Buried (Hiding From Love #3) (25 page)

Alexis starts in on the ice cream, shoving a spoonful into my mouth every other time she dips into the carton. When we’ve finished it off, she pours me a cup of warm tea and we sit and watch Hugh Grant stammer his way into some woman’s heart.

As the movie ends, Jill shuts the laptop off, puts an arm around me, and says, “Okay, time to talk it out.”

I lay my head on her shoulder as I reach for Alexis’s hand. After a big sigh, I tell them the story, the story of Juan and Beth. The story of how we fell in love and why I can’t let him go, even now, even after he left me on a bridge in the middle of two countries, in the middle of two families, two hearts.

“So, what are you going to do?” Alexis asks, concern oozing from her very pores.

“I’m going to go to Uncle Max, and if he can’t help me, I’m going to go to another attorney, and if they can’t help me, I’m going to go to the Mexican consulate, and if they can’t help me, I’m going to go to the American consulate, and if they can’t help me—”

“Okay, okay,” Jill says, patting me on the shoulder. “We get it. Let’s slow down though and think this through carefully before you go off half-cocked”—she laughs—“or in your case, I guess no-cocked, right? I mean, that’s part of the problem. You’ve lost your favorite cock.” She giggles hysterically.

Alexis snorts and then shrugs when I glare at her.

“Sorry,” Jill gasps. “Sorry. Anyway, I think you have to be really careful about this. Juan is wanted here. You don’t want to alert the authorities to where he is and wind up getting him put back in prison. But his dad isn’t going to want to hear that you’ve been talking to people and telling them his personal business either. He knows where to find you and your whole family. You need to be careful, Bethy.”

Her nonjudgmental calm helps balance me. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I’ll go to Uncle Max and talk to him. Then we’ll see what needs to be done next. How does that sound?”

Alexis nods. “Like a good plan. Do you want me and Gabe to go with you?”

“No, I got this, but I have a feeling I’m going to need you. All of you.” I look at Jill. “This isn’t going to be easy.”

“Nothing in life worth having ever is,” Alexis says. “He must be worth it because my big sister would never fall so hard for someone who isn’t.”

I smile at her and close my eyes, suddenly exhausted.

I wake in the middle of the night, moonlight filtering through the curtainless windows in my room. Jill is gone, probably at work, but I look to my other side and there’s my little sister, sound asleep, her head tucked into my shoulder, her hair a jumble around her face. I think about how much I love her, and even though it hurts, I understand why they did it—David and Juan. They love me, and they were scared—scared that my life was in danger.

I’m angry at Juan, and I probably will be for a very long time, but love makes us all crazy. It’s made me crazy, and the crazy isn’t over yet. If I ever needed proof that Juan loves me unconditionally, yesterday’s display provided it. He loves me, and he would rather live without me than see any harm come to me.

So I’ll get him back, I’ll kick his mafia prince ass, and then I’ll forgive him.

I march into Uncle Max’s office at eight a.m. because I can’t wait another minute. I’m so agitated that I feel like my skin is crawling with the anticipation. I haven’t slept in two nights, waiting until Monday morning so I could ambush Max.

“Well, good morning,” Isabella calls out to me as I stride across the lobby of Max’s office suite.

“Hi, Isabella.”

“We sure were happy to hear you were home safe and sound,
mija
.” She stands to grasp my hand and squeeze it before she pulls me into a hug. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m going to be fine,” I say. “But I need to see Max. Any chance you could slip me in?”

She sits down and moves her computer mouse around to turn the screen on. “He’s free until staff meeting at nine, and we’d love nothing more than to skip his weekly lecture about cleaning out the coffee pot and not rounding up on billable hours.”

I laugh. “Okay. I’ll let him know.” I head down the hall, stopping when I get to Max’s door and taking a deep breath to prepare myself for a battle. I knock twice like I always do. “Max?” I call out as I stick my head into his office.

“Oh, thank God!” he exclaims as he jumps up from his desk and comes over to grab me in a big bear hug. “You scared the shit out of me,
mija
.”

I breathe in his familiar aftershave. It’s so comforting. “I’m sorry, Max. I really am. It all happened fast and we didn’t have much choice about it, you know?”

He huffs out a laugh. “Really? The RH didn’t ask you if you wanted to be kidnapped and sent to Mexico with a mob boss?”

I roll my eyes. “The main thing is I’m safe and I’m back home.”

We move to his desk, where I take a chair in front of it and he sits behind it.

“You are,” he says slowly. “But you’re home alone, and if I know you, that’s not going to fly.”

“Am I that transparent?” I ask, heat climbing into my cheeks.

“No,
mija
. No. I just know you pretty well. I also know how much you’re in love with that damn kid. So what the hell am I going to do with the two of you?”

“I want to get him back, Max. Back here to the US, safe and not in prison. How can I do that?”

Max leans into his reclining desk chair, his hands laced behind his head. He sits like that for a few minutes, and I keep quiet as the clock on his cabinet ticks and tocks and the hands sweep on just like time does.

Finally, he sits up straight and rests his arms on the desk. “Tell me where he is and what he’s doing.”

“He’s at his father’s house in Leon. He’s working for his dad, getting trained to take over the family business someday.”

“And you’re sure he didn’t just decide all that money and power were more his style than being on parole here in Texas?”

I shake my head vehemently. “No. Not Juan, Max. He doesn’t care about any of that. He’s loyal and honest and too damn noble for his own good. He’ll always put everyone else before himself, and that’s what he did. He put me first. He consigned himself to a life of crime and violence and living under the thumb of that man in order to save me. I can’t let him do that. I can’t let him end like that.”

“Okay,
mija
,” he says. “I’ve got a possibility for you, but it’s not going to be easy, and it’s going to force Juan and maybe you to make some pretty hard choices.”

“What is it?” I ask, desperate for any chance at all, no matter what the price.

“I can’t believe I’m even suggesting this.”

I narrow my eyes at him. He sighs.

“WITSEC.” he answers.

I sit and stare at him for a minute as my mind tries to remember the acronym. “What?”

“Witness protection.” He taps his beefy index finger on the desk as he talks. “At this point, Juan’s got a lot of information on the Santos Mexicanos cartel, and if we can convince Homeland Security that he can give them useful intel about Miguel Ybarra’s business, we might be able to negotiate a new identity and protection for Juan here in the US as well as the elimination of any charges relating to his parole violation.”

I can feel how big my eyes are in my face. “So the government would send him somewhere with a new identity and they’d drop the charges against him too?”

Max nods solemnly.

Then the logistics clarify for me. “He’d have to testify against his own father. Turn Miguel in.” Max nods again. “But what about me? I mean, if he has a new identity…”

Max looks at me sadly. “You’d have to get one too if you want to go with him. Otherwise, it’d be far too easy for the
Santos Mexicanos
to trace you both.”

“And I’d have to move?”

“
Mija
. I think you know the answers to these questions.”

“I wouldn’t be able to see any of you?”

“Not for a while anyway. Maybe eventually, but it could be years. It wouldn’t be safe for any of your family or friends to know where you were or to talk to you.”

My heart stutters, and for a moment, I’m afraid it might stop altogether. Years. Without my family. Without David, Alexis, my parents, Jill. My heart is sick. My head aches.

“You’d better think about it all for a bit,” Max says kindly. “If you decide you want me to approach the feds, we’ll have to get all of our ducks in a row. I’ll need a full deposition from you about the events from when the RH first approached you at the halfway house all the way through your drop-off at the border. Then we’ll have to get them to agree to give you immunity from accessory charges before we take you in to talk to them.”

“Oh my God,” I say, feeling like the weight of the world’s just been placed on my shoulders.

“It’s a huge decision,
mija
. One you can’t make without a lot of thinking. And one that you shouldn’t feel guilty about—no matter which direction you choose. So for now, go home. Rest. Be with your friends. We can talk more in a few days, yeah?”

I nod and stand.

Max walks around the desk and puts his hands on my arms. “You’re the smartest young woman I’ve ever known, Beth, and I’m an old bachelor, but I still believe in love. You love each other. You’ll figure this out. And when you do, I’ll be here to help you however I can.”

He gives me a kiss on the forehead and walks out of the office with me. After I’m ensconced in my car and Max’s waving form has faded out of sight, I pull over to a side street and I cry.

M
Y
father has invited women to dinner. Men too, but other than the occasional wife of an associate, this is the first time we’ve had women here. Young women, single women, women, it appears, he expects me to fuck.

“Juan,” he says as turns his best charm on the blonde sitting between us. “Did you know that Miss Lopez here is the niece of
Señor
Candelaria, our associate in Chihuahua?”

I look at the woman, whose cleavage is oozing out of her sequined tank top. She flicks her long hair over her shoulder and curves her plump, shiny lips up into a semblance of a smile.

“My uncle has such good things to say about you,
Señor
Ybarra. And we didn’t know that you had a son, much less such a handsome one,” she simpers.

I know I should say something smooth back, but I just don’t have the energy. I’ll play the heir on the job, but I refuse to let him control my sex life too. He can throw as many stacked
hueras
at me as he wants. I won’t take the bait.

“Yes,” my father answers when I don’t fill the gap in conversation. “Juan was raised in the US and only recently came home to help me with the business.”

“I’m sure he’ll be a very fine addition,” she says as she lays a hand on my arm and squeezes gently.

I move my arm away from her as I toss my napkin on my plate.

“Speaking of business, if you’ll excuse me, I have some work to do.” I stand, give Miguel a small nod, and head to my suite.

An hour later, I’m in gym shorts, sprawled on the sofa, watching some MMA match on TV, trying really hard not to think about how the blonde’s tits compared to Beth’s—a comparison that Beth will win every time.

A sharp rap comes at the door. I’m startled—no one ever comes to my suite. The cleaning staff slips in and out invisibly while I’m working with my father during the day, and the guards stay outside, never making a sound.