“The gambling debt,” she whispered, making my stomach clench. “That’s what you’re talking about, isn’t it? Maddie said you had a hand in erasing it, but she didn’t know any details.” Fuck me… not this. “But I want to know. No, scratch that. I need to know.”
My mind warred over how much of the ugly truth I wanted to tell her. I had enough strikes against me. How many more before she changed her mind about giving me the chance to steal her heart?
Bottom line, I didn’t want to give her the answer she wanted, but I had to. If things were going to work between us, full disclosure was the only option I had. Hidden truths and suffocating secrets had taken enough from me. I wouldn’t allow either to rob me of another thing.
Enough was enough.
Gaze holding hers, I let the words flow, refusing to halt the confession she demanded I speak. “I had the man I owed the debt to, a scumbag bookie named Petrov who was connected to the Bratva, killed.”
I expected Carmen to balk or gasp at such an exclamation, but she did neither. Instead, she held steady, unwavering in my hold.
“The Russian mob?”
I nodded. “A faction of it, yeah.”
“How?”
My answer was simple but ugly.
“By feeding valuable information I’d overheard him spill to his men while I was blowing money I didn’t have, to someone a lot more lethal than him. I didn’t think twice about it either. He was a monster that was pressuring my boy into doing dangerous shit to satisfy my debt.”
Carmen’s brows rose. “You snitched?”
“Yeah, sweetheart, I did,” I replied, vibrating with rage as memories of the pockmarked faced psycho assailed me. “Knowing full-well that I was signing his death warrant by doing so, I sang like a canary.”
Once again, my jaw clenched.
Repeatedly.
The man deserved everything he got.
“It was my fault for getting mixed up with him, and I take full responsibility for that, but the moment he pulled my innocent son, and by extension, Maddie into the mess I’d created, all bets were off.”
I would do the same thing all over again.
The only regret I had was destroying Hendrix and Maddie before I had the chance to figure out an escape plan. Because of my actions, they’d lost over six years together. I would never—not ever—forgive myself for that.
I messed up…
And they paid the price.
Blood pressure climbing, my head pounded, but neither done speaking nor explaining, I ignored the jackhammer chipping away at the inside of my skull. “I thought about killing him myself, had even concocted a few plans to do it, but I didn’t dare attempt any of them. If I’d been caught, the blowback would’ve been deadly. And not only for me.”
Hendrix and Maddie would’ve died too.
Along with the Crazy Old Biddy.
“I wasn’t risking my son, not more than I already had, so I did what I had to.”
“James… what did you do?”
I didn’t falter. “I drove into Charleston and walked straight into the lion’s den of Petrov’s main rival, knowing there was a chance I wouldn’t walk back out. But that didn’t matter, because whether she killed me or not, his death was guaranteed thanks to the information I had. And with him gone, my kid and the girl he’s loved since he was eight years old would be safe.”
A tear slid down Carmen’s cheek. “You said she,” she whispered, the pain she felt on my family’s behalf a visceral force connecting us. “Who is she?”
Goosebumps broke out along my arms as a vision of icy blue eyes rushed forward. Eyes that, even as a full-grown man more than capable of defending myself, caused fear to rise in me.
For a moment, I hesitated.
Then, “Arianna,” I replied, speaking the one name I swore to never say again. “Her name was—is—Arianna Ivanova.”
“And she killed the bookie?”
Unwinding my arm from her back, I scrubbed my palms down the sides of my sweat-slicked face. “She never got the chance to end him herself.”
It was a pity, too.
“Nobody knew it at the time, but law enforcement had an informant of their own.” I paused and pulled in a swift breath. “Two days after I drove out of Charleston, one of Petrov’s underground casinos was raided based on information the feds had been given by the snitch. As a result, he was arrested on a list of charges longer than my arm.”
Fucker had gotten off too easy.
“His high-priced lawyer argued all kinds of stuff on his behalf and tried to get him out on bail, but the judge ended up denying his request.”
For once, the system had worked as intended.
“Knowing he was a high-risk target, the feds tossed him into federal protective custody instead of county gen pop, which is where he should’ve been.” A smile crossed my face. “Didn’t matter, though. She still got to him.”
Eyes narrowed, Carmen thinned her lips. “This Arianna chica—she had the bastardo shanked, didn’t she?”
Among other things…
“Considering he was found in his cell next to a sharpened toothbrush and sporting so many puncture wounds, the Medical Examiner couldn’t discern one hole from the next, that would be an accurate guess.”
“Good!” Pulling herself free of my hold, my pixie slammed her hands down on her hips and rocked back on her heels as a giant smile, one brighter than the full moon hanging above us, spread across her breathtaking face in a move that surprised me.
I’d thought for sure she would curse me up one side and down the other before telling me to kick rocks over yet another mistake I’d made.
“I don’t know the woman you speak of,” she said. “And to be honest, she sounds like a crazy perra, but I think I like her.”
Crazy? That wasn’t anywhere near a strong enough word to describe Arianna, the same woman who’d come close to putting a bullet through my heart despite the info I’d provided her. Ruthless, psychotic, scary as hell—all would have been more fitting monikers.
“One day, I want to meet her. You know, so I can high-five her for taking
