And the mention of Camden’s name filled my limbs with gravity.
My jaw clenched. “How is Camden?” I asked, taking the risk, the bait, the whatever.
Raul looked over my head at Javier, trading a look I couldn’t read. “Oh, he’s fine.”
I was about to get him to elaborate when Javier spoke. “Fine for now.” His words were laced with grease.
I turned to face him. That smug son-of-a-bitch look was back on his face.
“What do you mean, fine for now?”
Raul walked over to Javier and stood beside him. There was a difference in him now, something that wasn’t there six years ago. Raul had become Javier and Javier had become Travis.
Javier smiled diplomatically. “Well, you do know our score hasn’t been settled, Ellie. That’s why I gave you the chance to redeem yourself.”
My head jerked back. “Score?”
“You stole money of mine. I never saw that money again. In fact, I paid a lot to bring you here. You’ve put me about a hundred grand in the hole.”
My skin was starting to prickle in hot flashes. “I don’t have a hundred grand. You know this.”
“You have some money, I saw you in Vegas, pretending to gamble. Lucky for you, I don’t need your money. It’s the principle of the whole thing. You may not feel loyal to me anymore but you should at least feel like you owe me something. Don’t you have some kind of code, or are you just that immoral now?”
“You’re a f**king pathetic human being,” I jeered, surprised I was even able to form words when my blood was pumping outrage. How dare he insinuate that I was the one with the skewed morals when he was a cold-blooded killer and womanizing, drugging, manhandling bastard.
He tilted his head and eyed me with fake disappointment like I was a disobedient child. Or maybe it was real and if it was, that was much more f**ked up. “Such an angry little angel. Your wings are certainly dirty. They’re black.”
“Like your heart.”
“The heart you once wanted. What does that say about you?”
“It says get to the point. You’re obviously not letting me go. There’s a catch to all of this and it involves Camden and a score. So tell me what the hell it is so I can decide how screwed I am.”
He raised his brows. “Well, I don’t know how screwed you are, I only know how you liked to be screwed.”
My upper lip wrinkled. “Sick pig.”
“This is true,” he said unapologetically. He clapped his hands together, his watch jangling. “Okay, Ellie. You know what I want. I’ve told you repeatedly. I need your help in getting to Travis. And you don’t have to help me, as you now know. But you should understand that I want this bad enough to call in that little score we must settle. You can help me out of good faith. Yet you won’t. Because a woman like you doesn’t have anything good or anything that resembles faith.” He drew out the word faith like it was foreign to him.
“You done trying to be an ass**le or do you want to throw psychopath in there?”
His features grew hard and I instantly regretted opening my mouth. There was nothing more troubling than Javier when he got serious.
“Since you won’t help me on your own good conscience,” he said in a clipped voice, “I’m giving you a choice. Just like the one you had before, only, more … detailed. You help me with Travis and in return I’ll settle your debt.”
“I don’t owe you anything,” I said.
“Right. Did I mention Camden McQueen is part of your debt now?”
My heart came to a sudden stop, crashing into my chest, shards of glass in my veins.
“What?”
He smiled though it was cold as a gravestone in winter. “I gave Camden money for you. That’s more money I lost. Because of you. And based on that, I see that Camden’s well-being is part of your debt now. Not his ex-wife’s, not his son’s … I can’t be bothered with them. Camden, now, I could destroy him with the snap of my fingers. That is, if you don’t help me. So … what shall it be? Your pride and freedom? Or the chance to save not only a man you think you love, or at least took pity on, but the chance to kill the man who put those scars on your leg and in your heart.”
You’re the one who left the scars on my heart, I thought to myself. I felt like I was swallowing down a cotton ball. I could barely look at him. “You promised me you wouldn’t hurt Camden, that you would let him go. And you don’t break your promises.”
He exchanged a satisfied look with Raul before smiling at me. “This is true. I think that’s why I’ve become such a threat to Travis. Because I have my own code that never wavers. Integrity is missing from too many men these days.” He noted my face grow red with anger and went on quickly, “I gave Camden the money. I gave him his wonderful family back. That was what I promised and I did just that. This, Ellie, this is a whole new game with a whole new set of promises. Now, what I need to know is, are you ready to play?”
I wasn’t ready to play anything, but if I could protect Camden, then I was going to do everything I could.
CHAPTER SIX
CAMDEN
God bless apathetic teenagers. If it wasn’t for the bleached blonde girl who was busy doing her nails a sick shade of green as I paid for my gas and a mound of energy drinks, I wouldn’t have made it to Gus’s. I’d probably have been arrested, my ass thrown in jail for who the f**k knows what anymore.
The dry and perpetually unamused girl barely glanced at me and certainly never picked up the Los Angeles Times that day. If she had, she would have noticed that yours truly was on the cover. Not a big picture – that was reserved for a report on the country’s economics around Christmas time – but I was there, in the corner, right under the headline ‘Los Angeles Brothers Shot Trying to Stop Domestic Dispute.’
I so called it.
After I left the scene of the ambush – Sophia’s set-up – I sped up the I-5 until I’d reached the town of Valencia. I finally checked into a motel under Connor Malloy and started planning my next steps.
They all involved Gus.
I brought out the number that Ellie had given me and let it ring a few times before hanging up in fear. What if Gus wanted nothing to do with me without Ellie? What if he wasn’t as trustworthy as Ellie had seemed to think? I barely knew a thing about the guy except that he was an ex-LAPD officer, the same police department that was probably combing Sophia’s apartment for clues. I was glad that I never brought anything into her house except a case of contacts and solution. Everything else had stayed in the car, including the briefcase.