“What’s that supposed to mean? You already found me.”
“Correct. I found you. The Alonsos came here for the man who killed their brother. When they told me about the attack in the club, I assumed it was nothing of interest to me, but then I watched the surveillance footage and I have to admit, I was surprised to see you have found such a fondness for fetish play, primo. Pity you didn’t think to hide that scar on your chest, or I may never have realised it was you beneath the mask.”
I swallowed thickly, my shoulders pushing back as I cursed myself for wearing that fucking outfit. Not many people had seen that scar. In my youth I’d hidden it diligently, hating what it was and what it proved was trapped inside me. I’d grown out of the self-consciousness as my own conscience had slowly died away, but I still hadn’t often revealed the disfigurement to my flesh.
Mi sol had only ever looked at it with interest or perhaps even reverence though and in the time I’d known her, I’d lost any lingering feelings of unease that clung to me while showing it to the world. I hadn’t thought to keep it covered. Meaning that now I was the one who had destroyed all we had here.
“If you’re the only one who knows he’s here, then that sounds like good motivation to put a bullet between your eyes,” Niall said loudly, moving to step around me but I knocked him back with my shoulder, wanting him to stay close to Brooklyn.
“I wouldn’t recommend that,” Carmen replied sweetly. “I may be the keeper of your secret as it stands, but I left a note detailing what I had discovered and where I was heading tonight locked up in my office. No one will read it, assuming I return, but if I don’t, then I’m sure someone in my organisation will have to check through my things for clues to my demise.”
“Why would you keep that information to yourself?” I demanded and Carmen clucked her tongue.
“You and I are products of the same hell, primo,” she said to me. “And there was a time that we once used to dream of escaping it together.”
“That was before we embraced our demons,” I reminded her, and that smile widened.
“And then our dreams grew. You helped me when I needed it a long time ago. You backed me when no one wanted a woman to step into my father’s shoes. You helped put me where I am today.”
“So?”
“So, I figure I owe you.”
Shock spilled through my core as I stared down at this powerful, brutal woman before me, the reputation of ruthlessness and sin which was wrapped so tightly around her cracking open just a little so that I could see the roughened edges of the girl I’d once played with beneath the baking sun.
“What do you want from me?” I asked and she shrugged.
“Tell me the truth of everything that happened. Right back to the night when you disappeared. Was the monastery burning linked to your disappearance?”
“I locked those devils inside the hell they had created for me within that holy place, and listened to their screams while they burned,” I replied with my chin high and no regrets in me over the act. “They were demons far worse than any being which they claimed lived within me.”
Carmen nodded like she’d expected that.
“And the money?”
“Hidden,” I grunted, unsurprised to find that she was seeking that.
“There are many rumours surrounding your disappearance, primo,” Carmen said slowly. “Of course, a lot of people believe you stole that money and ran from us, our boss included. But there have been whispers about the monastery burning, people denying your involvement because it made no sense to them for you to attack a place of God. Of course, you and I know that no god ever lived within the walls of that monastery, but to most, they have no idea about the truth of those women and what they did to you.”
“I hadn’t realised that you knew,” I gritted out, my skin prickling at the thought of her having known what I’d suffered with those women all those years ago.
“Your mother might have thought herself a pious woman, but she was no saint,” Carmen sneered. “She used to come begging at my father’s table for scraps often enough after your father was killed, using the fact that she was the mother to his nephew to plead for money and favours. She often complained of the demon in you and mentioned the work the nuns were doing to try and rid you of it. She never spoke of the details while in my presence, but between her words and my paying enough attention to you whenever I saw you in that church, I managed to figure it out. I tried to get my father to take you in once, begged him to claim you from her, and them, and all of it.”
“You did?” I asked in surprised because I knew well enough that her father had been far crueller than mine.
Her smile deepened, though something in her eyes hardened to steel. “He accused me of being your whore,” she replied. “Gave me ten lashes with his belt too. I bled for you, primo, but he refused to take you in all the same. I’m sorry for that.”
A frown carved its way across my brow as I realised that even back then when we had been hardly more than children, she had seen the suffering I endured and had understood that the brutality of her own household would have been preferable to it.
“I didn’t know,” I said uselessly.
“He’s long since dead now.” She shrugged and we shared a look which spoke of her secret surrounding her father’s demise and I held my tongue on any further comment. “And like I said, you helped me when I needed it, so I figured I could offer you my help in return now that I am in a position to do so.”
“How?”
“By telling my boss that I found you, locked up and tortured half to death, instead of running free and spending his money. We claim you were taken while trying to fight for him. I’ll say I lost the Alonsos and Raul Castillo while fighting to get you back. All we need is someone to blame.”
I blinked at her in surprise, wondering why on earth she would offer me this lie, this protection.
“If he ever found out that you lied-”
“It wouldn’t be the first lie we have shared,” she said dismissively, though we both knew the weight of that risk.
“What is it you’ll be wanting from him in exchange for this?” Niall demanded, and Carmen flashed him a knowing look, because of course this favour wouldn’t come without a cost.
“I’ll claim you as one of my men,” she said to me. “The ace up my sleeve whenever I have something to deal with which I can’t do myself. You won’t even have to leave this place if it’s where you prefer to be,” she added, seeing the way I tensed at the suggestion. “I am based in the states now, most of the time anyway. All I want is to have you on the end of the phone whenever I need someone with your skill set.”
I nodded slowly, understanding what she was asking of me and finding myself agreeing to it easily enough. I’d always enjoyed the hunt anyway. If she called me up from time to time with the name of someone who needed to disappear, then I could help with that easily.
“So, who is it that you plan to blame for taking me?” I asked, because that was the real sticking point in her plan. I could tell her the truth of my captivity with Niall, but I knew how Brooklyn felt about him, and I wasn’t fool enough to believe that she wouldn’t follow through on her threat to kill herself if something happened to him. He was hers, which meant I wouldn’t touch him, but that didn’t exactly leave me with another option.