Page 45 of Reckless Forever
My phone vibrated again, and it was a message from Padrino. He hadn’t reached out to me this entire time, and my heart fell to the pit of my stomach.
Padrino: I am disappointed in you, Ivy. I trusted you, and you lied to my face. You went behind my back and disobeyed my wishes. You are nothing like your father. You are disloyal. You stood by while strangers came into my home. If you don’t want them to suffer the fate that you know is coming. Come home.
Tears fell down my face as I read the message from my godfather. I was in the biggest battle of my life. Trying to decide whether I should follow my gut or go back home. I got up and paced the room, thinking. I exhaled and called Judah. He didn’t answer the phone, so I sent him a message and waited. It was delivered, but after waiting for a while, it went unanswered as well.
I was worried, and my mind was racing a mile a minute. I needed to know that they had left Bolivia in one piece. I saw what happened in the video, but that could have been a trap.
Padrino: I have their jet, Ivy. They aren’t coming back until you return to Bolivian soil.
“Shit!” I screamed as I hurried to call Judah again but got no answer. It was almost three in the morning, and I wanted to ask one of the other women if they had spoken to Trouble or Jaxon, but I didn’t want to wake either of them up.
Still, I slid out of bed, and I went to put on my slippers. Then I pulled open the door so that I could see who was awake. The only movement in the house was security. Sanchez sat up straight while Zo slept. I had seen them alternate shifts of sleeping.
“Can you take me to the store?” I asked softly as he glanced at the clock.
“What do you need?” He asked as he leaned up and looked at me.
“Pads,” I said quietly.
“I’ll bring you some,” he countered.
“Um, I’d rather you not. Can you just run me there really quickly? Free bleeding is not really my thing,” I said as I faked looking between my legs.
He scoffed and grabbed the keys from his belt loop and nodded toward the door. I walked out behind him.
After I slid into the backseat of the truck, we were out of the tunnel and onto the main road. I went back to the thread that Emilio had been contacting me from. I tried to send him my location but couldn’t.
Me: Meet me in 15 minutes at the pharmacy on the corner of Broadway.
My leg shook as I called Judah’s phone again and got no answer, and then my phone went dead. I threw it down in the back seat of the car and scoffed. I don’t know if Emilio got the message, but if he didn’t, I would buy the pads and pretend nothing happened.
I bit my lip nervously as we went in and out of traffic, as I watched the street signs go by. Then we pulled up in front of thestore, and I slowly opened the door and got out. He walked in with me, as I scanned the store, like I didn’t know which aisle the pads would be on. Then I pretended to find it, and I still had to scan them for the best brand.
“Do you know which one is best in the States?” I asked him.
“Nah,” he said.
I nodded as I found one and walked to the register with it, trying to buy time. I went into my wallet, fished for my card, and paid for my things.
Once we walked back into the parking lot, I could see two sets of headlights, both at opposite sides of the light. The only two on the street. One of those had to be Emilio.
“Let me just go back and grab a snack while I’m here,” I said as I turned around and tried to give him time for the light to change.
He didn’t argue, just stopped midstride and followed me back inside. My heart felt like it weighed a ton in my chest, and I struggled to keep it together. Not only had I started an entire war, but I had also gotten Judah and his brothers kidnapped by the Cartel. And I was going to put an end to it tonight.
CHAPTER 13
Judah
Ivy had been blowing up my phone since we had been gone, and it wasn’t my intention to ignore her. We were dealing with niggas from the cartel who ran a similar operation as us, so while we were in Bolivia, I didn’t want to be distracted. One glance down to send a text message or take a phone call could end a life, and I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t one of ours. All of us kept our heads on a swivel. Before we left, I tried to get her head together. I told her that if she didn’t hear from me, she should just know that I was okay and not to panic. Shit, from what I can see, that went right in one ear and out of the other.
We drove away from Santos’ crib like we were supposed to be there. My jaw was tight, and I wanted nothing more than to get my hands on that nigga. But I knew that he wasn’t going to be there when we made it. He knew how we were coming. When Jax asked me if I was sure that I wanted to run in his estate, I didn’t think twice.
He knew the consequence for sending niggas to my parents’ crib. We had staked out the estate for two days and knew that he had gone off the radar. Turned off his phones so I couldn’t track his location, tried to revoke my access to his live feed, andunplugged all the security systems that I had installed for him at his other places.
He had cleared the whole estate, the maids and the security, and only left the nigga at the front gate, and the housemaid who always gave my girl a hard time.
“You might want to rethink this shit, Judah,” Jax said lowly from the side of me as we went down a dirt road.
