Page 66 of Her Wicked Hero

“I like numbers. I mean I really like numbers,” Marcia’s eyes twinkled.

“Okay. I have absolutely no idea where this is going.”

“Occasionally, when I’m looking at something, a really complex problem, I know the answer. I mean a problem that’s going to take me four hours of calculations to come up with the answer, but I know what the answer is. All my calculations are going to do is just confirm what I already know. It’s weird, Zed. It’s spooky and otherworldly and even though we just talked about loving one another?”

He started to smile and nodded.

“So, even though I love you?” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t know that I ever would have admitted the whole math voodoo to you if I didn’t know you have voodoo, too.”

Zed burst out laughing and rolled her over, so he was looking down at her.

“I love you, Marcia Price.”

“Tell me how you pulled your head out of your ass. Did you do it before you were eighteen?”

“I’d moved out by the time I was sixteen,” Zed shook his head. “I was a lot smarter than she was, just ask me. I did a lot of stuff I’m not proud of, but there were lines I never crossed. I thought I had gotten away with it because there had been so many turf wars going on. I thought I had slipped through the cracks. I thought I was smart, but I was so fucking stupid.” Zed rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. Wisdom came at a high price.

“What happened?”

“Because there had been so many little turf wars that had come along, I had skated along without having to kill anyone.”

“Kill anyone?” she breathed out. “You were a kid.”

“I was in a notorious gang, and I was a punk. When Luis gave me the gun and told me what I needed to do, he made it sound like I would be doing the world a favor by getting rid of this guy. To this day, I regret I considered it, just so I could stay part of something I knew was wrong. But Luis had also made it clear if I didn’t do it, not only would I die, but so would my family.”

When Marcia whimpered, he pulled her close and pressed a kiss to her temple.

“How d'you get out of it and protect your grandmother?”

He squeezed his eyes shut, then grinned down at her.

“That’s a lot of faith you have in an eighteen-and-a-half-year-old screw up.”

“Zed, I’ve seen you in action.”

“Luis was supposed to watch it go down. I was supposed to tell him the time and location of drive-by, so he could report back.” Zed sighed. “I set him up. I tipped off the other gang, and they were waiting for Luis and his men. It all spiraled out of control for two weeks.”

“What about your grandmother?”

“With all the crazy going on, we had a week to get her packed up to visit relatives down in Guadalajara. By the time I got to her house, she had a telephone number of a Navy recruitment officer.”

Zed kept that piece of paper in the same frame as the picture he had of Señorita Zaragoza. Marcia’s fingertips teasing through his hair brought his focus back to her.

“When did she pass?”

“Two weeks after I received my trident,” Zed smiled. He just wished she could have been alive to have met Marcia.

13

“I won’t be put off by fantastic sex again. As a matter of fact, it is off the table until you tell me what the hell is going on!” Gah! Couldn’t the man even look slightly unsettled when she yelled at him?

Zed looked up from his laptop, then closed it.

“Good to know it’s fantastic sex.” He reached out a hand, and she slapped it away.

“Absolutely not, buster. You got out of bed in the middle of the night, and I hear you out here talking to Kane, but you haven’t been keeping me informed of what’s going on. I don’t like it one bit.”

She wasn’t going to admit to him for just a moment or two she thought of Rick and had a momentary flashback when she’d heard Zed out here in the living room talking to his friend on a computer call. So, start with insecurity, then find out they’d been getting information on Jefferies, and Zed had been keeping her in the dark, and now, she was ready to spit nails.