Page 17 of The Right Garza

I stare at her, burning with indignation, but bite my tongue. Doesn’t make sense blowing up at her at this point. It is what it is. She’s out from the clutches of the Castellos, alive and well, and that’s all that matters. Whatever she chooses to do after this is on her.

This is quite clearly the end of our relationship anyway. I can’t ever trust someone who would deliberately put my life in danger.

“I just want to make and save enough to go back home and start a business, you know?” she continues. “I want to open a spa.”

The kettle starts whistling and I switch it off. “That’s nice,” I say. But I’m done caring. A thought niggles at the back of my mind that maybe she did this on purpose, as a harebrained way of getting me to turn to Slim for help so we’d be forced to go back to working with him. But I honestly don’t want to believe she’s that dumb, so I push the thought away.

When I’m done with the sandwich and tea, I take them to the table.

She winces as she makes her way over. I don’t know Ellie’sreasonfor counting cards. She has never been open about her life. Most of us who worked with Slim had a reason—debt, college tuition, medical bills, or just plain greed. We’d all talked about our “whys” at some point or another, but never Ellie. She’s always been secretive and private and camera shy when it came to social media, opting for shots where she wasn’t looking at the camera.

It’s never bothered me before, but for some reason, it does now. Because as I watch her sit and take a bite of the sandwich, I realize that even though I’ve spent the last few years with her, living together, eating together, sleeping together, I do notknowwho this girl is. It’s a startling realization, to say the least.

That said, the guilt I felt about leaving her earlier is no longer there.

Instead, all I feel right now, surprisingly, isrelief.

~

By the timeTrent returns, I’ve fed Ellie, helped her with a bath, and given her pain meds. As disappointed as I am in her, I chose compassion. There’s no way I could just leave her to her own devices while she’s this bruised and battered, so I called Slim on her behalf and he agreed to come get her in the morning.

As Trent walks in, picks up my overstuffed suitcase like it weighs nothing, and walks out with it, Ellie whispers, “Just saying, now that I know he’s not here to kill me, yourfriendis really hot. Like out-of-this-world hot.”

“Is he?” I retort. “I might have noticed if I wasn’t blinded by the fact that I owe him damn near a hundred thousand dollars.”

“Will he take payment in sex?” she asks, biting her lip. “Because I wouldn’t mind making those payments.”

I roll my eyes. “Go sit your horny ass down and get some rest.” I pull up the handle of my suitcase. “I’ll text you when I get to L.A.”

As I start to leave, she lurches and throws her arms around me. “I’m going to miss you so much.”

“I’ll miss you, too.” I hug her back. “Just…just be careful with Slim, okay?”

“I will.”

Trent’s presence shadows the doorway just then. He gestures for me to give him my suitcase.

“It’s fine,” I tell him, “I can take it down.”

He ignores me and pries the handle from my grasp. Then he looks to Ellie. “You good? You got cash?”

“I-um—I think I—Just a li—”

Visibly impatient, he gets out his wallet, plucks out several hundred-dollar bills and thrust them toward her.

Um, what? I could use that eight hundred dollars!Who’s the one in debt here?

As Ellie shuffles forward and takes the cash, he tells her, “Make good choices.”

And then he all but drags me out of there.

~

“Ellie said youwere cold toward her,” I say once we’ve left the apartment complex and are out in Vegas’s night traffic.

“So?”

“So, she was coming out of being held hostage and abused, the least you could have done was show her a kind face.”