BOW DOWN: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Barone Crime Family) (26 page)

“Let’s do something,” I said suddenly, not sure what I was doing.

“This not fun enough for you?”

“Believe it or not, but driving for hours on end every single day isn’t exactly the most exciting activity in the world.”

He grinned and shook his head. “Come on, just being near me should be exciting enough.”

“Camden, I’m serious. We need to stop and do something, just for a few minutes at least.”

“What do you want to do?”

I looked around and, as if by magic, a sign advertising something called Harpoon Gorge flashed by.

“Let’s stop there,” I said, pointing.

He glanced. “A gorge?”

“Yeah. It’ll be beautiful.”

“Since when are you the outdoorsy type?”

“Camden,” I said seriously. “Take me to that stupid gorge or I’ll scream.”

He laughed and then bit his lip, thinking. I felt a thrill run through my chest as I looked at his mouth, pursed in concentration.

“Okay, okay. Fine. We can stop for a few minutes,” he said finally.

“Great. Take me to the gorge.”

We drove for a few more minutes before exiting. The area was mostly scrub brush and large rocks, not quite a plain but not exactly mountainous, either. I’d never been in a place like it before as we drove farther, following signs. Ten minutes later, we saw a large banner advertising the gorge hung between two huge trees.

Camden drove up the bumpy gravel road. “Where the hell are we?” he muttered.

“Harpoon Gorge, duh!”

He laughed as we rounded a bend. The gorge appeared ahead of us, and it immediately took my breath away.

It was a canyon, not quite as big as the Grand Canyon, but still beautiful. The sides were sheer with plants and bushes clinging to the wall, somehow still able to grow despite gravity trying to pull them down.

We pulled over in a small parking lot. We were the only car around.

“Nobody here,” Camden commented.

“It’s beautiful,” I said.

He smiled and we climbed out. There was an observation deck overlooking the view, and it was absolutely amazing. The landscape spread out all around us, interrupted by the gorge itself. I leaned up against the rail and looked down at the bottom, at a small, slow-moving river winding away from us. Camden crossed his arms and took a deep breath.

“Not too bad,” he said.

“Better than the highway.”

“Yeah. I’ll give you that.”

After a second of silence, I looked up at him. He was staring out at the view with a strange look on his face.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“Come on. I promise not to yell at you for at least a few hours if you tell me.”

He smiled at me. “I was just thinking that I hope I can see something like this again soon.”

I bowed my head, biting my lip. “Tell me more about Mexico,” I said, changing the subject.

“What do you want to know?”

“Did you have any friends?”

“Mostly just Trip. The old man, that kid, and this stray dog.”

“You had a dog?”

He shook his head. “No. It was just a stray. I fed it sometimes, though. Seemed to like me.”

I smiled, imagining Camden feeding a dog. I moved closer to him, breathing in the crisp, clean air.

“I never took you for an animal person.”

“There’s lots you don’t know about me.”

“Oh really? I know you pretty well.”

“Maybe,” he said, nudging me. “I think I know you better, though.”

“Why’s that?”

“If I recall correctly, I got to know you pretty damn well.”

It took me a second to catch his tone. “Oh, this again?”

“I can’t help it. Looking at you brings back a lot of good memories.”

“Yeah,” I said, frowning at him, looking into his eyes. “It does, doesn’t it?”

“You’re absolutely fucking sexy, you know that?” he said, moving closer.

I took a deep breath, my heart hammering. “I’m sure you say that to all the señoritas.”

He smiled this smooth, cocky grin. “Only the ones that deserve it.”

“Why do you think I deserve it?”

“Because,” he said, inches away from me, “I know you, Lace. You’re good and strong and can hold a grudge like nobody else I know. You’re stubborn and sexy and smart.”

“Those are just words. What do they even mean?”

His face was so close to mine. I didn’t know what I was doing, but my mind was suddenly dizzy with him. Everything but the view and his body disappeared as his lips came closer. I wanted to put my hands on his chest and let his tongue touch my teeth, but I was frozen in place.

“I can show you what it means,” he said.

“Camden.”

His arms wrapped around me, pulling me tight against his body. I gasped as my heart did flips.

I wanted him. I always wanted him. I couldn’t get away from that fact no matter how hard I tried.

But he wasn’t telling me everything. And he had disappeared, tearing our family apart.

And he was my stepbrother.

“I can’t,” I said softly, turning my head and looking away.

“Are you sure?” he said, practically a whisper. I felt his warm breath against my face and breathed in his deep scent. Shivers ran down my spine.

“Not until you tell me what really happened down there.”

There was a moment where I thought he might. I saw something in his eyes, this strange yearning, or maybe a specific kind of desperation. Instead, he stiffened and moved away, and the moment passed between us.

“I told you,” he said, looking out over the gorge again. “I got lost. But I’m finding myself now.”

“Why do they want to kill you?”

“I betrayed them.”

I blinked. Camden had betrayed the cartel?

“What did you do?”

He looked back at me. “Enough. We need to get going.”

“Camden. I deserve to know.”

His face got hard. “No. You don’t. You deserve to keep living, though, which is what I’m trying so hard to do.”

“I just want to know you.”

“You can’t know me. Let’s get going.”

He walked away, back toward the car. I watched him, my heart sinking slowly, my stomach a twisted mess of anger and confusion. He climbed into the car and started the engine.

I looked out over the gorge again, letting out a deep breath. After a second of gathering myself, I walked over to the car and got back in the passenger seat.

He pulled out and drove back toward the highway. We didn’t speak. I tuned the radio, found something good enough, and leaned back to try to fall asleep.

What was he hiding? It was clear there was something more there, something important he was holding back, but for some reason he couldn’t tell me. Was it because he was ashamed, or was it something else?

Could it be something worse?

As we drove, I knew I wanted to get to the bottom of him. I hated him, but I was beginning to see that there was so much more to him than just stealing cars and running away. He was complicated.

I wanted to unwrap him, and I was going to get my way.

I
nearly kissed her
.

The memory of her body pressed against mine, standing over that gorge, replayed through my mind over and over during the next day.

Although things were still a bit strained, I could tell she was beginning to warm up a bit to me. We didn’t drive in total silence, and instead we talked about our lives. I stayed as general as possible and avoided talking too much about the cartel itself, but I gave her a pretty good idea about what it was like to live in Mexico as a white guy.

She slowly came out of her shell and began to tell me about her life since I left. She told me about college, about studying hard, about her friends and parties and the one not-very-serious boyfriend she had. She talked about classes and teachers and about her plans for after graduation. She talked about sitting on benches and people watching for hours at a time, about meeting friends drunk for pizza at two in the morning, about eating that leftover pizza while hungover the next morning. 

She told me what it was like to be a college student. That was one experience I wished I had. Sometimes it felt like I skipped being a young adult entirely and went right to the dark side of life. It felt like a whole world decided to pass right over me, and for some strange reason I missed it.

Probably because I knew I’d never be a part of her world. No matter what I wanted, the things she knew were so completely different from the things I knew. She lived in school, in safety and comfort, while I was scraping by, doing dark jobs for the mob, getting paid well but not caring much about the money anyway.

And despite all that, I felt my attraction for her growing even stronger. The more I knew the person she had become, the more I wanted her. Every time she moved toward me in the car, I felt my cock begin to stiffen in anticipation of her touch. I knew that wasn’t going to happen, not yet at least, but I wanted it. And I was going to have it.

Hell, all of me wanted it to. She was fucking gorgeous and sexy and stubborn and incredible. I knew she hated me, even though she used to love me, and that made me want her even more.

“It’s getting late,” I said around midnight that night.

“What?” she mumbled from her seat.

“I said, it’s getting late.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Were you sleeping?”

“I might have slept a little, yeah.”

“You know it’s rude to do that when you’re in the car with someone.”

“As opposed to sleeping in the car alone?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“Well, too bad. You’ll survive.”

“I thought you were a nice girl.”

She laughed. “You thought wrong.”

I pulled off the highway and began to drive toward town, hoping there would be another ratty motel nearby. I got lucky and pulled into the driveway of the Lincoln Motel only a few minutes away from the highway exit.

As Lacey climbed out and stretched, I checked the map Trip had drawn for me. For some reason, I hadn’t told Lacey we were following a route set by him, maybe because I didn’t want to worry her. Trip had given me a specific direction to drive in before we left, mostly because he thought it was safest and fastest. I’d stuck to it relatively well and we hadn’t run into any problems. Even though I was still angry about his lapse, he seemed to be coming through for us.

I followed Lacey out toward the office and we ended up with a room in the front of the building with twin beds. Ever since the night with the queen bed, I kept feeling disappointed when we got separate beds, though it was nice not to have to sleep on the floor. Part of me was tempted to bribe the desk guy to say they were all booked up otherwise, but Lacey was always right there.

We got into the room and collapsed onto the beds. My legs were sore from sitting all day, which seemed like it didn’t make sense. But apparently just sitting in a cramped position could make your body feel like it had run a marathon.

“Why do my legs hurt from driving?” I said out loud.

“I don’t know. Mine are sore too.”

“That’s from running around my mind all day.”

“Good one.”

“Seriously though, sitting around and doing nothing is a lot of work.”

“So is running from Mexican gangsters.”

“Good point.”

“How close are we, anyway?”

“We should be crossing over into Canada pretty soon.”

She sat up. “How’s that going to work?”

I grinned and looked at her. “Glad you asked. We have a little pit stop to make near Seattle.”

“What for?”

“Documents. I know a guy that’ll make us some passable fakes. Worked with him about two years ago. We’ll use those to get over the border.”

She laughed and shook her head. “Seriously, you’re getting us fake passports?”

“I sure am. You better start thinking about what you want your new name to be.”

She stood up and walked into the bathroom. I flipped the TV on, idly stopping on a rerun of a football game.

“How about Jasmine Briar?”she said from the bathroom.

“Sounds like a stripper.”

“Maybe Marcy Moorehead?”

“Sounds like English royalty.”

“Charlene Manson.”

I laughed. “Like Charles Manson?”

“Yeah. He can be my spirit animal.”

“That’s pretty sick.”

“What can I say, I’m a badass.”

“You definitely are.”

She lapsed into silence as she began to brush her teeth and I began to get changed into my sweats. Suddenly, I heard a noise outside the room, something that sounded like a strange clicking noise.

My pulse immediately rose. I knew that sound. I grabbed my duffel and pulled my gun out, checking to make sure it was loaded, and pressed my ear to the door.

Outside was the unmistakable sound of heavy breathing.

There were men on the other side.

I quickly went into the bathroom and grabbed Lacey’s arm.

“What?” she said. I pulled her over to the bathtub. “The names aren’t that bad.”

“Get in.”

“What’s happening?”

“No matter what happens, no matter what you hear, do not get out of this tub.”

“Camden. What the fuck?”

“Listen to me,” I said, looking her in the eye. “Stay here and do not move.”

She stared at me for a second and then nodded. “Okay. I’ll be here.”

I pulled the shower curtain closed and shut the bathroom door behind me as I quickly pressed myself against the wall next to the door.

Not a moment too soon. Another two heartbeats later and the door burst open, practically torn off its hinges. Wood and metal sprayed everywhere.

I brought my gun up. The first man inside didn’t have time to react as I squeezed the trigger and put a bullet in his head. He dropped to the ground, blood covering the wall. I didn’t have time to think about what I was doing, fortunately.

The guy behind him was smarter. He came in low, but I was already moving. I kicked my foot out, catching him in the gut. He dove forward, over my leg, and tackled me to the ground. We wrestled for a moment as my gun went skidding across the room.

I punched him again in the gut and twisted, getting away from his grip. I was bigger than him and used my size to wrench his gun away, sending it spinning. He pushed himself away, rolling back, and jumped to his feet. I scrambled up after him.

I glanced toward the door, but nobody else was coming. I looked back just in time to block a punch, taking a step backward. He followed, aiming another punch, but I dodged it and stepped in.

I hit him twice in the stomach before he brought an elbow down on my head. I stumbled to the side, stunned. He came at me, landing two more punches before I managed to grab him and pull him against me, tying his fists up. He beat uselessly at my back.

My ears were ringing from the explosion and from the elbow to the head as he began to try to knee me in the crotch. I blocked him as best as I could, holding him fast, catching my breath.

He was eerily quiet, not saying a word. I didn’t recognize him, but I knew what he was: a hired hit man for the cartel. The same sort of man that I was, back in the day. I knew he was willing to do whatever it took to survive this fight. And I knew I was the same way. He was highly trained, though, clearly not some novice thug.

Finally he wrenched free and began to attack me seriously. I blocked the first two punches but took the third in the face. I stumbled away and fell, the ground spinning.

A few inches away, I saw his gun sticking out from under the bed. I grabbed it, but he was fast, kicking at my hand and diving on top of me. I kept my grip but he quickly pinned my hand down.

I grunted and as he came close to me. I smashed my head directly into his nose, and I felt as much as I heard the crunch of bone. He groaned but held on to my hand, keeping the gun pointed away from him, and began punching me again in the face. He slammed my hand down onto a piece of wood from the door, breaking skin, and I let go of the gun.

I twisted suddenly, wrenching him to the left and down onto the ground, getting leverage. I was on top of him and used my weight to smash my head into his face again and again, violently slamming my forehead into his bloody nose. He tried to fight me but he couldn’t get enough power behind his blows. I reached forward and wrapped my hands around his throat, squeezing as hard as I could while he struggled.

I watched his hand reach out toward the gun. He was feet away but getting closer, but I kept my grip on his neck, squeezing tight. His eyes went wide with hate as he nearly grabbed the gun, his fingers reaching, reaching, inches away. I held on tight, my pulse racing, fear jolting through my body, adrenaline keeping the pain at bay. He nearly got it, but he suddenly went limp, his eyes staring up at nothing.

I released him and fell onto my back, breathing hard. The room was a mess of wood splinters and blood, everything broken and smashed from the fight.

As I looked up, my heart sank. Lacey was staring at me from the doorway, her eyes wide with fear and hate.

“Lacey,” I said. “Get your things.”

She stood there staring at me, her eyes wide, her breath coming in ragged starts.

“Lacey,” I said again, louder. “We have to go.”

I struggled to my feet and walked over to her. She backed away, fear plain in her expression. I knew that look from any number of people I had dealt with back in the day.

She was afraid I was going to kill her.

Who could blame her? She had probably just watched me strangle a man. I had no other choice, but it was still a hard thing for someone to witness.

“Come on,” I said softly. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

That seemed to snap her out of it. “I know that.”

“Let’s go.”

She moved then, seemingly on autopilot. I gathered up my stuff, grabbed my gun plus an extra gun from one of the dead men, and headed out into the night. Lacey followed me, saying nothing.

Even in the weak yellow light of the parking lot lamps, I could tell that she was white as a ghost. Her face was flat and she didn’t show an ounce of emotion, despite having just witnessed me kill two men, one with my bare hands not ten feet away from her. She was probably in shock, but I didn’t have time to deal with it. There were only two guys, and who knows how many more were on the way.

We got to the car and I threw open the door.

“Get in,” I said.

She hesitated by the passenger side, biting her lip. I started the engine and rolled down the window.

“Come on, Lace,” I said. “There could be more. Get in.”

She seemed to gather herself and then threw open the door and got in the car. I peeled out, pulling away, hitting the road like a tornado. We flew down the back streets in total silence, driving at least double the speed limit, the crappy sedan barely able to go as fast as I wanted it to.

We flung around curves, hardly braking, and blew through a few red lights. I was in the zone, my pulse pounding in my chest, and I couldn’t let myself slow down. Everything seemed so clear in the post-fight adrenaline high, and I knew that I needed to get myself under control before I made a stupid mistake.

I couldn’t peel my eyes from the road. If I did, I’d look over at Lacey. I’d see the way she was looking at me. I’d see the fear and the disgust in her eyes, and it wouldn’t surprise me.

Because I was feeling that same fear and disgust.

I’d killed before. I didn’t like killing, but I did it because that was my job. But that was the first time I had killed a man up close with my bare hands. It was different when you were right in his face, both of you struggling for survival. It was more primal and brutal and it hit you in a different way. I could tell that was going to stick with me for a very long time. Even though he was a very bad man, and definitely deserved it, I’d still never forget his face.

It helped, though, that I did it for a good reason. I did it to save my own life, but I also did it to save Lacey’s.

We burned our way through the on-ramp to the highway, pausing only long enough to grab a ticket at the toll booth. As soon as that robotic arm was up, I was on the road and driving fast.

I didn’t let myself slow down. My foot pressed down the gas and we moved, blowing past any late-night truckers and other overnight drivers. We sped along, the miles ticking by like water, and my mind remained completely blank. The only thing I thought about was keeping the car under control and moving, moving, moving.

“We need to slow down,” she said.

I picked my head up, pulled out of my trance. I glanced at the clock and realized that two hours had melted by in the blink of an eye.

“We need to keep moving,” I said.

“Getting pulled over isn’t going to help us.”

“Getting caught would be worse.”

“If they’re following, we’re not losing them on a highway. No matter how fast you drive.”

I blinked and realized that she had a point.

“What do you suggest?”

“Get off at the next exit. Drive around.”

I sighed, slowly coming back to myself. I had been in some sort of trance, obsessed with moving, as if speeding along could keep the demons at bay.

But there was no running from memory. It was a part of you, and no matter what, there was no escaping who you were. There was only acceptance.