He laughs. “Yeah, well, welcome to the family.”
My eyes drift closed. “Let’s say I follow your lead and stop holding my tongue with him. What if he doesn’t like it and hurts me, Lito? What then?”
“That’s a good question, but here’s a better one. Has he hurt you?”
“I mean …”
“No. I’m serious. Has he ever actually hurt you?”
I think back to the things Mateo has done, to the way he’s toyed with me. “He’s said some awful things.”
“Yeah, but beyond that, beyond that sort of communication divide between your civilized way of speaking and his Neanderthal one, has he actually hurt you?”
I try to pick apart our history together, to find the moment when he harmed me. But no matter what I look at, I’m not finding the smoking gun. What he did at the cathedral was gut-wrenchingly awful. The things he’s done to me since I’ve been under his roof have been wrong on several levels, the worst of which was how he made me want him when I should’ve wanted to end him.
Lito snuggles under the covers. “Wake me up when you come up with an answer.”
“You’re still wearing the face mas—”
His light snore cuts through my words.
“Never mind.” I sigh and stare at the ceiling as I will sleep to swallow me whole. It doesn’t, though, and I’m left with two things: impossibly smooth skin and an even more impossibly complicated attraction to Mateo Milani.
16
MATEO
The road is dotted with cacti, dust spewing out behind our car as we roll through the bumpy terrain along the southern border.
Sonny texts furiously, his brows furrowed. “This isn’t what we agreed on. First she made us wait a day, now this shit. We were supposed to meet at the airport, not out here.”
“Feds never keep their word.” I peer out at the clouds rolling in, the wind blowing dirt against the car like bursts of bird shot. “Let’s just get Red and get out. I wouldn’t want to keep my new wife waiting. She must be missing me terribly.”
He snorts. “Don’t think so. Benny says Lito is all up her ass.”
I sit up. Lito’s home?”
“Yeah. He came in yesterday morning. It’s in the group text.”
“I don’t read that shit.”
He side eyes me. “You should.”
“I get enough bullshit in the fantasy football chat. More than that and I might get violent.” I crack my knuckles. “I wonder what he’s been telling her.”
“Everything. You know Lito. Doesn’t have any idea what the word ‘secret’ even means.”
I groan and rub my forehead. Lito has just complicated shit, par for the course for him. If she’s charmed him—and I know she has, fuck she’s had me chasing my goddamn tail, so she has him wrapped around her finger by now—then he’s going to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong. Into my marriage.
“Head in the game, boss.” Sonny jerks his chin to the rusty trailer ahead of us, several government vehicles pulled up outside of it. “I don’t like it.”
I glance in the rear view at the two SUVs that pulled out of the scrub to follow us in. “It doesn’t matter. We agreed to the meeting.”
We pull to a stop in front of the tattered shack, then step out. Guns are leveled at us immediately, and I have zero doubt there’s at least one sniper with his scope trained on the back of my head.
“Hands up.” Two agents approach slowly, then stow their weapons and pat us down.
“What’s this?” The one running his hands along my front pauses at my waist.
“My dick.”
He runs his hands around it.
“You going to finger my asshole while you’re at it?” I smirk down at him.
He steps back, a scowl on his face. “He’s clean.”
“Same here.” The other agent backs off from Sonny.
The door of the mobile building creaks open.
“Agent Hawk.” Sonny looks up at her. “We’re here as agreed. Where’s Red?”
“Mr. Starnes is inside.” She narrows her eyes on me. “We need to talk.”
I step toward the stairs. The federal officers all tense, some of them even raising their guns again. They’re scared. Pussies.
“Easy.” Agent Hawk holds her hands out. “They’re unarmed. Give it a rest, boys.” Her tone brooks no argument, and her demeanor is the same. She’s not an easy opponent, and from the gray hair and the weathered lines on her face, she’s been in the game for quite some time.
I climb the stairs and follow her into the building right as fat drops of rain begin to fall. Sonny follows, and he closes the door behind us. The trailer is narrow and dim, the air stale.
“Guys.” Red sits at a metal table against the wall, his hands cuffed and attached to a ring on the top of it. “What took you so long?” His lip is split, one of his eyes almost swollen shut.
“The fuck happened to you?” I take a seat across from him.