Shooting Scars: The Artists Trilogy 2 (32 page)

The longer I sat across from Travis at a small, smoky bar that blotted out all the light and heat from outside, the more I couldn’t understand her. How she could be with him and not be afraid for her life. Because I was her daughter through and through. And I was extremely afraid for my own life.

I eyed the bodyguards who flanked us on all sides. They never once looked my way. We had the whole bar to ourselves. Travis had gotten the owner to order everyone out. Not that there were that many people drinking in a jazz joint like that during the day, but still. He basically snapped his fingers and it happened. People did it as if their lives depended on – I guess they did. The amount of power he had was sickening, to the point where people must have thought he’d have them executed on the spot if they didn’t do what they were asked. And there would be nothing that anyone could do about it. No police, no government, no army, no justice. Travis Raines and his new cartel owned them all.

At the moment, while I sat there in the booth across from him, he owned me. It went against every sniveling thread of pride I’d ever felt to admit that, but that was the truth and the truth was what it was. He helped make me what I was, the con artist who never believed anyone was coming to save her, the girl who struggled to find the good deep inside. He had his hand in it. And now he had my life in his hands. Because if Travis Raines found out that Ellie Watt was sitting across from him, the damaged daughter of Amelie Watt, I would be dead in a second. Even if he didn’t figure it out, there was still a chance he could kill me for no reason. Just because he could.

“Would you like another drink?” he asked me. “Perhaps some water, you’re looking a bit flushed.”

I grimaced and put a hand to my forehead. Obviously the strain of the situation was showing up on my face more than I thought. I needed to play it off. “Water would be great, thank you. I think I got too much sun today. I’m a bit dizzy.”

He frowned subtly, just a darkening of the eyes. “That’s a shame. I was hoping to take you out for dinner tonight. I own one of the best restaurants in town.”

“You sure own a lot of things here.”

He clacked his teeth together a few times and I resisted the urge to grip the edge of the table. “I own all of Veracruz. You will soon find this out. You speak the name Travis Raines and you’ll see it in people’s faces. The respect. The awe. For me.”

Oh god, I wanted nothing more than to take my glass and figure out a million ways to break it on his head.

“Must be nice.”

“You don’t seem easily impressed.”

I shrugged because that’s what Eleanor Willis would have done.

“Maybe you’ll get a chance to impress me tomorrow then.”

I thought maybe I was pressing my luck, playing that hard-to-get kind of girl. Maybe he offed girls like that. But his eyes glinted hard with the challenge. The sick fuck
liked
it.

“Well, I shall rise to the occasion. Would you like a ride back to your hotel? Where are you staying?”

Now was the time to figure shit out. If I refused, would he follow me anyway? Would it better to be upfront so he can follow me and I can still see him do it?

“Yes, that would be great. I was going to take a cab, but if it would be no bother …”

“No bother at all,” he smiled, face like an eel.

We left the bar and walked to the street where a massive SUV pulled up, seemingly out of nowhere, and he ushered me inside the backseat. It was pretty similar to the one Javier had back in Ocean Springs, except the glass was exceptionally thick – bulletproof.

I was a mound of springy nerves the entire drive back to the hotel. I kept thinking how easy it would be for him to keep driving, take me away somewhere and shoot me. Rape me. Torture me.

To make matters worse, he picked up on this, shooting inquisitive glances over his shoulder as he sat in the passenger seat. “Are you alright?”

“Just the heatstroke. I should have mentioned I get car sick too,” I said, hoping that would explain my sweaty palms that I unintentionally kept wiping on my skirt.

He shook his head as if I was just a giant mess. And I was. I was the biggest fucking mess and I didn’t realize how big until after he dropped me off at the hotel and told me that he’d come by for me tomorrow at 6PM and to wear something stunning.

It was then, and only then, had I realized the gravity of the situation I was in. When I walked into the hotel and saw Enrico watching my every move, it made me realize how trapped I was, how alone. I had no one to hold my hand and tell me I was doing the right thing, that everything was going to be alright.

Camden.

I know I’d seen Camden, it hadn’t been a dream. It couldn’t have been. I saw him there in the market. He looked right at me. But the face I saw staring back at me wasn’t the one I imagined ever seeing again. It was the face of a broken man and guilt was starting to poke at me, telling me I was the one who broke him. This Camden who somehow found me in another country, only to turn and walk away.

I staggered past Enrico, telling him I’d had too much sun and wanted to nap for a little bit. I hoped that would be enough to keep him away for the time being. I had something I needed to do, something I’d started but never got to finish.

I went through the courtyard bathed in twilight, walking faster as I went, until I got to the room. I wrestled with the old key for a few moments before the door opened and I went flying into the dark coolness. I locked the door behind me and flung myself on the bed. And I began to cry. Bawl. Sob. I cried because at the base of it all, I was scared, mostly of myself. And if I couldn’t trust myself, I had no one left at all.

I cried it all out of me and even when I was done, when it felt like I had nothing left inside, I rolled over onto my back and the feeling was still there. Disappointment in myself. For letting things go so far. If things went sour in the next twenty-four hours, I’d only have myself to blame.

I lay there for a few moments, praying for sleep to come and take me away, so I wouldn’t have to face anything or do anything or be anyone anymore. I was drifting off when I heard it. The sound of metal, delicate; a hanger on a closet rail.

Someone was in my room.

To be more specific, someone was in my closet.

I sat up slowly, looking around for a weapon. I had been left here with nothing, not even my gun. What the hell had Javier been thinking? No, what had
I
been thinking.

“Who’s there?” I asked, my voice breaking. “I know you’re in the closet.”

The hangers moved again. I held my breath and started calculating the distance from my bed to the front door. Could I make it out before the person caught me?

I had to chance it.

I scrambled to my feet and started running across the floor, my sandals sliding on the tiles almost bringing me to the ground. The closet door burst open at the same time and a large dark figure flew out of it, coming for me.

I was almost at the door, my hand reaching for the knob, when the person tackled me from behind with one arm going around my shoulder. Instead of pitching me forward onto the stone cold tiles, the person started to twist as we fell, his body taking the brunt of the impact. He landed on his back, and I landed on top of him.

The man let out a cry of pain, familiar and sharp, but my body was still on an adrenaline high and I tried to get off of him, to get away, to scream for help.

He was quick and before I could move, his hand went over my mouth and he held me, the back of my head against his hard chest and grunted in my ear, “Ellie it’s me.”

The sound of his voice immediately made me relax. I nodded against his hand and he let go. I flipped around and found myself face to face with Camden.

“You weren’t a dream,” I said, finding my breath again. I trailed my fingers down the side of his face, feeling the stubble, the strength of his features. “You actually came for me.”

He flinched a little under my touch then his face became all steel. He swallowed. “Of course I came for you. I told you I would.”

I was lost in his eyes, the sincerity beneath the blue. How honest he was. I never considered that he would have kept his word. I never thought I was worth that.

Oh god, the guilt. Javier. He couldn’t know about that, could he?

“How … how did you find me?” I asked.

He closed his eyes, resting his head back on the floor, wiggling his jaw back and forth. It was only then that I noticed the sling around his shoulder, his t-shirt soaked in one spot.

“Oh my god, Camden. What happened to you?” I got off of him quickly and tried to help him up. He’d taken the fall for me so I wouldn’t get hurt, though that couldn’t have been good for his arm.

I hope he doesn’t know. I hope he doesn’t know.

“I got shot,” he said, letting me get him to his feet. I’d forgotten how big he was.

I’d forgotten everything.

“You got shot?” I said when everything finally registered. “When? What?”

He grimaced and tried to move over to the bed. “I need to sit down. Do you have anything to drink? Something really stiff?”

“I don’t know,” I told him, running over to the mini bar to check. It was stocked with small bottles of alcohol. I grabbed four of the tequilas and two glasses and placed it on the bedside table then made a move for my purse where I put the bag of limes from earlier.

“I don’t need lime,” he said trying to unscrew the cap off the bottle with one hand, finishing the job with his teeth.

I had an unpleasant flashback to the tequila shot I’d taken with Javier the night before.

Did he know? Did he know?

He spat the cap out then emptied the contents of the bottle straight into his mouth. He did the same to another bottle.

I watched in silence, hovering nervously like a bird, wiping my hands up and down my sides, unsure what to do with myself or what I was to him anymore. He’d come so far, all this way, just to make sure I was okay. I didn’t want to tell him what a mistake it was, that he’d wasted it all on a terrible, terrible girl.

He’d gotten shot.
For me.
And I was sleeping with the enemy, believing this man would never come save me.

Now Camden was watching me, his breath slowing. The look in his eyes was dark and calculating, reminding me a lot of the time he discovered me trying to rob him. Only he didn’t have the gun to my head.

I wished he did.

“What happened?” I asked, before the guilt could eat me alive in silence. “How did you get shot?”

“Mexican police,” he said unscrewing the next bottle. His eyelids were drooping, his gaze lazy and if I looked closer, full of something like contempt. “We were driving on the highway outside of Tampico. They took a shot. Lucky shot.”

“We?”

He nodded slowly. “Me and Gus.”

“Gus!” I exclaimed. “Where is he, is he okay?”

“He’s not shot, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he said rather coldly. “He’s up in the hotel room.”

“You’re staying here?”

“Came all the way down to Veracruz to get you, Ellie.”

I blinked, tried to say something intelligible, but nothing came out. I took a seat on the corner of the bed and put my hand on his knee. He eyed it until I took it away. Something had changed so terribly much and I was so afraid to find out what it was. He was looking at me with the eyes of a stranger.

I gave him a weak smile. “Well, thank you for coming to get me. I don’t even know how you found me.”

A shadow seemed to fall across his face. He looked like a shell-shocked soldier, older, wiser, harder.

He licked his lips. “It wasn’t easy.”

“How is Sophia and Ben?”

He let out a sharp, cold laugh. “Oh, Sophia and Ben? Oh, they’re just fine. Especially since they got rid of their chump Camden.”

His voice was twisting, slicing, going to a bad place.

“What—”

He sat up straighter, sneering through the pain in his shoulder. “They’re absolutely fucking fantastic. Maybe a bit mad that their little set-up didn’t work. Oh yeah, Sophia, her brothers, probably your little boyfriend Javier, they were all in on it.”

My eyes widened at the term “boyfriend.” I felt like my lungs dropped through to the floor. No …

He went on, louder, his eyes watering, blazing angrily into mine, “Nothing like finding yourself on the front cover of the
LA Times
, wanted for assault and homicide. Nothing like having to run for your fucking life while trying to track you down!”

I couldn’t breathe at the memory of Javier reading the
LA Times
…

“Nothing like going to fucking Mississippi to find you and end up in your old fucking house that you shared with him and then learning what he had planned to do with you.”

I shook my head, the tears springing to my eyes, unable to make sense of what he was saying, where this was going. Though he was set up, he still went all the way to Ocean Springs to try and save me.

“What was the plan?” I whispered.

He leaned forward as if he was going to tell me a secret, eyes glinting. Darkness was falling fast outside of the window but I was too frozen to try to turn on the lamp.

“Javier brought you there to kill your parents.”

Ice. Pure ice.

“What, why?” It didn’t make any sense.

Camden shrugged with his good shoulder. “’Cause he’s fucking Javier and he’s fucking insane, that’s why. Just how brainwashed are you?”

“I’m not brainwashed.”

He laughed again, this one more brutal. “Oh, that’s a good one. So, tell me, what did he say or do to you to get you to come down here and kill Travis?”

“He told me he’d kill you,” I cried out in indignation.

“And you believed him?” he asked.

“Of course I fucking believed him! I wouldn’t have done it otherwise.”

“If you believed him,” he said softly, rolling the bottles of tequila back and forth over the bedspread covers. He smiled once, to himself. “If you believed him, that he would do such a terrible thing to me, that he had that power …” his eyes flicked up to meet mine, “why would you go ahead and fuck him?”

The world was pulled out from under me. One fell swoop, and everything I had to stand on, everything I thought was solid was gone. I was falling, straight into my guilt. The tears rolled down my cheeks, I struggled to keep the sobs inside.