Sins & Needles(80)

Some of the clubs and bars must have been emptying out because suddenly there was a line of drunk frat boys in front of me. I tried to get the bartender’s attention, and though he saw me, he couldn’t ignore everyone else. I would have to wait.

I stood in line at the bar and debated going to another one, even if it wasn’t top shelf for cheap, when my phone beeped. Thinking it was Camden wondering where his drink was, I fished it out.

The screen on my phone showed a text message from a strange number. One word.

Hi.

It was attached to a 228 area code. Biloxi.

I don’t think the word “hi” had ever looked so terrifying. I nearly dropped the phone. But I didn’t. I went straight to Camden’s number.

I texted: Code Black.

I shoved the phone back in my clutch and gulped, dizziness swarming up my arms, toward my head.

I knew whose number that was. It had been left on my homemade Wanted poster. I hoped Camden did exactly what I’d meant with Code Black. We’d talked about it earlier, about what to do in a worst case scenario, the “what ifs” and our plan of attack. And now it was happening.

Javier had my number. He was closer than I ever thought.

“Miss?” the bartender called out to me. I turned to look at him in a daze. The line had dissipated. I was next.

I was about to wave at him a “no thank you” and shake my head then get a move on to the elevators, but my vision went right past him. It went to the opposite side of the bar where a man was sitting.

Sitting and staring at me with yellow-green eyes.

The man smiled and I felt a chunk of ice slide down my spine.

Javier.

I wish I could say I turned and ran the minute I recognized his face. But I didn’t. I hesitated, perhaps a few seconds too long. Because Javier had a face that compelled you to look at him. Camden had been right with his impression—he really was like the sun. If you stared at him too long, you’d get burned.

He wasn’t the world’s best looking guy, and for comparison’s sake, he didn’t have Camden’s classical all-male good looks. His mouth was a little too wide and snaked from corner to corner. His nose had been broken a few times, and when you looked at him straight on like I was doing as I stared at him across the circle bar, you could really tell. But his eyes were beautiful, cunning and otherworldly. His hair was a controlled mess; wispy dark strands that swooped across his forehead with long sideburns. He had high cheekbones, a strong jawline. When you combined all the parts, they equaled so much more than the sum. He was exotically, dangerously beautiful.

He’d been mine once. He’d broken my heart once.

And he was here to kill me. He only needed to do that once, too.

All the time I’d been staring at him, enveloped in his eyes, caged by his presence, he was staring back at me. It was only when he moved to text something on his phone that I found myself coming back into the present.

My cell beeped again. The corner of his mouth lifted, eyes back on me.

Against my better judgement, I looked at it.

You have no new tale to tell? 26 years on your way to hell.

I felt hollowness inside, like I was being chiseled out by fear. It was a line from the song “Wish,” the song tattooed on his wrist. My song choice for him. At the time I didn’t know who the song was about but now I know he made it about me.

Another beep.

You look beautiful.

I needed to get out of there. I made a quick glance around, looking for Alex and Raul, knowing they had to be close by. I didn’t see them but that didn’t mean anything in a casino. I tried to calm my racing heart and think. I needed to walk past the circle bar, past Javier to get to the hotel entrance, to get to Camden. Christ, I hoped he wasn’t looking for me and had just done as we planned.

Walking past Javier put me in the line of fire. But he wouldn’t dare grab me in the middle of a casino surrounded by people, cameras, and undercover security. He’d let me walk right past him and then I’d be followed. I couldn’t have that either.

I had to have him detained. More than that, I had to have Raul and Alex detained, wherever they were. I had to walk right up to him and engage him because if I ran, there would be no escape.

Sucking back courage like one hundred proof whiskey, I shoved my cell back into my clutch, tightened my grip on it until my knuckles were white, and walked around the circle bar. My eyes never left Javier and his never left mine. I could almost hear “Wish” pounding away in my head, matching its speed with my heart.

I stopped right beside him, beside a drunk couple who were laughing too loudly, a couple who had no idea what kind of animal they were sitting near.

Javier was wearing an unbuttoned suit jacket in a greenish-beige tone that would have looked drab on anyone else but him and a collarless white linen shirt underneath. He smelled like a million misleading memories.