Pinned Up (Pinned Up Trilogy) (30 page)

As Kade’s medication kicks in, I allow him privacy to sleep. I walk towards Celeste’s room and find Josh speaking with the doctor. I go around them and enter the antiseptic room. My mom is sitting by her. Celeste looks pale and weak, but still manages to smile when she sees me. She appears more delicate than usual. I approach her and give her a kiss on the cheek, my tears land on her face. I wipe them and thank her. She faced her prime fear to spare my life. For that and for her love, I will be eternally grateful.

“I’m so glad you’re safe, dear. I’m sorry you had to endure a taste of Mateo’s wrath. But that’s over with, I’m glad everyone survived and now we can continue to live in peace. Please, promise me that you’ll stay by my son’s side. I understand your relationship didn’t work out and that’s okay, but you’re good for Josh. Remain in his life, even if it’s just as friends. Since you came into his world, he has become a new man. He doesn’t just live for the moment or treat women as objects. He’s a good person, Nina. Let him prove that to you.” Celeste pleads.

“Celeste, you and your son saved my life. I will love you both forever, but not just because of that, but because you have welcomed me and loved me unconditionally. The feeling is mutual.” I kiss her on the cheek once again and decide to lighten the mood. “Now, you need to recover soon before Kade gets a sexual harassment lawsuit. He’s having way too much fun with the nurses and interns next door.” I giggle lightly.

“Yes, I noticed he’s quite popular.” She smiles lovingly at me.

As I’m heading out of Celeste’s room, I run into Josh. There’s so much I want to say to him and so many kisses I want to give him, but I don’t say or do anything. I can’t. I’m left speechless, too overwhelmed with feelings. He looks at me as if he were just seeing me for the very first time.

“Hey, lovely lady, how do you feel? I’ve been worried about you.” He says with a sad, concerned expression, as his gorgeous hazel eyes examine every inch of my face. He approaches me. Instead of thanking him, I simply run into his arms and cry. His embrace feels heavenly as his strong arms enfold me and his refreshing, clean scent awakens my senses. The tears I shed are from happiness that he was there to save me, joy knowing he is free and not incarcerated, and most important relief from seeing him in front of me alive and well. We have so much to discuss, but now isn’t the time nor the place to have such a conversation. He agrees to talk at a later time. We both find ourselves locked in each other’s arms unable to let go. I can remain like this and hold him forever, but rationality strikes and makes me let go. He needs to be by his mother’s side and I need to keep Kade company. Unwillingly, we separate.

I return to Kade’s room and make myself as comfortable as possible on the chair beside his bed. I pull out my Kindle and wrap myself in a paranormal romance novel while Kade sleeps. A good love triangle involving a human, a vampire, and a werewolf is the perfect distraction. A few hours pass by, a nurse enters the room to check Kade’s vital signs. I excuse myself to get something to eat downstairs at the cafeteria. I check Celeste’s room to see if Josh or my mom is hungry. They’re both starving. We decide to grab a quick bite for dinner at a taqueria across the street. As we’re entering, I grab a daily paper from the newspaper stand. I notice our infamous, kingpin fathers made the headline news, one for his death and the other for his capture. Josh ignores the newspaper and my mom snatches it from me while leading me inside the restaurant.

When we return to the hospital, I’m looking forward to watching reruns of
Friends
with Kade. Even though he complains about the countless breakups between Ross and Rachel, I know he secretly loves the show. Right when I’m about to turn on the TV that’s mounted on the upper left hand corner of the wall, Kade makes himself comfortable in an upright position on his bed. And then…Emme walks in.

Kade and I remain silent avoiding eye contact with her. She finally grabs a chair and sets it by the bed on the opposite end of me near Kade’s feet, but doesn’t say anything. Kade loses his patience. “Say something…shit.” He glares at her. Clearly, I’m not the only one who feels betrayed.

Emme finally begins to speak. “I want to apologi—” Kade interrupts her. “Save your apology and start from the beginning. We want every fuckin’ detail.” Kade is livid and continues scowling at her.

Emme exhales deeply. As she’s about to begin her explanation, she keeps her head down and eyes focused on her lap. “Fine. You both know I’m from Arizona. Well, my dad got into some financial trouble with Mr. Diego Cruz a while back. My dad was trafficking drugs for Los Blancos Cartel, but was stealing small portions to sell on the side. My dad became greedy and was desperate to climb the hierarchy of the cartel organization. His plan backfired on him. Mr. Cruz, who was Mr. Mateo Blanco’s second in command at the time, found out. My dad had to pay for his mistake with his life and ours. Mr. Cruz sent lieutenants to bring my father to him along with our family. We were all brought to a warehouse to get killed. When Mr. Cruz noticed me, he became intrigued. He wanted to know everything about me. He made me an offer I simply couldn’t refuse. In the drug business, second chances don’t exist, but we were lucky. Mr. Cruz informed me that if I became his loyal informant regarding Nina, then he would spare my family’s life. If I stopped following his orders, my family and I would die a slow and agonizing death. I accepted his offer. He moved us to San Francisco. He never indicated his relationship to you.”

Emme finally makes eye contact with me. “His orders were specific, I had to tell him everything about you and intervene with your life whenever he deemed it necessary. He paid for my education at Berkeley and directed me to major in sociology just like you so that we could share classes and build a friendship. It’s been four years since I accepted Mr. Cruz’s offer and have been informing him of your whereabouts. During this time, he began running his own drug organization, making him a much more powerful and ruthless man than before.” Emme gets quiet and looks away.

“Why do I feel there’s something you’re not telling us?” Kade questions her.

Emme takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. Now, she has her full attention directed at me. “Although I was grateful to Mr. Cruz for allowing us the opportunity to live, I quickly became resentful of everything and everyone. I gave up my dream to be an artist; I had just been accepted to attend the Art Institute of Chicago. Not attending that school crushed me. Soon, I began to envy and even hate you at times. You had everything at your reach and never took advantage of things. You chose to work for a living.” Emmes expression changes to anger. “Hello? You’re a millionaire! You don’t need to fuckin’ work! Guys drool all over you and you get bored with them after a day. You never allow anyone near you. In the beginning, I practically had to force my friendship on you. I made sure to keep my life private because I didn’t want to share anything more than I had to with you.”

Emme breaks her eye contact with me and focuses on her lap once again. “Josh didn’t cheat on you with Nicole. I set it up to look as if he had. Nicole is my ex-girlfriend.”

Emme pauses for a moment. I’m dying to say something, but decide against it and allow her to continue. “When we first met up with Josh and Dillon at the bar, I knew Nicole would be there. I sent her a text instructing her not to pay me any attention. Once I realized you had your eye on Josh. I sent Nicole another text asking her to flirt with him just to see what you would do. I asked her to apply at his job and planned for her to meet us by the Civic Center during the parade, at the Halloween Pub Crawl, at the dance club, and at his house. When we were at the club, I knew the only way of putting Josh in a compromising situation was by tricking him. So, she covered his eyes and kissed him. Josh returned her kiss assuming it was you. I lucked out when you didn’t allow Josh the opportunity to explain what happened in his home. Since you told me you were going to his house after work, I asked Nicole to drop off his wallet that he accidentally left at the club the night you saw them kissing. When she dropped it off, she asked if she could come in and use his phone to call a cab. He agreed and left her by herself in the living room while he showered since he had just arrived from the gym. When you rang the doorbell, Nicole undid her shirt and tousled her hair to make it seem like they had just fucked. The hickeys you saw on her chest were from me. Sometimes, we still mess around. The icing on the cake was that you saw him right after he had gotten out of the shower. He never purposely touched her. Nicole and I just made it appear as if he had. She loves stirring up drama and was more than willing to go along with each of my plans to break you two up. Initially, I did it to mess with you, then when I informed Mr. Cruz you were seeing someone, he asked me about Josh. I told him he had the reputation of a player and had admitted he never wanted to get serious with anyone. Immediately, Mr. Cruz directed me to keep him informed regarding your relationship. He didn’t want me to intervene just yet, since he was aware you didn’t care for commitments either, but I decided to get involved anyway.” She remains quiet once again.

“Is that it? Are you done?” I ask.

“Yes.” Emme answers sheepishly.

Kade speaks up. “You fuckin’ scandalous bitch! All my Cheesecake ever did was welcome you into her life, love you, care for you, and worry about you. She was a true friend and this is how you repay her? By betraying her and ruining her relationship? How many times didn’t you see her depressed because of Josh? How many times didn’t you witness tears escape her eyes? She didn’t pry into your life out of respect for you! You resented her? Bitch, please! You should have been resenting your greedy, selfish ass father for wanting that quick money and as a result put himself and your family at risk of being murdered! That’s who you should have been angry with, not my Cheesecake! It’s not her fault your dad and her dad put you through that. I could have easily understood being Nina’s dad’s informant, anyone in your place would have taken his offer, but for you to purposely hurt my Cheesecake…no, nothing justifies your actions. Any serious feelings that may have started to develop between us are gone. I’m done with you.”

Emme raises her head. She has too much pride to continue showing weakness by looking down. “I truly am sorry for the hurt I caused. I really do love you both; I simply allowed my jealousy and resentment to get the best of me.” Her eyes have now become glossy and she’s trying desperately not to shed a tear.
Too little, too late.

I know I should conduct myself like a lady and show some empathy, but I don’t give a fuck at this moment. I simply want this bitch gone and out of my life for good. She gets no pity from me. “I should tell you to kiss my ass and lick it too, but I’d rather you leave and take your sorry ass apology with you. I don’t wanna see you again. I loved you like a sister and you basically stomped on my heart and spit in my face. You and that whore, Nicole can both kick rocks. Deuces, bitch!” I salute her with the peace sign. “Don’t let the door hit your conniving ass on your way out.” I glare at her, willing her to say something. She doesn’t. Emme slowly leaves the room and doesn’t look back.

Kade squeezes my hand. “What a bitch. Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch…AND…some more bitch. I can’t believe I fucked her and let her refer to me as Master KD. Why didn’t you stop me?” He laughs. Although he’s joking, I can still see the hurt behind his eyes.

“Forget her! Where’s that boobilicious and bootylicious nurse when you need her?” I giggle trying to cover up my pain as well.

“You know what you have to do now, don’t you?” Kade asks.

“No. What?” I’m confused.

Kade gives me a disbelieving look. “Hello? You need to go searchin’ for your man, boo! And ride him long and fierce. Since I’m stuck in this place and can’t get any, you need to get some for the both of us. And don’t you worry, I won’t even think about telling you that I told you so regarding Josh. It would be in poor character to remind you that I felt as if something just didn’t make sense about him cheating. And I definitely wouldn’t dream of bringing up that I told you several times to allow him the opportunity to explain. Lucky for you, I don’t need to always be right even though I usually am. I’m just sayin’.”

“Gee…Thanks for not rubbing it in.” I roll my eyes at Kade. “I feel terrible. What should I say, what should I do, what if he doesn’t forgive me? What if he rejects me?” Instantly, I begin to get nervous. “I don’t think now is a good time to have a talk with Josh. His mom is still in a delicate state next door. I’ll wait until she gets better and continue being there for him as a friend.” I’m determined to wait. The last thing he needs is to discuss Emme’s provoked drama. He has enough on his plate. I’ll apologize for jumping to conclusions and not allowing him a chance to explain at a later time.

Chapter 13 (Nina)

Visitor

A week has passed since that dreadful evening. Today, Kade is finally getting discharged from the hospital. I pull up to the front of the building as a nurse is pushing Kade in a wheelchair past the automatic doors. He and the nurse have wicked smirks planted on their faces as they approach my vehicle. I decide it’s best not to ask what the looks are all about. I help Kade get inside my car.