Destroy You (Destroy #3) (27 page)

“How do you propose we do that, just walk up to Miguel and ask him?” Javier asked sarcastically.

“No, I do,” I said.

“Oh, hell no,” Trent barked.

He was scared, and I could understand that. He’d watched a girl he viewed as a sister burn to death today, and I was suggesting going undercover to see if Miguel had knowledge that my father murdered my mother. It probably would have gone over better if I’d suggested I frolic around on the freeway in Seattle during rush hour.

“What if we can figure out a way for you to be there?” I persisted.

“How arrogant is Miguel?” Javier asked.

“Um, he’s probably on par with Narcissus. You know, the ancient Greek that fell in love with his own reflection and ended up staring at himself until he died?” I replied.

“So if you asked to see him, he wouldn’t think something was up?” he questioned.

I thought for a moment what excuse Miguel would accept. “I could tell him I’ve been thinking a lot since my mother was attacked, and I owed it to her to at least see if he and I could work things out. He’s such a dumbass that, even though Leo taped him to a tree, it’s possible. At least, there’s only one way to find out.”

“Devious. I think that might work. You have to meet in public, though. Is he going to fight you on it?” Leo chimed in.

I shrugged. “He’s going to want to meet in private, because it’ll be easier for him to coerce me into giving in. I’m going to tell him I haven’t made up my mind that I will give him another chance, so if he wants to meet with me, it has to be in public. I think he’ll at least believe that I want to figure out a way to keep things from being weird between us.”

I smirked at Trent, and he looked back at me with a furrowed brow. “He really hates you. He’ll know your bar burned down, and he might even gloat if you are there. If I tell him we broke up, he’ll want to rub the fact he’s there with me in your face. Is there a place you can step in to tend bar?”

“I’ve got a few friends that owe me some favors.” He held up his hands, which I’d forgotten were covered in bandages. “I don’t think I’ll be tending bar, though. Don’t worry, there are plenty of things I can do to look like I belong there.”

I kissed his cheek. “I think if we work together, we can throw him off enough to cause him to say something. Leo’s right, he’s not the brightest.”

Daniels scratched the top of his head and looked at everyone contemplatively. “Guys, I think there’s a much easier way to handle this.”

Leo smiled at Daniels and shook his head. “We’ve got this covered.”

Daniels grunted. “We’ll see,” he muttered. “I’ve got to go check in at the station. I’ll see you guys in the morning.”

Reed stood up and jingled another one of the giant keys. He threw it to Leo. “Okay, Daniels is out, so I’ll take the first watch here. You two should go over to the other cabin and get some rest,” he said to Leo and Javier.

Turning to Trent and me, he said, “You guys, too. It’s been a shitty day for both of you, and Trent needs some sleep to heal. I’ll sit out here until one of those two relieves me.”

He didn’t need to tell me twice. I was exhausted. There was a back bedroom that was separate from the main living room, giving us some privacy.

Watching Trent strip down to his boxers piqued my interest, and I sat in the middle of the bed, studying every curve and ripple of his toned physique. As much as I wanted to trace every ridge of muscle and follow every tattoo with my tongue, I really needed just to feel him next to me.

Slowly, I stripped until I was standing in front of him in nothing but my panties. I bent forward, picked up his discarded T-shirt, and pulled it over my head. He chuckled and wrapped his arms around me, standing still for a moment before he released me.

I pulled the covers back for us and helped him get comfortable so he wouldn’t disturb his bandages. Once he was still, I snuggled in next to him, careful again of his hands, and faced him.

I cradled his beautiful face between my small hands. “Hey,” I whispered.

He smiled slightly. “Hey.”

“Don’t you ever scare me like that again,” I hissed, and for a moment I closed my eyes against the memory of learning he’d been in a fire.

When I cracked them back open, he raised his right eyebrow at me. “Not something I plan on repeating.”

I rubbed my fingers along his cheek. “I’m sorry about Trinity.”

He licked his lips and nodded. I was learning he did that when emotion made it too hard for him to speak.

I knew he didn’t want to say anything else. There wasn’t anything either of us needed to say, when all we really required was to hold each other. I leaned forward and lightly brushed my lips across his. It wasn’t about passion or lust. I had both of those feelings for him, but the most overwhelming emotion filling my body was my love for him.

He kissed me back just as lightly as I had kissed him. Closing his eyes, he pressed his lips once more to mine and breathed in deeply through his nose. He groaned quietly in the back of his throat before resting his forehead against mine. “I love you more than I ever thought I could love another person. So much it physically hurts to be away from you sometimes.”

“I feel the same way,” I said, relieved it wasn’t just me.

“After you graduate this summer, let’s travel for a while. Now that the bar is gone, I don’t have anything but you keeping me here.”

“What brought this on? You know, other than almost dying?” I asked.

He paused, and I knew it had something to do with her, but I only felt sadness when I knew he was thinking about Trinity now. “When Trinity first came to live with us, she would cut out pictures of exotic locations from magazines and make up stories about what she thought life was like there. She had a map on the wall with all these little dots marking all the places she wanted to travel to when she grew up. I think it was her first attempt at escape from her life. I wish she’d been able to do those things, because maybe if that form of escape had worked for her, she’d never have turned to drugs.

“It’s stupid, but I can’t shake the sadness that she missed out on so much. I just feel like I need to do this for her, or at least in memory of her. I want you to go with me.”

“Of course. I’ll do anything for you. I think it’s sweet what you want to do in her memory. My mom missed out on a lot, too. Would it be okay if we did it for both of them?”

He kissed me one more time before encouraging me to snuggle under his chin. “It’s perfect, and so are you.”

“I’m not—”

“Shh. You’re perfect for me, and that’s all that matters.

Chapter 35

Trent

A loud knock the next morning startled me out of bed. A second later, Perez barged into the room and immediately covered his eyes. “Jesus! Put some clothes on. Or better yet, start sleeping somewhere else. She’s my niece, for fuck’s sake!”

Toni rolled her eyes. “He’s wearing boxers, and I haven’t been a virgin for a long time. So if you are trying to protect my virtue, you’re a little late.”

He groaned. “I really don’t need to hear this. It’s bad enough I lost so much time with you, but I feel like I’m not doing my job letting you two shack up. My instinct is to grab my gun and drag the two of you down to the courthouse to make this—” he gestured between Toni and I “—legal.”

“God save me from cavemen,” Toni grumbled. “Why can’t anyone understand that we want time to just be us, enjoy the here and now, without rushing through every step? I’d like some time to really figure out who I am. I only just learned my real name, and it would be great to let it sink in for a minute before I take another one.”

She stroked the delicate key necklace I’d given her, and I remembered our promise. I didn’t give a shit if no one else understood us. Someday, when we were ready, we’d get married. I didn’t need the certificate to know she was mine.

“You really are just like your mother,” Perez said, shaking his head. Toni smiled, and he sighed. “Yeah, she could wrap me around her little finger, too. Fine, I’ll stop bothering you about getting married—for now.” He pointed at me. “But if you knock her up, I’m dragging you in front of a judge. Feel me?”

I nodded and put my hands up in surrender. “I’m not going to be the stubborn one there.”

“Gah! It isn’t going to happen, so stop planning a shotgun wedding,” she ordered.

“Just get out of bed. I came in here to tell you Daniels is on his way here, and he wants all of us to meet,” he said.

“Did he say why?” I asked.

Perez shook his head. “We’ll find out in a minute.”

“Okay. We’ll be out in a minute,” I agreed.

After he exited the room, closing the door behind him, we quickly dressed in our discarded clothes. When we went into the living room, we found Perez, Leo, and Reed standing around waiting.

“Any idea what he needed to talk to all of us about at—” I glanced at the clock on the small microwave “—eight in the morning?”

Everyone turned to stare at Reed. He tossed his hands up and shook his head. “Don’t look at me. I don’t have a clue what he’s up to.”

“Did you stay here last night?” Toni asked Reed, changing the subject.

“No,” he replied. “I switched with Leo after a few hours and drove home to be with Kate. I’d planned to sleep in, but Daniels called and woke my ass up about an hour ago.”

“How’s she feeling?” Toni asked.

“Didn’t you just to talk to her last night?” I interrupted.

Toni cocked out her hip and propped her arm on it. “So what? I don’t know how she was this morning.”

Reed chuckled at me. “Dude, just get used to the three of them constantly being in each other’s business now and you’ll be all right. You might not even be here if Kate hadn’t interfered. I know Toni is partly responsible for getting Kate and I together.”

Well, when he put it that way. I don’t know why I was even making a big deal out of it. I didn’t actually care, but I didn’t want Toni to start blaming herself for Reed being here helping her instead of being with his wife. She had enough to worry about without adding to it.

Reed turned his attention back to Toni. “She’s still sick in the morning but nothing like Becca was. Please don’t worry, because it makes her feel better knowing I’m here with you. I don’t like to see her stressed out, so just let me help you, okay? We’ll find out what is going on, and maybe I can still spend the rest of the day curled up in bed next to her.”

Toni blinked a few times, trying to hide the tears she wouldn’t let escape, but she managed a slight nod in agreement. She needed to hear that.

“Quit your whining,” we heard from the window. “Can someone get the door?”

Leo ran over and opened it. “What the hell?” he blurted and stormed away to stand near me. I got the feeling that the move was to control me. It made perfect sense a second later, when Daniels pushed Miguel through the door.

“You can’t make me stay here. You said I wasn’t under arrest,” Miguel argued.

Daniels shrugged. “You can go. I’m sure when you go back without Toni, everything will work out just fine. Just don’t leave town, because I’ll be gathering a little more evidence and coming back to arrest you for attempted abduction.”

Miguel slumped back down. “Why don’t you just shoot me? If I go back without Toni, I’m dead.”

“Well, you aren’t going back with her,” I seethed.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen. I didn’t mind her seeing you at first, because I didn’t think she’d fall for you. I thought we were both sowing oats or whatever,” he complained.

Toni huffed and rolled her eyes. “Seriously, what do you even care? Quit acting already. You don’t love me any more than I do you. Why do you keep pushing the idea of us getting married?”

“If I tell you what I know, then someone is going to have to get me a deal. I’m not going to prison, and I’m going to need to disappear.” He stared at Perez and Daniels, waiting for their answer.

Leo crossed his arms across his chest. “That all depends on how good your information is. Start talking, and we’ll see what we can do. Or walk out the door and take your chances. Really, it doesn’t make much of a difference to me.”

“Who asked you? I need someone that can actually make a deal,” Miguel scoffed.

“I’m FBI, or is that not influential enough for you?”

“Yeah, I should have seen that coming,” I mumbled. Seriously, how had I missed it? Leo seemed to know everything, and was really chummy with Perez and Daniels. And here I suspected the guy was a dealer or some shit.

Miguel exhaled. “Fine. I’ve got to go pretty far back to explain all of this. It started back in junior high. Toni and I were still really good friends. She was one of the guys. I never thought about dating her, and I thought about girls all the time. It was great being friends with a girl, though, because I could talk to her about all of her friends.”

He seemed to be purposefully avoiding looking at Toni. “That’s how all this began. I went over to her house to find out if she could talk to the new girl and find out if she was into me. I practically grew up in her house, so I didn’t knock, and let myself in. I heard voices coming from the living room and thought I’d probably find her in there. I stopped outside the door where they couldn’t see me and listened in. I mean, shit, I was a kid and it seemed like the thing to do. Anyway, Big Tony said Antonia was still having dreams where she remembered Eva. My dad told him it didn’t matter, because they’d taken care of all the evidence years ago.

“I’d never heard them talk about stuff like that and thought it was better if I forgot the entire thing, so I started to back away, but I bumped into the hall table and knocked something over. Of course it had to crash to the floor, letting them know I was out there. My dad ran out and grabbed me by the back of the neck and dragged me inside the room. They demanded to know what I overheard, and I told them I hadn’t heard anything, but they could tell I was lying.”

He exhaled. “They said it was time I started to earn my place and learn the business. One day, according to them, I would take over, and when I did, I’d marry Toni and take care of her and we’d all be one big, happy family. That was the day I learned our dads were in the cartel.”

Miguel shrugged. “It started off small. I would run money and messages to their other associates. But after I graduated, I started working in the mechanic shop at the dealership, where I took apart the inside panels and unloaded the drug shipments. This last summer, I screwed up the books and wrote the wrong weights down. It happened at the worst time, and they feared we were going to be audited by customs since our records didn’t match the ones we’d originally filed. Then Toni started pulling away, and her dad didn’t like her being here in Ellensburg on her own. Even if she didn’t remember, she still had the potential to piece things together about her mother. Both our dads were pissed I’d gotten caught screwing another girl and demanded I fix things with her immediately. I think they also saw the two of us getting married as a way to control me.”

He finally risked looking at her. “You were right, Toni, I never wanted to marry you, but I got so deep into their world that I started to see you the way they did. You were promised to me, and marrying you meant I’d be in control of everything someday. I didn’t want to let all of my hard work be for nothing. If it wasn’t me, then your dad would have picked someone else he trusted to marry you, and that meant competition for control of the business.”

Toni’s mouth curved into a snarl. “You disgust me. I’m not fucking property for you guys to pass around.”

Perez stood rigidly in the corner. “Just let me shoot him, or toss him out. I don’t give a shit what Padilla and Santos do to him.”

Leo stepped in front of him, blocking his view of Miguel. “You know how this works. We’ve made other deals with criminals equally as slimy as this little bastard. We needed an in to find out how the operation works, and now we have one. I’m going to call my boss and start the process to get a warrant for the dealership.”

He turned to Reed and Daniels. “You two make sure he doesn’t get anywhere near a phone. I don’t want him communicating with anyone. And try to keep those three—” he pointed at Perez, Toni, and me “—from killing him while I’m taking care of that.”

Reed shook his head. “I’ll keep him away from the phone, but I make no promises on the last part. Toni is a handful when she’s only irritated. I say we give her five minutes and worry about what to do with him if he’s still breathing when she’s done.”

***

The few hours we had to sit around were torture. There were more than a few times I wanted to duct tape Miguel’s mouth shut, but we didn’t want to lock him in the back room in case he tried to get away or decided to try to contact his dad. Which meant we had to sit in the same room with him and listen to him run his mouth.

Three hours later, Leo managed to secure his warrant. It turned out that there was a shipment of vehicles being delivered in the afternoon, and they wanted to arrive at the same time Miguel’s dad signed for it.

Daniels took Miguel to county to lock him up in solitary while the warrant was executed. Perez and Leo joined the team that would be scouring the dealership, while Toni and I went with Reed back to Aiden and Becca’s house, because there weren’t enough people to guard us at the motel.

Since we were only on the outskirts of town, we reached Aiden’s compound in only a few minutes. As tense as the previous few hours were, waiting to hear if Toni’s dad would be arrested was excruciating.

She paced in the living room with her cell phone practically glued to her hand. After her third tour of the room, I stepped in front of her, disrupting her pattern.

“Wildcat, let’s try to do something else. It might be hours before we hear anything. I don’t like to see you like this.”

Aiden and Becca had pretty much left us alone in their den so Toni could freak out in private. They knew she hated it when people were concerned about her. Becca was still pretty all over the place emotionally, since she’d had Hope a few weeks before, but after she hugged Toni, she ran out of the room. So it was a surprise when Aiden burst into the room an hour later, turned on the television, and began to rapidly flip through the channels. I was going to ask what he was doing, but it was clear once he’d settled on a station.

“Breaking News,” the local news broadcaster said, interrupting regular programming. “We are getting reports of an explosion at Santos Motors located on Yakima Avenue. As of this report, the blaze is still not under control, and the fire department will not comment as to the likely cause of the fire. People in the area have reported hearing a large explosion seconds before the fire broke out. News crews on the ground have been unable to confirm if a bomb was the cause of the blast as some witnesses have suggested. Stay tuned as we continue to investigate this story.”

The footage showed the main building completely in flames as several fire trucks tried to douse the fire with large water hoses. Paramedics were moving stretchers and helping injured people away from the blast.

Even through the screen it seemed I could feel the heat and smell the burning fuel and flesh as the fire consumed cars and people alike. Bile rose up in my throat, and I started to shake. Aiden passed me a trashcan just in time, before I lost the contents of my stomach.

Toni was instantly by my side, rubbing my back and comforting me. “Are you okay?” she asked me.

“Me?” I managed to choke out. “How are you doing?”

She gazed off in the distance for a moment and then blinked away whatever images she was seeing in her head. “I’ll be fine. The pictures of the fire gave you a flashback, didn’t they?”