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I waved him into my bedroom on the top floor of the Cordovas’ headquarters. “Of course.”
Dr. Stein, after grabbing her laptop, left without a word, used to the way our world worked. She should be, she’d been in the cartel’s employ for longer than I’d been alive and ran our private hospital located at our headquarters a few floors below me. Luckily, I had a penthouse suite in the building, so it made the perfect place for me to recover in secrecy and safety. My enemies would be pissing themselves with happiness at the anticipation of my death if they learned of my weakened state.
Sitting up, I rolled my stiff shoulders as I took Leo in, the healing wounds on my back itching. “What’s wrong?”
With a sigh Leo said, “It’s Joy. She’s not doing very well.”
Fear flowed through me, and I clenched my hands into tight fists as I fought to remain calm. “What do you mean, not well? Everyone told me she’s fine. I thought you were keeping an eye on her? What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s not sleeping, not taking care of herself, chewing her nails, no longer laughing, not well,” Mark snapped. “Because of your stupid order that we leave her alone in your absence and not tell her where you are, I’ve been unable to help her like she needs. She thinks you abandoned her.”
“Abandoned her? Why the fuck would she think that?”
Mark glared at me. “Because you haven’t contacted her in weeks, and the excuses we give her about your absence are fucking flimsy as hell. Joy’s too smart to fall for our bullshit, and because you’re a selfish fuck who forbid anyone from giving her any kind of real answers, or truth about where you really are, she just assumes that you were playing some kind of game with her, you stupid asshole.”
“Watch your mouth,” Leo said with a low growl.
“No,” I closed my eyes as his words hit me in the gut and my chest felt too tight. “No, he’s right. I shouldn’t have forbidden everyone from talking to her. In my defense, I never thought I’d be ambushed and have to fight my way back to civilization.”
Mark shook his head, his lips tight. “You have to start putting her first.”
“I fucking do put her first.”
I fiercely wished I was strong enough to get in a fight, because I wanted to kick Mark’s smirking ass.
“No, you don’t. If you’d been thinking about Joy you would have done everything to cover all your bases before you left. You would have really thought about how she would react to seeing you gone, and realized when you gave that asinine order that everyone was to leave her alone and keep her in the dark, you were hurting more than helping Joy. She has a support system around her unique in its ability to help her through the transition from her world and into ours. You took that away from her because you didn’t want to share.”
“Bullshit,” I seethed while pointing a shaking hand at Mark and a silent Leo. “I was trying to protect her. My mother was ready to brainwash Joy the first night she was beneath our roof, but I held her off.”
Mark’s hard gaze softened, and his shoulders lowered a touch. “I didn’t know that.”
Leo stepped away from his second-in-command. “It’s true. I’ve been helping Ramón put Judith off, but you know how she is. When she learned about Ramón’s obsession with Joy, she was beside herself with happiness and had all kinds of fantasies about Ramón having a big happy family.”
I snorted in contempt, my healing jaw itching something fierce. “That doesn’t give my mother the right to play with people’s lives at will. Joy is hands off to her, in every way. I’m still fucking pissed she gave my girl D128 without my permission.”
“I’m afraid,” Leo said in a dark voice, “that your mother’s patience has just about run out. Seeing you injured has her more determined than ever to bring Joy into the family. You know Judith will do anything to protect you, Ramón. For Joy’s sake, you need do her programming, and soon, or I fear your mother will step in. Not out of malice, but in a screwed-up effort to make you happy.”
Pressure built in my head as I tried to sit upright on the bed, but my arms shook like I’d just done a hundred bench presses. I’d delayed Joy’s programming as long as I could, but if my mom was ready to step in and break her promise to me, Joy was in trouble and she needed me. Fuck, I might have to be brought to her side in a wheelchair, but I had to move, now. The thought of my crazy mother fucking around with Joy’s sweet, beautiful mind and soul made me ill.
