Page 74 of Jessica, Not Her Real Name

She sat stiffly in one of the chairs, her pulse quickening with every second that passed. Her eyes locked onto the reinforced door in the concrete cubicle beyond the glass. The air here was thick with disinfectant and desperation.

When the buzzer sounded, she nearly jolted out of her skin.

Daniel shuffled through the doorway, a guard close behind him.

Her breath caught in her throat.

He wore the standard-issue orange jumpsuit, but it wasn’t the uniform that made her stomach twist, it was the way he moved. Slow. Tense. Like an animal on a short chain, his hands balled into fists at his sides. Then she saw his face.

His left eye was bloodshot, the surrounding skin already darkening into an ugly bruise. A fresh cut split through his eyebrow, the same one that had already been scarred before. His bottom lip was cracked, a smear of dried blood catching in the scruff along his jaw.

Even battered, he was still the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

But he wasn’t looking at her. His gaze stayed pinned to the floor as the guard gave him a sharp shove toward the chair.

“Daniel,” she whispered, forgetting for a moment that the glass swallowed her words.

She pressed her hands against the cold barrier between them, as if she could somehow make it vanish, as if she could reach through and touch him. For all her longing, though, a sliver of hesitation coiled deep in her gut.

I know he would never hurt me.

Weck’s voice came slithering back.Honey, a woman can never know a thing like that. That’s the problem.

She forced herself to move, unhooking the phone from its cradle. She kept one hand against the glass. For a long moment, he simply stared at her palm.

Then, finally, he reached for the receiver on his side. His movements were sluggish, as if even this simple action drained him.

When he lifted it to his ear, she didn’t waste time.

“Sebastián got out of surgery a few hours ago. They say he’s going to be okay.”

The lie tasted bitter on her tongue, but it was all she had to give. They hadn’t said he’d be okay, only that he’d survived.

Daniel said nothing.

Her gaze drifted over his bruises again, then lower, to the cuts on his hands. Some were still raw, blood smudged against the ink on his knuckles. L-M-N-1-3.

How long before this place broke him? Or worse? Would his own people turn on him? Would he survive long enough to even stand trial?

He followed her line of sight and gave a wry, humorless smile. He lifted a hand, fingering his split lip. “Apparently, I don’t got a lot of friends in here.”

Her stomach twisted.

She leaned in, slow, cautious, as if he might bolt. Now was the time to make her pitch. Or rather, Weck’s pitch.

“The DEA doesn’t want you, Daniel. They want Terry. If you testify against him, they’ll cut you a deal. Protection. A fresh start somewhere new. Just like we always talked about?—”

“No.”

Desperation prickled beneath her skin. “If you don’t cooperate, they’ll throw everything at you. You’re looking at a life sentence.”

Still, he said nothing. He wouldn’t even look at her.

Julia clenched the phone tighter. She knew she should stick to the script, but the need to explain herself clawed at her. “They told me… They showed me what you did to Floyd. That you shot him. And then…”

The words dried up in her throat. Her vision blurred.

At last, his gaze snapped to hers, copper-green, sharp as broken glass. A fierceness she’d never seen before burned behind them.