Once the door closed behind him, Consuelo closed her eyes. “I’ll never make it to the border. And if you take me, all of you die.”
He froze at the look in her eyes. Despite the pain she was in, despite the blood and the bruises, she watched him with an eerie sort of calm. “Listen to me, ’mano,” she said, her voice getting weaker. “I know you do not understand, but please try. I know what will happen if you take me. He’ll catch us. I . . . I’ve seen it, Gustavo. He’ll catch us. He’ll kill you . . . I’m dead already. And he’ll do as he wishes with Alejandro. You have to protect him now.”
“No,” Gustavo said, shaking his head even as denial roared inside him. He brushed her hair back. “Come now. Hold on to me.”
“I’ve seen it,” she whispered. And then she told him just what she’d seen.
He froze. And then, defeated, he dropped his head onto the bed next to her, closer to sobbing than he’d ever been in his adult life. There was no room for tears, he knew, but they wanted to come nonetheless.
Back when she’d been a child, Consuelo had been a child whom many had mocked. She did see things. Mamá had believed her, had insisted their grandmother had been the same. Neither Mamá nor Gus had the ability, but Consuelo . . .
“You can save my son, Gustavo. But you cannot save me. I cannot even move. It hurts to breathe, hurts to even lie here. Please . . . you must promise me. Take him, keep him safe. And don’t . . . please don’t let Ignacio hurt me anymore. If he tries to make me talk, I . . .” She shook her head and reached for his hand. “I can’t keep fighting him.”
Unwittingly, he lifted his weapon hand, the one still clutching the Sig Sauer to stroke her brow. She caught his wrist and lifted it, guiding the weapon to her temple.
He jerked away. “Consuelo!”
“If he finds me alive, he will try to make me talk. I am not as strong as you. Please, Gustavo. You must protect my son . . . you must do this for me.”
HIS gut roiled, even now.
The guilt he’d kept buried raged to the surface as he moved out of the dark, dank little building.
It had been there that he’d found his sister. She, too, had been tied up. But she’d been tied to a cot, left naked and uncovered, so every violation had been there. For all the world to see.
And because he had made her a promise, to save Alejandro, he’d left her. Just like that, after he’d put a bullet through her heart.
There was a soft whisper of sound and he turned, saw Vaughnne standing in the doorway, her friend’s arm slung over her shoulder.
Vaughnne stared at him.
He returned that gaze without blinking, letting her see every ugly truth on his face.
“If you are going to ask if it is true,” he said, schooling his voice into a bored, flat tone. “Don’t bother, Vaughnne.”
“I won’t. I can already tell it is. I just want to know why.”
The other woman was pale, so deathly pale, and she stared at Gus with eyes that were an odd mix of horror and fury. And in her hand, she clutched the Derringer that Reyes had tried to use on him. It was, yet again, leveled at him. “Vaughnne, we need to go. It doesn’t matter why. We have to get out of here before the rest of Reyes’s men show up. I don’t want to die here, not just because you need to know why he killed his own sister.”
The look in her eyes was scathing and cold, but it didn’t affect him. He didn’t care what that woman said.
Vaughnne, though . . . the look on her face . . . it cut something deep inside him. It left a wound he wouldn’t have imagined possible. Still, he didn’t let it show as he looked from one woman to the other. “You should go. Get out while you can.”
“Are you going to answer me?”
He resumed his study of the night sky. And when she walked away, he closed his eyes. Blood dripped from the wound in his side, but he ignored it.
It was done, then.
Alejandro was safe.
He’d kept his promise.
He’d always thought it would kill him in the end.
This, he thought, was actually worse.
“YOU have no idea how much trouble you could have caused.”
There were only four of them in the room at the moment. Vaughnne and Nalini, along with Joss Crawford and Dr. Melissande Grady. Grady was settling Nalini into a chair that had been dug up from somewhere—an armchair, not one of those hard-ass chairs the rest of them would be in. Nalini looked like hell. She’d lost a decent amount of blood by the time Vaughnne was able to get her to a hospital, and the long, narrow line of sutures on her face stood out in stark relief against her pale skin. Grady murmured to her softly and Nalini nodded, and even that careful movement hurt like hell. Grady touched her shoulder and then moved away.
While Grady was playing doctor, Joss was busy ripping Vaughnne a new asshole.
“Were you trying to get yourself thrown in jail?” he demanded. “Trying to cost yourself your job? Cause an international incident or what?”
She gave him a sweet smile. “Well, if those were my intentions, I obviously failed, right? After all, I’m not in jail, there was no international incident.”
He waited a beat. “But do you still have a job?”
“Well, that’s not really up to you.” She settled back in her seat and stared outside. They’d just gotten out of Mexico early that morning, and although it was damn late and she was damn tired, she hadn’t been given the option to go home and rest.
No, she was at headquarters, getting debriefed. Well, waiting to get debriefed.
It had taken every last bit of Grady’s considerable diplomatic skills to get them out of Mexico so quickly. She’d lied through her teeth, too, while Joss stood in the background, looking brooding and menacing, which he did rather well.
Now they were waiting for the boss. It struck her as kind of odd that he wasn’t already there, but it was one of those random little thoughts that passed through her mind and then faded.
Just like every other thought of the past few days.
She couldn’t think.
Couldn’t focus.
Couldn’t sleep.
Couldn’t eat.
Nothing seemed to matter anymore, not since the moment she’d turned her back and walked away from Gus.
If you are going to ask if it is true . . . Don’t bother, Vaughnne.
Don’t bother. Like it didn’t matter at all if he’d killed his sister.
Don’t ask? Screw that. She knew it was true, she’d seen it on his face. Just as she’d seen the misery hidden in the back of his eyes. The misery, the pain. The grief. There had to be a reason, she told herself. She could feel it, in the very bottom of her soul. The man she’d come to know might be a killer, but he wasn’t a cold-blooded monster.
She damn well should have asked. Should have pushed. Yeah, there were reasons, all right. And fuck him to hell and back if he thought she just shouldn’t bother to ask.
Her gut churned as she continued to stare outside at the streets. It was late, but the streets were still crowded with cars and buses, people moving along the sidewalks.
What had happened?
Her mind spun, twisted with the possibilities. Had his sister been hurt? Sick? Maybe—
Before she could finish that thought, the door opened and she turned her head, watching as Jones came striding through the doors. He had a man with him, a man that Vaughnne was pretty damn certain she didn’t know.