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Juan Carlos scoffs as he leaves my grandfather’s office in a hurry. Lory pulls his phone from his pocket, opening the camera feed to watch the advisor walk across the main house and out the back door.
I stand silent and let my rage simmer, the kindling of fire burning a little hotter than it was this morning.
“I know,” Lory quietly says. “I’m late. Are you okay?”
“I’m going to—”
“Not here,” he gently reminds me. “I’ll make up for it when we get home.”
Right... I need to keep my mouth shut, because everything we say is picked up by two sets of security cameras. There’s so much Lory and I need to talk about, starting with the Ghost. He can’t keep throwing that name around without knowing exactly who it is.
It’s not the easiest conversation to bring up, though. For more than a decade, he’s thought the Ghost was another group within the cartel. He thinks I’m one of a few… Not that I’m the one and only.
“I hope so,” I mumble, cutting my eyes to the camera in the corner before I walk to the desk.
I don’t sit in my grandfather’s chair.
He would view that as more disrespectful than his advisor threatening to fuck my dead body.
Lory glances downward, his back to the camera. “I promise. How about dinner and a movie? I could even take you shopping.”
He stands in just the right way so that I know the camera can’t see me as I kneel and use my key to open the desk drawer... Only it doesn’t open. I subtly shake my head at Lory, and his brows crinkle.
“What about jewelry and a midnight stroll through the park? We could go to your favorite little lake,” he suggests, leaning toward me as I straighten.
He kisses me, turning us slightly as he slips something into my right hand. The way he has us pressed together over the desktop, conceals me completely, and I take a moment to let the anxiety leak out of me. He feels it too, stroking his fingertips over my arm in a tender gesture that would normally make me push him to be rougher.
But today, I don’t.
You can’t break what’s already broken. You can’t really fix it, either.
My mind has blurred the lines of morality, tucking the damaged parts of me into the dark recesses where I can’t find them. That action keeps me alive and well in a man’s world. It’s taught me how to survive and thrive in this violent city I love so much.
And it’s never allowed me to cry or scream, no matter how bad the training or torture got.
Lory has been with me through it all. He’s why we learned the security passcodes when we were twelve, why we broke into the room to study all the monitors… So they couldn’t keep us apart. So we wouldn’t ever lose each other again.
We know these camera angles better than the guys assigned to watch them… Every exposed corner, every glitchy screen, every malfunctioning speaker.
Our discrete cameras don’t have the same issues as Senior’s archaic system.
When Lory pulls away, I chase the taste of him, grinning as he shakes his head.
We say it’s all for show.
We lie to everyone…
A part of me will never not want Lorenzo Navarra.
He’s been mine since we were kids, and he’ll get on board with sharing me. It’s going to take some coaxing, but I know the way to his heart. And his dick, if I’m being honest with myself.
Lory wasn’t lying when he said he likes to watch me.
That’s where my kink started.
As he stands tall, blocking me from the camera’s view, I kneel back down and roll my eyes at the lock pick kit in my hand. He must have suspected Juan had done something, but when did he find out? Why didn’t he tell me?
I slide the thin metal bits into the keyhole, twisting and wiggling, until the lock quietly clicks. The drawer is quiet as it opens, which is new. It’s had a slight squeak for as long as I can remember. I don’t dwell on it, though. Instead, I shuffle all the papers into a neat stack before I stand and nod my head.
