Love and Decay (28 page)

“No. I haven’t made up my mind. I’m still
thinking.”

“And how long will you think? Huh? How long
will you torture me like this?” I moved off the wall the second his
voice grew threatening. He would not touch her. Not if I could help
it. “You are my wife-”

I rounded the corner just when Adela tried to
wrench her hand away from Diego’s closed fist and screamed,
“Because you told me I was! Not because of any choice I made!”

“Are you all right?” My words were English,
breaking through their conversation like a bucket of ice water.

“What are you doing here?”

Diego’s roar would have drowned out her soft
question had I not been looking at her. “Leave!” he shouted.

I turned to him and met his furious glare.
“Let her go.”

He leaned in. “This is our business, Parker.
You’re interrupting.”

I didn’t flinch because I wasn’t afraid of
this man. He was a coward. He was an asshole. And he was hurting a
girl I cared about more than I should. But nevertheless, I cared
about her. I’d do anything to save her from this moment.

His hand was wrapped around her wrist so
tightly she was bent over awkwardly trying to relieve the tension.
“You’re hurting her.” When that did nothing, I dropped my voice and
let the threat seep into every word. “Let. Her. Go. Or you’re going
to regret not listening to me.”

Diego sneered at me. The corner of his mouth
lifted in a cocky smirk and his eyes narrowed with disgust. “This
does not concern you. Leave before I make you leave.”

“Let her go,” I repeated, “before I make you
let her go.”

His head tipped back and he cackled
obnoxiously. When he met my stare again, his eyes danced with
madness. “You’re a child.”

“I’m more of a man than you’ll ever be.”

He dropped Adela’s hand so suddenly that she
stumbled to the side. He was in my face in the next second, but I’d
been ready for him. Adela’s safety concerned me more than my own,
but I couldn’t protect her if I was dead.

Or at least unconscious.

“I respect Reagan, but I will murder you if
you step between me and my bride again,” he warned.

“The funny thing is, I
don’t
respect
you, so if you ever lay a hand on
your bride
again, I will
be happy to murder you first.”

He leaned into my face. “She belongs to
me.”

My attention shifted to Adela who stood there
rubbing her sore wrist. She looked terrified and jostled and more
than a little pissed. But the faint light fell on her just right,
making her brighter than everything else in this godforsaken world.
Her long dark hair gleamed; her dark skin glowed. She radiated
otherworldly like this. Like she had been given earth to
counterbalance every other ugly thing.

She was my greatest regret.

And my biggest reason for existing.

I refocused on Diego. “She doesn’t,” I said
simply. “She doesn’t belong to you or to anyone. She’s a free bird.
So unless you want to get bloody, I’d suggest you go back inside
and calm your shit down. Otherwise, I’ll show you just how much she
doesn’t belong to you.”

I tapped the butt of one of my blades,
holstered against my hip. Diego looked down at it and then back up
at me. I’d noticed the second I saw him that he wasn’t armed.

He wasn’t used to handling his own shit. Like
he said, he was a king now. He had people to do that for him.

He slipped back into Spanish and commanded,
“Adela let’s go.”

She slammed her hands on her hips. “Not right
now.”

“Yes, now,” he insisted.

“Diego, do what he said. Go back inside. Calm
down. We will talk later.”

He did not like that. But he looked over his
shoulder and with a menacing snarl, said, “We will talk later, my
bride. Count on that.”

He pushed past me, bumping shoulders with me
in his attempt prove his machismo. I ignored him. I wasn’t
interested in starting anything with Diego unless I had to.

I’d rather he go back to Mexico and never
bother me again. But Adela never made anything simple. She’d been
screwing up my life for the last ten years. Why would that change
now?

I stared at her while I waited for Diego to
put space between us. Her chest heaved in and out as she breathed.
Her fingers trembled. Her mouth quivered. But I stayed where I
was.

Fighting every goddamn instinct inside me, I
stayed put. I stayed in between her and the madman she loved.

When I was confident he was far enough away,
I let my tongue loose. “He’s super charming. I see why you waited a
decade to get back with him.”

Her eyes flashed with new fire and the
masochist inside me smiled because finally that flame was directed
at me. “You don’t see anything, Harrison.”

God, I hated how she said my name. Her tongue
rolled over the “r’s” and whispered the “s.”

I hated it.

And I loved it.

“Really, Adela, I’m happy for you. You two
make a beautiful couple. I wish you all the best. I hope you have
ten little psychotic babies.”

“Enough,” she hissed. Real pain reflected in
those endless eyes.

I regretted everything I’d said to her.

And because of that, I said more. “When are
you going back? Soon, right? Mexico can’t run itself. Diego will
need to get back to all his loyal, oppressed subjects. And hey! He
can’t do it alone!”

She took three steps forward and closed the
gap between us. I stood there waiting; knowing what was coming, but
unwilling to stop her.

Her hand whacked my face with a resounding
smack. I flinched and took a step back before instinct kicked
in.

I pressed her against the cement wall before
she could take her next breath. My hand bound her wrist and my
other held her firmly by the waist. But unlike Diego, I didn’t hurt
her. I only applied enough pressure so she couldn’t ignore me. But
if she wanted to be free, I would have let her go.

I would have walked away just like every
other time.

“I’m not going back with him,” she
panted.

A tingle spread down my spine and forced me
to lean into her. I felt her heat. Inhaled her scent that had been
imprinted on me since the first time I saw her. I watched her chest
rise and fall with her heavy breaths and a trickle of sweat run
down the side of her neck.

My gaze fell to those full lips that had
tortured me for over a decade. I tore my gaze from them only to be
captivated by her big, brown eyes, so big and full of passion, that
I could drown in them.

“That’s what you say today. Tomorrow we both
know your story will change. We’ve been down this road before,
Adela. We both know how it turns out.”

She shook her head. “You don’t know
anything.”

I leaned in. I couldn’t help it. Her body
owned an irreversible spell on me. If I didn’t know better, I’d
think she bewitched me just to torture me.

No, I did know better. I knew enough to know
that’s what happened.

“I know you,” I argued with her. “I know
we’ve done this before. How many times?”

She shook her head. I enjoyed the blush that
bloomed over her cheeks, turning her tanned skin a pretty rose
color.

“Too many times,” I filled in for her. “Too
many goddamn times.”

Her chin jerked with defiance, “Then let him
have me.”

She said that on purpose. Just to get under
my skin and piss me off.

I hated that it worked.

I hated that it made me want to press into
her until I covered every inch of her shapely body. Until I
couldn’t tell where she started and I ended. Until I was kissing
her… tasting her… making her realize that she was mine.

That she had always been mine.

That she would always be mine
.

I pushed away from the wall and from her. Her
arms dropped to her sides and her shoulders sagged. I sucked in a
sharp breath and ignored the bereft sensation racing down my chest
from where she’d just been.

I turned around and started to walk off. “You
don’t want to be out here alone, Adela. Get inside and stay near
Hendrix. I won’t be here to protect you from your husband should he
decide to throw you over his shoulder and haul your ass back to
Mexico.”

Her weakened voice trailed after me. “Where
are you going, Harrison?”

“Out,” I said. “To find my sister.”

Chapter Two

I had planned to take this mission solo.

But just like everything else in my life, my
plans were thwarted by my overbearing family. Only this time they
had backup in the form of a resistance I barely knew.

As much as it pained me to admit, they were
right. I couldn’t head out alone. And so I’d agreed to take my
brother, King, his girlfriend, Joss, and Miller.

When Adela showed up at the car packing her
adorable little arsenal of not-enough, I nearly became the guy I
hated so much. I wanted nothing more than to pick her up and toss
her sexy ass right back inside.

Obviously I couldn’t do that. I’d spent my
entire life claiming to be some kind of post-apocalyptic feminist.
Girls had rights. Girls could fight. Girls could make up their own
damn mind about the assholes they wanted to spend their lives with
and blah blah blah.

I thought of Page and used her as my Zen
tool. “Page,” I chanted in my head. “Woosah.” I took a deep breath.
“Page.” Another deep breath. “Serenity now.”

When I opened my eyes and Adela was still
there I started to count to ten. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m helping,” she said tersely.

“No, you’re not.”

“We need all the volunteers we can get.” I
didn’t recognize the voice so I stopped looking at Adela for a
moment to see who else was joining the squad.

“Who are you?”

He was a short, boxy creature with a flat
nose and neckless. He looked like a nerdy linebacker… if there was
such a thing. “Mertz.”

“Did you say Mertz?”

“It’s my last name. But it’s what everyone
calls me.”

“Do you have a first name?”

He shrugged one shoulder and it reached all
the way to his ear. “Sure. But everyone calls me Mertz.”

“Okay,
Mertz
, what are you doing
here?”

“You don’t know the area.”

I stared at him.

“I’m going to show you the area.”

I held up a hand. “Thanks, but no thanks.
We’ve got this covered.”

He ran a hand over his closely shaved head.
“That’s what the last team said and they never came back.”

He had a point. “Fair enough.”

“I’m good at what I do,” he insisted.

“And what’s that?”

“Killing things.”

My mouth lifted in a surprised smile. “Well,
Mertz, we have that in common. Sit up front with me and tell me
where the hell I’m going.”

He nodded and pushed past me toward the
passenger seat of the open bed truck we’d decided on. It would roar
like a son of a bitch down the highway, but at this point my main
concern was not discretion.

I turned back to Adela. “I don’t want you to
go.”

She shrugged and caught her bottom lip in her
teeth for just long enough to remind me how goddamn sexy she could
be. “I know.”

“But you don’t care, do you?”

She brushed by me, letting her body sway
against mine for just a tantalizing second before she was gone
again. “I do. More than I’ll ever tell you.”

“Adela,” I groaned. My insides twisted with
agony. She made me feel like two different people. One side of me
hated her like she was peanut butter on the only remaining piece of
bread in the entire world. And the other couldn’t stay away…
couldn’t keep from torturing myself.

“I love your sister,” she said soberly. “I’m
going. Try to stop me.”

I turned to face her, meeting those deadly
brown eyes straight on. “I’ve been trying to stop you. You won’t
listen to me.”

Realizing I was talking about something else
entirely she looked away, ashamed and embarrassed.

Good.

She needed to know.

“You guys, alright?” King asked as he sidled
up to the truck bed with Joss in tow.

“We’re fine,” I answered automatically. Adela
and I had been trading insults and remarks for ten years. Sometimes
they were more than insults. Sometimes we tore each other apart and
left lasting scars. Sometimes we healed each other.

Sometimes she was the best damn thing that
had ever happened to me.

And sometimes… sometimes we were this.

My family only knew about a third of what
went on with us. And usually they blamed me for being the
jackass.

Maybe they were right.

“I’m coming with,” she told King with a
stubborn lift to her chin. “You can’t stop me.”

King tried to hide his smile. “Okay.”

“I’m serious, King Parker.”

I muffled my laugh at his sideways glance. “I
believe you,” he told her. “Nobody’s going to stop you.”

She nodded and climbed into the back of the
truck while King turned to me with raised eyebrows. “This is your
doing?” he mouthed.

I rolled my eyes. “I have no idea what this
is.”

“Seems like you had something to do with
it.”

“Just get in the damn truck so we can be on
our way.”

He saluted me. Because he was a jackass. And
then turned to help Joss in the truck. Not that she needed help,
but King liked to pretend that chivalry was still a thing.

I liked to pretend that by being surly and
standoffish, I would magically attract all the things I wanted in
life.

We’d see which one of us got what we wanted
first.

I had a good feeling it was going to be
me.

And by good feeling, I meant, delusional
feelings.

Miller ambled out next, strapped to the nines
with weaponry.

“Holy shit, dude. You preparing for war?”

“Damn right,” he answered. “You better be,
too, because I am done with this shit, Harrison. We need to find
her.
Now
.”