“You still want your sisters safe, don’t you?” I asked Javier.
He nodded, and I saw the first flash of pain come across his brow. “I have to get to Mexico City. That’s where Violetta is. She’s the closest to him now, the easiest one for him to go after. I have people here who can help me, who will help me. I just don’t know if it’s enough. Now that Travis knows I am here …”
He didn’t have to finish the sentence. We all knew far too well what he would do.
“Okay,” I said, looking between them, “Javier we’ll help protect your sister if you help us get Gus back. And my parents, if we can.”
“How the fuck can you protect my sister?” he asked angrily.
“Javier,” I said. “Who else do you have right now? Who else is here with you? Peter? Raul? You can’t do this alone just as we can’t.”
“I have my people.”
“Those same people turned on you. What makes you think they’ll stay loyal now?”
“Raul, I knew …”
“And yet look what happened. Who knows who else Travis has won over? At least you know where you stand with us.”
I don’t know why I was pressing so hard for Javier’s help, especially when he’d just threatened to deliver Camden’s head at my doorstep, but there it was.
He shook his head back and forth but walked back to the car. “I don’t like this.”
“None of us like this!” I yelled at him. I looked up at Camden, pleading a bit with my eyes. “I don’t think we have much of a choice.”
His eyes cut into Javier as he got back into the Jeep. “You always have a choice, Ellie. Always. This will have to be ours.” We turned and headed back toward the Jeep. Camden leaned into me and whispered, “At the first legitimate excuse, Javier is gone. I’ll kill him if I have to.”
I would have chalked that up to Camden being overprotective. But I recognized the dark gleam in his eyes, the absence of guilt, and I realized he would.
Camden had changed. We all had changed. The past was behind us. And I had no idea what our future was.
Don’t miss Book One in The Artists Trilogy
Read on for an electrifying extract …
PROLOGUE
This will be the last time.
I’ve said that before. I’ve said it a lot. I’ve said it while talking to myself in a mirror like some Tarantino cliché. But I’ve never said it while having a pool cue pressed against my throat by a crazed Ukrainian man who was hell bent on making me his wife.
It’s nice to know there’s still a first time for everything.
Luckily, as the edges of my vision turned a sick shade of grey and my feet dangled from the floor, I had enough fight left in me to get out of this alive. Though it meant a few seconds of agony as the cue pressed into my windpipe, I pried my hands off of it and reached out. Sergei, my future fake husband, wasn’t short, but I had long arms and as I pushed aside his gut, I found his balls.
With one swift movement, I made a tight, nails-first fist around them and tugged.
Hard.
Sergei screamed, dropping me and the pool cue to the sticky floor. I hopped up to my feet, grabbed the stick, and swung it against the side of his head as he was doubled over. When I was a child, I was never in a town long enough to get enrolled in the softball team, which was a shame because as the cue cracked against the side of his bald head, I realized it could have been a second career.
Hell, it could even be a first career. I was quitting the grifting game anyway.
Sergei made some grumbling, moaning noise like a disgruntled cow giving birth, and though I had done some damage, I only bought myself a few seconds. I grabbed the eight ball from the pool table and chucked it at his head where it bounced off his forehead with a thwack that made my toes curl.
For all the games I played, I’d always been a bit squeamish with violence. That said, I’d never been busted by one of the men I’d conned with my virgin bride scam. I chalked this up to “kill or be killed.” Self defense. Hopefully it would be the last time for that, too.
Not that I was doing any killing here. After the pool ball made contact with his head and caused him to drop to his knees with a screech, I turned on my heels and booked it into the ladies’ washroom. I knew there were two angry-looking men stationed outside of the door to the pool room, and they definitely wouldn’t let me pass while their friend was on the floor hoping his testicles were still attached.