Burn (Blood & Roses #3)
Callie Hart
Julio Perez is a killer.
He may be all smiles and easy talk when we meet in his study, but I can see the man for what he is: a dangerous creature. Perhaps it’s spending all this time with Zeth that’s done it—I can read the lines of Zeth like the lines of a book—but I can see that my instant read on Julio is different in its own way, too. Zeth and Julio are cut from different cloth. Zeth is dangerous in a primal, instinctive way. It’s just who he is. It’s the foundation of everything that makes him him. Julio, on the other hand isn’t inherently dangerous. He’s a man who has chosen to be so. Has earned the fear of those around him, and wears his intimidating persona like a cloak. Like something he can take off and put back on again whenever it pleases him. I don’t know who I should be more worried about; a man who was born into violence, or a man who chooses to descend into it.
“And what did you say you do for a living again, Ms Hawthorne?” Julio asks, running a meaty hand across the polished surface of his desk. He crooks a skeptical eyebrow at me, waiting patiently for me to stop opening and closing my mouth like an idiot and answer him.
“Uh…I’m…”
“Because you’re not an escort, obviously,” he says, waving hand in my general direction. “Your tits and your ass aren’t on show, for starters. And secondly, your name is Naomi Hawthorne. I haven’t met many escorts or strippers with a name like Naomi Hawthorne.” He says my fake name like he knows that’s exactly what it is.
Shit. When he asked me my last name, I gave him the first one that came to mind—the name of my Spanish teacher in high school. Seemed appropriate at the time, but now I’m beginning to see the error of my ways. I should have said fucking sparkles or something. Lovelace. A hooker surname, not a dentist surname. “No,” I say. “Not an escort. I—”
“Naomi’s a doctor,” Zeth cuts in, swinging his head to look around the room slowly, as though being here is boring him terribly. How he can be so calm and collected is beyond me; I’m sweating bullets from my forehead. And he told Julio the truth? For crying out loud. As if it won’t be incredibly easy for a Mexican gang boss to figure out which hospital I work at, and then I’m totally screwed. He’ll find out I’m not this Naomi Hawthorne person, and then he’ll kill me and bury me in a shallow grave somewhere in the desert. They’ll never find my body.
“A doctor?” Julio looks impressed and confused at the same time. “What kind of doctor?”
“Trauma.” I reply without hesitation this time. No point in lying anymore.
“Huh. Interesting.”
Zeth snorts. “Is it?”
Julio turns to look sharply at him. “Of course, hijo. The women who usually end up here aren’t usually…”
“Literate?” Zeth’s in a bad mood. He’s lost the nervous tension that he carried in his body as we made our way to the study, and now he just seems pissed off. And bored. I don’t know if it’s for real or if he’s acting, but if he is, he’s doing a good job. His quip makes Julio laugh, though.
“Exactly. They’re not quite your…shall we say, calibre, Naomi? And how the hell did you end up falling into bed with this sick bastard? Something traumatic happen to his dick or something?”
Zeth snorts but doesn’t say anything. I choose to take the bait—this is a prime opportunity to put aside any doubts Julio might have about my presence here. “I guess you could say that.” I smile coyly at Zeth, glancing at him out of the corner of my eye, as though I’m imparting some salacious secret. “I was invited to one of Zeth’s parties. I took one look at him and knew what kind of treatment he needed. And yeah, his dick was definitely involved. Although I think I was the one who suffered the trauma.”
Oh. My. Good. Lord.
I can’t believe I’m actually forcing this stuff out of my mouth. The blood is rising in my cheeks. I can feel them burning already; I can only hope Julio attributes my flushed color to the intensity of the fake memory and not embarrassment. A real flicker of amusement flashes in Zeth’s eyes. I suddenly realize that what I just said could actually be mistaken for the truth. I did go to one of his parties, and I did sleep with him there. And, in all honesty, he did fuck me ridiculously hard. I do my best not to cringe. I get the feeling Zeth is loving this. He’s found a toothpick from somewhere and is running it back and forward over his bottom lip, returning my sidelong glance. Apparently he’s no longer bored.
“Sounds intriguing. Did you suck it?”