Shooting Scars (The Artists Trilogy 2)

Once dinner was over, cleared away by the boys who seemed to appear out of nowhere, Raul and Peter retreated to their cabins, leaving me and Javier sitting across from each other at the dinner table. When the last tray was cleared and we were left alone, I felt the weight of the star-filled sky crushing me. The boat’s deck was lit up with tons of mood lights, making his eyes shine as he gazed at me.

It was a steady gaze, not adoring or concerned. But interested. He had always seemed so intrigued by me.

“It’s beautiful out,” he said, his voice dull. “You can see so many constellations out here. None of those city lights. You can feel how … insignificant we really are. Can you feel it?”

I didn’t know if this was a trap or a trick question. Still, I nodded. “Yes. Like God might flick me away with his finger.”

He tilted his head, his mouth drawing into a slight pout. “God would never do that to you. You’re Ellie Watt.”

“Sometimes I am,” I said, hiding my uneasiness with another sip of my hurricane.

“You always are. I see that now. I might have only seen bits and pieces of you before. But now, you’re … formidable.”

Was that a compliment? If it was, I didn’t think I could take it as one since it came from him.

He smiled. “It is a compliment,” he said, back to that whole mind reading thing. “You’re so strong. I’m lucky to have you.”

I nearly rolled my eyes then decided it was a little more serious than that action portrayed. “Javier,” I said slowly, “you don’t have me. Your only luck is how far you’ve gotten in life without someone chopping your head off. Yes, I am strong. And I’m afraid that Raul is right. You shouldn’t trust me.”

“Why?”

I frowned, taken aback at the sincerity in his voice. “Why? Why? I don’t think I’ve ever hated a person more than I hate you.”

He seemed to mull that over, his eyes shining even more. He took a sip of his drink, then sat back in his chair and placed his hands behind his head. “That’s funny. You treat me quite well for someone you hate. What do you do to the people you love?”

“You should know.” I blurted it out before I realized my mistake. The alcohol was ruining me. I was saying things I’d once locked inside my head.

His eyes widened momentarily. I saw a look in them that I never wanted to see again. I quickly drank the rest of my drink and slammed the glass down on the teak table. “Well, here I am drunk and talking absolute nonsense.”

He appraised me before saying, “Apparently. But I find your lack of censorship amusing. Care to entertain someone that you hate by having another drink with me?”

“Are you drugging me again? Because if I have another drink I’ll probably pass out anyway and you’ll have to get one of your little crew boys to drag me back to my room.”

His face became instantly stern. “No one touches you on this boat.”

“Not even you?” I asked wryly, testing him, pushing him.

He shook his head. “No. Not even me. You are not mine to touch.”

“Oh, of course not. I’m just yours to use as a pawn.”

“Ellie,” he said. Then he got up and held out his hand. “Come join me and I’ll explain.”

“Explain what?” I asked, eyeing his hand like it had some disease.

“Explain what’s going to happen. I don’t know what you heard from Raul but I want to make some things clear.”

I didn’t understand what the point of that was. What did it matter what he told me? I probably wasn’t going to like it, which didn’t matter if it meant keeping Camden alive. I was in a shitty situation and I was tired of trying to wrap my head around it.

Finally I put my hand in Javier’s and he helped me to my feet. His hands were warm and rough. Familiar and strange.

As soon as I was up though, he dropped my hand like it was a hot coal. I’d found that to be the strangest thing about this whole thing with him. He really did see me as a pawn, not as his ex-lover or ex-girlfriend. Of course I still saw his eyes on me from time to time and that hopeful expression on his face. But for the most part, whatever feelings, mentally, physically, whatever, he had for me in the past, they weren’t the same anymore. He was detached, unpassionate, and utterly focused on this task at hand, the one my brain kept skirting. Part of me found his distance admirable. I couldn’t have wanted him to keep playing the part of the creepy, obsessive ex-lover. The one who kept all my clothes yet took six years to come chasing after me.

I just didn’t understand this Javier. And maybe that’s the reason why I let him pour me a stiff drink and why I followed him down the stairs to the main deck and to the back of the ship where his private cockpit was. I wanted to understand him, whether it would do me any good or not. Understanding the enemy was to my advantage, wasn’t it?

I hadn’t spent any time at his cockpit before, a round depression that led down to his office and quarters below, two curved couches on either side, plus a bar that popped up with the touch of a button.

I sat down on one couch, spreading my legs out, hoping that would deter him from sitting near me. It worked though I had a feeling he was going to sit opposite from me anyway.

“I think this is the best part of the ship,” I said. I put my head back and looked up at the stars. I still felt the weight of the universe on my shoulders.

“It’s my favorite too. It reminds me of the old boat.”

My mind jumped back to the first time I stepped foot on his old boat. The first time we made love on it. He wanted to stain me. And he did, just not in the way he had hoped.

I knew I shouldn’t have been thinking of it – it was the booze, plus Raul’s words that had implanted the seeds there. But I was thinking it and before I knew it, I was saying it.

“Why did you cheat on me?” I kept my eyes on the stars, feeling the dark bruise-colored sky lift a bit.

Javier was silent. Stunned or formulating an excuse. Maybe preparing to tell the truth. I didn’t know what I hoped to gain out of this aside from having a weight lifted. Unanswered questions can stay with you a long time, riding on your shoulders, wearing you down.

I heard him take a sip of his drink and place it on the side table. The sounds were all louder now, the drone of the engine since we weren’t under sail, the water as it crashed behind the stern of the boat.

“I cheated on you more than once,” he said cautiously, as if he was waiting for me to spring up and kill him. I didn’t. It hurt my pride just a tad but the anger was on the way out.

I cleared my throat, feeling stupid despite the circumstances. “I see. It figures.”

“Why?”

“That I would be the one with the wool pulled over my eyes. The whole time I thought I was keeping a secret from you and you were the one keeping it from me.”

“Ellie, it wasn’t exactly like-”

“I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. Forget I asked.”

“I can’t forget you asked. What if I asked why you lied to me all that time?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I repeated.

“It does matter,” he said loud enough to make me jerk to attention. He was gripping his glass, eyes blazing. “I was a different man then, just a boy, but I did love you and I never would have done anything to intentionally hurt you.”

“Love and respect don’t have to go hand in hand,” I retorted, recalling what a wise woman had once told me. And they say you never meet anyone worthwhile at roadside bars. I still had that woman, Marda’s, driver’s license in my scrapbook.

“That can be true,” he conceded. “I had reasons for being unfaithful. It went beyond sex and love.”

“You loved her?” I exclaimed, feeling sick despite myself. I could blame the wine and the boat all I wanted.

“No, I didn’t. But I had revenge. You of all people should know how far you are willing to go for it.”

“What does revenge have to do with sleeping with someone else?”

“What does revenge have to do with loving me?” he said, his voice collapsing over the last two words so they spun out in a hush.

I slowly sat up, feeling dizzy. “It shouldn’t matter but I did love you.”

“You broke me,” he replied. His eyes went to steel.

I didn’t want to hear any of this anymore. “Why did you cheat on me? And don’t give me that revenge shit. If it was this revenge, this thing, then tell me exactly how it was.”

“Her name was Patricia,” he said.

Oh, so she had a name. A dumb one at that.

He continued, looking down into his glass, “She was a nice girl. Nice enough. Pretty. She liked me. That’s all I needed. She was the sister of Enrique Morrow.”

“Who is Enrique Morrow?”

“Enrique was one of the higher ups in the Los Zetas. Patricia lived in New Orleans, he was in Nuevo Laredo. I got to know her, I suppose in the same way you got to know me. I used her to get to him.”

I stared at him. “And did you get to him? Did it work?”

He nodded and shook the ice in his glass. “Yes.”

“What happened to them?”

He eyed me briefly. “They are both dead. I killed them. Killed her first, in front of him, to prove a point. Held her down and took her hand. Then slit her throat. And made him watch. Then, when I thought he’d suffered enough, I cut off his head. Seemed fitting, considering the Los Zetas practically think they invented the act.”

My mouth dropped open. I needed to shut it. To say I was horrified was an understatement. “You … you did that to the woman you were cheating on me with?” A memory flashed in my head, the one of when I found them together, that terrible act of intimacy, him calling her pet names as they lay beside each other on the bed – my bed – laughing. They looked so … in love. So in touch with each other. That’s what had hurt me the most, more than the sex.

“How could you do that to her?” I said softly. “You … that you were capable of that when I was with you … I …”

He finished his drink then filled up my own glass with more. I was too stunned to wave him off. “This happened a few months after you left.”

“You were just a young kid,” I said, unable to accept it. Seeing him kill his best friend in our kitchen was one thing. But knowing that just a few months after I left him he was the kind of man who was capable of murdering a woman he was sleeping with, pretending to be in love with, in such a brutal way, to prove an awful point was … I didn’t even know what it was.

“Everything changed after you left,” he said, watching me closely. “Everything.”

A burst of indignation flared up inside my chest. “Don’t you dare blame this on me. Don’t you dare!”

“You left without even a note …”

“You fucked another woman, in our bed!”

“I told you, it meant nothing.”

I nearly crushed the glass with my hand. “I didn’t know that at the time! I didn’t know how little she meant to you. How obviously little human life means to you! You did what you did and you never had to do it. Your so-called excuse only makes things worse. Fuck, Javier! All of this for nothing. Just so you could have your fucking revenge and kill people. You’re nothing but a beast, a cold-hearted monster, not even fit to have two legs. Not even worth that heart beating in your chest.”