“I’d rather him see me as a pawn than anything more than that,” I said.
“Hmmm,” he mused. “And I see you mean that too. Do you still have feelings for him?”
I lowered the book again and gave him the most disgusted and incredulous look that I could muster. Considering I was already buzzed from the glass of wine, I’d say it was probably pretty good. The drunker I got, the nastier I became – facial expressions included.
“Sorry to disappoint you, Raul,” I drew out the syllables in his name, mocking it. “Whatever feelings I had for Javier died six years ago, when I found him cheating on me.”
He raised a brow. “Oh yes. That. Have you ever asked him about it?”
My heart stopped a bit. Raul knew. This was public knowledge. Oh, of course it was. Javier was probably screwing everyone, calling anyone with legs – even scarred ones – his angel and coming all over them. Somewhere deep inside I flushed at that last memory and shook it off.
“No I haven’t because I honestly don’t care. I’d like to find that chick and shake her fucking hand. If it wasn’t for her, I’d probably be wasting my life, attached to a complete psychopath with an addiction to *.”
“And being a con artist wasn’t a waste?”
“What are you, a shrink?” I asked and looked away. The book wasn’t helping anymore. The wine was. I got up and made a move to the bar (there was one in every single room on this ship, a total booze cruise) but Raul beat me to it. He was quicker than he looked and within seconds my wine glass was being filled with expensive Sauvignon Blanc and I was slightly too buzzed to care.
He sat back down across from me and brushed back his hair. My god, why did cartel members have to be so ugly? I’d lucked out when I picked Javier for my plan all those years ago. He was the only one who was pleasing to look at. Even more than pleasing, when you added in the fact that he had that whole primal animal vibe that slithered off of him.
Why was I thinking so many pleasant adjectives about a man who was blackmailing me and essentially holding me hostage on a ship that launched Raul in my direction at every turn?
“How are you going to kill him?” he continued after a moment.
“I told you, I’m not. I’m the bait.”
“You know, if I had you in my possession, I’d set you free.”
I glared at him. “Right. And I’m not in his possession.”
“Maybe he’s in your possession.”
“Seriously, what do you want? If you want to annoy me, you’re succeeding. If you want to be creepy, you’re succeeding at that too.”
“I’m just wondering how it is that you’re going along with all of this so well. It’s like you belong here.”
“It’s called making the best of a bad situation.”
Raul leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I think you only do your best in bad situations. Because you’re a bad, bad little girl, Ellie Watt. And I can teach you to be worse.”
“What’s going on here?” Javier’s voice broke in.
I swallowed the sour feeling in my mouth and looked over at Javier who was standing by the entrance to the lounge, eyes boring into Raul in a most unsavory way.
“He’s annoying me,” I said, not caring if it got me in shit with either of them.
Raul only smiled, his eyes darting to me and back to Javier. “I’m trying to prepare Ellie here for what’s to come. You know, Javier, for an assassin, she’s awfully blasé about the whole thing. Doesn’t that worry you? Perhaps she might flake out, maybe fuck everything up. On purpose, no less. She really seems to harbor some sort of grudge against you.”
Javier didn’t look at me. “She’ll get it, sooner or later. And I trust her.”
I almost snorted wine through my nose. Javier trusted me? I’d dump him over the side of the ship at the first opportunity if I knew that Raul wouldn’t kill me right afterward.
“That trust might get you killed, se?or,” Raul said bitingly.
I raised my brow at that comment but Javier’s face was blank.
Finally he cleared his throat and said, “Well, Raul, I think you’re done with annoying Ellie for today. Why don’t you go join Roberto at the helm, huh?”
Raul narrowed his eyes at him and got up. He left the room without saying a word, brushing past Javier with utter disdain.
The whole exchange had put a weird vibe in the room. For some reason I felt like things had gotten even more off-balance, or perhaps that was the combination of the wine and the ship. Not seeing land for twenty-four hours couldn’t help.
Javier folded his arms and looked at me. “Are you okay?”
I raised my glass of wine. “Drinking away the blackmailing blues.”