Page 85 of Into the Light

“Stop.” He held up a hand, straightening up and pulling down his shirt. “I am bound to be the leader of the Cartel in the United States. I was born to do this, so I cannot be talking to some shrink—”

“Mr. Ortiz doesn’t have to know. It is all done in secret.”

He scoffed at me.

“Let it go, Rain.” He sighed and then walked to the living room. “I was just having a bad day. Everybody has bad days.”

They do, but not all their bad days look this bad. That is what I would have told him had I said anything. But I said nothing because I never did. I just . . . let it go.

Chapter twenty-eight

I woke up gasping for air, as if someone was suffocating me. I pushed up into bed and glanced around the room. It was early morning and dawn was about to crest around the trees. Rain shifted beneath me.

“What’s wrong?” he murmured through sleepy eyes.

“I know what my brother was talking about. I need to go to his rock.”

I didn’t know how, but it hit me all of a sudden. The panic bubbled through me, but this time it wasn’t because I was scared.

“Now?” The morning light was barely making its way into the room when I leaped out of bed and searched for some clean clothes in the duffle.

“Immediately,” I demanded, and Rain only agreed before following, although far slower than I was.

“What’s gotten into you?” he grumbled.

I didn’t know how to answer it, but something in my dreams alerted me. My brother’s words caressed my mind. He said that he promised to keep Ash’s secrets. My brother was highly calculated in everything he did. The way my brother hesitated before telling me he couldn’t tell me anything was a confession in and of itself.

My brother wasn’t at fault here, but he was there that night, and I needed to figure out what he knew. I think the answer had been staring us in the face the entire time, I just needed to prove it.

“My brother told you that I just needed to open my eyes, right? That the answer was right in front of me?”

“That’s what he told me, too,” Rain said, still in a sleepy tone.

“It was either my mother or him, but when I was sleeping, I had this weird premonition that told me to go back to his rock.”

“Okay.”

“So, I need to go back there right now because I think we forgot something.”

“Okay.” Rain repeated.

“I know I probably sound crazy right now,” I said as I shoved my legs into some jeans and then grabbed a clean sweater.

“Can we come back for the muddy clothes?” I wrinkled my nose because they smelled awful, and I didn’t want to drive all the way to his rock with them in my bag.

“Of course.” A smile finally spread across his face. “And you don’t sound crazy. You sound confident. I love that about you,” he mused.

He grabbed my wrists just as I finished shoving them through the sweater, and my eyes met his deep blues.

“Hey,” he whispered, “I love you?” It was a statement but the way his tone lilted at the end made it sound like a question. Like everything we’d dreamed of last night was not true.

He was unsure—hesitant.

“Why are you worried?” I asked.

He scoffed. “It’s hard competing with him.” I wrapped his arms around me and pressed my body against his chest.

“There is no competition. You are right here. I love you.”

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