The Protected

If she’d been wrong, he would have said so. But he didn’t. Not then. And never once, after that.

Looking back over at the girl, Vaughnne watched as Jillian came to her feet, a diminutive thing, maybe five feet two, at the max. All curls and dimples and big blue eyes. But under the shields Jillian had wrapped around herself, Vaughnne sensed a power that almost made her teeth ache.

“Hi,” Jillian said, smiling at her.

Vaughnne smiled back, although she had to force it. Smiling was the last thing she had inside her just then.

“Jillian, your mom is about ready to go.”

Jillian sighed and looked over at Alex as he sat up. “I’ve gotta go, Alex. I’m going to try and talk them into staying a few more days if I can. But if I can’t, I’ll call you.”

Alex tucked his chin against his chest, his cheeks flushing a dull red. “I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here. My uncle . . .”

Jillian looked over at Vaughnne.

Too young, she thought absently. That girl was way too young to have that kind of wisdom in her eyes. Wisdom . . . and sadness.

“It’s okay. I’ll find a way to keep in touch,” Jillian said, bending down to hug the boy’s skinny shoulders.

She was halfway across the floor before he looked up. “Bye, Jillian.” The look in his eyes was one that hit Vaughnne straight in the gut.

Loneliness. Such loneliness. She knew what that was like. She remembered how it had felt, the first time she’d ever really made a friend.

He needs a real life . . . That was what Gus had told her.

Yeah. The kid needed a real life. Needed friends. Needed a home and stability and structure, and for all that was good and decent, he needed to know how to control the wild gift inside him. But why in the hell couldn’t he do that with Gus in his life?

It was a question she had no answer for, she knew.

But she couldn’t let that get in the way.

She had to focus on Alex now.

Crossing the floor, she sank down in the spot where Jillian had been, watching as Alex continued to play the video game. “You seem to be pretty good at that,” she said softly as Taylor and Jillian left.

“I’m lousy at it,” he said. But there was a bit of a smile on his face. “Jillian is good at it. I could get better. But . . .” Then he shrugged. “Gus will be coming for me soon and we won’t have the money for things like this. It’s fun, though.”

“Actually . . .” She blew out a breath and opened the folder. Gus hadn’t just left the legal documents. Taylor was already doing what he could; he’d started that ball rolling once Vaughnne had talked to him. Still, all in all, this was just a nightmare in the making.

The good news, Alex was underage and hadn’t had any say in what the adults in his life had done. His mother was dead, his father was dead. Taylor would go to the wall to keep the boy from going back to a place where he’d be in danger and the man had a lot of pull, knew a lot of people who owed him favors.

The bad news . . . it was going to be a rough road before this all settled down, and she had to break Alex’s heart.

Withdrawing the letter Gus had written for the boy, she held it out. “He isn’t coming back,” she said gently. “I’m sorry.”

* * *

GUS didn’t set the house on fire, although part of him wanted to see another piece of that hell go up in flames. These men had known about Alex. He was careful, leaving no sign of himself, and unless the authorities there were very, very good, they’d assume exactly what Gus had wanted them to assume. A card game between two friends, gone very, very wrong.

The last pair had an unfortunate accident while driving.

There were three more who had been in Reyes’s inner circle.

They would be the hardest to track down, though. After this, they would all be more cautious. And the others were smarter, had taken more care.

It was going to be harder, from here on out.

Still, once he had eliminated the final few, he’d . . .

He’d what?

Gus really didn’t know the answer to that.

He stopped on the beach, staring out at the almost painful blue of the Pacific while that question echoed inside him. He’d what?

“Killing your way through Mexico, Gustavo?”

He tensed at the sound of that voice. He had his weapon, tucked under his shirt at his back. But it was a question, really. Could he draw it before the man behind him shot him?

Antonio Moran had made him who he was. What he was. The older man was in his late fifties, but he was still one deadly son of a bitch. Slowly, he turned and eyed the man who’d held his leash for almost fifteen years. Up until Gus had slipped that leash to go rescue his sister.

He’d failed there.

But he wasn’t going back on that leash, either. If he hadn’t been so afraid of the hell he could bring to Consuelo’s door, perhaps he could have saved her and Alejandro.

“Nothing to say?”

He just stood there as Moran crossed the sand to stop just a few feet away.

“I’ve got a number of dead bodies that I can track back to you, and you’re just going to stand there and stare at me like you’d rather see me dead than speak,” Moran said, sighing a little.

“There’s not much reason to speak, is there?”

Moran inclined his head. Then he shifted his gaze and looked out over the water. “I am sorry for your sister. For the problems you’ve had these past few years. If you had come to me . . .” He stopped and shrugged. “But there is no reason why you would have.”

“Reyes would have done anything to bring his son home. The man was an abusive monster and he had contacts everywhere. He even had men on your payroll, and we both know it. Now . . . why would I have come to you?”

“I would have protected anybody you brought to me,” Moran said softly. “Surely you know that.”

“I believe you would have tried.” Gus did believe that much. “But you cannot control all of those under you, not when you knowingly allow rats to exist under your thumb, just to see what crumbs they’ll leave.”

“I’d never put an innocent child in harm’s way,” Moran said.

Gus laughed humorlessly. “I wasn’t much more than a child when you dragged me into this.”

“But you were never innocent.” Moran shrugged as if that made all the difference.

“I’m not coming back,” Gus said. “If that is why you are here, you waste your time. You might as well kill me now.”

Moran made a tsking sound under his breath. “And here we were, having such a nice conversation. Have I threatened you at all? Insisted that you come back?”

“There is no other reason for you to be here.”

Moran tipped his face back to the sun. “Perhaps I just wanted to see for my own eyes that you were still alive. You stayed hidden for a long time, Gustavo. And you went after a very dangerous man.”

“You made me for just that purpose.”

Silence fell and then Moran nodded. “Yes. Indeed I did.”

He reached into his pocket and held something out.

Gus ignored it.

Moran just let it fall to the sand. “You feared staying close to your family because of the life men like us lead, Gustavo. I can respect that. I understand it. I even pushed you to do just that. But you don’t have to continue this life . . . you got lost in the world once. Do it again, mi amigo. Get lost and take care