Mere mortals touched by the hand of God? Or a series of random events that just happened to roll out as they did? Was the fact that her life had been saved a case of divine intervention … or of no more significance than one bingo ball getting picked over another?
A shallow fishing boat puttered into view, its sole passenger steering the outboard motor from the back, controlling speed and direction.
Pulling the heavy duvet even closer around her body, she thought about all the things she’d done, starting when she was just nine or ten. She’d begun picking pockets, trained by her father, and moved up to more complex theft with his help. Then, after he’d gone to prison and she and her grandmother had moved here to the States, she’d gotten a cashier’s job at a restaurant and tried to support them both. When that had proved too difficult, she’d put her experience to good use and survived.
Her grandmother had never asked any questions, but that had always been the way—her mother had been the same, except when it came to Sola’s involvement in the life. Unfortunately, the woman hadn’t lived long enough to make much of an impact, and after she was gone, the husband and daughter she had left behind had become thick as thieves.
Natch.
Sooner or later, she’d been bound to get caught. Hell, her father had been even better at it than she was, and he’d died in prison.
Picturing him the last time she’d seen him, she remembered him at his trial, dressed in prison garb, handcuffed. He had barely looked at her, and not because he was ashamed or worried about getting emotional.
She’d been no longer useful to him at that point.
Rubbing her eyes, she thought it was asinine to still be hurt by that. But after spending all her time trying to make him proud, get some approval, find any kind of connection, she had realized that to him, she was just another tool in his black-market workplace.
She had left the courtroom before knowing whether he was found guilty or not—and she had gone directly to his apartment. Breaking in, she’d found the stash of cash he kept in a crawl space cut into the wall behind the shower in the bathroom—and used that shit to get her and her grandmother free of his legacy.
The papers to enter into the U.S. had been falsified. The news they’d received about three weeks later from relations had been reaclass="underline" Her father had gotten life.
And then he’d been murdered behind bars.
With her grandmother not just a widower, but childless, Sola had stepped into the role of provider the only way she knew how, the only way that worked.
And now she was here, sitting on the deck of a drug lord’s house, faced with the kind of moral dilemma she had never expected to come up against …
Watching some random fisherman cut his engine and throw a line in.
Even though the guy had turned off the motor, he wasn’t still. The river’s current carried him along, his boat drifting across the view, a humble craft dwarfed by the distant buildings.
“You want the breakfast?”
Sola twisted around. “Good morning.”
Her grandmother had her hair done in tight curls around her face, her apron tied on her waist, and a flash of lipstick on her mouth. Her simple cotton dress had been handmade—by her, of course—and her sturdy brown shoes were somehow fitting.
“Yes, please.”
When she went to get up, her grandmother motioned downward with both gnarled hands. “Sit in the sun. You need the sun, too pale you are. You living like a vampire.”
Ordinarily, she would have pushed back a little, but not this morning. She was too grateful to be alive to do anything other than comply.
Returning to the view, she found that the fisherman was disappearing on the right, going out of sight.
If she hadn’t prayed, she would have gotten out of that place anyway. She was a survivor, always had been—and she had done what she had on a strange kind of autopilot, sucking in her emotions and physical sensations and doing what was necessary.
So if she looked at her future, at the currents in her life that were going to carry her out of view, so to speak … going legit was the smartest thing to do.
Regardless of any “agreement” she’d had with God.
She was going to end up in jail or dead—and she’d just dipped her foot in the icy cold of the dead scenario. Not where she wanted to end up.
Blinking in the gathering light, she gave up on the vision thing and closed her eyes, letting her head fall back. The warmth on her face made her think of Assail.
Being with him had been like touching the sun and not getting incinerated. And her body wanted more—hell, just the passing thought of him was enough to take her back to those moments in that bed, the night so quiet, the gasps so loud.
As her breasts tightened, she felt a welling between her thighs—
“Sola, you are ready,” her grandmother said from behind her.
Getting to her feet, she leaned out over the glass balcony, trying to find her fisherman. She couldn’t. He was gone.
Brr, it was cold out here—
“Sola?” came a gentle prodding.
Strange. Ordinarily, her grandmother’s voice was like the woman’s hands—never soft. In fact, she spoke like she cooked: out front, forthright, no holds barred.
But now the tone was as close to gentle as Sola had ever heard it.
“Sola, you come eat now.”
Sola took one last stab at seeing her fisherman. Then she turned around and faced her grandmother.
“I love you, vovó.”
Her grandmother could only nod as those ancient eyes of hers steamed up. “Come, you’ll catch the dead of a cold.”
“The sun is warm.”
“Not warm enough.” Her grandmother stepped back and motioned. “You must eat.”
As Sola entered the house, she froze.
Without looking, she knew that Assail had come down the stairs and was staring at her.
Shit, she wasn’t sure she could leave him behind.
After having been sequestered in his room for the last couple days, Trez found the world to be a stretch for the senses, like having a strobe light in his face and a pair of speakers up to each ear: Getting onto the Northway to head into downtown Caldwell, he found himself putting his sunglasses on and turning off the radio—
From out of nowhere, some dumb shit did a two-lane sweep and cut him the hell off.
“Watch where you’re going!” he shouted into the windshield, pounding on his horn.
For a split second, he hoped the guy behind the wheel of the Dodge Charger decided to go road rage back at him. He wanted to hit something. Shit, it would probably be good practice for his meeting with s’Ex. Mr. Charger, however, just took his overload of testosterone and his pencil-size dick off at the next exit, jogging in front of a minivan and a pickup truck in the process.
“Asshole.”
With any luck, the bastard would drive off into a ditch with no seat belt on.
About ten minutes later, Trez peeled off from the sixty-mile-an-hour-ers and entered a maze of one-ways. Confronted by all the traffic lights and the stop signs, his brain cramped up and he forgot the way to the condo—
When a horn sounded behind him, he locked his molars and hit the gas. In the end, he was forced to pilot around by tracking the Commodore’s twenty-story-plus height, gradually zeroing in on the high rise and finding the ramp that led down into the parking garage. As he descended, he got his pass out from the visor, swiped it through the reader, and proceeded to one of their two reserved spots.
The elevator ride up took fifty years and then he was stepping off onto the carpet runner. Their condo was down a little and he used its main door, not the service one, letting himself in with his copper key.
As he came into the kitchen, he saw two mugs on the counter, an already open bag of Cape Cod potato chips, and the coffeepot half-full.
He paused over an open GQ. He’d already gone through it. “Nice jacket,” he murmured as he shut the mag.
No reason to will on any lamps. The day was bright and sunny and all the glass let in plenty of light—
The towering black shape that arrived on the terrace was a harbinger of doom if he’d ever seen one.