“Is there someone else?”
“I don’t have another sub waiting around.” Which is true.
I have a woman I hope will be mynovia—girlfriend—and maybe something more. I don’t want to rush into anything, even though I’ve decided what I want. I need to be sure Maddy can adjust to life in my family because you can’t have us without the Cartel. I have to be sure she can reconcile joining a family who generally loathes her in-laws. I need to give her time to decide what she wants in life and in a partner. I think she knows what she doesn’t want, but I don’t know if she’s convinced of what she deserves in one.
“Fine. At least I know you haven’t gone and fallen in love.”
I keep my expression neutral. Anna Maria doesn’t need to know just how easily that could happen now that Maddy’s back in my life. I don’t need Anna Maria’s jealousy. I’ve seen it when we’d go to my club and do scenes there. We did a couple threesomes early on, but she was a pain in the ass afterward, interrogating me about how much I enjoyed the other woman. She was just as much a nuisance when we went and just scened together. She wanted to know why I looked at another woman or what I’d do with another woman if she weren’t around. I stopped taking her, and we just came here.
“Does that ‘fine’ mean you want to stay here and will sign the lease?”
Please say no. Please say no. Please say no.
“Fine means whatever. I’m over it. I’ll find a place not on Staten Island. Somewhere people actually want to live. I’ll be out by the end of the week.”
I look around the place. She’s definitely made herself comfortable, but the furniture is all mine. She doesn’t have that much to take.
“Three days. Go to your sister’s.”
“Fuck no!”
“Go to your dad’s.”
“Javier—”
“Go to Luz’s.” Her best friend.
“I can’t. Come on, Javier.”
“There are plenty of people you can stay with. You just don’t want to leave a place you have to yourself for free.”
“That’s not why I stayed. You know I care about you, and you care about me.”
I sit back and cross my arms, my sleeves straining across my biceps. I see her lust flare, and I regret my new position. She thinks she can seduce me back into letting her stay. I rise and step around her and the armchair.
“Adios, Anna.Tú poder gorrear apagado alguien más.” Goodbye, Anna. You can mooch off someone else.
I walk to the door and open it before looking back.
“I’ll make sure Pablo knows you’re moving out.”
Her look of shock, then dismay isn’t surprising. It’s not as though my cousin has ice in his veins, but it’s definitely colder than tap water. He won’t hurt her, but neither will he put up with any bullshit because he doesn’t have any personal investment in this.
It won’t thrill him I’m passing the buck to him, but he’ll understand. I slip out the door and let it click closed behind me. She has those three days, then I’ll change the locks.
I’m at my condo in Manhattan with the live camera feed pulled up for the Brooklyn hotel. Nothing’s been going on since I arrived home. It’s not that I’m spying on Maddy so much as I don’t trust whoever she left behind not to find her.
She already confessed he’ll hunt for her. It terrifies me that this unknown man will find her when I’m not there. My conscience says I should stop stalking her and trust her judgment. But it also tells me if I were a good potential boyfriend, I would’ve assigned men to the hotel to watch her when I can’t. I don’t know which part I should listen to. It thoroughly tempts me to do both. Assign the men and I stop watching her, but I can’t bring myself to do that. I’m not ready to make my interest public, and I’m not ready to relinquish control of the surveillance.
I haven’t admitted I placed a tracker on her car when I staked out her parents’ home. I didn’t admit I spent the night watching the house. I left the reception before she did, and I worried she might think I left in a pissy huff. But as I moved toward the ballroom door, our gazes met again, and she offered me a half smile. I think she understood it’d been a long day for me.
What she didn’t know was I wanted to arrive at her parents’ home in New Jersey well before they did. Since she parked in her parents’ driveway, it was easy to attach the tracker. I made sure it worked while she drove home from the park. I’ve already checked her vehicle’s location, and it’s at the hotel.
I’m starving, so I give in and head to my kitchen, bringing my laptop with me. I keep glancing at the screen as I make myself lunch. I am about to put the leftoverpatacones con hoago—friedplantains with a tomato and onion sauce—in a pan to reheat when I notice movement on the screen.
Who the fuck is that? I have no reason to suspect the two men I see approaching the front of the hotel. But my brothers and I didn’t survive growing up in Bogotá without a father, without having some Spidey senses. I don’t know who these men are, but something feels remarkably off about them.
The way they move screams syndicate. It’s an air of self-assuredness, along with their muscular build. It’s not just “I’m hot shit because I’m bigger than you.” It’s “Nothing can stop me. ‘No’ doesn’t mean no.”
