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“Smart man,” she muttered, and we both went back to staring into our respective glasses. I hated how bright I’d made the room. It figured it had served its purpose, so I used my phone to dim the lights then changed the color to a warm orange. “Thank you.” She whispered, and I actually felt bad that I hadn’t thought about adjusting them earlier. I never usually gave someone down here a second thought. I couldn’t.
“You didn’t eat. Are you hungry?”
“No.”
“You should eat.”
“Why?” She sighed. “I only ate to be able to fight.”
“Your escape was pretty impressive.” I nodded and held up my glass.
“I know,” she gave a dark chuckle, “but not good enough, because here I am.”
“You took down two Cartel with your arms tied, ran through the streets, and got to where you thought you’d get help. Sorry he was one of my guys.” I shrugged. I chose my next words carefully, as I wanted to see how she reacted. “Honestly, you did really well. You almost made it, too, what with Blackstone there the exact same time as you were—”
She sat up and looked right at me, and I saw shock then defeat wash over her.
“They were there, when I was there?”
“Yes.” She hadn’t known. Her reaction was real, and the way her face twisted in pain made me wish I hadn’t even said it. Sometimes it bothered me how much I fucked with people’s heads to find out the truth. I looked away for a moment, not liking the hold she had on my conscience.
“He came for me,” she said softly in disbelief. “Oh, my God, after all I did.” She started to cry, and I forced myself to look at her again. She covered her face and drew her knees to her chest and sobbed.
Shit.
“Lexi,” I moved closer to the cage, “I honestly didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“Eric,” she crawled over to me and held on to the cage with white knuckles, “please, let me go. I’ve done so many things wrong that I need to make right.” Tears streamed over her pretty cheeks, and I allowed myself to feel her pain again, just for a moment, because it had taken years to become like stone inside and any softening scared the shit out of me.
“I—” I cleared my throat and wondered maybe, just maybe if…
“Boss?” I hadn’t even heard Alejandro open the door. “I need to speak with you.”
Suddenly, the spell of that moment broke, and I snapped back to reality.
“No, no, no, no, please!” Lexi begged, still on her knees, and Alejandro looked at me, confused.
I got to my feet as she sobbed harder, then gathered our glasses, my whiskey, and jacket.
What the hell was I doing?
Once we were upstairs, Filippo stood and ended his call when he saw me coming.
“Boss, I just got off the phone with Sal, the guy who runs the girls in and out of Castillo’s house.”
I waved impatiently at him to speed it up. “I know who the fuck Sal is.”
“Okay, well, he overheard Castillo talkin’ about the girl. I think he’s got another plan in mind for her.”
The fuck he does.
I felt my temper rise. The last thing I needed was more attention on Lexi. I wanted Castillo to get his head out of his ass and see that my idea was better than anything he wanted to do. The guy just wanted to show the world he was fuckin’ king shit. I needed my deal to go through, the money to be paid, her to be handed off, and my fucking job to go back to normal. I couldn’t wait until the day I could rise above that idiot and get him the hell out of my life.
“Did he say anything else?”
“Just that Castillo gave the green light to something that was put on standby.”
“What are you, fuckin’ Blackstone?” I tossed the glasses into the bar sink and heard them shatter. “Find out what the hell is on standby!” I knew Castillo had to be up to something big. He was like a toddler with a new toy to show off. “Who was he talking to?” Filippo shrugged. “Don’t shrug. Find out who the fuck it was.”
