Disclaim (Deliver 3)

She traced the ink on his forearm, following the branches with a finger. “Okay.”

Frizz sewed up Matias’ leg wound in silence. Then he restitched his lips without a mirror, his fingers expertly moving the needle through the existing holes. She watched through a new set of eyes and no longer saw a scary freak. As he poked the needle through his flesh, she thought of it as a lip piercing, a rebellious expression of self. A fuck you to dear old dad.

When he finished, he gathered the supplies and strolled into the house, whistling a cheery, unfamiliar tune.

She sat alone with Matias for an endless moment. The heavy hush between them bled into the darkness, dampened by the buzz of winged insects.

“When we get back, I’m calling my friends, Matias.” She slid her hand over his thigh. “They need to know I’m okay.”

“Anything you want.” He turned his face toward her and put his lips on hers. Slightly open. A tiny gliding movement. Then he kissed her nose.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the slaves three weeks ago?”

“I wanted you to love me despite this.” He pulled away, bracing elbows on his knees, and stared straight ahead.

“I would’ve loved you no matter what. It was inevitable.”

“Through all your one-night stands, what would you have done if one of those men told you he saved child slaves? Would he have become more to you than just a hookup?”

She rubbed her forehead and stared at him sidelong. “That’s such a crazy what if. I don’t know.” But she did know. She would’ve clung to that connection.

“Your heart beats for the end of slavery. If you found that same passion in someone else, anyone else, your heart would’ve cemented you to him.” He met her eyes. “I didn’t want to be just anyone. I wanted to be your one, passions and pursuits aside. I wanted you to choose me for us.” He looked back at the landscape. “So I let you see whatever you wanted to see at the estate and waited until you saw me.”

She swallowed thickly. “The amount of fear and doubt and fucking dread I’ve gone through over the past few weeks…”

“Vulnerability has to happen for love to be real.”

Profound and really smart, but also… “This is crazy.” She scrubbed her hands over her hair. “You could’ve just told me your slaves were horrible people, and bam, you would’ve had me just like that.”

“Too easy. You’re not getting it.” He shifted to face her and gripped her chin. “I refuse to settle for anything less than what we had as kids. You loved me when you were sixteen for no other reason than because your gut told you we were meant to be together. But age and experience fucks with our instincts. Our minds get in the way and try to reason and rationalize every goddamn emotion.” He released her chin. “I stripped those rationalizations away and forced you to focus on what you really felt, not what your mind told you to feel. And you believed. You believed in us without seeing…this.” He gestured at the house.

“Faith,” she whispered.

“Faith in us.” He focused on her mouth and leaned in, kissing her in that tender way that always made her melt.

“Seems like you went through a lot of trouble for such a blurry concept,” she said against his lips, her vision smudging with tears. “Who does that?”

“People have been killing each other because of faith for hundreds of years.” He smoothed a hand across her cheek.

“Because of religion, Matias, which is based on control and fear.”

“But it starts with faith. Some believe strongly enough they die for it.” He leaned in and touched his forehead to hers. “You took that step tonight. You believed in us so passionately you walked into that house and risked your life.”

“You’re insane.” She wrapped her arms around his wide shoulders and sighed. “I love it. Everything you said was wild and inconceivable and could be argued until the end of the burning sun, and that’s why it makes sense.” She kissed him, softly, deeply. “Every reason, justification, and argument leads us to the same result. We’re together because that’s where we belong.”

He pulled her into his arms, and they settled into a cradle of silence. Voices and footsteps trickled from the house. The constant noise of whirring life echoed around them, and a thickening mantle of sorrow and relief smothered the air.

“How are you doing with this?” He nodded at the door.

“I experienced that whole thing way, way down deep.” An unreachable shiver jolted inside her. “All those feelings are still there, lodged somewhere between my heart and stomach. When they decide to resurface, it’s really going to hurt like hell.” She rubbed her face. “Those girls, Matias…God, I can’t…I just can’t think about it.”

“Don’t.” He kissed her cheek, brushing his nose against hers affectionately. “It gets easier, I promise. And I’ll be right at your side every step of the way.”

Golden fire, kindled in a Texan citrus grove and forged in a decade of hell, burned in his eyes.

She drew him close and touched her lips to his scruffy jaw. “What happens to them now?”

“The women will take them to a foster home, one of the many I vetted and trust. I fund every step of their recoveries. I also put the fear of God in those foster families to ensure they provide the best environments for the children I send to them.”

“There’s my crime boss.” She stared up at the sky and smiled to herself. “You’re a good man, Matias.”

“Then I haven’t scared you enough.” He lowered his mouth to her shoulder, pressing a kiss there while never taking his eyes off her. “I’ll have another chance to do that before we head home.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Córdoba cartel is waiting at the helicopter to ambush us.”

Her face went cold. “What?”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN? Why are we just sitting here?”

Matias felt the worked-up rasp of Camila’s voice like a hungry tongue on his cock. “We have time.”

“Time for what?” She sprung nimbly to her feet and stepped off the porch.

Dark jeans stretched over her sexy curves, paired with a plain black t-shirt that molded to her perfect rack. Illuminated by the glow of the porch light, shiny black hair framed her gorgeous face and hung in windblown waves around her shoulders. There wasn’t a square inch of imperfection anywhere on her.

The savage need to claim her in front of God and everyone stirred in his blood. Wrong fucking place and time.

She stood in front of his perch on the steps, putting them at eye level. “This better not be one of those I-ask-you-don’t-say-shit conversations.”

He combated her glare, but goddamn, she made him hard as a rock. “We’re catching a different ride home.” His annoyance with the deal Nico made coiled tension into his shoulders. “I lost my favorite helicopter.”

“Wait. Hold up.” Brown eyes full of spark, she anchored her hands on her hips in the feisty pose he’d loved since they were kids. “You said there’s another cartel waiting to ambush you?”

“Yes. Los Córdoba.”

“How do you know this?”

“I set it up.”

“You what?”

He smirked, enjoying the angry flush in her cheeks.

She cast her gaze heavenward. “Santa Madre de Dios, give me the strength to not strangle this man.”

The crunch of tires on gravel sounded in the distance and grew louder up the driveway just as Nico stepped out of the house.

“We’re on our way,” Nico said into the phone at his ear. Ending the call, he strode down the steps past Matias.

As the black sedan pulled up behind Camila, she pointed at Matias. “Keep talking.”

“In the car.” He moved off the porch, toward the driveway, and opened the rear door for her.

Burd relinquished the driver’s seat and headed into the house. As a lower-ranked member, he’d been vetted for the vigilante portion of this trip, but not for the next part.

“Are the others coming wi

th us?” Camila stared after Burd as she slid into the backseat.

“Frizz and Picar will stay with the girls for a couple days.” Matias latched her seatbelt, trailed a finger across her bottom lip, and shut the door.

He met Nico’s eyes over the roof of the sedan. Matias preferred to be the fake bodyguard and chauffeur—the guy no one paid attention to or targeted. But as Nico climbed into the backseat beside Camila, Matias reconsidered the whole decoy thing.

It was purely an emotional reaction after a godawful night. He didn’t want anyone else protecting her or sitting by her. He sure as hell didn’t want people thinking she belonged to Nico.

Fuck, that sounded ridiculous, even in his head.

Wiping a hand down his face, he lowered into the driver seat, cranked up the A/C, and drove away from the house. He only had about ten minutes to prepare her before they reached their rendezvous point.