Crazed: A Blood Money Novel (15 page)

Estancia en la casa

Stay in the house? Was he serious? Despite the lax security of earlier in the day, there was no way Casey would make it into the stables and directly to Adam without her assistance.

I’ll meet you in 20 mins

As she’d originally told him. He could bluster at her all he wanted, but nothing was going to prevent her from making sure Adam Faraday escaped Pipe’s property. Tonight was the best possible time for this to happen, too, with Pipe in Bogotá on business until tomorrow morning. It was the
only
time for this to happen.

Stripping down, she quickly showered the day’s grime off her body, ignoring the shaking of her hands on the loofah sponge as she scrubbed. A week ago, she’d feared nothing. She’d put her grieving behind her as best she could, loved her daughter with her whole heart and worked to keep them both safe in the only world they’d ever known. The hacienda was safe, for the most part. Their lives were safe, for the most part.

Not anymore. With all the subtlety of a charging bull, Casey had stampeded into their lives and upended it all. Now it was only a matter of time until their safety net unraveled completely, leaving Ilda and Arlo dangling by their fingertips over the cartel’s shark-infested waters.

Her mind rebelled at the idea of Pipe punishing her for her past affair with Casímiro Cortez, but it wasn’t like the affair was in the past any longer, was it? She’d fucked Casey Faraday in his hotel room all of five minutes after knocking on his door. She ought to be punished for that. Except being with Casey didn’t feel like a punishable offense.

After drying her limbs and knotting her hair into an inescapable bun on her crown, she dressed in casual sleep clothes—black cotton shorts and a black tank top. If she was caught out and about, she could claim sleeplessness, since she’d already been known to wander the courtyards on the nights Pipe spent away from the hacienda. Slipping her feet into simple flip-flops, she took a steadying breath and descended the stairs to the main floor.

As soon as Arlo started crawling, Pipe had installed cameras in key blind spots on the house’s first level.
For our little speed demon
, he’d said fondly,
in case she leaves us in her dust
. Never before had Ilda tried to avoid the sight lines of those cameras, but tonight she was thankful she knew where each was located as she strode purposefully toward the front hall. On the other side of the open-air portico was the conservatory, which opened onto a private patio overlooking the paddock. Some mornings, she and Pipe would sip their coffee on the patio and watch the trainers work the horses, content to sit quietly together.

Crossing the patio, Ilda bent to climb through the horizontal white boards of the fence, glancing over her shoulder as she dashed along the fence line toward the double doors of the stable. No brigadiers in sight, and again she frowned. It wasn’t like Pipe’s security to be so lenient, even when he wasn’t onsite. All of his men knew the rules pertaining to protecting Ilda and Arlo only constricted when he was away.

The trainers never locked the stable doors—in case of a fire, the first priority was loosing the horses, which meant not waiting around for someone to find a key or bolt cutters while the vaulted beams along the ceiling burned. As silently as possible, Ilda shouldered aside the door, slipping through before shutting it behind her and pausing at the edge of the row of tie stalls to listen for voices.

None.
How was this possible?
Her nape tingled with apprehension as she hurried down the center aisle, darting through the long shadows cast by the ankle-high security lights mounted on the metal frames of the box stalls. She paused at the tack room door, peering around the corner, but just as it had been earlier, the older section of the barn remained abandoned. This time, though, the work light on the wall was extinguished, the only glow coming from the electric lantern in Adam’s stall.

Not right. This whole thing felt
not right
, but it was too late to call Casey off. Not if this was his best chance to save his brother.

Swiping her sweaty palms over her shorts, Ilda jogged to the last stall but didn’t approach the slats. “Adam?”

Chains clanked. “Ilda. What the hell? I told you not to—”

“Have any of the brigadiers patrolled the stable tonight?”

A heavy sigh. “Yeah, but not as often as they should. I overheard one of them talking about a stag party happening in the bunkhouse, so that’s put them all off their schedule.”

With Manuel accompanying Pipe to Bogotá, there was no leadership here to keep a bunch of drunk, rowdy and probably high thugs in line. “What
is
their schedule on a typical night?” She couldn’t ignore the prickling along the back of her neck, screaming that the risk she took was too great, too dangerous.

“Every twenty minutes, like clockwork. All day, though, it’s been closer to thirty.”

Ilda swallowed, hard. “I need to let Casey in. Alert me if you hear someone coming.”

More clanking of chains. “Be safe,
belleza
.”

Giving herself a slight shake, she skirted the edge of his cell to the unused straw stall with its rotting wooden feed trough tucked into the farthest corner of the stable. A single door with a rusted sliding bolt was fitted into the solid westernmost wall, dividing the straw stall from the outside world and completely ignored by everyone on the hacienda. The reason for that? The door opened onto the ravine, with only a very narrow footpath between the edge of the stable and the drop-off.

This was where she’d told Casey to come, though how he’d scale the ravine to get to the door was beyond her. That was entirely his problem.

Throwing all her weight into it, she shoved at the bolt, gratified when it gave beneath the force. Another shove and it slid back entirely, though with a cringe-worthy screech of metal on wood. Gripping the handle, she yanked it along the sliding track, again flinching at the loud noise, and she thought she heard Adam swear.

But no, the expletive hadn’t come from Adam, but from Casey, who loomed on the other side of the doorframe. His big boots spanned the width of the path, and his chest heaved with lingering exertion as he glared down at her in the darkness. “What the hell, Ilda?”

“You know, your brother just said the
exact
same thing.” Shaking her head, she stepped back. “Follow me. We don’t have much time.”

A hard grip caught her elbow, calluses rough against the soft skin of her inner arm. “I’m serious, baby. What do you think you’re doing, sneaking out here in the middle of the night?” She could practically hear his teeth grinding. “I saw Pipe drive out of here a few hours ago. Where is he?”

“He’s in Bogotá until tomorrow.” Tugging her arm free and entirely aware that he permitted her escape. “Do you want to get Adam or not?”

“Fuck. Damn it.” He shifted into her personal space, head dipping toward hers in an effort to keep his voice low and for her ears alone. “Yes, I want to rescue my brother, but I don’t think you understand what it does to me to see you put yourself in harm’s way.” His hot breath coasted over her cheek, sending shivers dancing down the side of her neck. “It breaks something in me, Ilda. It blinds me, until all I can think of is all the ways in which you could be hurt, or killed, and it’s like fucking losing you all over again. So when I tell you to stay in the goddamn house,
stay there
.”

She found herself leaning into him, a terrible melting sensation holding her internal organs hostage as she sought his nearness. “I had to open the door for you.”

“Jesus, Ilda. I can get through a locked door. That’s basically what I do for a living.” But he softened his reprimand with the brush of blunt knuckles over her jaw, and she refused to feel embarrassed.

Because of course he could have gotten through the door, she realized now, but she’d been driven by the same need that had demanded she become a confidential informant: Adam was of her daughter’s blood. She could not, in any manner of good conscience,
not
do everything within her power to save Arlo’s family. Her family.

Oh, God. Adam Faraday was family, just as he had claimed hours earlier. The truth of that hit her like a full-body blow, because if Ilda considered Adam family, that meant Casey was family, too.

Not just family—her husband. Her daughter’s father. The brother of the young man sitting chained in a decrepit horse stall, where
her fiancé
had deposited him. Casey was the one person she had promised to honor and love
for all the days of her life
. Death—his or hers, real or imagined—didn’t change that single immutable fact, or the utter rightness and sense of belonging she’d experienced upon saying those words four years ago.

Unable to control her movements, she rushed Casey, closing the scant inches between them and wrapping her arms tight around his torso. Her face smooshed to his brawny chest, she gasped against him, her body surrendering to the unceasing shudders wracking her. This situation, the danger, her feelings...it was all too much in too short a time.

Casey must have understood. His arms encircled her, and he pressed his lips to the top of her head in kiss after firm kiss. “Shh. Shh, baby, I’ve got you. You’re safe, and I’ve got you, and I’m never letting you go.” Another set of kisses, growled possession. “Never.”

His words barely penetrated, but the sands of their invisible hourglass did. Instead of responding to his dark words, she disentangled her limbs from his and grabbed his hand, pulling him silently into the corridor to halt in front of the padlocked door that hid Adam from view.

The glow emanating through the slats cast Casey’s drawn, rugged features in solemn shadow. “Adam?”

“Casey?” Shackles clinked noisily together, indicating that he’d stood, but it was the hitch in Adam’s voice that held Ilda motionless, even as Casey furiously worked over the padlock with a pair of thin needle-like tools he had magicked from a pocket of his cargo trousers. “C-Casey.”

Casey cursed, hands shifting. When he spoke, it was in English, and Ilda almost felt like a voyeur, hearing layers of pain in both their words. “I know, buddy, I know. Just hang on a minute longer for me, okay? I’ve almost got this...almost...
there
.” The padlock clicked open, and he violently shouldered the portal inward on its hinges.

In the space of a breath, he held his younger brother in an unbreakable embrace. Adam stood an inch or two shorter and at least thirty pounds lighter, and Casey held him like the lost child he was. One big hand cupped the back of Adam’s head, his other rubbing soothingly up and down Adam’s spine as the younger man linked his arms tight around Casey’s shoulders. It was obvious that if not for the shackles, Casey would have simply lifted Adam and carried him away.

Ilda’s heart splintered in her chest.

“Th-this is worse than juvie, bro,” Adam muttered thickly into Casey’s shoulder. “Like, a lot worse.”

“I know.” Casey’s voice was equally thick, emotion overwhelming the stall’s small space as he reluctantly released his brother. Pulling a penlight from another of his pockets, he aimed the beam at Adam’s bound wrists. “Shit. They let you out of these at all?” His thumb pushed beneath one of the shackles to massage the reddened skin Ilda could see peeking out from beneath the metal.

Adam shook his head and, with a quick glance from damp eyes to where Ilda stood clutching the stall frame with both hands, switched to Spanish. “And I was out cold when they put them on me, so I couldn’t even tell you who’s in charge of the keys. They’re so old school that I can’t pick them. FYI, pretty sure I have tetanus now.”

“How bad did they rough you up?” Casey spoke around the penlight he’d clamped between his teeth as he applied the lockpicks to Adam’s wrist.

“Not bad.” Again, Adam looked to Ilda, but his words were for Casey. “You’ve got a kid.”

Casey’s shoulders tensed, but he didn’t stop working, nor did he glance Ilda’s way. “Yeah.”

“She’s awesome, Case. Congrats.”

That made Casey pause, and he pulled the penlight from his mouth, flicking the beam between Adam and Ilda. “You met Arlo? When? How?” His glare burned holes in them both, but focused finally on Ilda alone. “You let Arlo come into the stables?”

“I didn’t
let
her do anything, Casí,” she snapped, arms crossing as she shifted her weight to peek down the corridor toward the tack room and main aisle. “Arlo escaped her nanny, and I eventually found her in this stall, sitting on Adam’s lap.”

The light bounced directly to Adam, leaving him blinking against the brightness. “You
held
her?” His throat worked for a second. “You held my daughter?”

God, would the beatings to her heart never cease? Ilda felt like a monster, hearing the yearning in Casey’s gruff whisper.

“Bro, what’s the plan here?” Adam lifted his still-chained wrist, jangling the links. “You get me out of these, and what? We can’t leave the girls here.”

“The girls.”

Adam’s brows rose. “Yeah. The girls. Ilda and Arlo. We can’t leave them.”

With a growl, Casey bit down on the penlight once more and set back to his lockpicking. “Can’t make her leave if she doesn’t want to.” And it was obvious that the bitter
her
in this statement was Ilda.

Confusion darkened Adam’s handsome face, and he frowned at Ilda. “You want to stay? Here?”

For the first time since Casey’s reappearance, since needing to ask herself this very question, Ilda didn’t know how to answer. So she said nothing.

Adam, intuitive creature that he was, immediately softened his expression, reassurance in every patient syllable. “That’s fine,
belleza
. That’s okay. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, and besides, our pretty baby’s probably fast asleep right now, isn’t she?”

Ilda could do nothing but nod.

“All right, then.” His nod mirrored hers, and he jerked his arm away from Casey, much to the elder Faraday’s displeasure. “Now’s not the time to get me out of here.”