Page 62 of Shadow Man
“Is that how you first infected him with your evil?”
There’s a pause. “I offered it freely. He didn't turn me down.” I watch him roll up the other sleeve. “I’m not here to fucking justify myself to you, woman. I don’t even do that for my wife.”
“Who’s Cash?”
He pauses again. “Where did you hear that name?”
“Caleb?”
Without warning, he removes his gun from his holster and holds it loosely by his side. This man isn’t capable of having a simple conversation without threats involved.
Is Gabriela listening outside the door? She knows he’s here. That’s what she was trying to warn me about before I barged in. Is she waiting for her moment to interrupt, or if she as deferential to this bastard as—?”
“Oh my God,” I whisper, as the pieces slam together in my mind. “It wasyou… You’re the one who helped Gabriela escape all those years ago. The monster wasyourfather. That’s why Gomez’s men don’t dare touch this place, for fear ofyourreprisal.”
“Gomez does whatever the fuck I tell him to do,” he says coolly. “There will never be a reprisal from him because he’s already had a taste of the consequences.”
“You lost your eldest daughter.”
He smiles at me, but his face is completely devoid of emotion. “Keep talking that way and you’ll lose the back of your fucking skull.” He cocks his gun, but I don’t even flinch. He can threaten me all he wants to, but I know the truth: There are weaknesses in even the hardest of stone.
“You’re not going to shoot me, Dante,” I tell him calmly. “You are a bad man right down to your stinking rotten core, but there’s a sliver of light in there too, and you’ll do anything to protect it. You kill me and you kill that light. You kill me and you hurt Eve and Joseph, and I don’t think you’re capable of doing that.”
He glowers at me until my face starts burning up, and then he’s lowering his weapon. “Welcome back,” he says dryly. “I was wondering when you’d be making an appearance again.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“The night in Rick Sanders’ bar last year,” he goads, holstering his weapon. “The night you nearly took out my jaw with your fist. I think we’ve all missed that woman.”
I’ve had enough of his bullshit.
“Your world killed that woman,” I say angrily, rising to my feet. “What you see here today is nothing but her ghost.”
“What I see before me today is so much more than the woman I freed from a cage in Amsterdam six months ago.”
The bastard almost sounds impressed.
“You didn’t free me,” I argue. “Joseph did.”
“Who do you think provided the resources and the firepower?” His cocks his head at me, his eyebrows dipping in amusement.
“You were there out of duty to Eve. He was there because he actually gave a damn!”
“That’s one way of putting it.” I watch his expression harden as he catches sight of my arm. “What happened to you?”
“Car crash.” I cradle the wound to my chest and scowl at him. I’ve exposed his emotional weakness, and now he’s coming for my physical one. This man never plays fair.
“Let me take a look at it.”
“I’d rather die from sepsis, thank you.”
“Which is exactly what will happen if we don’t clean it up.” I watch him walk over to the medical tray and drag it toward a couple of wooden chairs in the corner.
“Gabriela said she’ll do it,” I say mutinously.
“Gabriela’s not here. Come and sit down.” He kicks one of the chairs in my direction.
“Are you a doctor now as well as a murdering bastard?” I say, refusing to budge. “How can you even show yourself in a place like this when you and your cartel buddies are responsible for most of the pain downstairs.”