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“Important side note,” she went on when I didn’t voice my thoughts, “I still don’t think anyone found us in Cape Town.”
My turn to roll my eyes. “Ohhh, please.”
“Just because some handsome stranger chats you up in the bar and does the impossible of winning and wooing you over, does not mean he was a threat.”
“Except it was all a trap. And I fell for it. Hook, line, and sinker.” Mom never would’ve been so careless. “I got sloppy. Stupid. And for a moment, I let myself forget . . .” Forget the reason why we ran and always maintained a level of anonymity, because that stranger had given me the best night of my life. Hell, just the memory of the way his lips had slanted over mine gave me butterflies, and I hated myself for having a visceral reaction to a memory. But I wouldn’t back down from my belief our night together wasn’t some happy accident.
“You’re neither sloppy nor stupid. I just don’t believe he—”
“He had a gun. And his passport didn’t match the name he gave me. That’s why he’s an asshole. An asshole regardless of whether he was there for us, by the way. And I should have known the second he’d said his name that it was an alias. Jack London. Sure, sure, he had the same name as the author of Call of the Wild. And I didn’t question that the second he said it?” I really had been off that night, hadn’t I?
“You shouldn’t have been snooping while he was asleep.”
“I had to get to work and didn’t want to wake him, so I was searching his jacket for a pen. Shockingly, the room didn’t have one. I didn’t expect to find a gun instead.”
“You really think someone who targeted you passed out after baiting you to his room, only to allow you to escape his grasp?” She snorted. “Come on.”
“I dodged a bullet. Quite literally,” I said instead of answering her question. I didn’t want to admit she had a point. And I was getting good at dodging things I didn’t want to think about. “The idea of me falling for some guy I just met . . . maybe he slipped something into my drink to make me all googly-eyed, talkative, and—”
“Happy?”
“The point is—we’re not going to this game. I can’t believe you ever signed us up for this.” I had to get back on track. Focus on the objective at hand and talk my sister out of this wild idea of hers.
“A half a million dollars, Charley. Between the two of us—two chances at winning. Let me take care of you for once. You’ve been busting your ass playing mom for eleven years now.”
“It’s not a hardship looking after you.” I hated knowing she thought that. She was my sister. My family. I’d give my life for her, and I almost did when I was twenty. Not that she knew every detail about what happened after Mom’s accident. Some truths were better off buried beneath pretty plants to disguise the ugliness beneath. Not that our constantly-on-the-run lifestyle could be described as a “pretty plant,” but I did my best to run to pretty locations, at least.
“I think it’s time we stop. What if we’re safe now?”
“The guy who seduced me to his hotel room last month is evidence of the fact we’re not safe,” I reminded her.
“Well, there could be other reasons that guy had a gun and different passport on him. Doesn’t mean he was sent after us.” She began packing my makeup bag as if we were going to Brazil.
I covered her hand as she gripped my tube of mascara. “My job is to keep you safe. A half million dollars to put you in harm’s way is not worth it to me.”
“But it’s not your job. It never should have been. You have to let go.” She dropped the mascara and faced me. “I’m doing this with or without you.”
I hung my head. “Please, Luce.”
“Don’t Mom me. Don’t ‘Luce’ me.” Mom’s name for her. Shit. I knew she hated it when I called her that because it . . . hurt her. It hurt me, too. I missed her so damn much. “I need to do this. I’m sorry. You’re either coming with me, or you’re going to have to finally let me go.”
My stomach ached, and my chest became tight. I went over to the window and peeked through the blinds, catching sight of the beautiful skyline of Mallorca. The Cathedral of Santa Maria, or as locals called it, La Seu, sat regally on the Bay of Palma. Mom would’ve loved it there. She’d always wanted to travel. To see the world. And now we were doing that for her, just not in the way Mom would’ve wanted for us.
I let go of the blinds and peered at the words inked inside my wrist, Never Let Go. “I’ll never let go.”
“Where you go, I go,” Lucy had said to me at fourteen when I’d tried to force her to live with Mom’s trusted contact in London instead of going on the run with me. I wanted her to have a shot at a normal life. But the paranoia that someone would find her and I wouldn’t be there to protect her had been too much, so I’d given in to her begging to come with me.
When Lucy remained quiet, I released a heavy breath. Hoping like hell this game wasn’t a trap, I murmured, “Where you go, I go.”
CHAPTER FIVE
JACK
TABATINGA, BRAZIL
Inside the shared living room of our temporary lodging, I gently pushed Mya’s hands away from my wrist as she tried to roll my sleeve to my elbow as if I didn’t know how to do it myself. “I know, I know. Show my forearms.”
Mya lifted her hands and fake pouted while stepping back, and I busied myself with the job of cuffing my white linen shirt sleeves, eyes on the window instead of focusing on the task at hand.
