger under her chin and forced her to look at him. “I want to work through this. For you. For us. It just can’t be today.”
“Even Vikings bleed, Hawk. We might not be able to fix it today. But we started the healing.”
“Is that how you see me?”
“You put that thought in my head, and it’s never left. Eventually I’m going to ask for the intimacy that comes with sleeping with you in my arms. But I am willing to wait until it’s safe for both of us.”
“You’re incredible, you know that?”
Alex lifted her chin. “I need you to show me,” she whispered. “It’s been entirely too long.”
Hawk started to lower his lips to hers.
Alex stopped him with one finger to his mouth. “I have a condition.”
“Always negotiating,” he teased.
“I’m not pretending we aren’t a thing. Not here. Not at the office tomorrow.”
He straightened his shoulders. “You’re not going to the office tomorrow.”
Her hand fell. “I am going to the office tomorrow. I’m going to tell the press that I have some kind of a stalker and let the press do what they do best.”
“Which is?”
“Ask all the questions. Who? Why? What do they have to gain? Maybe the press hits a nerve. Maybe the stalker gets nervous and backs off. All the eyes turning outward is the best form of situational awareness. Don’t you agree?”
Hawk couldn’t deny her strategy.
“You win,” he told her.
She stepped closer, lifted her lips to his. “Now ... where were we?”
Her kiss was sweeter than any honey on the planet.
And when they fell into bed and Hawk reacquainted himself with the taste of her skin and her moans in his ears, he knew he wasn’t going back.
If he needed to return to the jungle to work through his trauma, he’d do it.
For her.