Page 54 of Shameless in Vegas

She yawns deeply. “You really are the sweetest.”

I pat and rub her hip before draping my arm over my face, and now, I wait.

And wait.

And wait.

The night grows darker as the hours drag along, and I fight off impatience for when she’s inevitably going to crawl out of bed.

Shadows and moonlight stretch long over the walls and hardwood floor, and eventually, I hear the grandfather clock chime from somewhere deep in the house.

Three forty-five in the morning.

There’s another long span of silence, and then a whisper into the darkness.

“Cariño…? Are you awake?”

I say nothing and keep my breathing neutral.

“Joaquin…?”

After another stretch of silent seconds, I perceive movement on Natalia’s side of the bed. First, the silent lift of the comforter off of her body, then the slide of her silk nightgown across the sheets, and finally, her bare feet making contact with the wood floor. I can’t open my eyes for fear of her checking my fake-sleeping face, but I can hear her near-silent steps. She’s surprisingly stealth, but I can still make out the audible path of her feet as she rounds the foot of the bed and heads toward my side. There’s another shifting, sliding sound that I know is her slipping her hand between the mattress and box spring to retrieve the phone, and then her footsteps approach the en suite.

Then, the door quietly eases shut.

I wait five seconds before grabbing my phone off the nightstand and quietly sliding out of the bed. Opening a voice recorder app, I stand next to the door and hover my ear beside it, but without touching. Even though I can’t hear anything, I hit the record button. Then, it’s back to waiting for the sound ofsomething.

About five minutes pass before the faint sound of the phone vibrating drifts through the closed door. And then I hear her begin whispering in Spanish.

“It’s mostly urban real estate and precious metals. Yes, no commodities. No, no oil, no natural gas. No, he said nothing about stocks or hedge funds. He does not use the stock market. He says it’s too unstable. Yes, he told me this because he wants Joaquin to pursue the same type of investment. The person he works with… yes, he told Joaquin the person who is managing all of it. A man named Andrew Hollingsworth. He works for the Cyrus Brokerage Firm. I looked up the address. They have an office on Fifth Avenue, but their headquarters are in Chicago. It sounds like he works in the New York office because Ernesto said Joaquin would go there to meet with him. Yes. How much longer? Okay, I will. I won’t. I know.”

There’s a couple of beats of silence, and I think she’s off the phone. I got all the info I need, so I turn off the recorder, sprint away from the door, and leap back into bed.

It’s even longer before Natalia emerges. She silently pads toward the bed, sliding the secret phone back into place, and then tip-toes to her side, where she gingerly climbs back in. She lies next to me, still as death and so quiet I can barely hear her breathing, and stays like that for a long time.

It’s long enough for my mind to race like a friggin’ Formula One car.

Every fucking thing she just said to Xavier was a fuckinglie.

And what the hell doesthatmean?

Who the hellisthis woman?

Does she actually work for the cartel and is just trying to piss off Xavier and throw him for a loop about Papá’s money?

Is she planning to go after the money for herself in some kinda power move?

Is she a fuckingdouble agent? Maybe a member of the feds who’s embedded with the cartel to lead them on and pretend to go after me, only to actually turn right back around and go after Xavier and his cohorts?

What the actual fuck is going on right now?

And most importantly… is she about to try to kill me in my sleep now that she actually talked to Xavier about this stuff?

Based on everything I read in the message thread between them, I gathered that she had two jobs:

1. Get the “bank info” to Xavier.

2. Take my ass out.

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