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Now it was his turn to stop talking. The cop leaned back, remaining silent, giving me the same vacant look. He wasn’t boasting, or trying to convince me. He wasn’t pressing me for information, either. No, he’d brought me down here togiveme information, instead of the other way around.
In that moment, I fully believed him.
“They’re coming up from Mexico,” he said again. “You can stake your life on it.”
My face said it all. I didn’t even try to hide my reaction.
Fuck.
“Maybe you will stake your life on it,” the cop shrugged. “That’s up to you. But ifIheard you were rolling around with a cartel member in the trunk of your car, you can bet your ass the Ancellas heard it too.”
He reached out, gathered everything up, and stood up from the table. Right about then I realized the red recording light from the overhead camera had been switched off… for at least this part of our conversation, anyway.
“I don’t know how you and your buddies are tied up in this,” he leaned in confidentially, “and frankly I don’t want to know. But if I were you?”
He reached down and rolled his sleeve up to the elbow. There, on the inside of his forearm, was a Special Forces tattoo identical to my own.
“Getting out of town for a while might be the best idea.”
Forty
BRYNNE
I stirred at the sound of the door, leaping straight to my tired feet. Silas came through first, followed by Cody.
YESSS!
I rushed them happily, surging past the little oval where my non-stop pacing had just about worn a hole in the carpet. I flung one arm around each of them and began showering them with kisses.
“Thank fuck!” I cried out deliriously. “After the third hour I tried calling and texting and… Oh myGOD!”
My heart skipped two quick beats. Both men were scuffed up, battered, and covered with dirt and grime. But even more than that, they were covered in blood. Face. Shoulders. Hands…
“Whathappened!” I shouted.
Cody rubbed at his swollen temple. Silas, I noticed, was limping. Red rivulets streamed down both their arms, spider-webbing along their hands and through their fingers. It was all over their suits, too. Yet through it all, both men were still grinning.
“Please,” I hissed firmly. “Tell me!”
They glanced at each other for a moment, then back at me.
“We found Mathias,” he said smartly. “In the poker room, like Veronique said.”
Cody pointed downward, and Silas nodded. His friend rifled through the mini-fridge and came back with two waters.
“Are you hurt?” I exclaimed. The blood covering their bodies didn’t look all that fresh. “Do you need to go to the doctor, or—”
“It’s not our blood,” Silas explained.
Relief flowed through me. Relief mixed with confusion.
“You know that old saying?” Cody asked. “The one that goes ‘you should see the other guy?’”
I swallowed dryly. “Uh huh.”
“Well in this case itreallyapplies.”
Rather than spin the cap off his bottle of water, he pressed the cold cylinder against the wound above his eye. Silas poured his over his own head.
