Chapter 43

I didn't want to leave her. But I had just a few hours to finalize the plan. Yesterday, when Richard had agreed on where to meet him for the exchange, my guys and I, as well as Mathias and his team, had gone to scope out the grounds, see where we would come in from and decide where we would position shooters to make sure we were covered. We didn't trust Richard when he vowed for a peaceful exchange. That wasn't his style.

I met the men I had hired, and we spent hours planning in a hotel room. I then headed to Mathias's shop. It was an unassuming location, one story, a bit dingy, with jewelry cabinets and disinterested workers. The place had always been mostly empty every time I had gone.

Mathias was sitting behind his dark-oak desk, smoking what I imagined was his twentieth cigarette of the day. He wasn"t a man that gave the impression of being a criminal. He dressed in business-casual clothing and had a warm smile.

Richard had a similar look to him. Many took him for a kind man, but I knew better. I knew the darkness that laid behind his eyes. I saw the deep lines across his forehead that so many took for worry lines. I saw the fire in his eyes when he wanted something.

Thankfully, Mathias and I had grown to find common ground in our mutual hatred for Richard. Mathias also realized that, although I wasn"t part of his world, I had all the experience needed to manage it and all the funds required to exert power when needed. And he respected that.

"How did it go?"

"Good, all set on my end. The teams are coordinating to make sure we are covered on the grounds tomorrow."

"Great. Are you coming?"

"I am." Mathias sighed.

"You know, you don't have to. I can make sure the exchange is made with minimal casualties. I need her alive as well."

"No. I get that, but there is no way in hell I'm not going. She is staying by my side until the very last minute."

Mathias hesitated and shook his head.

"You don't think he will recognize you?"

"I don't intend to get close."

"Yes, but who knows what could happen?" He pushed.

"If I get exposed, I'll deal with it. But she's either going with me, or the deal is off."

"Alejandro, mira, I'm the one who calls the shots here."

"Not when it comes to Amelia's safety you don't. I thought I had made that clear." We stared at each other in silence for a while.

"Fine," said Mathias as he shook his head. He walked to the back of the room and poured us each a glass of scotch. We drank them in silence, preparing for what was to come.

Once we agreed on the final details, I drove back as fast as I could to the beach house, the sun already setting. We didn't have a lot of time.

I arranged for Amelia and Richard to be followed once she was with him. I also planned on giving her back the bracelet that broke when she fell in the pool. I'd had it fixed, but I also had someone add a tracker in it so I would know where she was at all times.

The thought that I had to hand her back to this fucking criminal, that I had to let her go with him, drove me fucking nuts. I hit the steering wheel with my fist as hard as I could to take the pain away.

"Fuck!" I screamed, feeling impotent.

It had taken everything I had in me to stay calm when I saw the news on my phone while on the plane ride back to Mexico the other day. Amelia had somehow convinced Elena to help her let the world know she was still alive, forcing Richard's hand. It was a brilliant idea. But it broke me. I didn't know what to make of it.

Amelia had set it all up—that I knew. Elena was great, but this ten-step process had Amelia's name written all over it. Neither of them denied it either.

It wrecked me, thinking that, after all that we shared, it had been so easy for her to throw it away.

Our time together hadn't been enough to make her walk away from her previous life—a life without me, without us.

I couldn't blame her. After all, she spent months thinking I was a criminal, while I had more time to see the real her, to fall for her. And now she was slipping through my fingers. I was grasping onto what I could, but I was failing.

What gave me a sliver of hope were those tears I couldn't handle. It was the fact that she didn"t escape when she had the chance. It was the way she had looked at me. The way she asked me to make love to her last night. The way she rode me like she wanted to engrave every second of us in her brain.

I wasn't going to give up, not now that I knew what it was to live. Life without her would be a death sentence. I had no interest in that.

This mess had to end, she wasn't wrong in that. But that didn't mean there would be an end to us. This would be a new beginning—with Richard behind bars and Amelia free. I just had to make sure that when she got her life together, she still wanted me to be in it.