Cadillac Payback: Rising Tide by AJ Elmore (the false prince .TXT) 📕

the control I just praised her for slips, and her eyes slide over me. She checks herself just as quickly, turns away as I swing my feet to the floor, and sit up.

For the second morning in a row, I'm waking up in her apartment.

She pads toward her kitchen as I collect myself. I have to do some checking of my own, mainly my cock, as it stirs to answer the momentary heat in her gaze.

I can smell coffee. I check my phone. It's 10:03 am, and I have seven texts from Carrie. Shit. I was supposed to meet her for drinks last night. I completely forgot.

I click the screen off and leave the phone on the coffee table with my shirt. When I find my way to the kitchen, she's stirring cream into two cups of brew. She carries them to the kitchen table, where her bowl sits, half-smoked.

I follow her silent lead, and take the seat where this new twist between us began. She offers me the bowl. It's Sunday, a day Abuela observes as one of rest, when she attends Mass. Members of her house aren't expected to work on Sunday, though if they choose to it's not frowned upon. I accept.

As I spark the lighter, my thoughts skip to Freddy. It's his first day on the new job. Apparently Mateo doesn't honor the sanctity of the Lord's day. I inhale, and pretend I don't recognize the troubled crease in Maria's expression. Sucks to be Freddy.

I pass the bowl. She stares at it for a long time, and she doesn't lift her eyes when she says, “Why are you here?”

She doesn't remember. She was too far gone by the time I showed up. I could tell her anything.

“I came to make sure you were OK.”

Now her eyes find mine. I see the same suspicion she tried on me last night, except this time, it's clear. It's also weak, and it crumbles quickly. She looks to the pipe, to the flame she sets to the weed. She takes a long hit.

She quietly says, “I was fine.”

It's so completely ridiculous that I let the laugh that rises be heard. I say, “Sure, after a little broken glass, cussing me out, and elbowing me in the face, you were fine.”

Her eyes widen, and she still won't look at me. My tone was a little harder than I meant it to be, but I won't try to take it back. She needs to hear it.

“I'm sorry,” she whispers.

The sadness that crouched on her last night is heavy in her words. I take the bowl from her slowly, letting our hands brush. It's a play for her attention, and it works. She watches our skin connect, and she doesn't pull away. She follows the bowl's progress to my lips, and finally looks me in the eye.

Before I hit it, I tell her, “It's OK. You owe me one, though.”

I smirk. Her suspicion returns.

“Is that so?” she asks.

She takes a contemplative drink of coffee, and the meek, confused girl is gone. Her gears are turning. She's trying to figure out what I'm up to. The calculation that takes her reminds me of the way she owns a meeting, the way she can tell if someone is bullshitting her. The way she shows no mercy.

I nod once, exhale, and wait. She's stubborn enough that I wouldn't be surprised if she waited me out, but her curiosity – at least I think it's curiosity – wins in the end.

“What exactly do you propose?” she asks, and I wonder what her pride tastes like going down.

This strange game, it wasn't the plan. Hell, I didn't have a plan. I didn't want to play, but I'm a moth to her flame. And how could I forget how she likes to succumb.

I hit the bowl again, lazily, well aware that she's watching me. Surely she knows I'm drawing it out on purpose. Her composure doesn't break, though. She waits.

So I give her a show, blowing the smoke at the ceiling as I relax against her kitchen chair. I flash the smile at her that has melted the resolve of the coldest debutante, and shrug.

“Take the day off. Come with me,” I say.

She gives me a frown. Perhaps she thought I was about to suggest a morning romp, which isn't a bad idea, but it'd be too easy.

“What? Where?” she asks sharply.

“You'll find out,” I answer, with a wink.

Chapter 18 Run for the Money

Frederick

Mateo's office – my new headquarters – is Uptown, just a few blocks away from Tulane, in a moderately-sized apartment building. The student traffic from the schools nearby is plenty to cover the presence of a cartel security team. Most of us can blend with the young crowd, and though I can't stand most college kids, it's worth it to fade into the streams of “to and from class.”

I'm in what would be the living room if we were actually students. Instead, it's an office, a big desk, filing cabinets, the whole nine. There's a ledger open in front of me, but I'm staring out the window. I'm supposed to be familiarizing myself with the teams I'm now responsible for, and the details they run.

All I keep thinking is that Abuela has stitched me into the heart of her world. It beats steadily against my usual focus, and soon enough my veins will pulse with cartel blood.

Mateo is in one of the back rooms, doing fuck all as far as I'm concerned. He wasn't very chatty when I got here, and he didn't bother to give me his fake smile. He gave me a brisk tour, and pointed me to the books.

The books. The key to every operation that we currently have running. What the fuck is Abuela doing by putting this power in my hands?

Every different division has to rely on, and work with certain others. It's how the machine