“Love is messy,” I said. Another greeting card worthy sentiment.
“So you’re a tattoo artist?” he said, getting out of the chair and changing the subject. He went into the kitchen and came out again, this time with two beers. He handed me one, which I thanked with a nod. I f**king needed this.
I took a long swig before I answered. “I am. I used to work at a shop in LA before I opened up Sins & Needles.”
“The front,” he filled in.
“Yes,” I said hesitantly. “But I did actual work there. I had steady clientele. It really was enough to live on.”
“Then why bother with money laundering?”
My mouth flapped open and closed. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice. I get the feeling that you don’t know how to say no.”
I glared at him. “I’m pretty sure I said no when I stole the money.”
“And look where that got you. The best way to say no is before you start. Say no now, not later.”
“Wise words,” I muttered, gulping more of the beer down. “You having second thoughts?”
“I haven’t agreed to anything, now have I? I’m just hearing you out.”
This was getting ridiculous. All this talk and he still wasn’t sold.
“Maybe I’m wasting my time then,” I said, standing up. I felt better standing. I was a tall guy and I liked to remind people of that. If they couldn’t take me and my tattoos seriously then they at least took my height and muscle.
I started for the door. “I just thought maybe you cared about Ellie since she seemed to care about you … that you cared whether an innocent woman lived or died.”
And at that, he laughed. Maybe I was being a little bit dramatic but it seemed the only way I could get his attention.
“Innocent?” he sputtered out. “First of all, we both know that Ellie Watt is the furthest thing from innocent.”
The funny thing was, although that was technically true, that Ellie thieved and lied and charmed her way through life, I still saw an innocence in her. When I tattooed her, I saw it all over her leg and swimming in her eyes. For all she’d done, for the heartless, cruel, selfish person she could be, there was an innocence deep inside – there was still a ten-year old girl who’d lost everything, who never learned to love without repercussions, who never let her real self be free. That was the Ellie I had seen all through high school, the one who hid behind jeans and a tough attitude. The real her, the purity, was never allowed to come out. She had her soul on a very tight leash.
“And second of all?” I prodded him.
“Second of all, you’re insinuating that I don’t care. Ellie and I never saw each other much over the last few years and I still looked on her like I would a daughter. A very badly behaving daughter that should be permanently grounded, but a daughter nonetheless. Whether I care or not should have nothing to do with whether I’ll help you.”
I looked at the ceiling in exasperation. “What the f**k does that mean?”
“It means,” he said, “that I could take all the information you just gave me and go find her myself.”
“Like it’s that easy,” I scoffed.
“It is when you’ve got connections, firearms, and an idea of where she’s going. Of course, you’re still ignoring the big question here and it’s the only reason why I’m hesitant to involve you in any of this.”
How the f**k did he just do that? He turned something that was my idea, my plan, and made it into his.
And I was biting like a fish on a hook.
“What’s the big question then?”
He rubbed at his beard. “Does Ellie want to be found?”
I thought maybe I was hearing it wrong because that didn’t sound like an actual question. Gus noted the look on my face because he said, “You see. You didn’t think of it.”
“Of course she wants to be found. She went off with a psychopath, a dangerous uncle killer. She did it to save me and my family. She had to.”
He nodded, seemingly to himself. “She probably did have to, you’re right. But that psychopath is also her ex-boyfriend. Ex-love of her life. The man, the catalyst, that made her the person she is today. You should have known the twenty-year-old Ellie. She was different.”
“I knew the fourteen-year-old Ellie. She was already damaged.” I was spitting out the words like shrapnel, appalled by what Gus was suggesting. It created an empty space beneath my ribs that kept threatening to break open. “Ellie hated Javier with a passion. Feared him.”
His eyes softened. “She always feared him, from day one, and that never did her any good. And hate, well we all know love and hate. Hate is the other side of the coin. It takes one good toss to get it facing down. It can happen quicker and easier than you would think.”
“Are you talking Stockholm Syndrome now?” That I could understand a little better. What he was suggesting was beyond my realm of comprehension.
He shrugged. “In a way. It’s just, with someone like Ellie, it’ll be really hard for her not to fall back into old habits. Javier was her biggest habit of all.”
The hole was opening, my heart threatening to sink in. I dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands and wished they were sharper.
“Camden,” he said pointedly. “It would be Stockholm syndrome on steroids.”
And suddenly, somehow, in some sick f**king twisted way, that scenario was a million times worse than the one I had envisioned. I thought the worst thing that could have happened would be Javier killing Ellie. Now I knew, I saw, it could get much, much worse.
She could fall back in love with him. He could seduce her and set that soul free.
And, in the end, still leave her dead.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ELLIE
Pain saturated my dreams. When I woke up the next morning, lying there stiff in our old bed, I realized I really bungled up my ankle when I jumped off the balcony. Looking back, it was a stupid move, leaping away like I was in an action movie. Granted, I was trying to escape a drug lord’s henchman, so desperate times called for desperate measures.
After Javier blackmailed me into agreeing to help him, I went straight to the room and didn’t come out even when he knocked on the door and told me dinner was ready, like we were roommates or some shit. I was this close to opening the door and breaking his perfect teeth, but it seemed the angrier I acted toward him, the more he liked it. He was delusional enough to equate hatred with passion and I’d seen the way he’d been appraising me, like some cocky player who assumes every woman is in love with him.