She woke to Colin’s warm breath against her cheek. “Wake up, Sophia,” he whispered. “We need to get out of here.”
Her eyes flashed open and her heart rate skyrocketed. Angelo?
“You’re safe. We just need to keep moving,” he reassured her.
She rolled back to face the wall and nodded. The blanket had fallen away from her sometime during her sleep and she realized she was bare-ass naked. As she moved to the edge of the bed, his finger touched the small of her back. “What’s this?” he asked roughly.
Her entire body stiffened as he traced his fingers across the mutilated skin. “My brand,” she bit out, then walked with her chin up into the bathroom and quietly shut the door behind her. She flinched when she heard him punch the wall. But she wasn’t afraid. Colin’s violence was different from Angelo’s. Colin’s brand of violence would never be turned on her. He was not that kind of man. Part of her heart melted a little bit more for him.
When she emerged, Colin was dressed and angry. He pointed to the bed. “Your clothes.” He turned away while she quickly dressed. Just as they were opening the door, the room phone rang. Sophia’s heart lurched against her rib cage. Colin put his finger to his lips and quietly lifted the receiver and put it to his ear. She heard a woman’s raspy voice then the phone went dead.
Colin set the phone down on the cradle and looked at her. Her blood ran cold. “They’re out front, where I parked the car. That was Ruby, the cougar. Her red Firebird is parked behind the office with the keys in it. We’re going to walk very slowly toward it.”
Colin grabbed his leather bag and cracked the door open. He held his hand out to her. She took it and they slipped out into the blinding sunshine. Sticking close to the rooms, they passed a housekeeping cart and an open door. The Firebird was in view, fifty yards away.
The prowling sound of a car turned the corner behind them. Colin pushed Sophia back, into the open door, startling the maid.
“Por favor, señorita, el esposo de mi hermana es muy malo y en busca de ella. Por favor, vamos a quedarnos aquí hasta que pasa,”
Colin said urgently as he pulled out a wad of bills and shoved them in her apron pocket. The sound of slamming car doors preceded heavy footsteps.
“Por favor,”
Colin said as he pushed Sophia into the bathroom. He left the door partially open to make the room look completely inconspicuous.
“Where’s the people from the room next door?” a rough-sounding Guido asked the maid.
“No habla Ingles,”
she said.
The maid screamed when he smacked her. Sophia flinched hard against Colin’s rigid body. “A
hombre
and a
señora
.
Donde?
”
“Se fueron en un taxi,”
she lied.
“What taxi?”
“Los Banos taxi,” she cried.
He punched her again for good measure. Sophia’s heart broke for the brave woman.
When the car doors slammed shut, Sophia broke free from Colin and went to the maid. She was wiping the blood from her broken nose. “I’m so sorry,” Sophia said, helping her up.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” the maid said. “Those motherfuckers can go to hell.”
Sophia’s jaw dropped and the maid grinned a toothless grin. “I lived with an abusive man for ten years before I shot his ass. I should have done it sooner.”
Colin shook his head and handed her more cash. “What’s your name? I’ll send more.”
“Berta Martinez. Ruby’ll know how to get in touch with me. Now go before those
tontos
come back when they realize there is no Los Banos taxi.”
“Berta, we owe you big-time,” Colin said, kissing her forehead then grabbing Sophia’s hand. He peeked out into the parking lot. Clear. “C’mon.” He pulled her behind him to the dilapidated circa 1980 Firebird. They hopped in, Colin turned the key, and it rumbled to life. “Duck down,” he said as he slipped on his sunglasses and the cowboy hat he’d grabbed from off the backseat.
“It’s the same guys and the same car parked in front of your place in Tahoe,” Colin said as he gave the car some gas and turned right on what she knew was the frontage road. Long, drawn-out moments passed as Sophia tried to regulate her erratic breathing. She was terrified.
“You can get up now,” he finally said.
She sat up and took deep, cleansing breaths.
Colin reached over and squeezed her hand. “I said I would protect you.”
She didn’t look at him, afraid she’d break down. She pulled her hand away, wanting to believe him, but she knew Angelo too well. He would not stop until he had her back. Not because he loved her, but because she was a possession, and as his, his pride could not take the hit that she was running from him. “How did they find us?”
“I’m guessing they beat the info out of the rental guy in Placerville until he gave them the GPS coordinates. Then followed us on their laptop.”
“But how did they know he had rented you the car?”
“The SUV I dumped had a GPS chip in it too and they got lucky finding the place at the Tahoe airport I rented it from. Might damn well be the same place they rented theirs from.”
“Where are we going now?”
“San Francisco airport. I’m going to dump Ruby’s ride, borrow a car from long-term parking, then drive to San Jose airport, dump it, and rent a chopper to get us as far from California as possible, then find another ride and head east.”
“They’ll find us.” They always found their target.
He reached over and squeezed her hand. “They’ll have to catch us first.”
Sophia pulled her hand to her lap and stared out the window. The nondescript landscape sped by, and so did her life. She never should have left Angelo. Because she had, people were dying. More people would die. And when he got his hands on her, he would make her pay in slow, painful increments.
“Why did you marry Gilletti?” Colin asked out of the blue.
“He made my father an offer he couldn’t refuse.”
“Which was?”
“He told him if he didn’t hand me over, he’d cut my mother up piece by piece until there was nothing left of her. He gave my father three days to say yes, or else.”
Colin’s knuckles turned white as he grasped the steering wheel. “I would have killed the bastard on the spot.”
“Daddy didn’t know I overheard the conversation. I went to Angelo on the morning of the third day and told him I would marry him when I graduated high school.”
Colin shook his head and looked at her, then back to the road. “The obvious aside, why you?”
Sophia smiled at the compliment. “The Gilletti family needed a front to launder their dirty money. My father’s investment firm was the perfect foil.”
“You’re a brave daughter, Sophia. How did your folks take the news?”
“It was one of those ‘should I jump with joy or cry in misery?’ moments. It didn’t matter. While my father vacillated about taking a bullet for me, I didn’t. They died last year within three months of each other. So with no worries Angelo would hurt them, I took off. Little did I know, I could never really leave.”
“You did leave, and I swear to you, he won’t get near you ever again.”
“Because of me, that poor man in Placerville is most likely dead. The maid has a broken nose, and God only knows what will happen to Ruby.”
Colin grinned. “My money’s on Ruby. She’s got a shotgun under that counter aimed right at their balls.”
“Why was she so helpful?” Sophia asked, hating herself for sounding jealous.
Colin grinned. “Oh, I had something she wanted and she had something I wanted.”
“You did not!”
He threw his head back and laughed. “Not that. I told her I could fix things. Turns out she has a son with some legal issues. I’ll see what I can do when we get back.”
“But we’re in California.”
“The long arm of the law knows no boundaries.” He pointed to the floor in front of her seat. “Reach under there and see what she left me.”
Sophia felt under the seat and found a cloth bag. It was heavy when she pulled it out. “Open it,” he said. She did and withdrew a handgun and two boxes of ammo and several loaded magazines.
“Nice job, Ruby. I owe you big-time.”
“I can imagine what she really wanted in trade,” Sophia sniffed, putting the gun and ammo back into the bag, then under the seat.
“Jealous?” he asked, smiling.
“
Pfft
. I hardly know you.”
“I feel like I know you.” He looked at her with a smile. “Maybe a different life?”
Sophia’s blood warmed. She almost told him they had more than met but she hesitated. She wanted him to tell her the truth about who he really was before she came clean with him. “What about you? Where did you grow up?”
“Never knew my dad, and my mom—she had a few issues. She died when I was nine. Oddly, life got better. I grew up in several foster homes, mostly in Queens. They were stable. I tried to stay out of trouble. But the dye had been cast. I was used to moving around, a different adventure, good or bad, each day.”
“Where did you go to school?”
“I started in public schools, but my get-out-of-jail-free card was my athleticism. By the time I hit high school, the local catholic high school was looking to build their sports programs. I knew if I didn’t hunker down and stay put, my luck was going to run out. They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I graduated from St. John’s Prep in Astoria.”
Sophia swallowed hard. It was the night he graduated that she had cut him from the herd and had her way with him.
“Did you go to college?”
He shook his head and grinned. “Nope, school never was my thing. The day after I graduated, I shipped out to Parris Island and gave the USMC the next six years of my life. Then went to work for the NYPD.”
“You said you were part of a task force.”
“That came later. But, yes. We do good work. Putting your husband away is going to be a crown jewel.”
Sophia sat silent for a long time, processing over and over in her brain the fact that he’d shipped off to boot camp the morning after he’d changed her world forever. He hadn’t written or called, but was it because he hadn’t been able to, as opposed to didn’t want to? He hadn’t even known her as Sophia. In high school, she went by Maria. Maria Castavettes. Sophia was her middle name. Angelo said Maria made him think of his mother, so he started calling her Sophia. And she had been a brunette. She’d gone blond years ago, hoping to make Angelo happy. He said she looked like a two-bit whore. Out of spite, she went two shades lighter.
“Have you ever been married?” she asked, wishing as soon as the words left her mouth she could take them back.
“Hell no!”
Her back stiffened. “What’s wrong with marriage?”
“First of all, you’re the last person I would expect defending that institution, but in answer to your question, my work doesn’t allow for that kind of commitment.”
“Bull! You’re just using that as an excuse.”
He grinned at her. “I’m not good at planting roots. I move around.”
“Another excuse. What’s the real reason?”
“I like variety.”
“The spice of life. I should give it a try. But I’ll never marry again.”
“After what you’ve endured, I can’t blame you.”
“It doesn’t mean that I’m opposed to a relationship, just all on my terms.”
He shivered. “The dreaded
R
word.”
“So it’s sex to go for you?”
He turned those deep blue eyes on her and smiled a sizzling smile. “Very
good
sex to go.”
“Hmm, you seem pretty cocky.”
“You saw how cocky I am.”
Sophia’s face reddened. He smiled again. “I like it when you blush like that. Not enough women do.”
Damn him. He was reeling her in so easily she hadn’t realized he’d hooked her. And suddenly it didn’t matter. What mattered was the here and now. Because with her luck and Angelo’s cunning there wasn’t going to be a tomorrow. “I’m going to take a page from your spice book. I want to live before I die,” she said softly. Then with more conviction, “I want to live today like there’s no tomorrow.” She turned in the seat and looked directly at him. “Do you find me attractive?”
“You know I do.” He turned that lethal smile on her. “Do you find me attractive?”
“Very much so. So much so, I want to have sex with you.” Colin coughed and looked at her like she had just sprouted a third eye. “
Would
you have sex with me?” she asked him as if she were asking him to pass the peas.
He coughed again and looked at her, this time his face reddened.
“What?”
“I didn’t stutter.”
“I—No. No! Not because I don’t want to, but—because, I’m on the job here.”