Page 143 of The Complete Truth Duet
My head spun as the blood drained from my face. Penn was there to keep me on my feet, but who was going to keep the world from falling out of orbit beneath us all?
“This doesn’t mean anything,” Drew said, propping his shoulder against the doorjamb, but he was anything but relaxed. His gaze was fixed on his friend, a silent conversation happening between them.
Catalina spun around. “Are you kidding me? In the wee hours of the morning, after my husband finds me for the first time in four years and fails to kill me, a judge signs off to have my father temporarily released from prison? Please tell me you are not stupid enough to think this is a coincidence.”
He rolled his eyes. “Thomas put Manuel away. Why the hell would he let him out now?”
“Shit, you are that stupid.” She slanted her head. “How have you made it this far without a brain?”
He arched an eyebrow. “Good looks and big cock. You?”
Penn and I watched their conversation like a tennis match. They’d known each other less than a day and it was already safe to say there was no love lost between the two of them.
“Jesus Christ,” Penn muttered. “Would you two can it for a minute? Catalina, talk.”
She flipped Drew off before turning to Penn. “Riddle me this. If my body was found fresh and floating in a river, who would the police assume killed me? The shattered district attorney with a golden reputation or my felon father who I testified against and has since killed a guard and escaped custody?” Panic settled in my stomach as she pointedly looked to each one of us. “Any guesses?”
“He’s the fall guy,” I replied, taking my own weight again. “Holy shit. Not only did he just paint an even bigger target on your back, he somehow took the heat off his own.”
“Bingo!” Catalina chirped, tapping the end of her nose.
My heart picked up a marathon pace as all the pieces started snapping together. “Oh. My. God.” I leveled my panic on Catalina. “Do you think—”
“Yep. Dear old daddy is sixty-five now, but even at sixty-one, he was in shitty health. Arthritis, too many years of drugs he passed on to Dante, too many extra pounds putting pressure on his knees. His mind is sharp, but physically, he’s ninety with one foot in the grave. No way he overpowered a guard and killed him alone.”
The room went static.
Penn stood taller.
Drew shoved off the jamb.
The hairs on the back of my neck prickled.
And Catalina stared at me, waiting for me to come to the same conclusion she’d already concluded.
“They’re working together again,” I breathed. “Thomas and Manuel. The staged escape and murder keep Thomas’s hands clean, but it gets a Guerrero back in play.” Not even Penn’s warmth could block out the chill in my veins. “Oh, God, he knows who you are.” I lurched away from him. “Oh, God, he knows who you both are. We gotta get out of here. We gotta leave—now.” I bolted toward the door, calling, “Get the girls ready!” I made it exactly two steps before a tattooed forearm around my hips yanked me back.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he snarled.
With frenzied hands, I pushed at his arm. “I have to get them out of here!” I looked at Catalina. “We need to go get the money out of the storage unit and run.”
“Agreed,” she replied with a curt nod.
It was followed by a boomed, “No fucking way!” Penn swung around in front of me. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“Move,” I snapped, doing my best to sidestep him with no luck.
“You’ve lost your goddamn mind if you think I’m going to stand here and watch you leave. I just fucking got you back.”
Frustration overtook me. “And who said you got me back, Shane?”
His face got hard as his whole body swelled with anger. “You did. The minute you fell asleep on my chest, your hand clinging to my shirt like you were afraid I was going to disappear, your body inching closer until you were on top of me, and breathing my name—and not fucking Shane, but my real name.”
“It’s not your real name!”
“It is because you called me that. I was no one before I walked into your apartment. You made me Penn. And because of that, I’m fucking yours. So don’t you dare tell me you didn’t come back to me. You can be as pissed as you want, as hurt as you want, as bitter as you want, but you felt it, Cora. The same way I did. The same fucking way we have always felt it.”
He was right. I’d always felt it with him even before I had known what that it was. But feelings didn’t change our circumstances. The truth didn’t make the lies disappear. And as much as I would have given anything to believe otherwise, love didn’t always conquer all.
