“Fifteen. Since I like you.”
I turn to look at him, my foot tapping the rung because this motherfucker is insulting. “I take it back, fifty-five. Because you’re fucking insulting.”
His head tilts to the side, and from the way he’s studying me, I imagine he’s picturing about a hundred messed-up, gory ways he could kill me. “I hear you have, how do you say in English—a situation?” He thumbs under his nose with a smile. “Tom Campbell’s no hombre agradable. You wish I can take care of him as part of the deal?”
Bullshit. I’ve spent years looking for him. My guys have spent the last week like bloodhounds after his scent. “You know where he is?”
“No.” One of his shoulders lifts on a shrug. “But anyone can be found for the right price.”
I roll the taste of it around in my mouth. It’s one thing to clean money for the cartel, another thing entirely to have them act as a hitman. That’s a tie that will stain my soul for the rest of my life, and one which will most likely end with my damn head on a stick in the middle of Juarez city. “I’ll handle my own problems,” I say.
An amused smirk settles over Garcia’s face. “So then I give you thirty because you’re good. And because I know, Gabriel Estrada pays less.” He taps a finger over the bar, and the two men behind him step in closer, fingers looped through their triggers. “I do not suggest you turn me down, Bookie.”
In some situations, even the most powerful men have no choice. This is one of them. I grab a napkin from the bar and scribble out the number to Marney’s burner phone before passing it over. “Only contact me via this number. I take drop-offs once a month. Hide it in crates of tequila, Corona—I don’t care.”
“Very good.” He folds the napkin and stuffs it in his shirt pocket before polishing off his drink and pushing back from the bar. “Send Estrada and his sister my thanks.”
God, I have an awful feeling about this.
12
Victoria
While Jude is gone, I go downstairs and fumble through an old DVD collection stuffed in the TV unit. I need the distraction of something normal today. Something that isn’t the memory of that awful man’s hands on my body or the embarrassment of crying on Jude, of all people, last night.
Most of the movies are action-adventure and horror—no surprise there. The bottom shelf is covered in dust and filled with Disney movies, and nestled amongst the plethora of kid’s movies, I find The Notebook. Now that shocks me. I take it from the shelf, thinking that I can't imagine Jude watching a romance movie. I wonder if maybe he has it because of an ex-girlfriend. The thought has a spark of jealousy igniting in my chest. Whether or not he has an ex-girlfriend he watched this movie with shouldn’t matter to me. It’s not my business. He’s not my business.
I put the movie in and settle on the couch, pushing thoughts of Jude out of my head.
The title flashes across the screen just as Caleb comes into the room with a bag of chips. He stops at the end of the couch and stares at the TV. “What in the hell is this? Some chick flick?”
“Yep.”
With a shrug of his shoulder, he falls back onto the couch. He rolls his eyes for the first half of the movie, grumbling about how lame it is, but by the end of the movie, he’s curled up with tears pouring down his cheeks. “This shit is so fucking sad.” He nods toward the old couple clinging to each other in a hospital bed on screen. So much for Caleb being some big bad baby criminal. When the movie goes off, Caleb, of course, changes it to football, and my distraction is gone. I glance through the large picture window, wondering when Jude will be back. Something has definitely shifted between us in the last forty-eight hours. Jude has gone from the man threatening to kill me to the one vowing to kill for me. From aggressor to protector. Small things are starting to make him seem human to me, to the point that I find myself justifying his actions. He put a gun to my head, but he said he couldn’t do it. He hasn’t hurt me... naïve and stupid. Round and round, I go until I don’t know which way is up.
I make it through the first few minutes of the game until the ruckus starts to annoy me. I get up and head toward the window, staring out at the woods dappled in sunlight. “I want to go outside,” I say, mostly to myself.
“Go. It’s fine. The gate to the drive is locked.”
Not that I was asking permission, but the reassurance that it’s safe makes me feel better.