Her hammering heart chugged as fast as her runaway thoughts. What if the intruder had heard her? Or saw Trees’s clothes swinging on their hangers or…any of the other hundred things she could think that would tell him he wasn’t alone in the house?
Seconds ticked by. With her hand pressed against her rattling chest, she stood frozen, not even daring to creep down the stairs. Since she couldn’t risk turning on a light, she closed her eyes and tried to breathe through the suffocating darkness.
Finally, she heard a door slam and his stomping footsteps retreat to the kitchen, where he banged cabinets and broke glass. With every sound, Laila felt this man’s rage, and she felt horrible for Trees. He wasn’t here to defend his house. He’d likely moved away from the city to avoid crime and people, for privacy and peace.
That was all being defiled and defaced now, because of her.
The sounds crossed the house, getting fainter as he moved farther away, but no less violent. Then she heard more gunfire—multiple blasts. Whoever was above her clearly had an agenda. Destroying Trees’s house wasn’t enough for him. He wanted blood.
She couldn’t let him have it.
Laila turned on the light in the bunker and crept to the bottom of the stairs. She looked past Trees’s dungeon equipment—implements she didn’t understand that had filled her with both trepidation and fear the first time she’d seen them. Today, she looked around for a way to call for help. But she’d had to abandon her phone across the house, and Trees had taken his iPad, so if there was any way to communicate with the outside world, she didn’t know it.
Deep breaths. She could handle this. All she had to do for now was hide. Once whoever was out there had finished what he’d come for and left, she would emerge, call Trees, then stay to help him right his house. It was the very least she owed him.
She wished she could do more.
“Where are you, you motherfucking cabrón?”
Laila stopped—breathing, thinking, living. Abject terror gripped her throat. That voice… She couldn’t mistake it for anyone else’s.
Victor Ramos.
And he hadn’t come for her. He’d come for Trees, to get revenge—the eye-for-an-eye kind.
“Are you hiding like a pussy? That won’t stop me from avenging my brother. Come out and die like a man.” Victor paused in the silence, then let loose a cutting laugh. “I’m not surprised you’re hiding like a coward. You couldn’t even face my brother to kill him. You shot him from the back. And you pulled the trigger for Laila. I heard you. Where have you stashed that puta?”
Her jaw dropped. Laila wasn’t surprised that Victor had called her a whore, but how had he heard Trees say that he’d killed Hector for her? If he had been there, he would have saved his brother.
Only Hector’s house having surveillance made sense.
As soon as that realization hit her, another truth swept in behind it. Victor didn’t know she was here.
“Too afraid to face me, cabrón? Then I will burn down your house, and you better start looking over your shoulder, because I’m going to find you and put a bullet in your back, too.”
Laila’s heart stopped. One thing she knew about Victor? His follow-through skills weren’t a problem. He meant what he said.
She had to stop him—now. Somehow. Find a way to protect Trees and his house while keeping Valeria and Jorge’s location secret. If it kept her safe, too, even better. But that wasn’t important. She had survived Victor once. She could do it again for the people she loved.
Laila froze. That was the second time she’d wondered if she was in love with Trees. Logic said it was too soon. She admired him. She respected him. She’d come to trust him. She melted against him when he gave her pleasure no other man had. She simply couldn’t repay all his kindness by letting Victor destroy everything he’d worked for. But that wasn’t love.
Or was it?
She didn’t have time to figure that out now. The seconds were ticking down, and she had to stop the maniac pacing Trees’s home, bent on torching it. Trees had put her first so many times. She needed to do the same for him. Laila knew just how. She simply had to find the right words—and the guts.
On shaking legs, she crossed the room and plucked a semiautomatic off the wall, then jerked down its mate, just in case. She rummaged through some nearby drawers and found the magazines and a box of nine-millimeter ammunition. Of course Trees was prepared.
Thank God.
Then she loaded the guns—grateful she’d paid attention during the years she’d been a captive of her brother-in-law’s cartel—took a deep breath, and let herself out of Trees’s panic room, ensuring the lights were off and the door closed behind her. Once she’d shrouded the keypad with his clothes again, she did her best to steady her shaking hands and went in search of Victor.
She didn’t have to go far. As soon as she rounded the corner out of Trees’s bedroom, she spotted Victor striding through the front door, gas can in hand. He held a lighter in the other.
Her heart leapt to her throat, but she forced herself to stay steady. She was going to stop Victor…or die trying. She owed Trees at least that much.
When he spotted her, he ripped off his mask and flashed her a wide smile. “Chiquita, there you are. Put down the guns and greet me the way I taught you.”
On her knees. She wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t betray Trees like that. And the distraction would only delay the inevitable destruction of all he held dear. Nor could she simply shoot Victor. As much as she would love to, there was a way to make the most of this situation, one that wouldn’t simply end her rapist. One that would also make her family safe from everyone in the Tierra Caliente cartel so Valeria and Jorge could finally live.
Time to start swaying Victor to a different way of thinking.
“Is that what you really want in life?” she challenged. “All you want? A blow job?”
“You’re right. It will wait until I set this bastard’s house on fire. You can suck me off while I watch it burn.”
Never. “Victor, he is not a man to cross.”
Ramos dropped the gas can and stormed in her direction, thunder rolling across his face. “Neither am I. He killed my brother, and for that, he will pay.”
Skittering back a step, Laila raised the guns to him, her trigger finger itching. “He told me. But stop. Think about what you are doing.”
“Has Hector’s killer been keeping you here?”
That question led to dangerous answers. “Does it really matter to you? Does he?”