Page 84 of When Sinners Hate

I stare at her mouth trying to find some more words.

I don’t need any from her.

“Sit. Calm down.” She does, fully. “I’m gonna say this once so you hear it loud and clear, and then, with any luck, we’re gonna get on with the rest of our lives, yes?” She nods slowly. “You asked me once when I’d cried. It was inside Huntsville. Often. I know those walls. They’re hard and they don’t give one fucking inch. You think you can handle the guard’s gang raping you? Because I’ve felt it first-hand from them, and you won’t have a chance against that kind of menace controlling you, just like I didn’t. So yes, I’ve dealt with everything here as fast as it needed to happen, and no, I didn’t ask your permission or talk with you about anything. Mainly because you needed to deal with you last night. But right now, I need you to get with this program real fucking quick, darlin’, and act like the Cortez you are because if you think, for one fucking second, I’d risk even the possibility of you going where I can’t protect you, you don’t know a goddamn thing about me yet.”

We stare at each other for a while. No words and that’s fine by me. I just need all that information to land so she understands why I’ve done what I’ve done and how my feelings for her affected my reaction. I held her last night. I let her deal with the immediate aftermath in my arms, and then I let her go when she drifted off to sleep and stayed up most of the night dealing with everything else. That’s what this husband does for his wife. And if it comes to it and I can’t make this work, I’ll take the hit and go back inside for her as well. Sounds fucking dumb even to my own ears, but my decision’s made. I can handle the inside of those cells. She can't. As far as I'm concerned, no one will ever know she killed her father and she will get everything he had.

“We haven’t talked about love,” she murmurs softly.

“You think you’d be in my home and sleeping in my bed if I wasn’t thinking about it?” I watch her reaction to that,wondering where the hell she thought I was at. “That’s what everything has been about since San Diego, Lexi. I wouldn’t have bothered trying to find who you really are if I didn’t care. I certainly wouldn’t have given you a chance at being part of this family, but you defending my mother yesterday sealed it. You’re in. Fully Cortez. Get with the program.”

She can work the rest of that out herself in time, because, again, we have none and I’m tired enough to kill.

Standing, I check my watch and start walking back into the house. “You need to get dressed and prepare yourself for a phone call.” Soft padding feet follow me through the room. “The plane is ready whenever we need it, which should be about an hour after the police call.”

“Abel?” I turn around to find her hovering, her mouth open as if she's got a thousand questions. This is not the time for any of them. “I’m …”

Reaching forward, I take her chin in my hand and kiss her forehead. “Don't talk. This is what I do. Just let me do it.” I rub my eyes and hit the machine up for more coffee. “Go get dressed.”

~

The phone call came as predicted, and then they asked her to get to San Diego to identify the body. She sat on the end of that call and kept her eyes fixed on me, reacting just as I needed her to in response. Shock, fear, overwhelming tears. I wasn’t sure how real any of it was until we got on the plane and she spat a fuck load of curses around the space, mainly at me. I gave her that, because maybe I should have let her know she’d have to go see a burnt up body. But I didn’t, and I didn’t because I wanted her reaction to be as unprepared as it needed to be when we got there.

The detective at the precinct was pitiful. He either didn’t care that Miguel Ortega was dead, or he had no interest in finding out who killed him. Both of which were useful to me, so I waited and filled out forms for Lexi while she went and identified the body. By the time she came out of that room, she was in floods of tears and acting the way we needed. She shouted at the detective, flinging insults at his ass to try improving the odds of finding the killer. He did nothing other than brush the crumbs off his dirty shirt and offer her counselling if she wanted it.

“A lot of people hated your father, Mrs Cortez,” he said. “And a lot of people will be hiding what happened here. I don’t see much other than dead ends and a long-running investigation. I’m sure you know as well as we do that his business dealt with high-profile cartels and crime gangs.”

Couldn’t help but smile a little privately about that. He wasn't going to do shit about finding a killer, mainly because Dante had already paid his captain off and threatened his kids earlier in the day. Not that Lexi knew any of that at the time, but I wasn’t about to give her an inch of thinking she was in control. She needed to be real in those moments. Or as real as an actress who killed her father could be. It worked. And either way, any investigation about this was going to be dead in the water for the foreseeable. That’s exactly how it needed to be.

“Do you think that worked?” she asks, as we drive along the road leading to her father’s home.

The road sweeps around, climbing upwards. “Yes.”

“So, it’s done?”

“They’ll have to process the body, and then you’ll have to grieve at a funeral, and there might be an investigation into some of the business dealings, but yes.”

“Investigation?”

“Don’t worry. Grasby will be all over that side of things, along with the will and any other relevant papers. I’m sure the feds were up your father’s ass most of the time. We'll deal with it.”

“My father had his own attorney.” A guy steps out in front of the car as we approach the gates. He looks in the window at Lexi and nods, swinging the gates wide soon after. “It might be easier if we can persuade him to be on my side of things in the future.” She turns to look at me and I see a glint in her eye.

“And if he can’t work with us, well, he’ll die.”

I take in the private compound, driving slowly around the vast circular driveway that leads up to the huge, white mansion house. Gardeners are working the lawns, feeding them water to keep the greenery that way in this climate. Wide steps lead the way up to the entrance, arches left and right of it to shade the veranda running around the whole place. I suppose it’s all the way a man like Miguel Ortega would keep it. High end, classy, and whilst befitting my wife, totally at odds with the character he actually was.

I chuckle. “Nice place. I can see why my mother liked him.”

Lexi gets out before me and leans back on the hood of the car, staring up at it with her arms crossed. I give her a few minutes to take it in. It’s all hers now, as are the other places he probably had around the States and other countries. In fact, she might actually have more wealth than me, now I’m thinking about it. Not something I’ve considered before this moment.

I get out of the car. “How do you feel, Mrs Cortez?”

She sighs. “You've never called me that before, but stronger. I feel strong,” she says, as I approach and lean next to her.

“I'm not surprised with all this at your fingers.”

“I don’t know if I hate this place or love it, though. So many bad memories, but a few good ones, too.” I look at her rather than it, watching the way she sighs again. She turns to look at me, too, just holds her gaze with mine – soft and relaxed for a minute. “Either way, I don't need this place to feel strong.”

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