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“Damnit,” Judge mutters, mimicking my same thoughts when Emo and I found the broken phone.
“Do you think Diego sent it?” Eden asks. Her arms are hugging her middle. I hold my hand out to her and she rushes to me. I pull her snuggly to my side. Having her close cools my temper a few degrees.
“When was this sent?”
I look to Judge, still irate at his accusation against Eden, but I answer him. “About five minutes after I got your call.”
“Then no, it couldn’t have been Diego. I was able to get a general area of where his phone call to Eden came from. It’s within a five-mile radius of the center of town. He wouldn’t have had time to make it to San Antonio.”
“But then who sent it? And why? Was there a message with the picture?” Eden asks, looking up at me.
I tip my chin to Judge and he looks back down at the phone.
“This is what will happen to her if you don’t stop him,” he recites the message that came with the picture.
Eden trembles against my side, so I pull her closer, trying to absorb her fear into me.
Jenny, who’s been quiet this whole time, approaches Judge and tries to look at the phone. He holds it away from her.
“No,” he demands. “You don’t need to see it.”
“Let me see, Judge,” she says calmly.
“Jenny,” Judge and I both warn. It’s already bad enough that Eden saw the picture. Hell, she saw it in person. No one should see something like that.
“Let me see the damn picture, Judge.”
With a tight jaw, he holds the phone for her to see, and just as expected, her face pales and she sucks in a gasp. “Oh, God.” She throws her hand up to her mouth. Muttering a curse, Judge leads her to the couch to sit down before she passes out.
The woman in the picture is mutilated almost beyond recognition. I’m surprised Eden was able to recognize her. That tattoo her only clue as to who she was. Her face is swollen and bloody, her body covered in bruises and lacerations, and her insides are no longer inside her, but lying next to her body.
“Find that bastard. This shit stops,” Judge growls.
I lock eyes with him, both of us silently saying what we can’t say out loud.
That woman in the picture, what was done to her… will be nothing compared to the hell we’ll bring down on Diego fucking Tomas.
EDEN
I’M QUIET AS JW LEADS me into his house, which happens to be just around the block from Jenny and Judge’s. My thoughts are scattered and it leaves me feeling numb. I’ve never considered myself a weak person. I stand my ground, I’m not afraid to give my opinion, I always fight for what I believe in, and I’ve never let a man treat me like shit.
I feel weak right now though. Diego makes me feel weak and helpless. No matter what I do, I’m going to lose. If I run, I’ll be leaving everyone I care about behind, including JW and the others in Malus I’ve begun to think of as friends, for God knows how long. JW was right earlier. There’s no way Diego will give up looking for me. He may go back to San Antonio when he realizes I’m no longer here, but it’ll never be safe for me to return, and I’ll always be looking over my shoulder.
If I stay, I run the risk of someone else getting hurt. Even if JW and his brothers manage to capture him, there’s a chance one of them will get hurt, possibly even killed, in the process. And if they aren’t, Diego is part of the Tomas cartel. He’s Emiliano’s son. He’ll no doubt send goons to Malus, and I don’t want to imagine the havoc they would cause.
“Hey,” JW calls. I blink and look up at him, briefly remembering him walking me to his room and sitting me on his bed before he left the room. I didn’t even see him come back. “What’s going through your mind?”
I drop my eyes to his shirt where I pick at an invisible string. “Just how stupid I was to ever get involved with Diego. And that no matter what I do, someone is bound to get hurt.”
He grabs my chin and forces my head up. His brows are slashed down into a frown. “You need to have more faith in me. Diego’s done. He won’t be hurting anyone else. That, I can promise you.”
I want to believe him. I want so badly to take his word and run with it, but there’s no way he can guarantee it. There are no guarantees in life. It’s unpredictable, no matter how much we may try to make it otherwise.
“Come on. It’s early, but I’m exhausted, and you look dead on your feet.”
It’s dark, but it’s early. Only about nine o’clock or so. He’s right, though. I’m exhausted to my bones. Earlier, after the initial shock of seeing the picture of the girl, JW called in Trouble and Emo. Remi and Grace came with them. After Jenny gave the women a short run down of what happened, she quickly changed the subject. I think she knew I was on the verge of a mental break down and needed a distraction. The four men sequestered themselves into Judge’s office and talked about… I don’t know what, but I know they were planning something and it had to do with Diego. I want to ask JW about it, but a part of me doesn’t want to know. I just want to pretend for one night that he doesn’t exist.
Pulling in a deep breath, I get to my feet in front of him.
