I shifted closer, leaning my elbows on his desk as I shook my head, laboring to remember every detail. “Nothing.” I cocked my head to the side. “I broke up with Evan right around that time, and you know what happened after that. I went to Mexico with Vera for Spring Break, then you…” My heart sputtered as pieces of the puzzle shifted in my mind.
Ryker stood up and walked around the corner of the desk, pausing in front of me with his hands shoved deep into his pockets. “Then I found you in that bar in Mexico.”
The air exploded out of my lungs like I’d been kicked in the gut, and the room tilted. I clutched the edge of the desk, suffocating on the noxious fumes of betrayal. “Did…” I blinked, stalling for time.
Please don’t be true.
With deadened hands, I rubbed my temples. “Did Senator Deveron pay you to abduct me?”
“Yes.”
One simple word. By itself, it was innocuous, innocent even, but it felt like he had pulled the safety pin on a grenade and fractured my life into a million pieces. I jumped out of the chair like a jack in the box.
“No,” I yelled. “It’s not true. He wouldn’t do that. It doesn’t make sense. Evan would never let him.” Ryker shook his head, his face lined with pity. I felt sick. My hands shook. My heart pounded against my chest like a battering ram. Then, my knees buckled like a folding chair.
Ryker caught me, his fingers digging into my upper arms. “Breathe, Hattie. Breathe.”
I didn’t want to breathe. I didn’t want to open my eyes. I wanted it all to go away. I wanted to disappear. Fade away. “Why? Tell me why, Ryker.” I swallowed against the surge of nausea, contorting my stomach into a pretzel. God, I fucking hurt everywhere.
His hand moved up and down my back, and he kissed the top of my head. “They need you. They need your dad, but I think you already know this part. I told you all of this in Mexico, but I omitted the names of the parties involved.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I skimmed through the murky conversations with Ryker and Ignacio. Then, it hit me. According to Ignacio, Rever had offered information about politicians and businessmen affiliated with the Vargas Cartel in exchange for prosecutorial immunity. He needed leverage to stop it from happening. So did Senator Deveron. I tilted up my head, searching Ryker’s face.
“Senator Deveron has connections to the Vargas Cartel.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement, but the minute I said it, I realized it was the absolute truth. Deep down maybe I knew all along. Ignacio and Ryker had given me enough hints, but I refused to see the truth. The truth butchered me.
Ryker nodded. “It started fifteen years ago. Senator Deveron’s Las Vegas casino was on the verge of bankruptcy. Ignacio propositioned him. Ignacio needed a way to launder drug money, and Senator Deveron needed a quick cash infusion. It made sense for both of them. When President Felipe Calderón took power in 2006, he declared war on the drug cartels. The Vargas Cartel experienced significant losses. Senator Deveron needed the Vargas Cartel’s money to keep his casino afloat, but he also wanted more power and influence, so he ran for Senate. The Vargas Cartel funneled money to his campaign through dummy corporations, campaign bundlers, and non-profits with the understanding that he’d use his power to help the cartel.”
“So you’re saying Senator Deveron is a puppet of the Vargas Cartel.”
“No, more like they have a symbiotic relationship. Senator Deveron uses his position to block the U.S. from interfering with the Vargas Cartel’s trafficking activities, and he blocks active prosecution of the cartel’s top officials.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
“The Vargas Cartel supplies ninety percent of the drugs that enter Nevada, and it has a significant presence in the western United States.”
Dazed, I stepped out of his embrace and walked to the window, my back facing him. “I didn’t realize that.” I stared at the lights flickering in the inky sky. “I don’t know why they need my dad or me. It sounds like Senator Deveron can take care of himself. He has all the power and connections he needs.”
“Rever leaked some information implicating Senator Deveron, but reports of his connection to the Vargas Cartel have been bubbling up for the last two years. He needs a way to stop the inevitable.”
His hands dropped on my shoulders, and part of me wanted to push him away. Push everyone away. I was utterly exhausted. My mind spun in circles as I struggled to unravel fiction and truth.
“What are you saying?”
“If you marry Evan, your dad would have a strong incentive to kill any investigation that landed on his desk.”
A shiver trickled down my spine, and I felt cold…so fucking cold. Frost crawled through my body, numbing every cell in its path. I didn’t think I’d ever be warm again. “Ah, I see.” Avoiding Ryker’s heated stare, I crossed the room and snagged my purse off the chair.
“What do you see?”
“Evan strung me along all this time for what I could offer his family. You abducted me for money, and then you wanted me to get back together with Evan last week for what reason? More money? To help the Vargas Cartel smuggle more drugs?”
“Hattie.” He grabbed my hand, but I slapped it away. The sound of flesh hitting flesh echoed through the room.
“Don’t touch me,” I spat through clenched teeth. “All week, I had this internal debate running in my head whether we could actually make this work between us. I twisted reality. I distorted the facts, and somehow I convinced myself if we wanted it enough, we’d figure it out. We could be together.”
“We can.”
I scoffed. “No, you’re wrong. You were ready to let me go last week. Why should I believe you won’t change your mind when a better offer comes along?” I sucked in a deep breath, willing the tears to disappear from the corner of my eyes. Willing my heart to freeze over and become an impenetrable wall of icy disdain. Willing myself to evolve from the pathetically gullible pawn I’d become into someone stronger. Smarter. Braver.
“Because I choose you. I choose you over the safety of my family and over everything I’ve worked for. I refused to help him. Why do you think he came after me today?” I shrugged. “I told him to leave you alone.”
I blew my bangs out of my eyes. “Right. For now. For today.”
“I’m not letting you go again. I’m done fighting what’s happening between us. We’re in this together. To the end. This bullshit with Senator Deveron and the Vargas Cartel will fade away, but what I feel for you won’t. I realize that now.”
“I have to go. This is too much,” I said, taking a half step to the door, my head shaking back and forth, but I didn’t want to leave. I never wanted to leave him. A few pretty words and my anger disintegrated like a sandcastle in a windstorm. How did he do that? From the moment I saw him in that bar I was a goner. My body chose him over and over, even when my mind begged me to hate him.
His head whipped toward mine, his eyes blistering with passion. “Senator Deveron threatened to withdraw the protection of the U.S. government from the Vargas Cartel and align with the Alvarez Cartel.”