Page 84 of Possession

June takes the gun and slips it into the pocket of her apron like it’s her own personal holster. “We’ll let Mr. Torres make that decision when he gets home. Get her up. I’ll get her changed and comfortable.”

Rocco bends at the knees. Beyond his bloodied face, all I see is disheveled hair and tortured eyes.

He saved me.

My vision blurs as my tears flow again, but with regret and guilt this time. “He hurt you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Rocco shakes his head, and his tone isn’t light or friendly like normal. “He can’t hurt me. That’s nothing I’m not used to.”

I don’t have a chance to ask or think about what that means.

Rocco doesn’t help me to my feet. As I cling to the torn material of my dress, he slides an arm behind my back and the other under my knees. I wince when he stands straight and pulls me to his chest. We’re out of the office, up the stairs, and to the bedroom I share with Boz before my brain can start to process how this happened.

My new husband will be back eventually.

And I have no idea how he’ll react.

19

BRIAN

Brax

We located the entry point for the tunnel.

It’s two hours east, far into the desert in the middle of nowhere. I’m not sure if it’s classified as a farm or a ranch. It’s a shit piece of land, too barren to harvest, let alone have any resources to keep an animal alive.

Finding it was a little luck and a lot of strategy. I sent Rocco to communicate with the Jackals about the upcoming load. This isn’t just a tunnel to Mexico, it’s their safe house. I heard enough on the transcripts from the wire that we planted in the car I gave Rocco.

The kid is easy to be around and hard to hate. He’s also easy to be jealous of since he gets to spend most of his time at the house with Landyn, even if it was my idiotic-slash-brilliant idea for him to get his GED and for her to tutor him. I didn’t plan to have a fake wife or a live-in MC prospect who shouldn’t be in the club to begin with.

Ask me if I feel bad about using Rocco to get to the MC.

The answer to that is fuck no.

I’m documenting everything he does and doesn’t do to make sure he’s in a position to plea out. Maybe if he gets his shit together before he digs in too deep, he won’t ruin his life completely.

My dinner meeting was of the legitimate variety. It’s been on the calendar for two months, and there was no way I could cancel. I had to go so they could see Damian’s company still has its shit together with him six feet under.

Part of Damian’s responsibility to the Marino family was managing their real estate ventures in southern California. Surprisingly, he wasn’t shit at it, even if it was hard for him to rein in his vile spirit if things didn’t go his way. He had to force himself not to pop off and cap someone’s ass when he didn’t win a deal the legitimate way. This part of the business is integral to the drug trade. They can clean drug money by taking the highest bids and arrange for kickbacks under the table. Cash has to get in the bank somehow, and this is their system.

I graduated with a finance degree and even worked on Wall Street right out of college for two years. Working as a junior analyst was a grind, but that’s what I wanted from the time I was little and we’d go into the city for the day.

I had goals and dreams and ambitions. I wanted to wear expensive suits and look like I was meant to be there. I thought working in lower Manhattan meant that you’d made it. That you were important.

I wanted it all, and I thought that would be my life.

Never did I want to spend two years living among the biggest and most dangerous cartel in the western hemisphere and pretend to be one of them.

This was not a part of my well-planned life.

Until we lost Brian.

That’s when everything changed.

Then we found out what happened—howit happened.

I was changed forever.

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