Closing the rest of the distance, I held her cheek in the palm of my hand. “I’ll do it. Stay who you are. Don’t become me, Eden. This isn’t you.” Turning her face into my hand, her finger slackened on the trigger. Seizing the opportunity, I grabbed her wrist, holding it toward the ceiling as the gun went off, blasting a round of sheet rock around our heads.
“Liar!” she screamed, twisting out of my hold.
Reclaiming a fierce hold on her, I shoved her to the carpet, both of us wrestling for the gun. Prying her fingers open, I pulled it from her hold and threw it across the room where Emilio picked it up and tucked it away. She kicked like a wild animal let out of its cage as I lay on top of her, holding her arms above her head.
“Get off me! I hate you! God, I hate you!”
“Well, you lasted longer than most of them.” The words were meant to hurt her enough to make her forget this fantasy we’d created between us.
Halting her struggle, she stared horrified into my eyes and whispered, “I hate you.”
We lay there shooting daggers into each other’s eyes as Mateo rounded the corner, emerging from my office, his face pale and dampened with beads of sweat.
“Mateo?”
“Boss, I need you to come with me.”
The monotony in his voice unnerved me. “What is it? Tell me.”
Glancing from me to Eden, then to Emilio standing off to the corner, Mateo ran the pads of his fingers across his mouth and nodded. “Sir, it’s your father.”
A buzzing filled my head with warning. “What about him?”
“Alejandro is dead, sir.”
Chapter Twenty-One
EDEN
Together the words made sense, but with one glance in Val’s face, I knew he hadn’t begun to comprehend them.
“What do you mean he’s dead?”
“Gerardo found him this morning, sir.” Mateo shook his head, the perspiration on his lips beading faster. “In his office. They cut his throat.”
I knew the name. Alejandro Carrera was infamous. Countless documentaries and true crime shows had been made about him and his ruthless reign of terror across the border. He was a monster and a coldhearted killer.
He also fathered the man I’d been sleeping with for the past eleven days.
Releasing his hold on me, Val staggered backward against the base of the sofa, looking as if someone slapped him across the face. “Do they know…I mean…who…”
“Sir, you know the answer to that question.”
No one spoke. The mood in the room teetered in between shock and lethal reaction. Not daring to move, I watched Val for a reaction—any reaction.
Instead, he swallowed hard and nodded once. “Well, then. That’ll be all, Mateo.”
“Sir—”
“I said, that’ll be all!” Spitting fire at his second in command, we all watched dumbfounded as Val climbed to his feet and turned down the hallway. “I’ll be in my office. No one disturbs me unless we’re under attack. That’s a direct order.”
Tracking his every movement, I followed him until he disappeared into a room off to the left and slammed the door. Biting my top lip in frustration, I made a move to follow him when Mateo stopped me.
“Let him go, Eden. He needs to do this his own way.”
Dejected, I sat down amidst his pitying stare and Emilio’s scowl, realizing the same truth that took form in the back of my head when we were in the SUV.
I couldn’t claim something that didn’t want me.
