Jesus. He scrubbed a hand over his mouth. Fields of black whipped by the window, passing him by, leaving him reeling in another dimension. “What is Mr. E’s role in this?”
Her gaze ping-ponged between the side mirror and the road. “He started this horrific operation. I think he owned slaves before he brought in Van and me. I mean, he taught Van how to train slaves. Why would he know that?” She tugged at her ear, her expression pensive in the passing headl
ights. “Now he just sits on his greedy ass and collects money while Van and I scramble beneath his blackmailing thumb.”
Nausea rolled through his gut. What would’ve happened if he’d been the obedient slave she’d intended him to be? His delivery would’ve played out. Traquero would’ve been gutted. Then what? “I’m not like the others. My parents are searching for me. I would’ve wanted to go back.”
She flinched. “I know. I chose you anyway, without a clue on how to deal with the aftermath.”
The whole operation was risky. So damned risky. One misstep, one slipped word from the buyer to Mr. E, and the whole thing would fall apart with Liv at the center. Yet they’d pulled it off six times. “Where does Mr. E think these referrals come from?”
“Why would he care as long as he has his next paycheck lined up? Van makes the initial call, gathers the buyer’s requirements, and establishes Mr. E’s rules on anonymity. Mr. E never deals with any of them.”
“It takes months to hunt and capture a new slave? Ten weeks to train him? And you’re doing this, knowing the slave will never see the inside of a buyer’s prison?”
“Hoping.” Her voice wavered. “Never knowing. Van was banned to tag along after Camila’s intro meeting. That ban could’ve been lifted. Or I could’ve been overpowered during a delivery. Or my freedom fighters could’ve been delayed…like tonight.” She peeked at him from the corner of her eye.
“Freedom fighters.” His lips twitched. “I like that.”
“I’ve been thinking.” She glanced at him and back to the road. “Van knows who Mr. E is. What if he also knows where my family is? Maybe we could tie him up and torture him until he tells us everything he knows? We’d keep him alive so the contract isn’t triggered.”
Wow, that was the thinnest idea he’d ever heard. “You’re serious?”
She shrugged. “I’ve got muscle now.” She gave his arm a pointed once-over. “What would Jesus do if he was built like you?”
“Cast the first stone.” Honestly, he didn’t know. “What if Van doesn’t know anything?”
“Then we’re fucked either way.”
For the next two hours, she answered his questions about Camila’s operation, and he still wasn’t sure he understood all the intricacies of the process. When she turned into the Two Trails Crossing subdivision, she stopped the van a block from the house. “Meet me on the front porch. He’s not due back for a few days, but we’re running out of luck. If he’s there, I’ll find a way to sneak you in.” She left him on the curb with a heart-pounding kiss and trust in her eyes.
The walk was quick, but the wait on the porch dragged ten minutes too long. Drapes blacked out the windows. There was no light peeking through the creases. No sounds coming from within. What if Van was in there? Hurting her? His nerves stretched by the second until he finally snapped.
Down the driveway, past the garage, he stopped at the back door, found the keypad, and punched in 0054. She’d said all the doors but hers opened with multiple codes. Van and Mr. E had their own.
The door opened into the kitchen, lit by the lamp over the sink. Soft sobs crept from behind the bar and tore through his chest.
He sprinted around the counter and found her curled up on the floor, clutching a photo and a newspaper clipping. “Liv? Liv, what happened?” His pulse roared in his ears. “Are we alone?”
She nodded, expression pallid, voice empty. “Mr. E was here.” When he jerked back, she grabbed his t-shirt, her face twisted in horror. “Oh God, Josh. It’s…it’s…” Her gaze was lost to the papers shaking violently in her hand.
Stomach plummeting, he pulled her into his lap and wrenched the pages free. The photo showed a small smiling girl, her dark brown hair the color and length of Liv’s. Same milky complexion. Same delicate chin. The date and time printed on the bottom indicated it was six hours old. On the back, neat cursive scrawled, Do not fail again.
Liv coiled her arms around his ribs, her body trembling. “Mom got married.” Her voice was hoarse, desolate. “That’s why I couldn’t find her.”
He kissed her head, his lips numb with dread, and dragged his eyes to the news article printed by the Key West Examiner, dated that day.
Local woman killed in plane crash
The pilot killed in a plane crash near Key West is being described as a skydiving adventurer and a generous volunteer in the community.
“It’s devastating,” said Wyatt Keleen, husband and co-owner of her skydiving school. “Jill was a warm-hearted woman and well-known in the Keys for her charitable efforts with families of homicide victims and missing persons.”
Keleen said Jill’s only child was kidnapped and murdered seven years earlier.
Jill’s body was discovered off the coast of Lois Key in a swampy area. The wide cavity surrounding the wreckage indicates her life came to an end after a high-speed impact.
The Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash. Officials have yet to confirm the cause. Memorial services were held today at 2:00 PM at Summerland Key Cove Airport.
CHAPTER 37
Liv lay on her side on the mattress, showered, fed, and…depleted. Josh had kept her talking through the night, prompting her to share memories of Mom and preventing her from crawling inside herself. Eyes itchy and sore, she’d cried more than she had in seven years. If she didn’t stop, she would find herself ass-up in the prison of her own self-pity.
Mom had survived her death. She could survive Mom’s. And she would. With Josh’s hand in hers.
He’d run their dirty soup bowls downstairs two minutes earlier. Her fingers were clenched so tightly in the sheets, one would’ve thought he’d been gone for hours. Her lungs didn’t seem to suck enough air, her focus blurring on the door, awaiting his return. When had she become so fucking needy?
The angel in the photo she’d tacked to the wall smiled down at her with eyes and hair as dark as hers. So much better than a video. She had a snapshot of her daughter’s face, forever looking back at her. Perhaps Mr. E gave it to her to cushion the murder of Mom. Or to lessen his own regret. But she knew that was bullshit.
She’d failed to nail the deal with Traquero, which earned her Mom’s death. But he’d still given the referral, which earned her Mattie’s photo. His motivation for not sending a video had to do with the fact he didn’t trust her with a tablet and access to e-mail without Van present.
That thought awoke an unwelcome feeling about Van’s departure. It wasn’t odd for him to hunt immediately upon receipt of a buyer’s specifications. But given his enraged reaction to the meeting with Traquero, why hadn’t he waited for her return and the opportunity to punish her?
What if Van had left to kill Mom himself? Was he cruel enough to not only let it happen but make it happen? Despite his violent nature, she struggled to believe he was the hand that brought down Mom’s plane, but how well did she really know him?
She and Josh had discussed going to the FBI to request an investigation into the plane crash. Hell, they wanted to divulge everything. How closely was Mr. E monitoring them? How easy was his access to Mattie? Could the authorities hunt down a masked man before that man hurt her daughter? It was too much risk.
The door clicked open, and Josh’s broad frame brimmed her horizon. Relief whooshed from her lungs. He tilted his head to the side, and his alert eyes narrowed on her fists. She uncurled her fingers.
A muscle jumped in his bare chest. “You still think I’m going to leave you?”
She shook her head swiftly. No, the stubborn bastard wasn’t going anywhere. “I think I’m just feeling a little raw.” And exposed. Definitely not a feeling she was used to.
The sharp lines in his face softened. He closed the door and strode toward her, the towel around his waist hung low beneath crowded bricks of abdominal muscles.
He bent over her and planted his fists beside her hip, the mattress depressing beneath the weight of his vascular arms and upper body. Jesus, his proximity was distracting to a fault. It wasn’t ju
st the cuts of his body, crystalline green eyes, and strong lips that demanded attention. His pursuit to please her was a perceptible aura that charged the space around him.
Looking up into the face of a man who would damn himself to protect her, she knew she’d found her sanctuary, her deliverance, her future.
He swooped in to kiss her, and she got a lungful of his nourishing scent. Clean, pure, Josh. She kissed him back, licking his mouth, tasting the familiar intimacy, and clinging to his love.
His tongue trailed fire around hers, leaving no part of her mouth untouched. It was impossible to be afraid when he was so close, so intense, that the barriers between them burned away. He moaned against her lips and kissed her with a pressing necessity, stoking a flame in her belly and coaxing a curl of something she hadn’t felt in years. Joy.
Guilt breathed through her, a foul-smelling intruder, whispering her failings. Seven years of slavery, chained by a threat, and she still lost Mom.
Her lips stretched back. Their teeth tapped. She turned her chin away, but he caught it. Then he caught her eyes.
Fingers pinching her jaw, his expression swam in contemplation. He stared at her, panting from the kiss. “What would your mom say to you right now?”
A quiver interrupted the rigid set of her chin, her lungs pumping to hold in a thousand clogged tears. She closed her eyes and saw Mom laughing, jumping into the wind, her hair whipping around her smiling face. “She’d say, use a condom.”
He huffed. “I think your mom was much more profound than that. Try again.”
She opened her eyes, diving straight into his. “She used to say, what defines us is not how we fall but how we land.”
He leaned in and stroked his nose along her scar. “You’ve survived the hardest landings. You’ll survive this one.”
Was that what she’d been doing all these years? Landing? “Feels more like plummeting out of control.” Every harrowing moment was chained to the next one. What if the cycle was finally broken? If she could find Mattie, then what? She’d never considered a future outside of the attic walls. Until Josh.