“Do you know what you’re going to say?” Cam asked, as Anne started gathering her stuff.

I shrugged and slid my arms around him when he stepped closer, pressing me into the door. “I’m going to tell him the truth. Some of it, anyway.” The parts I was obligated to reveal, along with whatever else would help us get Hadley safely out of Tower’s grip. “But I’m going to have to spin it. Let him think he’s making all the calls.”

“What does that mean?” he asked into my hair, while I pressed my face into the side of his neck, breathing him in, dreading the moment when I’d have to trade his presence for Ruben’s. “I’m not going to hide in the other room and let him pound on you!”

“I can hold my own.”

“You don’t have to,” he growled, holding me tighter, and a bolt of dread lanced my heart. “I’m not going to let him touch you.”

“Cam.” I stepped out of his grip and looked up at him, trying to cvey the import of what I was about to say. “You have to stay in the bedroom until I call for you. No matter what. Okay?”

“Hell no!”

Outside, a car engine growled to a stop, then died, and my pulse raced. It was Cavazos—it had to be. “Cameron, listen to me.” I held him by both arms, but I was pretty sure that didn’t have the same impact it had when our positions were reversed—my hands only fit halfway around his biceps. “He’s going to be pissed at first, but the important thing here is getting him to help us go after Hadley, and I’m going to do whatever that takes. Anyway, as soon as he hears about his daughter, he’ll forget about everything else.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

Voices spoke outside my window and down one floor, and I recognized Cavazos’s cultured rumble among them.

“He will!” I whispered fiercely, already tugging Cam away from the door. “Promise me you’ll stay in there with Anne.” Who was watching us silently from the bedroom doorway.

“Liv…”

“Swear!” I snapped, whispering because I heard heavy, confident footsteps on the stairs.

Cam scowled. “Fine. I swear.” But we both knew that he’d break his word if Cavazos went too far. If I let him go too far.

“Thank you,” I breathed. Anne stepped back and I used my good arm to push Cam into the room with her. “I’ll call you when I’m ready for you.” I started to close the door, then noticed that Anne clutched Hadley’s photo album to her chest. “Can I take one of those?” I whispered, as the first knock echoed from my front door.

She hesitated, obviously reluctant to alter Elle’s handiwork. But then she nodded, and I flipped through the pages hastily until I found the shot I needed: Hadley, still in her blue cap on her green blanket. But this time, Elle was in the frame with her. I had no idea who’d taken the picture—the neighbor/babysitter?—but it suited my purposes perfectly.

“Thanks. I’ll bring it back.” But at the last minute, I refrained from promising her, because for all I knew, Ruben would insist on keeping the picture, and I couldn’t stop him.

“Olivia!” Cavazos shouted, pounding on the door again. He was pissed, and I wasn’t surprised.

“Shh!” I hissed at Cam and Anne as I closed the bedroom door, then I raced down the short hallway and skidded to a stop a foot from the door. Not yet…

I slid Anne’s photo into an end-table drawer, then jogged into the kitchen and pulled a steak knife from the block on the counter. Just in case. Carefully, I shoved it between the first two couch cushions, then took a moment to catch my breath and slow my pulse.

Then I pulled the front door open to find Ruben Cavazos waiting with his arms crossed over his chest, eyes narrowed in quiet fury—ten times more dangerous than an obvious bluster. “Sorry. I was in the bathroom.”

In response, Ruben backhanded me across the face.

Twenty-Five

I stumbled backward and grabbed the back of a chair to keep from falling. Pain exploded in my cheek. But I clenched my teeth and cursed beneath my breath to keep from alerting Cam. “Motherfucker!” I lifted one hand to my face to find it flaming against my cool palm.

Ruben stepped inside and pushed the door closed, then met my gaze with infuriating calm, as if hitting me sent him to his mental happy place.

Bastard.

My mental happy place involved him, ropes, nudity, honey and a massive nest of fire ants.

“Why didn’t you answer my calls?”

I stomped into the kitchen and he followed while I loaded ice into the center of a clean hand towel. “Regrettably, I am no longer in possession of my phone.” I twisted the bulk of the towel around the ice and pressed it to my cheek, but that only made the throbbing worse. “How many times did you call before you figured out I wasn’t going to answer?” Taunting him wouldn’t help anything, and it wasn’t as satisfying as hitting him back. But it was a close second. “Ten?” His scowl deepened, and my smile grew in direct proportion. “Fifteen? Twenty? Did you call me twenty times, Ruben? You know that makes you look desperate, right?”

He stepped closer. “Are you trying to piss me off?”

“Every girl needs a hobby.” I tried to step around him, but he grabbed my arm and pushed me into the countertop, standing so close our bodies touched from knee to chest, and I could feel the fury radiating off him like a fever.