“You finally return, Gustavo,” Reyes said as he drew the gun out.
“For you.” Gus smiled. “I always did want to come back for you.”
“And where is my son?”
“Where you’ll never get him.”
Reyes laughed, the malicious chuckle echoing through the room for a long, lingering moment. He spun around, already lifting the Derringer he’d been using his body to conceal. It didn’t bring Gus as much pleasure as he’d like to aim, squeeze.
The man went down with a scream, the weapon falling from his hand, his arm rendered useless.
“A useful piece of advice, cabron,” Gus said, striding over to him and kicking the Derringer away. “Hide the weapon better. Don’t let me see it until you’re ready to pull the trigger.”
He pressed the muzzle of his Sig Sauer to Reyes’s temple. “You have no idea how many times I’ve thought of this moment.”
“Go ahead, hijo de la chingada. Kill me. Just like you killed my wife.”
* * * THOSE words froze the very heart of her. Vaughnne lifted her head and looked at Gus’s profile.
She never should have looked.
He must have felt her stare because he turned his head, glanced at her for just a second. Less.
And the bastard bleeding on the floor moved, shoving back and swiping out with his uninjured arm.
When he moved again, he had a knife in his hand.
Time slowed down to a crawl and she saw Gus jerk back, saw him lifting his weapon even as Ignacio Reyes shoved the blade into Gus’s side.
“Die, you stupid cabron.”
Two shots rang out.
Vaughnne had no idea which one killed him.
The one she put through his head, or the one Gus put through his heart.
But Ignacio Reyes was down, his eyes sightless and fixed on the ceiling. Blood oozed from the wound to his right forearm. All of it spilled on the floor, turning it a deep, deep red.
Looking up, she stared at Gus.
But he’d already turned his back.
“He killed the boy’s mother,” Nalini said, her voice tight and low. “I saw it, Vaughnne.”
Picking up the pocket knife she’d been using to cut Nalini free, she focused on just that task. Just that.
“Did you hear me?”
“I heard you,” she said quietly.
She’d heard her. She even believed it was true. Not so much because Nalini insisted.
But because of the very plain and simple fact that Gus wouldn’t look at her.
“YOU must promise me, Gustavo.”
“Consuelo, stop this foolishness. Come now. Put your arms around my neck.” Urgency was a constant alarm in his head. The boy was safe—he’d called in so many favors to get here, and Jimmy Doucet was at the door, clutching a terrified Alejandro in his arms. There weren’t many he’d trust with his family, but the old Cajun was one, and he had come without asking a single question.
Gustavo went to pick up his sister, fury twisting in him as he felt the odd, almost pulpy feel along her right side. So many ribs, broken. “No,” she said, flinching away and then gasping as even the pain from that tore through her. “I cannot go with you, ’mano. Listen to me, you have to get him away. I will slow you down and he’ll get Alejandro. He can never do that. Never. You must promise me he’ll never touch him again. Never find him.”
“He won’t,” he said, trying to calm her. “Now let’s go before they realize we are here.”
“I can’t walk,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t run.”
She started to cough and there was blood trickling from her mouth when the fit finally passed.
“Gus, if we’re going, son, we gotta go now,” Doucet said, his voice low and urgent.
“Have him and Alejandro wait outside,” she said, her voice softer, weaker.
Once the door closed behind him, Consuelo closed her eyes. “I’ll never make it to the border. And if you take me, all of you die.”
He froze at the look in her eyes. Despite the pain she was in, despite the blood and the bruises, she watched him with an eerie sort of calm. “Listen to me, ’mano,” she said, her voice getting weaker. “I know you do not understand, but please try. I know what will happen if you take me. He’ll catch us. I . . . I’ve seen it, Gustavo. He’ll catch us. He’ll kill you . . . I’m dead already. And he’ll do as he wishes with Alejandro. You have to protect him now.”
“No,” Gustavo said, shaking his head even as denial roared inside him. He brushed her hair back. “Come now. Hold on to me.”
“I’ve seen it,” she whispered. And then she told him just what she’d seen.
He froze. And then, defeated, he dropped his head onto the bed next to her, closer to sobbing than he’d ever been in his adult life. There was no room for tears, he knew, but they wanted to come nonetheless.
Back when she’d been a child, Consuelo had been a child whom many had mocked. She did see things. Mama had believed her, had insisted their grandmother had been the same. Neither Mama nor Gus had the ability, but Consuelo . . .
“You can save my son, Gustavo. But you cannot save me. I cannot even move. It hurts to breathe, hurts to even lie here. Please . . . you must promise me. Take him, keep him safe. And don’t . . . please don’t let Ignacio hurt me anymore. If he tries to make me talk, I . . .” She shook her head and reached for his hand. “I can’t keep fighting him.”
Unwittingly, he lifted his weapon hand, the one still clutching the Sig Sauer to stroke her brow. She caught his wrist and lifted it, guiding the weapon to her temple.
He jerked away. “Consuelo!”
“If he finds me alive, he will try to make me talk. I am not as strong as you. Please, Gustavo. You must protect my son . . . you must do this for me.”
* * * HIS gut roiled, even now.
The guilt he’d kept buried raged to the surface as he moved out of the dark, dank little building.
It had been there that he’d found his sister. She, too, had been tied up. But she’d been tied to a cot, left naked and uncovered, so every violation had been there. For all the world to see.
And because he had made her a promise, to save Alejandro, he’d left her. Just like that, after he’d put a bullet through her heart.
There was a soft whisper of sound and he turned, saw Vaughnne standing in the doorway, her friend’s arm slung over her shoulder.
Vaughnne stared at him.
He returned that gaze without blinking, letting her see every ugly truth on his face.
“If you are going to ask if it is true,” he said, schooling his voice into a bored, flat tone. “Don’t bother, Vaughnne.”
“I won’t. I can already tell it is. I just want to know why.”
The other woman was pale, so deathly pale, and she stared at Gus with eyes that were an odd mix of horror and fury. And in her hand, she clutched the Derringer that Reyes had tried to use on him. It was, yet again,
