Catarina swept past them like a queen. She’d been raised in Rafe Cordeau’s home. All those years growing up his soldiers had treated her differently than they had other women. She’d learned to be composed at all times and that composure saved her now.

She swept by the desks without looking at any of them. Glancing at the exit sign above a stairwell, she headed for that, ignoring the elevators. She had an aversion to elevators, and she needed to move anyway. Her gaze swept the offices and she stopped dead. Froze. Everything in her stilled.

She found herself staring into golden eyes. He was watching her through the glass. Ridley Cromer. Her Ridley. Dressed as he’d been the night before when he’d laid in her bed. When he’d kissed her. A kiss she’d asked him for. When she laid her soul bare before him. When she’d trusted him.

She couldn’t move for a moment. She couldn’t think. Her stomach heaved and she found herself vomiting all over the floor. She didn’t care. Nothing mattered. Along with his faded blue jeans and tight tee, he wore a badge. A big, fat shiny badge.

The sense of betrayal, the hurt, was worse than when her mother had sold her to Rafe. Something inside her shattered, broke apart. She felt it go. She felt the knife twisting in her heart. She’d let him in. She’d trusted him. She’d given everything she could to him. She would have traded her life for his.

She vomited again and wiped her mouth after she spit several times, and then she tossed the cell phone and Tuttle’s card right in the middle of the vomit. Let the DEA deal with that. Silence surrounded her, but in her head, she could hear screaming. Raw, terrible screaming that rose up like a wail from the dead. She hadn’t known another human being could hurt her so deeply.

She sensed movement and she turned and walked straight for the stairs. She didn’t run. She refused to give him that satisfaction.

Behind her, she heard Ridley’s voice. “She can’t leave. What the hell, Frank? She needs to be in protective custody. You know he’ll kill her. And what happened to her face? Her wrists? Damn it, I’m fucking going to kill you with my bare hands.”

She let the door swing closed behind her and then she ran, taking the stairs two at a time, and then three. She was fast, faster than she’d ever been as if that being inside of her aided her now, aided her when she was no longer Catarina. Ridley had torn out her guts. Her heart. He’d left nothing at all but an empty shell.

“Cat. Stop.”

She heard his voice and it only spurred her onward. She burst from the building and ran to the line of taxis at the end of the street. She had no money with her, but hopefully the police had left her stash behind. She could barely speak to give the driver the address. God. God. She’d been such a fool.

There was no way his name was Ridley Cromer. She should have known he wouldn’t be interested in a woman who had never been kissed in her life. She’d said it herself, he was a player, and he’d played her beautifully. She’d kissed a man for the first time and she didn’t even know his real name.

He had to have disconnected her security system. He’d taken her gun. He’d left her defenseless. He had tried to get information about Rafe from her, and when his gentle probing didn’t work, he’d told the others she was going to run. She buried her face in her hands and kept breathing in and out. She had to keep breathing to keep the terrible black void inside of her from swallowing her.

For the first time in her life she wished she were back with Rafe. He’d never lied, not once. He’d never tried to use her own emotions against her. He didn’t hide who he was or what he was. She didn’t know how to think. Or function. She didn’t know how to be Catarina anymore.

6

THE moment Catarina paid the driver and returned to the warehouse, she realized the front door was intact. Ridley knew the combination to get in. He’d observed her unlocking the door many times, and he must have given it to the police so that they made no noise on entry.

Pressure built and built in her chest. So much pressure. Her heart hurt. Her soul hurt. Her eyes burned and her throat swelled. She heard screaming. Real screaming. Raw. Vocal cord–shredding screaming. She screamed for her dead mother. For April and her family. For Marcel who had slapped her face. For the terrible price she’d paid for trying to escape when she was seventeen.

Mostly she screamed to try to find a release from the terrible hurt that cut through her like a knife. She found herself on her knees, her throat so raw she was afraid it was bleeding. She crawled through the darkness to her bedroom on her hands and knees with the vague idea she’d gather her clothes and leave.

She knew she was in shock, her body refusing to function, when she couldn’t find the strength or desire to push herself from the floor and get to work. She crawled to the corner and wedged herself there, drew up her knees and wrapped both arms around them, rocking back and forth. And she wept.

The tears weren’t silent at all – they were full body-wracking sobs – soul-wrenching, agonizing sobs. It hurt to cry. Her abused throat protested¸ swelling so that she had to cough between the choking cries. She couldn’t stop once she’d started. She had twenty-one years worth of tears to cry and she shed them all.

Eli Perez slipped into the warehouse. The moment he pushed open the door he heard her. The screams dying away to be replaced by a woman crying. He couldn’t even call it crying. He had never heard such anguished screams or such broken-hearted, soul-destroying sobbing. He had caused that. There was no doubt in his mind.