Page 11 of Vicious Savage

“So you’re not from these areas, and you refused to go back for any of your possessions. I don’t know what you’ve done to piss off those men back in Phoenix, but you must have done a number on them for you to be too afraid to go back there.”

“They’re the ones doing the number here. I merely value my life more than I do any worldly possession.”

“Ahhh…” Attila sighs. “Yes. But if they wanted you dead, they would have killed you, not handsy with the sweaty palms who insisted on being a dick.”

“True that,” I say, looking at Attila. He’s not only a looker, he’s also astute. Something you don’t see much of anymore.

“So tell me… what could make grown men accost a lady on her own in a vacant lot in the middle of the night?” he asks me.

I regard him carefully. They’re not going to stop until they get answers. And I’m not going to explain anything until I have the answers I need from them.

“Will you tell me why you’re following me?”

He gives a short nod, as if to say yes. I have to believe that his nod is as good as his word. Have to believe that if either of them wanted to hurt me, they would’ve done so already. But they haven’t. They hadn’t done anything but save me and protect me at a time when I needed it. They then sheltered me when things could have gone so very differently. And finally, they agreed to let me ride with them out of the town where I no longer belonged.

“Those men work for my father,” I tell him, waiting for his reaction as pain starts to ebb and flow right through me. The loss of my family is something I still have not accepted. The loss of my family turned me into a dead woman walking… alive but dying inside.

11

THE JEKYLL

Iquickly get over my anger at Attila for reverting my name to that of a pretty boy. TJ. Huh. I guess he didn’t want to scare the girl off by telling her they call me The Jekyll. Not that he knows my real name, anyway. Attila didn’t know me when I was Cesar Cavalho. But I think if he had known me, we could’ve been friends. We’re a lot alike, he and I. Even more than he likes to think. And heck, maybe I even like him a little.

Not many people remember me the way I was back then. Before Sisely. Before the light in my eyes was extinguished. I became a different person after she died. A whisper of the man that I had once been. But I have never ever crossed the line with an innocent the way the Castillo cartel did with my Sisely. Listening to the girl speak now, it would be so easy to cross over and become the monster I need to be to get my vengeance for my wife. It would be so easy to grab her and snap her neck and then go on with my life. Would it bring Sisely back? No. Would it give me any satisfaction? Most likely not. Would it give me some more heavy baggage to carry for what was left of my life? Definitely.

So I stay quiet, moving as far away from the girl as I possibly can as we walk to our rooms. The temptation is too great, and I don’t want to have a sudden moment of regress where I lunge and destroy her.

When she tells us the men we helped her escape from work for her father, we both stop walking and Attila fixes me with a stony glare before he casts his eyes her way again. Her words have piqued his interest.

Attila and I both want the same thing, but now there’s a complication. And that complication happens to be an innocent girl who, for some unknown reason, is running from our mutual enemy. The odds couldn’t be more stacked against us than they are right now.

Attila swipes the keycard against the reader of the first room and ushers us in quickly. He opens the interconnecting door to Luna’s room, glides his eyes over its contents, then closes the door and turns to us.

“Explain to me why you were running from those men,” he asks. I can’t even explain how furious he is. And suddenly, I understand why. She was to be our bargaining chip. The secrets she’s hiding could very well be the thing that brings our plan toppling down around us.

“It’s a long story,” she says, taking her leather jacket off and flinging it against one of the two chairs in the room. She paces in what little floor space there is, back and forth like a caged animal.

Attila spreads his arms like an eagle and reminds her that we have all day and no place else to be. He’s fuming. She looks up at him in surprise and registers his anger. She frowns, at a loss to explain his mood, then resumes her pacing again.

“How long have you been running?” Attila asks, moving closer to her in a bid to make her stand still. Her movements are giving me whiplash. When she pushes past him, grazing his arm, he whirls around and grabs her, pulling her arm back with such ferocity that he almost pulls it out of its socket.

“How. Long.Have you been running?” he snaps. He takes hold of both arms in his hands, squeezing the life out of her as murderous rage envelopes him. The girl is a head shorter than him and has to look up at his face; a flicker of fear crosses her eyes before she rights herself, stretches and tries to break free of his hold.

I’ve seen what this girl can do, and the fact that she can’t move out of his grasp means he’s holding her too tight. I move toward them, tap Attila’s shoulder and tell him to let her go. I know if he doesn’t, he’ll probably do something he’ll regret. I’ve heard the stories about him.

“Come on man, back off,” I tell him.

He shakes me off with a furious shrug then sets brooding eyes onto me before he stalks to the door and leaves, slamming it behind him.

“What’s his problem?” she asks, just as furious. No woman likes to be man handled.

“He needs a few minutes to calm down. You going to be okay here on your own if I step out?” I ask her.

She nods and stubs the toe of her boot at the carpet before she tells me she’ll be in her room resting. I watch her enter through the adjoining door then heave a tired sigh before I leave to find Attila.

I don’t have far to go. He’s leaning against the railing looking down at the empty pool below, his hands clasped in front of him. He has one foot resting on the ledge casually, as though out for a breath of fresh air.

“Where’s the girl?” he asks, before I even reach him.

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