“Four years?”
“It takes a while when they don’t get much time together. Some months she wouldn’t see him at all, though we knew he was out there, watching. These drawings were how they communicated.”
“How did that work?”
“There was a place close to the stables. We’d leave the pad and he’d take it away for a few weeks.”
I turned the pad over in my hands, wondering if I’d seen it before. Mateo was a doodler—he drew on everything, no rhyme or reason—that you know of. We’d been six months into our friendship before I’d realised how good he was. A week later, I’d had his work on my skin, along with his secret daughter’s bank details.
If I thought too hard about that, my eyes burned.
I opened the sketch pad instead and flipped through the pages. Charcoal drawings greeted me, dozens of them, all intricate and beautiful. Horses, of course. Flowers. Butterflies. Fairies.
Helter-skelters and fairground wheels.
I paused on that page, love flooding my chest. The drawings weren’t quite the same as the ink on my arm, but I recognised the style. “When did he draw this?”
Juana drifted back from the stove. “He didn’t. That’s Lili’s and she was about seven, I think.”
“Seven?” My mouth dried out. Wow. This kid was crazy talented.Just like her dad.“Did she draw my tattoo?”
Juana smiled. “Not all of it, but that’s why I wanted to show you this. I know it’s bothering you that she’s so... in your face.”
“We talked about this already. It’s fine.”
“Is it? What if Liliana forms a bond with you, and you walk away from Mateo? What happens then?”
“We’re brothers.”
Juana gave me a look that only a woman could. “Leave your motorbikes at the garage, Embry. What then? I don’t think you understand how much of his life away from us is committed to you. How much he loves you. When you got hurt... he was so pale for so long I thought he’d been stabbed too. I made him show me that he hadn’t been.”
On cue, my stomach threw up a toe-curling cramp.
I ignored it. Let Juana’s arresting stare ensnare me. “If you want me to stay away from Liliana, I can do that.”
Juana rolled her eyes to the penthouse ceiling. “I want you to tell him you love him. To give him the security and warmth he’s never had, but that he somehow found the strength to give to us when we turned his whole life upside down. It was my fault, you know... that we had Liliana. I told him I was on the pill so it didn’t matter when the condom was expired. I didn’t understand the consequences, and he’s had to live with that ever since.”
There was a lot to unpack in that, but Rubi filled the kitchen before I could begin to try. “Incoming.” He waved his phone. “We have a visitor.”
The only visitor we’d had so far was Alexei. Every few days I’d wake up to find him teaching Liliana maths in the early hours of the morning. He never called ahead, though, which told me we were expecting someone else.
Mateo.
My heart leapt, but Rubi caught my gaze and shook his head. “Decoy. Fuck knows why, but you need to open the door and give him a cuddle. Let anyone watching think he’s here for an orgy.”
“Decoy? Seriously?”
Rubi smirked. “It’s the quiet ones you gotta watch.”
My life was a fucking theme park. Rubi took Juana and rounded up Liliana to herd them into the only bedroom, weapon in hand, in case it was bullshit and Decoy was... well, a fucking decoy.
I grabbed a hammer from our stash, tucked it into the back of my jeans, and stamped into my boots, ready to fight. It was highly unlikely that anyone had coerced Decoy of all people, but we were protecting Mateo’s family. His daughter and his pregnant... something. Too careful didn’t exist.
One eye on the surveillance app on my phone, I ventured to the door and glued my eyes to the peephole. Nothing happened for long enough that I gave myself eye strain. Then finally, Decoy appeared.
He had pizza.
Fuck me, he hadpizza.