“I don’t ruin lives. Bad choices ruin lives.”
“But you give them the ability to make a bad choice.” I corkscrewed my fingers in the hem of my shirt.
“They use drugs to fill some hole in their life. I didn’t put that hole there. Drug addiction is the symptom of a deeper problem.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “Great. Wash your hands of any moral responsibility.”
He chuckled, sounding way too much like Ryker. I didn’t want to see any similarities between this cruel drug lord and the man my heart and soul craved even though my mind knew it was wrong. “Speaking of moral responsibility, what’s going on between Ryker and you?”
Heat flooded my cheeks, and my heart skipped a beat or two. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ignacio smiled. “Ryker and Rever have different mothers. Did he tell you that?”
I sucked my lower lip into my mouth, debating how to answer this, but in the end I decided it was irrelevant if I told him the truth. Ryker would likely tell him everything and anything he wanted to know anyway. “Yes.”
“Ryker was the product of an affair. He spent the summers with me, but for the most part his mother raised him. I raised Rever, though. From his first breath, I groomed him to be my successor. I focused all of my efforts on ensuring Rever would be ready when I wanted to retire. Ryker was an afterthought. I love him. My blood flows through his veins, but I poured all of my blood, sweat, and tears into shaping Rever.”
“I don’t understand what any of that has to do with me,” I said when he stopped talking.
“Just that Ryker has worked hard for everything he’s achieved—”
“A career as a kidnapper. Is that your idea of achievement?” I mocked, interrupting him. “I can see why you have one kid in jail and the other on his way.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, so I’ll overlook your disrespectful comment,” Ignacio snapped. “All of them.”
“Then enlighten me,” I challenged.
Ignacio glanced out the window. “No. You don’t need to know anything, except that there’s a lot going on beneath the surface here. If you want your life back, you need to keep to yourself, and stay away from Ryker. Everything will be over within the next few days.”
“Stay away from Ryker?” I repeated robotically. “Why?”
His head snapped toward me, his black as coal eyes blazed with anger, and his hands curled into fists beside his legs. “Because I don’t need whatever the fuck is going on between you and Ryker to screw up everything I’ve worked for over the last decade.”
“He doesn’t care about me. He can barely stand to be in the same room as me. You don’t have anything to worry about,” I muttered, even though a small part of me believed Ryker did care. I wanted him to care.
He stroked his hand back and forth over his lips, contemplating and evaluating his next words. After an extended beat, he dropped his hand into his lap. “That’s not what it looked like on the video.”
“Excuse me?”
He cocked his head to the side. “I’m sure Ryker intended to delete the video, but then you ran, so he didn’t get the chance.”
“What video?” I asked, but I suspected the truth. I knew exactly where this conversation was headed. I should’ve shut my mouth and let the suspicion remain a suspicion rather than forcing Ignacio to validate it with words.
Stupid me.
His black as night eyes burned into mine, and his lips ticked up just a notch, or maybe I imagined it. “The one from the bathroom after our video conference with Senator Deveron and your lovesick suitor.”
Blood roared through my ears, and my vision tunneled. That video was a travesty on so many levels. My mind refused to wrap itself around the implications, both future and present. That video would hang over my head for infinity, and I’d be a puppet dancing to Ignacio’s tune to avoid exposure.
My life in politics…gone.
The possibility of any future with Evan…gone.
Any position of significance, doing anything I loved…gone.
Ignacio had taken the shattered pieces of my life and tossed them in my face like confetti. Jerking my head from side to side, I reined in my runaway thoughts. “You have cameras in your son’s room? Don’t you trust him?”
Ignacio folded his arms across his chest and studied my face before he responded. “I don’t trust anyone—not my sons, not my business partners, and certainly not spoiled rich girls. You don’t get far in my world on trust. You need power, money, weapons, and cunning.”
“What are you going to do with the video?” My voice came out strangled and rough even to my ears.
“Nothing right now. Stay away from Ryker, and I’ll make sure it’s destroyed. If not…” He shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll send it to Senator Deveron’s son as a Christmas gift or an engagement gift if you patch things up with him.”
The car stopped in front of the villa. “Perfect. Then I’ll use evidence to prosecute you and Ryker,” I bluffed. I didn’t have any leverage. He knew it. I knew it. My threat was empty.
Ignacio smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “That will be an interesting conversation. I wonder how they will interpret the video.” He ran his finger across his pursed lips. Then, he opened the car door, and for an instant I thought he was done with our conversation. “Maybe they’ll think you collaborated with your lover to secure the release of his brother.”
My body went deathly still as his comment reverberated through my mind. “They wouldn’t…they couldn’t,” I whispered, but I realized it was a real possibility. I’d have a lot of explaining to do if anyone from my life saw that video.
He reached across the backseat and squeezed my thigh. “Now that I think about it, I’m impressed by Ryker’s ingenuity. He didn’t discuss this with me, but it was a brilliant move. He turned the victim into a co-conspirator, thereby insuring your silence.” He stepped down from the car without looking back. “Ryker will accompany you to your room.”
Speechless, I didn’t say anything as I watched Ignacio march up the steps of the monster-sized villa. He left me alone, gambling I wouldn’t run again. But what was the point? They had the video, which meant I was along for the ride, regardless of where it took me. Granted, I already decided I wouldn’t try to escape, but the video cemented my compliance.
This was my new reality. For better or worse, my fate was intertwined with Rever’s, a man I didn’t know—a man who had lost his battle with the Vargas Cartel too.
Sunlight streamed into the car through the open door, replacing the cool air with the sticky humidity I’d become accustom to over the past two weeks. Conversations in Spanish hummed outside my door, but I didn’t care what was being said. For the first time since Ryker had taken me, I didn’t even try to pick out words I recognized.