Page 16 of The Complete Truth Duet
“I had you pegged all wrong.” She used her hand to shield the sun from her eyes. “You’re the brother.” She offered Drew the towel. “And you’re Inmate Four-Oh-One—Manuel’s new son.”
Drew chuffed and took the rag. Holding it to his nose, he mumbled around it, “Guilty.”
“I’m Cora.” She dropped her voice before finishing with, “Guerrero.”
Oh, fucking fuck me.
Of course she was.
Of. Fucking. Course. She was.
It was hot for Chicago in early May, but a cold chill erupted across my skin.
I blinked at the empty parking lot, and before I could stop it, my gaze flicked back to her.
I regretted it immediately.
She was staring up at me through thick, painted-black lashes, the strangest mixture of curiosity and confusion dancing in her haunting, blue eyes. “Why didn’t you tell them about her?”
Unable to take her scrutiny, I bent to pick up the toolbox. “None of my business you keep a kid in your shower.” I walked to the truck, dropped the tools in the bed, and called out to Drew, “We need to hit the hardware store.” A.K.A. I need an escape.
I started to open the door, but her hand—complete with perfectly painted red nails—came from behind me and slapped on the glass to hold it shut. “I don’t keep her in the shower.”
I did everything I could to stare through her reflection in the window—desperately trying not to see her. But my vision refused to focus on anything else.
Those fucking eyes.
Forging ahead, I tugged at the door. “Like I said, none of my business.”
Her heat landed on my back. Cora was small, maybe five-two, whereas I was six-one. So her soft curves hit me in all the right—and completely wrong—places.
“Back up,” I ordered.
She didn’t move the first muscle—except for her mouth. “Dante found her after he put an ad online for models,” she said, careful to keep her voice low. “It’s how he gets new girls. He pulls them in, gives them drugs, flashes cash, fucks them, tells them he loves them, tells them he hates them, beats them, or whatever the hell it takes to get in their head and make them dependent on him. After that, he turns them out on the street to work for him.” She swayed impossibly closer and my breath turned to ice in my lungs. “That girl back there is a sixteen-year-old runaway with nowhere to go who learned the hard way—and, Penn, it was Dante, so I’m talking the real hard way—not to trust a man. A feeling she and I unfortunately share.”
My body turned to stone and my grip on the handle became murderous. Oh, but she wasn’t done with her little fairytale from hell.
“I found her half dead on the floor, needle still in her arm, at Dante’s house a month or so ago. I was there to pick up a new girl, but while he was passed out in bed, I took Savannah too. If he ever finds out she’s here, there is no telling what he would do to her.” Determination filled her voice. “I will not let that happen. So hear me now. I don’t know what kind of men you and your brother are. I’ll be honest: I don’t give the first damn as long as you keep your hands off my girls. But I appreciate what you did back there. More than I can ever express. So…” She paused, her gaze finding mine in the reflection, those fucking eyes boring into me like she was pillaging through my head. And then she finished with, “Thank you.”
I was mere seconds from peeling out of my skin just to get the hell away from her when she backed off.
She looked to Drew, who was still standing at the tailgate. “And…thank you, too, I guess.”
He moved the towel from his face to reveal his mouth hanging open. “Oh, I’m sorry. Do I exist again? Because I swear, for a minute there, I disappeared.”
Curiously, she tipped her head to the side. “You were seriously cellmates with Manuel?”
“Yep.”
“And he liked you?”
Drew grinned and hooked his thumb in the direction Dante and Marcos had left. “A hell of a lot more than he likes those two jackasses.”
And that was when the sky opened, the light of the Lord shined down, and he finally told me what I’d known for years: Penn, I fucking hate you.
Because she smiled.
And not like that ridiculous fake one she was wearing when she opened the door. Not even like the lip twitch when Marcos had told her that Manuel thought of Drew as his son.
This smile was different.
It was the kind of smile that could have shredded the darkest soul.
And I knew—because it was the exact moment I felt the first slice through mine.
Penn
“So this is it,” Cora said in what sounded like an apology. And, as I glanced around our new shithole apartment, I understood why.
