“I don’t know if he is or not, but Cherie’s gonna feed into it and make it all worse.”
“I already talked to him about it,” he assures me.
“You did?” I ask, relaxing a little. He’s not always as protective of Cherie as the girls he has a vested interest in, but I know Colin won’t cross Mateo, regardless of what he boasts to Cherie.
Mateo nods, taking a drink from his glass. “He’s assured me that he’ll keep his hands to himself until she’s of age.”
I stare at him, my stomach twisting up in knots. “Of age? You mean in a month? You talked to him and got his word that he wouldn’t try anything for a month?”
Mateo nods, glancing at me. “She’s going to grow up sometime.”
“Not with him! Are you insane? He’s a murderer.”
“We’re all murderers,” Mateo points out, as if amused. “Literally everyone in this room.”
“And I wouldn’t want any of us with Cherie,” I point out. “Come on. You’re not going to tell me you’re okay with that? He’s too old for her.”
“Okay, again… you’re saying all these things that could be said about any one of us and our respective female counterparts. Do Meg and Mia deserve less than Cherie? Does Elise?”
I shake my head, irritated with him for not looking at Cherie and seeing a little girl who needs protecting from a lecherous ass like Colin McGregor. It feels almost identical to how I felt all those years ago when he wouldn’t protect Elise against that Rick asshole, except I actually care more about Cherie than I cared about Elise then.
“Why don’t you let Cherie go away to school? If you’re going to pay her tuition, you can pay it just as easily in another state. Somewhere warm and calm without us around to keep her in a box. If she wants to grow up, let it be with some douchebag in college who wears polo shirts and plays beer pong.”
Mateo is already shaking his head. “Maria wants to keep her close.”
“He’ll hurt her, you know he will,” I state. “He’s not you, he’s not looking for a nice girl to settle down with him and keep his bed warm; he’s just looking for another conquest.”
“I think Cherie is smart enough to make her own decisions regarding who she sleeps with,” Mateo states, pushing away from the desk to go refill his glass.
“How?” I ask, following. “She has no experience with guys, let alone dogs like him.”
“Hey now,” Colin puts in, from my chair. “I have two ears, y’know.”
“I haven’t said anything you don’t already know, McGregor,” I inform him.
He nods in acknowledgement and goes back to bullshitting with Alec.
I roll my eyes, liking him even less.
“You worry too much, Adrian,” Mateo tells me, replacing his decanter on the cart and retrieving his glass. “It’ll be okay.”
I narrow my eyes, settling back against his desk, and look at Colin. Maybe I’ll just kill the bastard. He’s a mercenary, so it’s not like I’d be robbing the world of some precious jewel.
As if reading my mind, or perhaps just recalling history, Mateo says, “And don’t you dare kill him. I’m in the middle of a gang war; I can’t be worried about this stupid shit right now.”
“If he puts a single finger on her, I make no promises.”
“Well, you should tell him that, not me,” Mateo reasons. Then, patting me on the shoulder, he says, “Better yet, get to solving my Castellanos problem so you can move on with your life—then you won’t have to think about any of this anymore.”
As soon as he says it, he tips his hand. I can see him realize that he took it a little too far, but now that he’s caught, he just smiles. “Unless of course you want to stick around, make sure everything remains… pure.”
“You son of a bitch,” I mutter.
“Colin’s not going anywhere anytime soon, so if you’re that worried about it…”
“Yeah, I get it,” I say, rolling my eyes. “You’d really sacrifice Cherie’s well-being to trap me into working for you again.”
“You say that like it’s unimaginable,” he says dryly. “Come on, Adrian. It’s straight from my playbook. I’ll move her ass in with him, if I have to.”
I shake my head, surprised it’s even possible to be disappointed in him at this point. “Wow.”
“I’ll make sure Cherie makes it past 18 without being defiled by the Irishman—all you have to do is stay.”
“I could make sure of the same thing for a lot cheaper,” I inform him.
“Except I just said you couldn’t,” he points out.
“Didn’t stop me last time,” I mutter.
A faint hint of steel creeps into his tone, though his smile remains. “And look what happened then.”
My gaze snaps to his, narrowing. “You don’t have anything to trade me this time, Mateo. If I wanted to play by your rules, I could win this in a minute.”