“Yeah. Thanks.” Tank left the room, and I went to my computer station at the corner of the room. I logged in to my email and sent a message to Wade.
What the fuck happened today?
I only had to wait a few minutes before he replied.
Been away, inner-circle shit. Just got back. Didn’t know they were planning anything. New Dragon took the lead. Ex-Marine. Knows his shit. I’m here for a while now unless your old man calls me away. I’ll keep my ear to the ground and give you a heads-up on anything new going down. I fucked up. Won’t happen again.
I stared at the email and wondered for the millionth time if I was being played. But Wade’s intel had come through too often for me to doubt him.
Finally, I wrote: Make sure it doesn’t.
The Hangmen were setting Wade up nicely in exchange for the intel. Money that could get him the fuck out when the time came.
My hands hung, frozen over the keys, before I finally lowered them and wrote: Beau still in charge?
My fucking heart beat like a damn bass drum in my chest as I waited for the email to come back.
Fucker’s hell-bent on destroying y’all. Never thought I’d see the day that Beau spoke more than a few words or stopped hiding away on his own. Now he’s like Hitler on crack . . .
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I couldn’t imagine it either. Beau was a hard bastard. Brought up the same as me. Ruthless. Smart, but much more reserved. As the second brother, he could afford to be. He was quiet. A thinker. But so fucking quiet that you never knew what he was planning.
He’s lethal, Tann. Fucking lethal. Whatever had been sleeping inside him all this time has woken the fuck up.
I read that email over and over, until I pushed my chair back and went to move away. But as I did, the necklace I kept in my jeans dug into my leg. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the golden cross. The tarnished gold barely caught the light. It was old . . .
I want you to have it, mi amor. I want you to keep it. Think of me. Even when you doubt how much I love you, look at this and know that I am thinking of you too. Missing you too . . .
I’d managed to stay away from a particular program on my computer for too long. And like a man in a desert, gasping for water, I let my fingers move over the keypad and pull up the screen. My hand fisted into a ball and I closed my eyes. I knew I shouldn’t press the key for “play.” But nothing was keeping me from her for a minute longer.
So I fucking pressed play.
The minute my gaze focused on the screen, my chest tightened, then ached like I’d taken a crowbar to the sternum. Heart pounding, I watched Adelita walk into the path of the camera. I froze, fucking froze as she turned, book in hand, and her face came into view. My lips parted and my breath shot out from my mouth. Adelita smiled at something she was reading, and my hand balled up again. Her golden cross stabbed into my palm, but I welcomed the pain. It was the only thing that made me feel like I was alive.
This, and her. Always fucking her.
Her dark hair hung down her back, and her big brown eyes were bright. Her skin, her body . . . everything was perfection.
I reached out with my free hand and ran my finger down the screen, over her face. Her lips. Those lips. I could taste her on my tongue, hear her fall apart as I took that mouth.
“Adelita,” I rasped. She turned at that moment, as though she could hear me. But she couldn’t. We hadn’t spoken for years; it had been too dangerous, too risky to her safety. But it didn’t mean she didn’t still own my dark heart. The bitch had it. Would be the only one who ever did. Without her I was dead inside, had been for two years without her. Two long fucking years without having her in my arms. Two years without contact. Wondering if she was still mine. But knowing, with every new day that passed, that I was no good for her.