Chapter 43

LUCA

I hit the button that would lower the shades over the window behind my desk. The sun was beginning to set, and it was glaring off my monitor. Not that I was getting anything done.

I couldn't stop thinking about Veda. More than once, I wanted to get up and go check on her. See how she was doing. Make sure she'd eaten and check the bruises my hands had left on her neck. I rubbed my jaw, wondering if I should call in my private physician to look at her. Then I expelled a harsh breath, pushing down any lingering feelings of guilt, or at least I tried.

Suddenly, I threw my arm across my desk in a rush of anger, knocking my keyboard and papers to the floor. I didn't know who I was angry with, Veda or myself. With a curse, I sat back in my chair and scrubbed my face with my hands. I couldn't get attached to this woman.

I could NOT.

And what the fuck was it about her that made her haunt me the way she did after knowing her all of a day?

Rising from my chair, I walked over to the side table in the corner of my office. On it was a bottle of my favorite whiskey and four glasses. I filled one glass to the top and swallowed it down before refilling it and taking it with me back to my desk.

Thirty minutes ago, I discovered the real Nicole had gone on a "vacation" to Mexico, which had not been a vacation at all, but a stint at an in-patient rehab across the border where no one would know who she was. I found this strange, as Veda had never mentioned her sister having a drug problem during our conversation. But I would ask her as soon as I had more information.

Twenty-five minutes ago, I'd put in a phone call to my only friend in the cartel to see what he could find out. And now I was waiting to hear back.

Right on cue, my cell phone rang. I finished off my drink and set my empty glass on the table before I walked back to my desk and picked up my phone. "Yeah."

"Hola, mi amigo," a gruff voice said on the other end of the line.

"What did you find out?"

"I found your girl," he told me.

"So, she's still in Mexico."

"If you can say that."

"I don't have time for this fucking shit, Rene. Is she there or not?"

"She is," he said. "Or at least her body is. She was found in an alley near Puerto Vallarta. As of this moment, the body has not been identified. From the condition she was in, it might take them a while.”

There was a sudden sharp pain in the center of my forehead. Closing my eyes, I tried to rub it away. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

"I'm not, mi amigo. Unfortunately."

My head fell back on my shoulders and I lowered the phone, staring at the ceiling like the answer to how to get myself out of this mess would magically appear in the paint. "Fuck me."

"Do you need me to take care of this for you?" Rene's voice came to me from a distance in the quiet room.

I thought for a moment, then put the phone back to my ear. "Make the body disappear, and I'll make it worth your while when I'm reinstated as your contact here."

"Done." Rene didn't even pause to think about it. "I know you're good for it or my sister wouldn't have loved you as she did."

"Rene," I said with a gruff warning in my voice.

"I know, I know, you don't like to talk about her.” There was a pause. “I also know that you would go back and do it all over again if you could."

"I totally would," I said softly. So softly I didn't know that he'd heard me. Just then, something caught my eye on my computer monitor, pulling me from my memories. The camera feed to the main part of the house. I watched as Veda walked across the room, and wondered where she was going. "And don't worry about this. I have a backup plan."

There was silence on the other end of the line. And then only, “You get the son of a bitch for me. I want you to make him suffer. And then I want him dead, Luca. You hear me? I’ve waited long enough.”

"I will," I promised. The line went dead. I laid my cellphone back on the desk, then blew out a lungful of air, long and slow this time. Moments in time flashed through my head like lightning in a storm.