Текст книги "Bold Tricks"

Автор книги: Karina Halle

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“It’s eight,” Camden said. “We slept in a bit.”

“Your shoulder.”

He eyed it. “Yeah. I took the pills last night, okay Nurse Ellie? New bandage too from Jose’s first aid kit. I’ll be okay. Need a change of clothes though.”

I smiled despite myself, feeling strength returning, and slowly sat up. He grabbed underneath my arms and pulled me to my feet. There was a second or two where he was holding onto me, my chest against his chest, my head positioned just below his lips. I stared forward at his battered collar, at the bright tattoos – snake heads – that were coming through. I breathed in deeply, taking in his familiar smell and making it my fuel.

Don’t ever leave my side again, I thought. I wanted to say. I missed you. I still love you.

I looked up at his eyes, hoping he could see far enough in, see how I was really feeling.

I love you.

He stared back at me, eyes so perfect, so blue. Then he cleared his throat and looked away. “Are you ready to go?”

I took a second to compose myself and shot him a weak smile. “I just need to use the bathroom. I’ll be quick.”

Within minutes I was slipping a bra underneath my tee-shirt and heading out to Jose. The poor car looked even worse in the daylight. I was amazed it had even gotten us this far.

Javier was standing by the driver’s door and noted my expression. “At least the car will blend in with the city. Every car looks like this. Such a shame.”

I made my way to the trunk. “We should at least put on new plates.” I opened it, throwing my overnight bag back in and started rifling through the large Ziplock bag where I kept all the spare plates. There were about ten of them and two of them were foreign, one from British Columbia in Canada and the other from Tijuana state in Mexico. I took the Mexican plate out and waved it at them.

“This should help a bit,” I said and fished out my screwdriver from my spare toolkit. Man, it was nice to have my stuff again. I quickly took off the old Cali plates and put the news ones on, already feeling the heat of the morning sun beating down on me. With any luck, Jose would blend in with any old Mexican car now.

I brought out a pair of black shit-kicker boots that were extra wide at the top and had a leather belt around them that I’d added to them. They were perfect for stuffing a gun and strapping a knife to you. I brought out my Colt from the box in the truck and shoved it down my right boot, making sure it was secure. It looked awfully pretty next to the cherry blossoms on my shin.

I straightened up and looked over the trunk at Camden. “Hey where did you get the gun you were using last night?’

“Gus,” he said and my heart was immediately crushed at the thought of him. He’d come all this way with Camden for me and could be very well dead, if not tortured, by now. Every second we spent trying to get to Javier’s sister, the more Gus slipped away. But we needed Javier’s help, his knowledge of Travis, of the cartels, of Mexico. We had to help him before he could help us, even though I had a feeling all of us were equally wanted now.

I looked over at Camden and Javier, the wheels in my head turning.

“Javier,” I said, “do you think we need to change our appearances?” As it was I had a blonde wig in the trunk too and brought it out before he could say anything. I plopped it on my head and turned to look at them.

With Javier on one side of the car and Camden on the other, they both looked at me with a speechless expression on their faces. I guess with the blonde hair, I looked to Camden like I did in high school and I looked to Javier like I did when we were living together.

“Take it off,” they both said in unison then exchanged furtive glances with each other.

All right, so no disguises. I took the wig off, my scalp already sweating from it and threw it back in the trunk. I was okay with being who I was.

Camden pulled his seat forward and let me squeeze in to the back of the car. I hated being back there. I missed being in the front, I missed fucking driving, but knew Camden would feel slighted if I asked to change places and that was the last thing I wanted him to feel. More than he already did, anyway.

Javier pulled out of the dusty motel parking lot and drove steadily until we reached the first gas station. After we filled up, it was only about two hours before we reached the city.

I wasn’t prepared for the sprawl. I mean, I knew how large Mexico City was especially since it was the one of the largest cities in the world. I knew how far it was spread out, how many people lived there. But I still wasn’t prepared to see block after block of shanty houses reaching as far as the eye could see. There was no land, just houses. Just city. Just people. No wonder Javier vetoed our disguises – if you couldn’t get lost in Mexico City, you couldn’t get lost anywhere.

“Do you even know where to find your sister?” I asked him as he took the car down a busy thoroughfare off of one of the many intersecting highways. Traffic was thick enough to cut with a butter knife. The humanity was spilling out the city’s pores, leaking everywhere with poor beggars sitting roadside and skinny-limbed children playing in black exhaust fumes.

“Of course I know where to find her,” he snapped. “She’s family.”

I bit my lip feeling slightly chagrined, then said, “When was the last time you were here?”

He didn’t say anything for a few moments, just laid on the horn at a car that had cut him off with no apology. “Violetta doesn’t live in the slums. She lives like she should. I’ll find her soon.”

Camden looked back at me and I raised my brows. I wasn’t going to argue with Javier about his sister, it just all seemed a bit impossible, especially without GPS.

“Camden could use his GPS,” I offered and was immediately shut down with an icy glare in the rear view mirror.

“Camden can go fuck himself,” Javier said, still looking at me. Camden didn’t bother reacting, only looked back out the window at the never-ending hills of buildings. There were a few skyscrapers in the middle of the city but beyond that it was just house after house after house. Shack after shack after shack. It took a lot of effort to keep another panic attack from coming on, that’s how … engulfing … the city was. It went on forever yet made you feel like you were trapped in a box.

We drove for quite a bit, never really making it anywhere, before he begrudgingly told Camden to enter in “301-1250 Calle Burnaby” into his GPS on his phone. To his credit, Camden did it without saying anything, though it was at least another forty-five minutes before we got to the place.

Javier might have said that his sister didn’t live in the slums, but she was at least surrounded by the slums. Or maybe that was the case everywhere in Mexico City. Her apartment building was white-washed and fairly clean-looking with underground parking and a concierge-type person I could see lurking behind the barred windows of the lobby. But on either side of the building were slum houses, mostly one-story, some two, rising up around it like weeds.

We managed to find parking across the street. Javier got out of the car and glanced at us.

“You wait here.”

“No fucking way,” Camden said, quickly getting out from his side. I followed, joining him on the broken sidewalk. “We’re going with you.”

Javier waved at us dismissively and kept walking across the road. Camden and I waited until it was safe – the drivers here were crazy – before trotting after him.

“So mistrusting,” Javier muttered to himself as we approached the building.

“How can we be so sure that your sister isn’t part of your little plan?” Camden asked.

Javier shot him an exasperated look. “She is the plan. Get her safe, get her out of Travis’s way.”

“And then you’re going to help us out of the goodness of your heart.”

He looked the building up and down, rubbing his hands together. “You’re not the only one who wants Travis dead. I’ve wanted this for a long time.”

“For revenge or so you can take over his cartel?” Camden asked.

Javier eyed him and smiled, teeth white against his bronzed skin. “Who says I can’t have both?”

“Even though it’s the same cartel that murdered your parents?” I dared to ask.

“There’s always room for improvement,” he said.

He went up to the building’s entrance and I was impressed to see it had a buzzer system. His finger trailed along the buttons until they paused at #301 Bernal. His shoulders rose and fell as if he were steadying himself before he held down the button. I knew, back in the day anyway, that Javier was fond of his sisters and had taken it upon himself to take care of them financially after his parents had been murdered by a rival cartel, the same cartel that Travis was now a part of, the same cartel that Javier suddenly had his sights on. Or maybe it wasn’t so sudden after all.

We waited for a few anxious moments, the ringing repeating until we heard a faint yet demanding “Hola?” over the intercom.

He shook his head and looked at us. “She shouldn’t even be answering this right now.” Then he faced back to the intercom and said, “Violetta, es Javier.” There was a longer pause and he added, “Tu hermano.”

“Javier?” she asked. “Que …?”

He quickly asked her to let him upstairs and after a few more heavy pauses the door buzzed open. He grabbed it and swung it open for us and marched inside the cool building, his dusty yet sharp shoes echoing on the tile floor, nodding quickly at the concierge who only briefly looked up from his newspaper, not even batting his eye at Camden’s blood-stained shirt. We walked past the elevator and went for the stairs, running up the flights until we got to the third floor.

We walked swiftly and quietly down the hall, stopping in front of #301.

Javier knocked quickly and took a step back from the door as it promptly swung open.

We were greeted by a large gun aimed at his head.

CHAPTER THREE

I automatically threw up my hands, though Javier barely even flinched. A slender young woman stood on the other side of the door, a large Beretta in her hands aimed right at him. Her eyes hadn’t even left his face to take me and Camden in, but one look at those golden green eyes of hers and it wasn’t hard to see she was related to Javier.

“Violetta,” Javier said calmly. He rattled off a question to her in Spanish with that smooth voice of his. Her gun never wavered, if anything her eyes narrowed even more. Finally she looked over his shoulder and spotted me and Camden. She frowned, lowered the gun and then jerked her head to follow her into the apartment.

Camden and I eyed each other nervously. I don’t know what I was expecting but I certainly wasn’t expecting this, particularly from someone that had to be in their late teens, early twenties. Then again, I guess I was handling guns at a young age too.

We walked into her apartment and Camden slowly closed the door behind us. It was quite large considering how much space seemed to be an issue in this city, with a terracotta-tiled floor, blue and white porcelain accents in the kitchen and large windows that looked out onto the sea of roofs. There was a room off to the side and I caught the sight of a rumpled bed and a large balcony beyond that. There were hair appliances and makeup and clothes strewn all over the place, cementing the fact that Violetta may have had a gun in her hands, but she was still a young girl.

She spun around in the middle of the room and suddenly slapped Javier clear across his face. I couldn’t help but suck in my breath, afraid of what Javier might do. But he merely took it as she started to rant at him in rapid-fire Spanish, throwing up her hands and launching what must have been a million obscenities.

Violetta really was a very beautiful woman, slim-limbed and around my height, 5′6″, with thick and long golden highlighted hair, dark olive skin and full lips, slightly slanted yellow-green eyes. She was wearing a summery dress that was cut short and had applied her makeup with a heavy hand.

When she was finally done, Javier retorted with a sentence or two, still succinct in his own language, and it wasn’t until I picked up on the words Eden White, that Violetta looked toward me.

She frowned and pointed my way, looking askance at Javier. “Eden?”

“Ellie,” he corrected her with a grim smile. “Her real name is Ellie. And she doesn’t speak Spanish, not that much, anyway.”

She stepped slowly toward me, her flip flops smacking against the tiles, and though I was very conscious of the gun in her hands, I stood my ground and looked her in the eye.

She smiled, playful and deceptive all at once. “So you are the famous Eden. You’re the one who broke my brother’s heart all those years ago.”

It took everything I had to keep from rolling my eyes. Of course I had been painted the villain. Of course Javier never bothered to fill his sister in on the fact that he was cheating on me with a woman he’d later end up beheading.

“I guess it depends on what side you hear,” I answered.

She smirked and took another step forward. I caught a whiff of her perfume, freesia and linen. Fresh. Out of place in this smog-filled super city.

“You know, for the longest time I swore I’d kill you if I ever saw you,” she said slowly, her accent barely audible. “I wanted to make you suffer for the pain you caused my brother. But, now I’m older. And I see how Javi is. The only thing I want to do is shake your hand.”

She put hers out for me to shake and I did so, surprised at the strength of her grip. She smiled and jerked it up and down. “I’m Violetta Bernal.”

“Ellie Watt,” I said, returning her smile. I nodded over my shoulder at Camden who was still by the door. “That’s Camden McQueen.”

Violetta looked at him, her eyes widening appreciatively. “Hello, Camden McQueen.” Then they went over to his shoulder. “What happened to your arm?”

“Got shot by the policia,” he said with a grin and I felt a weird prickle surge through me. He sounded almost as if he was flirting with her. I couldn’t help but look over at Javier to see what he felt about all of this. He was watching the three of us carefully; his brow was furrowed and he was slowly running the back of his hand underneath the scruff of his jaw, calculating something.

“Let me get you something,” she said brightly and took off to her room. Through the doorway I could see a flurry of clothes being tossed across the room and within seconds she’d come back out with a large plain black tee-shirt. She placed it in his hands.

“Here,” she said. “Some guy left it here. I won’t be calling him again anyway, so it’s yours.”

“Thank you,” he said genuinely, flashing her his drop-dead gorgeous dimples. Damn, and I thought those were reserved especially for me. “Do you have a washroom I can change in? Banos?”

She smiled and pointed down the hall to a door. Once he disappeared, she put her gun down on mantle and placed her hands on her hips. “Is he your boyfriend? Or are you still with this guy?” She jerked her head at Javier.

I swallowed hard and said, “Neither.”

“Good, I guess,” she said. “Do you know what this asshole has done? Nothing. Nothing at all! He’s been promising to send me money every month and the last check I got from him was, oh, two years ago!”

I glanced at Javier in shock. He was red in the face, sweating a bit at the temples, but not arguing with her.

She looked at him too. “Well, so what was your excuse, hey brother?”

He rubbed his lips together, eying the both of us, before saying, “I was busy. I tried.”

She snorted and walked over to the kitchen, her little ass sashaying. “Puta coño,” she swore. She opened up her fridge. “Do you want a glass of water? A beer?”

It was just before noon and I definitely needed my head on straight but I still said, “Cervesa, por favor.”

“Make that two,” Camden said, coming out of the bathroom. He was looking much better, his hair slicked back with water, his biceps bulging from the shirt that was a bit too snug on him. That, combined with his black dress shoes and tuxedo pants, made him look like a dapper man in black. Well, with a shitload of tats and Clark Kent glasses.

“We don’t have time for beer,” Javier said angrily, watching as she brought me and Camden a Modelo each. He fastened his eyes on me. “You haven’t forgotten about Gus, have you?”

I felt the sting from that and glared back at him while Violetta asked. “Who is Gus?”

“A family friend of mine,” I answered, eyes still on Javier. “Actually, more family than my own family. Travis has him. He kidnapped him in front of Javier.”

She looked at him. “This is true?”

Javier ran a hand through his hair and turned to look out the window. “Someone took him. I’m assuming it was Travis since my own fucking men turned on me just seconds before.”

“So is that why you’re here?” she asked, cocking her head to the side. “To warn me about this Travis?”

He kept staring out the window, at the rows and rows of houses, the layer of muddy smog that blocked us from blue sky. “There is no ‘this’ Travis, Violetta. He’s not a made up character. He’s real. And he will be coming for you.”

Her smile faltered for a second before she noticed I was observing her then it was full of false bravado. “I know all about Travis. I’ve been watching the news.”

“This made the news?” Camden asked, stepping forward. His arm brushed against mine and I tried to ward my mind against the warmth of our contact. “I thought he owned half of Veracruz.”

“Of course it did,” she said, smiling her bright teeth at him. “I’m sure in Veracruz you wouldn’t hear anything, but this is a different state. People here don’t look too kindly on the Zetas and their new leader. It’s been playing all morning, how an unknown cartel attempted to assassinate him at his own party. Most people have been celebrating.”

“Did they mention how one of his helicopters was shot down?” Camden asked eagerly.

“Most people?” I asked at the same time.

She gave us both a placating smile. “I never heard anything about a helicopter. But yes, Ellie, most people. This is a big city, right here, bingo, in the middle of the country. There are ties to all the cartels here. The Zetas definitely have a presence, it’s just not the most … popular one. I have a few friends in the Zetas right now.”

Javier moved so fast that all I could see was a blur of menace and stealth. He grabbed Violetta by the mouth and forced her backward until she was pressed against the door. Camden immediately went for him but I grabbed Camden quickly and pulled him back. This wasn’t his place to interfere.

Javier started swearing at her in Spanish. I picked up a few words but anyone could have figured out what he was so riled up about: the fact that she was fraternizing with members of the same cartel that had her parents and sister killed. For the first time I saw fear in Violetta’s eyes, shame and anguish. I reached forward and touched Javier lightly on the shoulder.

“Hey,” I said gently, heart-racing knowing he might turn on me at any moment. “You’re here for her.”

He squeezed her face harder and Violetta’s eyes looked to me. In this moment of fear, she finally looked her age.

“Javier,” I warned.

He loosened his grip and lowered his head so his hair hung around his face. He grunted, trying to control himself. Finally he let go of her completely and stormed straight to the bathroom where he slammed the door shut.

Violetta rubbed at her jaw, her chest heaving, eyes on the bathroom door. “What is wrong with him?”

How well do you actually know your brother? I couldn’t help but think. I gave her a sympathetic smile. “He thinks you’re in a lot of danger. He’s worried.”

“Does he really think Travis would go after me?”

No way to say this delicately. “He went after your sister.”

She ran her tongue over her teeth. “Beatriz was wrapped up with the wrong people. I’m not.”

“You’re friends with the cartel that murdered her and your parents,” Camden said, playing Devil’s Advocate.

She cocked her penciled brow at him. “Oh, do tell me what else you know, you American boy.”

I placed my hand on her arm. “I think Javier has a right to be worried. We need you to leave the city.”

She gave me a dirty look and shrugged out of my grasp. “This is my home. I will do no such thing.”

Javier came out of the washroom, looking slightly more collected. I’d rarely seen him so short-tempered and never expected it with his own sister. But he’d always described Violetta as the youngest, the bratty one, and I could definitely see that youngest sibling/oldest sibling dynamic coming out. It was a bit weird, actually, to see someone as lethal as Javier interacting with someone younger than him, someone that had the power to bring him down and get under his skin. He cared about Violetta a great deal, that much I could tell.

“Ellie is right,” he said, his voice measured. “That’s why I came. You have to leave, today.”

She rolled her eyes, shook her head and did all the things a girl her age would do when asked to leave the life she’d built on her own. “I don’t think so. No.”

“Violetta,” Javier said slowly, coming up to her. His eyes were locked on hers. “Please. This isn’t an option. You have to go stay with Marguerite or Alana.”

She laughed, loud and dry. “Are you serious? Mio Dios! You have no idea, do you Javier? I haven’t spoken to those witches for the last eight months.”

“They are your sisters.”

“And you’re my brother!” she suddenly screamed. Her face contorted, all control, all the façade disappearing in one second. “You’re my brother and I haven’t heard from you for years! Years! You just left us, all of us! Once Beatriz was gone, it’s like you thought the rest of us died too!”

She pushed him back with one hand, snatched my beer from me with the other and stormed off to the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. So much dramatic door slamming already.

Javier looked pale. I almost felt sorry for him until I remembered he’d been lying to me about sending money to his sisters. How much was the price of his rise to the top? How much money had he kept to himself to ensure he could pay off the right people? Not family, not the people who needed it, but the people who could help him with his single-minded goal?

He rubbed his ashen lips together and went to the fridge to bring out a bottle of water. He drank it back in one go and tossed it in the sink when he was done. The air was thick with tension and humidity and I felt awkward, unsure of what to do or say. One glance to Camden let me know that I wasn’t alone. I hadn’t been prepared to be brought into family drama. Then again, neither of us had been prepared for anything really. Except, apparently, for Camden when he shot down that helicopter. He did that with such ease that it floored me and seriously had me hot and bothered every time I thought about it, no matter how inappropriate the circumstance.

And yeah, standing in my ex-lover’s sister’s apartment was a pretty inappropriate circumstance. I bit my lip and looked away from Camden. Getting turned wasn’t going to help me at the moment and his tight tee-shirt was only making it worse.

I slowly went to Violetta’s door and rapped on it gently.

“Violetta?” I asked. I waited, hearing her stirring inside. I didn’t expect her to want to talk to me and I wasn’t sure why I cared so much about getting her safe. If anything, she seemed slightly untrustworthy thanks to her casual ties to Los Zetas. Well, that and the fact that she was related to Javier.

Suddenly her door flung open and I jumped out of the way as she marched past me to the front door.

“I’m starving,” she announced, taking her gun and stuffing it in her purse. “Which one of you people is going to buy me lunch?”

We all looked at Javier.

He grunted and went for the door, holding it open for us. “Okay, but we aren’t going far and we are going to talk about this, Violetta.”

She rolled her eyes and we followed her out.

Luckily the café she was thinking of was only three blocks away. The air had somehow grown more oppressive while we’d been inside, or maybe it was that I felt heavier after meeting Violetta. I could see this wasn’t going to be easy for Javier and unfortunately if it wasn’t easy, it wasn’t quick and if it wasn’t quick, I was further from getting to Gus.

Though I tried to prevent my brain from going there, I had to wonder what Travis was doing to him right now. There was a cartel leader in the Baja who was infamous for drowning people in vats of acid. I wondered if Travis would do anything so depraved; maybe my leg was just his first little taste. When I had looked at that man, I couldn’t see any trace of humanity in him. He was a shell, a mask, the devil disguised as El Hombre Blanco. Now he had Gus, and he had my mother, and the idea of rescuing them seemed more and more impossible.

“Hey,” Camden said to me, voice lowered, as we walked down the cracked pavement, Javier and Violetta ahead of us. He put his warm hand on the small of my back and I felt both strong and weak at the same time. “How’re you holding up?”

I looked up at him, squinting against the sun that fought valiantly through the smog. “I’m holding up.”

He shot me a smile. “We’ll get to him, don’t worry.”

He could read me like a book.

“It’s just every second that we’re here …,” I started.

“We’ll get him,” he said more grimly, then removed his hand. I couldn’t tell who the “him” was in that sentence – Gus, Javier or Travis? I think if it were up to Camden, he’d get them all in some shape or form.

The café was a busy place, noisy and dark and thick with cigarette smoke. Javier was looking paranoid as he scoped the room and I couldn’t really blame him. But everyone in the café were drinking copious amounts of beer and coffee, ordinary citizens of Mexico City, minding their own business, not even pausing to look up at us.

We were able to squeeze into a small booth near the back, the Bernals on one side of the booth, Camden and I on the other. Violetta immediately brought out a pack of cigarettes and lit one up.

“You smoke?” Javier asked her, looking disgusted.

She laughed. “When did you become so lame? Aren’t you running up a small cartel at the moment?”

His eyes widened then darted around the cafe but she patted his hand and said. “This place is cool, it’s cool.” Then she blew smoke in his face and smiled. “Cool.”

She turned to us and said, “So can one of you tell me what’s really going on here?”

“It’s as he says, he just wants you safe,” I said, avoiding Javier’s eyes. Last thing I wanted was for him to think I was vouching for him.

“Si,” she said, taking another puff. Her eyes darted to him, then to Camden and then back to me. “But why are you here?” She nods at Camden. “And why is he here?”

Oh boy. Javier’s eyes narrowed slightly, daring me to tell the truth.

So I did. I took in a deep breath and launched into it. “It’s a long story, longer than what I’ll tell you. Basically, I knew Camden back in high school and recently returned to my home town of Palm Valley in California. He ran a tattoo shop, was stuck laundering money for his ex-wife’s brothers who have some sort of gang in Cali running guns or pot or whatever. He wanted me to help him escape with the money. I did. Meanwhile, your brother shows up with a fifty-thousand dollar price tag on my head. Goes to Camden. Camden tells me. We go on the run. Javier nearly finds us. Then he bribes my Uncle Jim with the money. My uncle almost turns me over to him, ducks out at the last minute. Javier shoots him in the head.”

This whole time Violetta had been watching me with her mouth slightly open, forgetting her cigarette existed, the ash piling up on the end. Javier looked stone-faced, not even caring what I was telling her, which of course, was the truth.

I went on, my voice strained by the memories, “After he killed Jim, he contacted us and told me that either I’d go with him or he’d hurt Camden’s son, Ben, and his ex-wife. Camden and I went back to Palm Valley and the exchange was made. I went with Javier, Camden got his son and ex back, plus the money your brother was originally offering people. Only, Camden discovered that everything had been a set up. His ex had gone willingly with Javier. She and her brothers planned to take the fifty grand from him afterward and I’m guessing right now that Javier, you, had everything to do with it. That in the end, Camden would never have gotten very far.”

He stared right back at me, unflinching. Camden, on the other, was growing tense beside me. I didn’t need to look at him to know he was shooting Javier daggers, that his strong hands were gripping the edge of the table.

“Anyway,” I said, and brushed the sweat off the back of my neck. Fuck it was hot in here. “Javier’s plan at first was to get me to kill Travis, which I was willing to do … well, I was willing to help him kill him. We ended up here. Then I find out it wasn’t just Travis, but it was my parents too. That they’d been working with Travis and Javier knew this. I was supposed to be his fucking assassin.”

Violetta puffed nervously on her cigarette and looked to Javier. “This true? You wanted her to kill her own parents?”

Javier swallowed hard but didn’t say anything.

“I’m afraid your brother is sick in the head,” I told her, half apologetic.

She snorted. “This much I know.”

Javier cleared his throat. “Ellie,” he spoke softly and folded his hands on the table, “you’re neglecting to tell her the part where I rescued both you and Camden at Travis’s party, saving you from certain death.”

Yes. That part.

I smiled weakly. “I almost forgot. That was after you let them take Gus.”

“Gus isn’t my problem. I never asked for him and Camden to come down here.”

Violetta nodded to Camden. “And why did you come down here?”

“Why do you think?” Camden asked, his voice clipped.

“To get the girl?” She smiled at the two of us. “Which would be very romantic if it weren’t for my brother sitting right here, correct?”

Romantic. I looked at Camden, feeling my face growing hot. I found it romantic. I found it sexy. I found it brave, honest, noble, even dangerous. I found Camden’s devotion to me to fill my soul with a warmth I’d never, ever felt before.