Just for an instant, I closed my eyes and pretended I was in his arms again. Safe. Protected. Sheltered.
Loved.
My heart had belonged to him long before I’d been ready to admit it. And he had never once made me think that he would discard it. No, he was a protector by nature, and I knew what he would do for me.
I mustered the bravery to finally look at him.
He blinked tired, blood shot eyes and then scratched a thumb along his raspy, whiskered cheek. It sounded like sandpaper stroking a plank of wood.
“Have you slept at all?” I blurted out.
“I dozed for a bit in the waiting room,” he said. “No more than a few minutes at a time.”
His gaze was hungry as it raked over me, lingering on my hair. “It looks good,” he said gruffly.
“But I don’t look good. Right?”
He clenched his jaw and didn’t reply.
“You can come in, you know.” I gestured with my chin to the chair. “Have a seat.”
“You’re not gonna throw me out again?”
“I’m not going to apologize for that.”
“God, Linden, don’t apologize. Don’t apologize for anything.”
He shuffled over to the chair and plopped down. He stretched his legs out and rested his clenched fists on his thighs.
“Why did this happen to me, Boxer? Why was I kidnapped? Dante told me it was about you. That this was personal. I just don’t know why.”
“It’s time to tell you everything. You deserve to know all of it.” He sighed and leaned forward. “There have been two cartels competing for business in Waco. The Garcia cartel and the Sanchez cartel. The Blue Angels are drug mules for the Sanchez cartel, and up until recently, the Garcia cartel was only running drugs and only where we let them. They have a different part of the city. They kept to their side. We kept to ours. But something changed in the past few months, and when we found out they were peddling flesh, we went to Mateo Sanchez, and he ordered us to stop it. Mateo is all about making money, but he’s not into trafficking humans.”
“A cartel kingpin not wanting to sell humans? That doesn’t make any sense,” I said.
“Sanchez has no problem with drugs, guns, gambling. That’s just part of the world he comes from. But just like the Blue Angels, he doesn’t stand for human trafficking. We can do business with him, Linden, but that other shit doesn’t fly with any of us. Get it?”
I nodded.
“We intercepted a few of the Garcia cartel’s shipments,” Boxer went on. “I told you about the children and the women we found. It was a clear message from us to the Garcia cartel to cut that shit out. That we didn’t want that in Waco. It wasn’t supposed to escalate, but the Garcia cartel didn’t like being put in their place. They saw it as a challenge. They made it personal by coming after you. By kidnapping you, they sent a message of their own: women and children are fair game. Families are fair game. It’s a declaration of war, Linden. And if they want war, they’re gonna fucking get it. Because they don’t get to do this. They don’t get to—Christ, Linden.Lookat what they did to you!”
He fell silent, and he struggled to take a few deep breaths, obviously trying to get himself under control.
“Do you want to know?” I asked quietly. “About what happened to me?”
“Do I want to know? No. But I have to. I’ll listen and stomach it. Because this never should’ve happened to you, and I’ll have to live with it for the rest of my life.” He met my gaze. “I see it in your eyes. You’ll blame me forever.”
“You should’ve protected me.”
“I know.”
“But I should’ve protected myself,” I said. “This isn’t all on you.”
“Don’t absolve me.”
“I’m not. I’m not at all. But you did try and tell me what I was getting into with the Blue Angels. I just didn’t think…” I shook my head. “I was stupid. Stupid and too in love with you to see straight.” I looked at him to gauge his reaction at the admittance of my feelings.
His gaze was tender, soft.