Page 130 of The Complete Truth Duet
“Son of a bitch,” he grumbled.
I flinched when he tripped over the threshold, almost knocking River over, before stumbling down the stairs. He was high, no doubt. I could only pray he’d wrap himself around a tree before discovering that River had lied to him.
After tiptoeing to the railing, I peeked over and found him folding into his car. I refused air to my lungs until he kicked up a spray of gravel and dust while tearing out onto the road.
I raced back into Lexy’s apartment. She was sitting on the floor, her back propped against the wall, her brown eyes wild and distant, blood dripping from the corner of her mouth.
“It’s okay. He’s gone,” my brave, stupid nine-year-old said, squatting beside her.
Her apartment looked like hell. Everything from the couch cushions to the end tables were strewn across the room. Her shirt was torn and her bra was crooked, barely covering her breasts, but I blew out a long sigh of relief when I saw she was still wearing her shorts.
At least there was that.
I kneeled beside her.
She jumped when I touched her arm.
“Relax. It’s just me,” I assured her. “Are you okay?”
She turned her frazzled gaze on me and whispered, “I got to get out of here. I gotta…I gotta go home before he comes back.” Suddenly rising to her feet, she patted her front down, doing what little she could to make her tattered shirt cover her chest. “I gotta get out of here.”
I agreed wholeheartedly. If Dante wanted her, there was no doubt that he’d be back. Unless she was gone, all River had done was prolong the inevitable.
Sidling under her arm, I took some of her weight. “Do you have somewhere you can go? Maybe someone you can call?”
“Shane,” she whispered before she burst into tears. “Oh my God. I can’t tell him about this. He’ll kill him.”
“Who’s Shane? A john?” I asked, guiding her toward the door, River following close behind us.
“My husband,” she croaked.
The air stilled along with my feet.
I cranked my head to the side. “You’re married?”
She nodded and then cleared her throat. “I need you to take me back to the hotel.”
“Wait. Is this the guy you were running from? Because I don’t want you making a hasty decision based on what just happened. We can figure something else out. Get you somewhere safe.”
“No. Shane would never… I just…” She stepped away from me. Her hands shook as she smoothed her hair down. “Listen, Cora. I need to leave for a while. But I’ll be back, okay? I won’t forget about you. I swear.”
I liked Lexy.
She was one of the easier girls in the building. She was kind and funny, always willing to help out. Her smile was infectious, and her bright-side attitude was hard not to catch.
Lexy was sweet.
And when I dropped her off at the hotel that night, I looked her straight in the eye and told her the truth. “Please don’t ever come back.”
Cora
What the hell was happening?
I’d known Penn’s wife.
She’d told him about me.
His name was Shane.
Drew wasn’t his brother.
Thomas had killed Lexy.
Penn was going to kill him.
He’d already killed Dante and Marcos.
Savannah was back.
So was Catalina.
Thomas had tried to shoot her.
Penn was alive.
And I was currently on my knees in the middle of Penn’s ginormous bajillionaire bathroom, dry-heaving into his toilet.
“I’m not a bajillionaire,” he said.
Annnnd apparently I was thinking out loud. Awesome.
He was sitting, his ass on the cold floor, his legs bent, his feet on the floor, his forearms resting on his knees. Not too close. Not too far away. He was just there in the most Penn Walker way possible.
“I made your wife a prostitute,” I announced.
“She wasn’t a prostitute, Cora. She never slept with anyone.”
“This is probably the completely wrong time to tell you this, but she brought home a lot of money. Said she had some rich guy on the hook.”
He flashed me a tight smile. “Nice to meet you. I’m the rich guy.”
“You were there?” I breathed, because at this point, anything was possible.
“No. But she used to video chat with me a couple times a week from that hotel. When she had to head back at the end of the night, she’d pull out cash from the ATM. In a roundabout way, I personally paid a few of Marcos and Dante’s bills there for a while.”
God. My head hurt. It was all too much.
I sighed. “No, you didn’t. I skimmed enough money off the Guerreros to cancel it out. Though you probably paid my phone bill a time or two.”
He grinned. “I can live with that.”
“I dropped her off at the hotel that night,” I blurted when I couldn’t hold it back anymore.
His heavy, blue eyes lifted to mine. “I know.”
“Did she…tell you why?”
“I dislocated both of Dante’s shoulders and then slammed them back in socket before I choked him out and left him for the smoke and fire to finish him off.”
