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Jesus, those eyes of hers were dangerous. You could get lost in them. He couldn’t afford to get lost in anything that belonged to Dornan. He pulled his hand away. ‘It’s fine,’ he said, brushing off her concern. ‘You should see the other guy.’
She shook her head, opening her desk drawer and producing a small first aid kit. ‘Let me fix that before it gets infected.’
John shook his head, stepping back towards the door. ‘It’s fine, really—’
‘John!’ she said insistently. ‘You right handed?’
He nodded.
‘How are you going to deliver me money every day without your right hand? Come on. Sit down. Here, have a coffee. Guillermo got an extra one.’
She passed him a Starbucks cup and pointed to the other desk. ‘Sit. If I have to look at your hand for much longer, I might puke.’
He laughed, leaning against the second desk, his ankles crossed as he sipped lukewarm coffee. It was sugary and strong, just what he needed. As sugar and caffeine travelled to his brain, he started to relax a little. He wasn’t used to anyone taking care of him. His wife was a walking disaster and he’d never expect or want his daughter to take on all the household responsibilities that Caroline ignored, so he did most everything himself. It wasn’t so bad – there was worse, he remembered as he looked at Mariana’s concentrated expression – but it was nice to have a woman take care of him, for once.
He tensed when she touched a pad of rubbing alcohol to his wound, but didn’t pull away or protest. She smiled slightly at his reaction, waiting a moment before she continued cleaning the wound.
He couldn’t help it. As covertly as he could, without her noticing, he ran his eyes over every part of her that he could see. She had some sort of make-up on that made her eyes pop, and they looked stunning against her light brown skin and dark silky hair. She was wearing her hair out, and it fell loosely around her face. When she moved, he caught a whiff of her perfume, or maybe it was the shampoo she used. Whatever it was, it smelled of coconut and lime and sex.
He breathed her in deeply, and she looked at him quizzically. ‘You feeling okay?’
Oh, he felt better than okay. She smelled so good, he wanted to lean over and take a bite out of her. He smiled. ‘Yeah. Better now. Thanks.’
His Monday was looking up.
CHAPTER TEN
MARIANA
Christopher Murphy was a blight on my existence: a man I’d not cared to meet and wished I would never have to endure the misfortune of seeing again.
Sadly, my wish wasn’t granted.
I saw him exactly once a week, unless he was away on a job. He needed plenty of money stashed, and I was very, very good at distributing the illegal finances for Il Sangue and its associates. Every Sunday afternoon I was expected to give Murphy and Emilio a rundown on the finances for the week. Safety deposit box numbers, bank accounts, the lot. I memorised everything, didn’t write a single thing down that could incriminate anybody. The cartel couldn’t afford to be careless, not when they were selling coke and whores and God knows what else. One surprise raid, and it’d all be out in the open. Most of the money was sitting in offshore accounts, numbering into the millions by now, but it was all blood money.
When we’d met, Murphy was a federal air marshal, but he’d since traded that job for a better one, as an agent high up the food chain with the Drug Enforcement Agency. Ironically, he’d scored a position with the drug trafficking unit that was supposed to help stop the cocaine flow across the US border, but his real job, the one Emilio paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars for, was funnelling coke from South America onto North American soil. His connections were spread like tentacles through the law enforcement channels that presided over the illegal drug and human trafficking trades that plagued the gulf; and he was making bank.
He was Emilio’s right-hand man.
He’d been the one who had brought me to this godforsaken place.
And now, nine years after I’d returned home one night to find him standing over my father, a gun in his hand and a bored look on his face, Murphy was back in my face. This time he was alone and looking smug as he kicked the front door closed behind him. His gun was on his hip, and he looked smarmy rather than bored. Christopher Murphy was scum dressed in a suit and tie. And he was in my apartment.
‘Oh,’ I said, feeling my face fall as I watched him from where I was sitting on the couch. ‘It’s you.’
‘Don’t look so excited,’ he deadpanned.
Guillermo had gone on a run with the club and left me here, a rare event. But sometimes it happened. He’d only left five minutes beforehand. Murphy must have been watching, waiting for him to leave.
I rolled my eyes, feigning disinterest as alarm began to rise within me. It was Monday night. I never saw Murphy outside of our Sunday afternoon meeting, not unless there was a large amount of money to shift. If that were the case, though, we’d do it at the office under Emilio’s watchful eye.
Murphy being here in my apartment, alone, could only mean very bad things.
‘How’d you get past the alarm?’ I asked casually as I calculated the distance between myself and my gun. As luck would have it, it was underneath the couch cushion I was sitting on. I’d still probably get my head blown off before I’d be able to reach it, but it was comforting to know that underneath my ass was a weapon with six bullets in the clip, each with Christopher Murphy written on it.
‘I bypassed it,’ he said, smiling smugly. ‘The perks of working for the DEA. They’ve got all kinds of things to break through your little locks and codes.’
Great. He now apparently had an all-access pass to the one place I felt safe in the world. I wanted to throw up.
