Trees understood. He was definitely wondering that now, too.
“But then she sent you that shitty video of them in bed, and…I started questioning everything again.”
So Matt couldn’t shed any light. Then again, the guy was right. Matt couldn’t tell him how to feel about Laila. As much as Trees hated it, he was either going to have to take a leap of faith or cut her out of his heart…somehow.
“Same, but thanks for your opinion,” he told Matt. “I owe you, and not just for saving my life.”
“You’re welcome. The Edgingtons have offered me a full-time gig if I want it. I’m past due to return to Wyoming, but…”
“You’re thinking about staying?”
He hesitated. “There’s nothing for me back there.”
No friends? No family? No women falling all over themselves to be with a hot, hunky cowboy type? “Here ain’t a bad place, man.”
“Different than where I came from. What about you? Every so often, I hear the South in your voice, but it’s not like any accent from these parts.”
“I’m from coal mining country in West Virginia. Here’s really different. But I like it. The bosses can be tough, but they expect results. They only hire the best. I hope you’ll think about it. We’ve been short-staffed, and it wouldn’t suck to have you around. I wouldn’t be alive if you weren’t.”
“Thanks. I’m definitely thinking about it. And I hope you figure this thing out with Laila soon. And I’ll stay diligent out here, because Ramos probably knows you’re alive by now and he’s out for your blood.”
Trees figured as much. But what about Laila? That was the million-dollar question, and he didn’t have an answer. Either she was keeping him occupied so her lover could sneak up on him and blow his brains out or she’d been telling the truth about her power play to use Ramos as a pawn to weaken Montilla, keep her family safe, and protect the bodyguard who had fallen for her.
He plucked up Ramos’s phone again, turning it in his hands. Laila hadn’t had this device when he’d run into her in La Pesca. And if she’d had a phone of her own, why would she have stolen Ramos’s? For the information on it? Maybe. But the more likely scenario was that she hadn’t had one of her own and had needed a way to contact her sister. She’d done that through a gaming app, right? Why choose that method if she had her own phone and could simply call or text? And if she hadn’t been carrying a phone then, that probably meant she’d used Ramos’s to film their fucking.
With shaking hands, Trees opened Ramos’s photos—and immediately hit pay dirt. The last thing saved was the video Laila had sent to convince him that she was Ramos’s willing whore.
He pressed the button to launch it. Instantly, the screen filled with a familiar scene—the cheap motel room, the slightly yellowing sheets, the ugly brown and blue bedspread, not to mention a naked Laila. But the footage he was seeing? She hadn’t sent this to him when she’d emailed and told him to kiss off.
In this version, Ramos wore his boxers and stumbled onto the bed drunkenly, holding a nearly empty bottle of tequila in one hand. Some sloshed on her neck and shoulder. He laughed, pouncing toward her, the view wobbling as he flattened her against the mattress. “What’s with the camera, chiquita?”
As he leered toward her neck, Laila called to him, her voice sultry. “I am going to film us, like you used to.”
Ramos lifted his head with a loopy, smug leer. “I recorded hours and hours of you screaming for me. I watched them often for my pleasure.” He sucked in a hissing breath. “Your fear makes me hard.”
“I know,” she breathed like she was entranced, like she wanted his degradation and pain.
Trees wanted to hurl.
“Hold the phone out. Make sure you capture all the ways I’m going to fuck you.”
Instantly, she complied, positioning the camera arm’s length from them, pulling the sheet up to their waists, covering the fact that Ramos was dry humping her thigh.
Then she suddenly smiled for the camera, looking heavy lidded and aroused. Her expression sent an electric ping of recognition through Trees. It was the same come-hither glance he’d seen in the first frame of the video she’d sent.
Screw upchucking the contents of his stomach. He wanted to hurl this phone across the room, beat the ever-loving fuck out of Ramos, then lay into Laila for lying to him yet again. Then he apparently needed to beat his own ass for believing her.
“Chiquita,” he growled. “I want that pussy.”
“It is here for you. Like I am.” She rolled her head to one side, eyes closed in ecstasy, offering Ramos her neck.
“Hmm…yes.” He bounced on top of her like they were fucking. “Good little puta.”
Trees froze the video, took it back a few seconds, and replayed the frames. But he hadn’t missed anything. The first time he’d watched this footage, he’d been convinced Ramos and Laila were having dirty, raunchy, very consensual sex. But clearly Ramos was still wearing his boxers and treating her thigh like his bitch.
“Damn it,” Trees muttered.
Laila had intentionally led him to believe she and Ramos were fucking.
Because she was trying to convince you not to come to her rescue? Because she wanted to protect you?
He wasn’t sure, so he continued the torment of watching.
On the video, Laila moaned in answer. “For you? Always.”
Victor gave her hair a vicious tug and sank his teeth into her shoulder hard like she was a piece of prime meat he intended to chew up and swallow down.
Laila cried out. “Yes!”