“Pancakes!” Petal chirped.
“Would you like some bacon to go with them?” Treena asked. Sage’s stomach grumbled.
“Yes, please, and orange juice,” Petal added.
“Want to help us get it ready?” Montana asked, still staring at Sage.
“Yes!” Petal shouted. Her foot shot out and tagged the underside of the island. She pushed off from there and swiveled her chair around to where she could see Sage and Alex. Smiling, she said, “I’m going to help make breakfast now. You can go do grown-up talk.”
“Are you sure?” Sage asked.
“Yes, it’s safe here.” She spun back around and hopped off the stool. Sage’s lungs seized at her daughter’s innocent but oh-so-telling comment, her eyes burning as red-hot shards of guilt slashed through her.
“I’ve got your coffee,” Steele told her.
“Come,” Alex said. He took her hand and led her out of the kitchen.
On entry into Steele’s office, Sage noted that LuLu’s redecorating didn’t stop at the kitchen. The once white walls were now light gray, and a plush, charcoal rug had replaced the ratty beige carpet. The desk was the same, but the rickety, wooden chairs that sat in front of it had been replaced by two, dark-leather bucket chairs. Sage sat in one while Alex took the other. Steele handed her the cup of coffee, and they waited for him to settle behind his desk.
She was wondering where to begin, when Steele said, “After you left, I had Carlos Diez investigated. Other than a few speeding tickets, he checked out. Clearly, we missed something. From the looks of it, I’d say that something is pretty damn big.”
Big wasn’t quite the word she would use. She swallowed, her face burning with embarrassment. “I thought I knew him, that I was making a good decision, the right decision for the two of us.” She glanced down at her fingers—swollen and tinged blue with bruising—and sighed. “I couldn’t have been more wrong.” Yes, she was the stupid idiot who ran off to Mexico with a guy she barely knew. Not only that, but she took her kid along for the horrific ride. Talk about an epic fucking parenting fail.
A huff shot from Alex’s mouth. “How many times?”
“Times?” she asked, unsure of what he meant.
“How many times did he beat you?”
Oh, that. “Not too many,” she lied.
“You’re lying. Why? Are you protecting him?”
She’d never heard him use that tone before and it scared the shit out of her. “What? No!”
“Then why lie about it?”
Her gaze shot to Steele. “Maybe we should do this later.”
“Answer the question” Alex growled.
She didn’t want to do it like this. She needed to go slow, to take her time. “I—well, I—”
“You’re safe now, sweetheart,” Steele quietly urged. “We need you to answer the question.”
She wanted to tell them, to purge Carlos and Mexico from her memory and never think of it again, but she was scared—scared of what they would think, of what they would do—not to mention what Carlos would do to them. She closed her eyes. A long moment passed before she opened them back up. Taking a deep breath, she slowly let it out, then she said, “Carlos isn’t a businessman. He’s a lieutenant in a drug cartel.”
Chapter Six
“WHAT DID YOU say?” Alex asked, his voice barely a whisper.
Her eyes locked on his, her stomach cramping at the sound of his quiet anger. Nervous tension permeated the air. Could this be any harder?
“Answer me!”
Flinching, she stammered, “F-five months ago, Carlos told me he’d gotten a raise and was being relocated to Mexico. I t-t-thought he was a businessman, that he ran a company or something. He was running something, alright,” she added under her breath.
Alex expelled a string of curses while Steele just stared at her in shocked silence.
A long, very tense moment passed before Steele asked, “Did Carlos admit that he was part of a cartel?”
She shook her head. “No, I overheard Luca talking about it.”
“Luca?” Alex growled.
“He’s one of Carlos’s guards. He helped us escape.” She wasn’t sure why she felt the need to protect him. He was part of Carlos’s inner circle, a bad guy in a drug cartel, yet, without his help, she and Petal would still be trapped in Mexico.
“Why would he do that?” Steele asked.
She shrugged, the pain in her wrist making her wince. She’d wondered that herself. “I don’t know, but without his help, we wouldn’t have made it out.”
Steele nodded. “Do you know the name of the cartel?”
“Herrera.” She then added, “The Don visited Carlos on more than one occasion. He was nice to us. It’s hard to believe he runs a drug empire.” Steele and Alex exchanged looks. Her stomach dropped. “What? Do you know him?”
“Tell us about the abuse,” Alex ordered.
She bristled at his tone. It was insensitive, not to mention rude. Her gut twisted with nerves as she lifted the coffee cup to her lips and took a fortifying sip of the lukewarm liquid. After two more sips, she returned the cup to the cool, retro-looking coaster on the corner of Steele’s desk. Leveling her eyes on Alex, she said, “Carlos had a heavy hand. He didn’t like the word no and loved it when I fought back.”
Alex’s eyes flared, his jaw tensing in a palpable, scary-as-hell-rage.
“I know this is hard, sweetheart, but we need details,” Steele urged.
Her eyes swung to Steele, her brow creasing in confusion. “Why?”
“Because information is power. The more we know, the better.”
Humiliation ate at her. She wanted to tell them about Carlos and the cartel, not the beatings. She considered asking Alex to leave, but then thought, screw it. He wants to know, I’ll tell him.
“About a month after we arrived in Mexico, Petal and I were playing in the pool.” She paused to add, “There wasn’t a lot to do there, and Petal loved to swim. The activity exhausted her, which made her sleep better at night. Anyway, that day Carlos had learned that the head of the cartel was coming for a surprise visit. He wanted me to help entertain and got angry when I wasn’t in the house. I didn’t know any of this, so when he stormed out to the pool and demanded that I get out, I argued with him. He got so angry that he yanked me from the pool by my hair. When I screamed, he slapped me. Petal started crying, and instead of comforting her, he had one of his guards take her to her room. I yelled at him for mistreating my daughter, and he hit me again.” She grimaced at the memory. “It was awful and ugly. Needless to say, I didn’t make it to dinner that night.”
While reaching for another sip of coffee, her gaze drifted to Alex, who was quietly staring at his lap.
“Keep going,” Steele urged.
“Okay, well, the next time was the morning after I called Lucy.” Her fingers drifted to the scar above her eye. “I was homesick. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. Carlos, evidently, disagreed. That one landed me five stitches and some bruised ribs. Do you want me to go on?” She prayed Steele would say no.