oranges, rustic browns, and soothing beiges, all colors that soaked up the warming rays of the sun and cast a hazy glow about the entire space.
To her left were glass doors that opened to a patio with more cotton-candy clouds and a stunning sunset as its backdrop. To her right was the kitchen and right in front of her, after she’d walked a couple feet from the fireplace, was a small hallway. She moved forward, spying a bathroom to her left just before glimpsing the bedroom ahead. Another spacious room with yet another beehive fireplace and a bed that looked like five people could fit on it. Caprise wasn’t nervous. She’d slept with X last night and nothing had happened. She’d had sex with him twice and was almost positive that if—or she should probably say when—the urge hit them they’d have sex again. Unlike many single females she didn’t have any hang-ups about sex. It was basic and normal between two healthy adults.
X didn’t give the impression of a man who dealt beyond the physical. That worked for Caprise—no strings, no complications, that’s what she’d decided to have once she returned. Anything more might test her newfound resolution of her past.
Caprise sat on the bed, rubbing a hand down her back, letting the low muffle of their voices be drowned out by her thoughts. In the next instant her cell phone rang. Dread sifted through the room like tear gas and her heart began to pound. It was him. She knew it as surely as she knew her name. After all these years he’d found her, and he knew exactly what she’d done.
“So how long did it take?” Bas asked X as they stood out on the patio just beyond the living room.
“How long did what take?”
Bas chuckled. “The ass whipping Nick administered when he found out you’d slept with his little sister.”
The FL’s laughter continued and for a minute X actually considered punching him. But there was that whole ranking thing that held him back. Besides, it wasn’t a question he wouldn’t have asked if the shoe were on the other foot. So instead of getting physical he simply shrugged. “We talked a bit, then things got in the way.”
Bas nodded. “So he really hasn’t had the time to dig into your ass yet?”
“Hey, I’m not here for your amusement, Perry. When do I get to talk to Hernandez?”
“Whenever you’re ready. But I’ve got to tell you, the guy’s not in any hurry to give up his boss.”
“We just want to know the connection,” X said. He’d been walking from one end of the patio to the other, looking over the iron railing to the drop of trees and rooftops of the adjoining buildings in this resort that actually looked like a tiny village.
His gaze kept traveling up the red-rock formations, to the tops that looked as if they touched the sky. But X wasn’t awed by its beauty or soaking up any of the soul-healing crap. He was looking for someone—or rather, something—that he knew was out there.
“What do you think he knows, other than who’s running the cartel?” Bas asked, bringing his attention back to the conversation at hand.
“Raul Cortez is running the cartel now. My questions are about Julio, the father.”
“He’s in a mental institution now, isn’t he?” Bas asked.
“A nursing home,” X corrected him, a sarcastic note to his tone. “He’s apparently too fragile to talk. But I think somebody’s just keeping a clamp on what he’s got to say. Hernandez was his right-hand man. Seems logical he’d know whatever Julio knows.”
Bas looked skeptical. “I don’t know, man. These families are known for keeping their secrets. Hernandez isn’t even Julio’s blood, just an employee. Even if he knows something, how is that going to help us?”
X hadn’t gone into details with Bas about Rome’s and Nick’s parents and the possibility that they’d been in cahoots with the infamous drug cartel. What Rome and Nick suspected would be considered nothing less than treason by the Assembly. What that meant for the work they’d both done in advancing the stateside shifters, X had no clue. What he did know for sure was that his brothers needed closure: They needed to know if the men who had raised them had been loyal or not. That was a word X hadn’t known until he’d met Rome and Nick. His parents hadn’t known what it meant and thus couldn’t have taught their only son. Closure wasn’t on the horizon for X, and that was just fine. He’d rather hate the ones who enabled that limp-dick bastard Jeremiah to torture him than think any rational thoughts where they were concerned. He didn’t even think of them by their names, they were such a distant and disgusting part of his life.
That’s what separated him from Rome and Nick. Their parents were important to them; they loved and respected them. Finding out their fathers may not have been all that they believed would be devastating. X wanted to be the one to find out the truth and to break whatever he had to them. As close as all the FLs were, they were no match for the threesome that had begun more than two decades ago.
“Look, I just need about an hour alone with him.” X was about to address the quizzical look in Bas’s eyes when something stopped him.
He stared inside the suite to the living room, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Without another word he was heading inside, finding his way back to the bedroom where Caprise was sitting on the bed, her fingers massaging her temples as she rocked back and forth.
“What’s the matter? What happened?” he asked immediately, knowing there was something wrong.
From the look she had when she lifted her face to his, she wasn’t about to tell him.
“I’m not going to play this game with you, Caprise. I know something’s going on with you.”
She stood then, slow, graceful. Her arms fell to her sides as she kept his gaze. “You just know everything, don’t you? All of you.” Her gaze traveled over his shoulder to the doorway where X figured Bas was probably standing. “You think you know everything, can fix anything. Well, you can’t! Nobody can!” she yelled before pushing past X and heading to the bathroom, where he knew she’d locked the door tight behind her.
“Relationship problems?” Bas asked.
X whirled around to find the shifter leaning against the doorjamb staring at him with that ridiculous smirk he wore more often than not. “Shut up.”
Bas’s response was a roar of laughter as X cursed.
Hernandez hadn’t had much to say, which X totally expected. What had come as a shock was how frail the man looked—how being out of the spotlight, away from his job and people he most likely considered family, had affected him. He was a fifty-eight-year-old Latino with golden skin that hung on his bones like old leather. Deep-set dark eyes had watched X from the moment he entered the room until he sat down across from him. He’d kept his back straight and shoulders squared like a good soldier, his hands folded on the metal table.
“Have you ever heard the name
His reply was a shake of the head.
“How about
Another shake of the head.
“Julio Cortez knew both these men. He talked to them almost daily for two years, had meetings with them, even met up with them a couple of times in Brazil. You don’t know anything about that?”
He did not shake his head this time, which was a good thing. X was still irritated by Caprise’s mood; add that to the fact that he swore he was being followed or watched, or both, and that put him in a pretty foul mood. Another mute-like response and he was bound to reach out and touch the guy.
“Who is Julio Cortez?” Hernandez asked, a slow grin forming across his face.
X sat back in his chair and watched the man carefully. He had no doubt Hernandez had heard of Loren and Henrique. He’d even bet his life the men had all met together. Julio would not have acted alone; he would have needed backup. Hernandez was his lieutenant, aka his backup.
“It’s getting late,” X started. “And I’ve been traveling a long time. So here’s what I’m going to do. And I want you to understand that I’m being very generous here.” He leaned over, resting his elbows on the table as he got closer to Hernandez.
“I’m not generous often so if I were you I’d take advantage of this offer.” There was nothing peaceful about X’s way of dealing with suspects. Ever.
Rome was the peacekeeper, the negotiator. Nick was the act-now-figure-things-out-later type. And X, he was brute force walking. So when he stood Hernandez should have known to fear for his life. Yet the cocky SOB kept glaring at X as if he were holding all the cards. Wrong.
X lifted one booted foot and pushed the edge of the table until it forced Hernandez back, his chair flipping
