She laughed. “When did you become so lame? Aren’t you running up a small cartel at the moment?”
His eyes widened then darted around the cafe but she patted his hand and said. “This place is cool, it’s cool.” Then she blew smoke in his face and smiled. “Cool.”
She turned to us and said, “So can one of you tell me what’s really going on here?”
“It’s as he says, he just wants you safe,” I said, avoiding Javier’s eyes. Last thing I wanted was for him to think I was vouching for him.
“Si,” she said, taking another puff. Her eyes darted to him, then to Camden and then back to me. “But why are you here?” She nods at Camden. “And why is he here?”
Oh boy. Javier’s eyes narrowed slightly, daring me to tell the truth.
So I did. I took in a deep breath and launched into it. “It’s a long story, longer than what I’ll tell you. Basically, I knew Camden back in high school and recently returned to my home town of Palm Valley in California. He ran a tattoo shop, was stuck laundering money for his ex-wife’s brothers who have some sort of gang in Cali running guns or pot or whatever. He wanted me to help him escape with the money. I did. Meanwhile, your brother shows up with a fifty-thousand dollar price tag on my head. Goes to Camden. Camden tells me. We go on the run. Javier nearly finds us. Then he bribes my Uncle Jim with the money. My uncle almost turns me over to him, ducks out at the last minute. Javier shoots him in the head.”
This whole time Violetta had been watching me with her mouth slightly open, forgetting her cigarette existed, the ash piling up on the end. Javier looked stone-faced, not even caring what I was telling her, which of course, was the truth.
I went on, my voice strained by the memories, “After he killed Jim, he contacted us and told me that either I’d go with him or he’d hurt Camden’s son, Ben, and his ex-wife. Camden and I went back to Palm Valley and the exchange was made. I went with Javier, Camden got his son and ex back, plus the money your brother was originally offering people. Only, Camden discovered that everything had been a set up. His ex had gone willingly with Javier. She and her brothers planned to take the fifty grand from him afterward and I’m guessing right now that Javier, you, had everything to do with it. That in the end, Camden would never have gotten very far.”
He stared right back at me, unflinching. Camden, on the other, was growing tense beside me. I didn’t need to look at him to know he was shooting Javier daggers, that his strong hands were gripping the edge of the table.
“Anyway,” I said, and brushed the sweat off the back of my neck. Fuck it was hot in here. “Javier’s plan at first was to get me to kill Travis, which I was willing to do … well, I was willing to help him kill him. We ended up here. Then I find out it wasn’t just Travis, but it was my parents too. That they’d been working with Travis and Javier knew this. I was supposed to be his fucking assassin.”
Violetta puffed nervously on her cigarette and looked to Javier. “This true? You wanted her to kill her own parents?”
Javier swallowed hard but didn’t say anything.
“I’m afraid your brother is sick in the head,” I told her, half apologetic.
She snorted. “This much I know.”
Javier cleared his throat. “Ellie,” he spoke softly and folded his hands on the table, “you’re neglecting to tell her the part where I rescued both you and Camden at Travis’s party, saving you from certain death.”
Yes. That part.
I smiled weakly. “I almost forgot. That was after you let them take Gus.”
“Gus isn’t my problem. I never asked for him and Camden to come down here.”
Violetta nodded to Camden. “And why did you come down here?”
“Why do you think?” Camden asked, his voice clipped.
“To get the girl?” She smiled at the two of us. “Which would be very romantic if it weren’t for my brother sitting right here, correct?”
Romantic. I looked at Camden, feeling my face growing hot. I found it romantic. I found it sexy. I found it brave, honest, noble, even dangerous. I found Camden’s devotion to me to fill my soul with a warmth I’d never, ever felt before.
But how could it be romantic, when I could see the hurt and anger in his eyes, his disappointment in me and what I’d done to him. How easily I tossed away his accountability. This wasn’t romantic anymore, this was tragic and it was all my fault.
I didn’t need to say that to Violetta though. She only stubbed out her smoke on the table and said, “Oh, but I forgot, you aren’t with him.”
Camden looked at me sharply.
She went on, “And you’re not with my brother. And yet here you all are. Together.”
“He’s helping us get Gus back,” I said.