“How?”
He took a step closer to me, eyes boring into mine. He could sure be intimidating, I’d give him that. He slipped his hand into his front pocket and pulled out a business card with his first two fingers. He flicked it out for me.
“This is the number I want you to call. From the payphone you used earlier. There will be instructions. Call the moment you see us leave. Then go into the women’s washroom and wait. Do not leave for anything.”
“But Derrin …” I started.
He gave me a caustic smile. “Obviously he will not know of this. Did you not hear what I just said? He is not your boyfriend, Alana. He is not your friend. He is my enemy. He is your enemy.”
“Who is he?” I asked, my voice coming out in a whisper.
“I have no idea,” he admitted. “But it doesn’t matter, does it?”
But it did. It did so much. And Javier, at the heart of it all, I knew he was wrong.
Wasn’t he?
“We’ll be in touch,” he said, forcing the business card in my hand. When I made a fist around it, he put his hand on my shoulder. He gave it a squeeze and stared at me intently. “I will take care of you, you got that? The only way I know how.”
Before I could be touched by this rare show of affection, his gaze slid to Luisa and he straightened up. “Let’s go,” he said to her.
She nodded, gave me a small smile and then the two of them walked quickly down the aisle of canned goods, the king and queen of Mexico.
I watched until they disappeared around the corner and into the mass of shoppers.
I felt like collapsing to the ground. The business card in my hand felt like lead, a choice I had to take.
Unless I took none at all.
I slipped it into my jean pocket.
I didn’t want to believe what he said of Derrin, even though some of it made sense. But of course Javier had never met him. He didn’t know him. Neither did I, but I’d at least felt like I knew something about him. I knew he was sincere and while he might be lying about some things about his past or who he is, I knew that when he was holding me, kissing me, fucking me, that that was all real.
He did care about me. I had to trust that.
The question was, could I trust that more than I could trust my own brother?
I slowly walked down the aisle, feeling in a daze. Once I would get to the doors, I had the option of going to the payphone or the option of going downstairs to the Camry, to see Derrin. Maybe I even had the option of both.
I was almost at the end when I bumped into someone with a small basket full of groceries.
“Sorry,” I mumbled and looked up.
It was the surfer looking guy I had seen earlier. He had a baseball cap pulled on low over his light brown shoulder-length hair but when he looked down at me I could see his eyes were a very clear hazel, more green than brown. He would have been handsome if it weren’t for an ugly scar on the left side of his face.
I immediately averted my eyes, not wanting to stare, and tried to move past.
“No, I’m sorry,” he said.
The way he said it, so gravely, made my skin prickle. I paused and looked over my shoulder at him.
He was smiling at me in a way a stranger shouldn’t. I was used to men leering at me but this was different. Besides, it was creepy when men leered at a girl in a cast, like the fact that I was vulnerable and broken turned them on even more.
“Do I know you?” he asked, frowning insincerely.
I wasn’t in the mood for pick-up lines, especially from weirdos. “No,” I said, glaring at him. I turned around.
“I think I do,” he said quietly.
I swallowed hard. I wanted to keep walking. I needed to keep walking.
“Alana Bernal,” he added.
Fuck. FUCK.
I should have ran. I should have just ran. But I slowly pivoted around to face him. There was a chance he was with Javier. Luisa said they were all over the store. This was probably one of his men.
“You know my name,” I told him, trying to sound casual, hoping he couldn’t hear my voice shake. “I should know your name then.”
“You probably do,” he said matter-of-factly. His grin widened. “I think many people do. If they don’t, they will.”
He wasn’t going to give me his name.
“Do you work for my brother?”
“I work for no one but myself.” He slowly reached into his basket of groceries. I didn’t wait to see if he was going to pull out a banana. I knew it was a gun.
I turned and leaped to the left, knocking over a display of gravy powder with my cast and got behind the end of the aisle before a gun shot went off.
It missed me but brown gravy powder filled the air. I kept running, thankful that the whole store was erupting into extreme chaos. Everyone was suddenly creaming, shoving, crying, running. I was swept up in the mass of shoppers trying to exit, pushing their carts into everyone and everything.