Blood Bound (39 page)

“Maybe Kori…?” Anne suggested.

I shook my head firmly. “She can’t. It’s not her fault.” Not directly, anyway. Though it was her own fault she worked for Tower. “The most she’ll be able to do—if we’re lucky—is remove herself from the fight. If we’re not lucky, she’ll be forced to fight against us.”

“As will I,” Cam said softly, staring at the phone between his feet.

“We’re going to find a way around that,” I said. “Or else…you can’t be there.”

“He’ll call me in.”

“Give me your phone.”

Cam managed a small smile as he dug his cell from his pocket, clearly anticipating my next move. He handed me his phone and I set it on the coffee table, then took my boot off to use the heel as a hammer. Three blows later, his phone was obliterated.

“Can’t answer a call you don’t receive.” I would pick up a prepaid phone for him as soon as I got a chance.

“So, how do you want to play this?” Cam scooped the remains of his phone into one broad hand and crossed the room to drop them into the kitchen trash can.

I shrugged. “I’m going to call Ruben over and fill him in. You guys should probably stay out of sight until I’ve had a chance to…reason with him. If he thinks he’s been set up, he’ll call in the guard dogs and have us all shot before he even knows what’s going on.”

“You’re going to bring him
here?
” Anne glanced at Cam nervously, then back to me. “You really think that’s a good idea?”

“It’s better than the alternative. I’m not going back to his place while Michaela’s on the warpath. She nearly opened my femoral artery earlier tonight. Besides—” another shrug “—this is his apartment. It’s only a matter of time before he shows up anyway—his spies already know I’m here.”

“This is his apartment?” Anne demanded. “You were going to hide Hadley in her own father’s apartment?”

“Well, obviously I didn’t know about their shared DNA when I came up with that plan. But yeah, Ruben owns the whole building. Why? What did you think this was?” I said, spreading my arms to take in Cavazos’s would-be love shack.

“I don’t know.” Anne hugged herself, and the gesture made her look very fragile and naive. “I thought it was a safe house, or something.”

I stifled a laugh. “Annika, I’m a one-woman operation, not the fucking FBI. I take what I can get, and this was the only place I could think of where Tower’s men couldn’t follow us.” And it would have worked—if Kori weren’t one of Tower’s men.

I gave her a minute to absorb the new-to-her facts, then cleared my throat. “Are you two ready for this?”

“Looking forward to it.” Cam’s firm nod said he was looking for a chance to pick a fight with Cavazos, and the stern look I gave him othing to change that.

“As ready as I’m going to be,” Anne said, and I was pleased to find determination strengthening her gaze. She was channeling her inner mama lion, and I was relieved to see it.

“Okay.” I stood and headed for the front door. “I’ll be back in a minute. Stay out of sight and don’t come outside, no matter what. Got it?”

Cam nodded, but Anne’s agreement was a little shakier. But that was as good as it was going to get.

I patted my holstered gun beneath my jacket, then opened the door and stepped onto the second-floor landing. I jogged down the stairs and had only been standing in the parking lot for a few seconds when an unmarked black sedan rolled to a stop in front of me, and the passenger’s side window buzzed as it receded into the door.

“Evenin,’ Liv.” Gene smiled up at me from beneath the brim of his cowboy hat, faux-Southern gentleman, through and through. “What can we do for you?” I didn’t like many of Cavazos’s men, but Gene was at the bottom of my list.

“You can get on your phone, or your radio, or whatever toys Ruben’s passing out these days and tell him I need to see him. Here. Now.”

“Cool your panties.” Gene’s languorous gaze traveled south of my waist. “He’s already on his way.”

“I’m not sleeping with him,” I snapped, though I don’t know why I bothered.

“Right.” Gene laughed, and I wished he’d choke on his own disbelief. “You cover the windows and turn on all the lights for privacy so you can get
yourself
off.”

Bastard. “Just send him up when he gets here.” I jogged back up the stairs and into the apartment without looking back.

My heart thumped painfully when I closed the door and leaned against it. “He’s already on the way.” Which I might have known, if I hadn’t asked Cam to destroy my phone. “It’s only a five-minute drive, so you guys should probably head to the bedroom….”

“Do you know what you’re going to say?” Cam asked, as Anne started gathering her stuff.

I shrugged and slid my arms around him when he stepped closer, pressing me into the door. “I’m going to tell him the truth. Some of it, anyway.” The parts I was obligated to reveal, along with whatever else would help us get Hadley safely out of Tower’s grip. “But I’m going to have to spin it. Let him think he’s making all the calls.”

“What does that mean?” he asked into my hair, while I pressed my face into the side of his neck, breathing him in, dreading the moment when I’d have to trade his presence for Ruben’s. “I’m not going to hide in the other room and let him pound on you!”

“I can hold my own.”

“You don’t have to,” he growled, holding me tighter, and a bolt of dread lanced my heart. “I’m not going to let him touch you.”

“Cam.” I stepped out of his grip and looked up at him, trying to cvey the import of what I was about to say. “You have to stay in the bedroom until I call for you. No matter what. Okay?”

“Hell no!”

Outside, a car engine growled to a stop, then died, and my pulse raced. It was Cavazos—it had to be. “Cameron,
listen
to me.” I held him by both arms, but I was pretty sure that didn’t have the same impact it had when our positions were reversed—my hands only fit halfway around his biceps. “He’s going to be pissed at first, but the important thing here is getting him to help us go after Hadley, and I’m going to do whatever that takes. Anyway, as soon as he hears about his daughter, he’ll forget about everything else.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

Voices spoke outside my window and down one floor, and I recognized Cavazos’s cultured rumble among them.

“He will!” I whispered fiercely, already tugging Cam away from the door. “Promise me you’ll stay in there with Anne.” Who was watching us silently from the bedroom doorway.

“Liv…”

“Swear!” I snapped, whispering because I heard heavy, confident footsteps on the stairs.

Cam scowled. “Fine. I swear.” But we both knew that he’d break his word if Cavazos went too far. If I
let
him go too far.

“Thank you,” I breathed. Anne stepped back and I used my good arm to push Cam into the room with her. “I’ll call you when I’m ready for you.” I started to close the door, then noticed that Anne clutched Hadley’s photo album to her chest. “Can I take one of those?” I whispered, as the first knock echoed from my front door.

She hesitated, obviously reluctant to alter Elle’s handiwork. But then she nodded, and I flipped through the pages hastily until I found the shot I needed: Hadley, still in her blue cap on her green blanket. But this time, Elle was in the frame with her. I had no idea who’d taken the picture—the neighbor/babysitter?—but it suited my purposes perfectly.

“Thanks. I’ll bring it back.” But at the last minute, I refrained from promising her, because for all I knew, Ruben would insist on keeping the picture, and I couldn’t stop him.

“Olivia!” Cavazos shouted, pounding on the door again. He was pissed, and I wasn’t surprised.

“Shh!” I hissed at Cam and Anne as I closed the bedroom door, then I raced down the short hallway and skidded to a stop a foot from the door.
Not yet…

I slid Anne’s photo into an end-table drawer, then jogged into the kitchen and pulled a steak knife from the block on the counter. Just in case. Carefully, I shoved it between the first two couch cushions, then took a moment to catch my breath and slow my pulse.

Then I pulled the front door open to find Ruben Cavazos waiting with his arms crossed over his chest, eyes narrowed in quiet fury—ten times more dangerous than an obvious bluster. “Sorry. I was in the bathroom.”

In response, Ruben backhanded me across the face.

Twenty-Five

I
stumbled backward and grabbed the back of a chair to keep from falling. Pain exploded in my cheek. But I clenched my teeth and cursed beneath my breath to keep from alerting Cam.
“Motherfucker!”
I lifted one hand to my face to find it flaming against my cool palm.

Ruben stepped inside and pushed the door closed, then met my gaze with infuriating calm, as if hitting me sent him to his mental happy place.

Bastard.

My mental happy place involved him, ropes, nudity, honey and a massive nest of fire ants.

“Why didn’t you answer my calls?”

I stomped into the kitchen and he followed while I loaded ice into the center of a clean hand towel. “Regrettably, I am no longer in possession of my phone.” I twisted the bulk of the towel around the ice and pressed it to my cheek, but that only made the throbbing worse. “How many times did you call before you figured out I wasn’t going to answer?” Taunting him wouldn’t help anything, and it wasn’t as satisfying as hitting him back. But it was a close second. “Ten?” His scowl deepened, and my smile grew in direct proportion. “Fifteen? Twenty? Did you call me twenty times, Ruben? You know that makes you look desperate, right?”

He stepped closer. “Are you trying to piss me off?”

“Every girl needs a hobby.” I tried to step around him, but he grabbed my arm and pushed me into the countertop, standing so close our bodies touched from knee to chest, and I could feel the fury radiating off him like a fever.

“I’m assuming you came here to apologize. And to work toward forgiveness.”

“Then you’re making an ass out of us both.” I shoved him back with one hand and dodged his next grasp.

“If you’re not going to play nice, why are you here?” Ruben’s grin would have looked natural on a snake. “Did my mark scare Caballero off?” He came closer, and when I backed away, I bumped into the couch.

Anger got in the way of clear reasoning, and for a moment I saw red. “He doesn’t give a shit about your mark, and neither do I. And there’s nothing you or your joke of a binding can do about it.”

“Let’s see how you feel about that mark in six months when I own you, head to toe, and everything in between….” His hand slid over the curve of my backside, and I shoved him away again, but he only laughed.

“That’s not going to happen.”

He actually laughed. “You’re no closer to finding my son now than you’ve ever been, and once you’ve failed, there’ll be nothing stopping me from securing Caballero’s services, whatever that takes. Maybe as a signing bonus, I’ll let him watch us together, so he can see what a good little girl you’ve become.” Cavazos leaned in closer and my teeth ground together when his lips brushed my ear. “He might even learn something….”

I buried my right fist in his gut and treasured his explosive grunt of pain as I lurched away from him.

For one long moment, Ruben couldn’t speak. He couldn’t breathe. He could only clutch the top of the couch, hunched over in the spot I’d just vacated, riding out the pain. I wanted to throw another blow. I wanted to kick him while he was almost down. I wanted to
kill
him, and in that moment, I think I could have. He couldn’t shout for help with empty lungs, and if he died, my mark would die with him. I would be rid of him. I would be free.

But we needed him.
Hadley
needed him. And I didn’t want to have to tell a child who’d already lost her real mother and her adopted father that I’d just killed another of her parents.

So I sucked in a deep breath and backed around the sofa, keeping it between us, and when he straightened, fists clenched in the overstuffed cushions, I knew that playtime was over. It was time to get down to business—before his retaliation drew Cam out of hiding.

“Truce? I need to talk to you, Ruben.” I edged toward the end table as he rounded the couch.

“You need to do more than that.” He shoved the coffee table out of the way and came two steps closer.

“Look.” I opened the drawer and was reaching for Hadley’s picture when his next word froze me in place.

“Stop.”

I fought the direct order, mentally, but couldn’t make my body disobey. I stood, but left the drawer open. “Please just look….”

He lunged forward and grabbed my arm. The room spun around me, ceiling soaring before my eyes. My back hit the couch and he was on me in an instant, one hand tangled in my hair, pulling my head to the side. “Now. You are going to shut the fuck up and do exactly what I tell you, or I’m going to make you wish you never set foot in this city.”

I forced a bitter laugh, rolling my eyes to the side to keep him in sight. “You’re a little late for that one. I hate you.”

Ruben laughed. “That’s why this is so much fun. You and Meika have more in common than you would ever believe. Swear you’ll play nice, and I’ll let you up.”

“Fuck you.” I dug between the cushions for my knife, but only wound up pushing it deeper.

He let go of my hair and his hand wrapped around my throat. But I managed three short words before he started to squeeze.

“I found him.”

Cavazos’s hand loosened, but didn’t leave my throat. “What?”

“I found him. Your son.”

“You’re lying.”

I shook my head, and his ring dug into my chin. “Let me up, and I’ll tell you.”

“You’ll tell me anyway.”

That was true, and we both knew it. I had to tell him what I knew, but my mark wouldn’t dntil he was in physical possession of his child. “Fine. Let me up and I won’t make you work for the information.” It was within my ability to make him fish the information from me question by individual question, which would take forever and piss him off.

Of course, I didn’t have that kind of time to waste at the moment, but he didn’t know that.