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IGNACIO

“ H ey,” I murmur, pulling her up so I can snuggle better. My finger catches the tear trailing down her cheek. “Now that they’re gone, there’s no pressure here.”

Liliana resets the house alarm from her phone before nodding.

“I’m hungry, and am really feeling like tacos al pastor. Will you two hang out with me in the kitchen?” she asks tentatively.

Fuck me, that was effortless. Here I was worried about how to ask her if she was hungry, and Lili just shifted the spotlight off Rachelle. I would have messed that up completely.

“I would love to,” Rachelle murmurs with a nod.

Helping her up so she doesn’t crush anything sensitive with her movements, I get up as well.

“Can I ask how you got out of prison?” she asks as I follow them through the house. “Wow, Lili. This place is beautiful.”

“I’ve been in a really bad headspace, and this was how Mr. Emil and my dad chose to get me out of it,” Liliana admits. “It’s really safe.”

“I love everything about it,” Rachelle gushes before her gaze moves to me.

Well, here goes nothing.

“Prison was a self-imposed punishment for me,” I confess. “I refused to let my dad help, and I went with the flow of the court proceedings. There was a disgusting amount of self pity.”

“If you didn’t have to go, you shouldn’t have,” Rachelle says mildly. “Lili needed you.”

“And we both need you,” Liliana adds. “It’s the three of us or bust.”

As much as Lili and I have been enjoying our reunion, she’s right. We need Rachelle. She softens our edges.

“My head was all fucked up,” I admit. “Liliana wrote me letters, never letting me believe I was alone. I didn’t know what to write to her. Prison was hell, and I had to learn the rules. Solitary confinement was welcomed because I got to dream about a world that had both of you in it.”

Rachelle sits at the island, while I lean against it as Liliana gets to work.

“You were gone, and I felt like I didn’t do enough to save you,” I sigh. As Rachelle’s lips open, I shake my head. “We should have stayed in the safe room at Liliana’s.”

“And we can’t play ‘shoulda, woulda, coulda,’” Liliana reminds me.

Yeah, I guess.

“Anyway, I ended up in solitary confinement, only to find that I was getting let out early,” I tell Rachelle.

Liliana loudly closed a cabinet door before glaring at me, and Rachelle’s lips twitch as she glances at me.

“Do you think that you possibly skated over something there, hot stuff?” she asks with a giggle. “Nacio, you said that so fast, I’m certain you’re forgetting to tell me something.”

“Alright, alright. There’s so much more.

I may have wanted to punish myself for letting you die when I went in, but it only took a year for me to realize my mistake.

While I wasn’t sentenced to death because that wasn’t an option in Oregon, I was looking at life in prison.

I missed my life,” I admit. “I started to think about how Liliana was going to move on one day, and it made me scared to open her letters.”

Liliana makes a strangled sound as she cooks, but doesn’t say a word, while Rachelle puts her hand on mine and waits.

“I went into the exercise yard the day I went into solitary confinement, not expecting to see someone I know by his photo,” I say. “Rachelle, it was Colton.”

Her eyes widen as her lips part in surprise. “God, so much has happened, I’ve been lucky to think less about him,” she says. “What happened?”

“I began to stalk him,” I rasp. “There was no way in hell he was going to live in the same prison cell block as me and I wasn’t going to take my shot at him.

Somehow, I never saw him until that day.

I was pretty in my head, to be fair, but once I saw him, I knew that he was dead.

My cellmate realized that I was hyperfixating, and offered to help with a riot he was already in the process of initiating.

Colton Baal is dead. There’s no coming back from cellmates trying to kick your head off your shoulders like a soccer ball. ”

“Holy shit,” Rachelle breathes. “That’s… is it morbid to say thank you?”

“No thanks needed, querida,” I say, smirking. “I needed to know that he was dead. As cliche as shivs are, that’s what I buried into his throat.”

“You just became five times hotter,” Liliana teases me as she begins to heat up the tortillas. I can see the meat is almost ready as well. Fuck, I wasn’t hungry before but I am now.

She even made homemade salsa last night. Granted, we ate at least half of it with chips, but that’s neither here nor there.

“Well thanks, I think?” I ask, chuckling.

Lifting Rachelle from her chair, I settle her on the counter facing me.

“You’re all muscles now,” she murmurs, letting her fingers ghost up my arms.

“Mmhmm,” I murmur.

“You may as well kiss her so I can next,” Liliana teases me, grabbing plates. “No, don’t come help me.”

My body was already shifting and I pout at her before my hands cup Rachelle’s face.

“Can I kiss you?” I ask.

“I think you’d better,” she says softly.

My lips cover hers before I can think to move, and I’m devouring her.

She tastes like sin and innocence, and her hands tighten around my arms as she moans.

My tongue pushes between her lips, swiping along hers, my hand grabs her ass to push her right against my erection, and I groan at how her legs wrap around my waist.

“As much as I endorse porn, I don’t think that the island would survive it,” Liliana says, snickering.

I’m breathing hard as I pull back. Rachelle’s cheeks are pink, her face trying to follow before she opens her eyes and blushes even deeper. Lifting her off the counter, I place her in the seat before presenting the picture of innocence to Liliana.

It feels as if Rachelle is just stepping into the place she’s always been meant to fill. I know there’s work to be done between us all, history to discuss, but that can all happen later. None of the above things are anything that can hurt Rachelle.

It can wait.

“ No tienes nada de inocente ,” Liliana says about my supposed innocence. “Grab the salsa please and a spoon.”

Moving at her will, I sit back down to see her and Rachelle excitedly building their tacos. Popping open the salsa, I smirk as I begin to do the same.

“What’s the one thing that you’re excited about being out of prison?” Rachelle asks, taking a bite of her taco. It’s a healthy bite, one that has her eyes fluttering closed as she moans.

It helps my heart settle, hoping that she hasn’t been punishing herself by restricting her food intake. Rachelle enjoys eating, maybe all her anxiety and depression truly kept her from wanting to eat. I’ll need to watch to make sure.

“No schedule,” I say to her. “No one telling me what to do, soft blankets, being able to sleep without the lights on. That all pales in comparison to being able to see the people I love though.”

Rachelle’s smile is open and sweet, with a few tears as she nods.

“What do you do at home?” Liliana asks. “Mr. Emil is very bossy. If he shipped me off to college, I can only imagine that he’d insist that you finish school.”

“I did online school to finish,” Rachelle says. “I’m in online classes for college now. It fills my time, but it all feels empty a lot of the time. I haven’t felt like there’s a point outside of ticking off boxes on a list.”

“Is there an actual list or is this made up?” I ask her, moaning as I finish my taco.

Rachelle and Liliana’s eyes heat, and I don’t think I’ve ever realized how sexual eating could be.

“It’s kind of both,” she says, taking a sip of water from the bottle she brought in.

The salsa has a kick, so I get up to get glasses filled for Liliana and I.

“My therapist and I created one to keep me connected to the world. It’s harder to check out when leaving is difficult. The other is for me.”

“Can I ask what’s on your list?” I ask, setting the full glasses on the island as I sit down.

“They’re things I will probably never do,” she says ruefully.

“Like?” Liliana asks, brow raised.

“Have sex,” Rachelle says as I take a sip of water.

Accidentally inhaling in surprise, I begin to cough. She winces, getting up to rub my back.

“I’m okay,” I wheeze. “‘Have sex’ is on your list?”

Shit, so much has changed in the last years, while others stay the same.

“I mean, who was I going to sleep with?” she teases me.

“You have a very valid point,” I growl as she sits again.

“I know,” she purrs, wrapping her lips around her straw as she sucks down her water. Her plate is empty, as are mine and Liliana’s. “Tarot card reading in person was one of my items. I got to do that at Cellie’s Mystics yesterday. There’s a few other odds and ends too.”

“What’s on your therapist’s list?” I ask. “Is everyone done?”

Lili and Rachelle nod, and I begin to clear plates and put food away. I’ve learned where things are while living here, and Rachelle’s eyes follow me with a small smile. Anyone else would be jealous, yet she doesn’t seem to be.

“My therapist’s list surrounds getting out of the house. I don’t think jumping to the fire escape was quite what he wanted,” Rachelle says drolly.

Liliana’s phone chimes, and she glances at it before rolling her eyes.

“Jared says that your window is locked and your door is now fixed and locked,” she says. “He also says that your neighbors are nosy and almost called the cops on them.”

“They’re all senior citizens or people with kids,” Rachelle says. “I’m sure they scared them with how loud they were.”

“I’m glad Nacio caught you instead of me having to start shooting the guys in the middle of Montecito,” Lili says with a smirk. “I did manage to smack one of them over the head as I passed them.”

Food put away, I begin to wash dishes as I think about that.

“I followed the guy who made the drop until he disappeared into a black van. I took a photo of the license plate, but I doubt that’ll lead to anything,” I say to Lili.

At Rachelle’s curious look I add, “Dad has Liliana here because there’s a pretty serious drug problem he wants cleaned up.

He thought it was his men that were involved, but it’s appearing as if it’s not. ”

“I got roofied with a stick of gum,” Liliana grumbles. “I went to Brothers Speakeasy, which is the club behind the shop you work at, and on my way out I took an offered piece of gum from a girl in the bathroom. I feel as if this is personal now.”

“Gum?” Rachelle breathes. “Yet another reason the world scares the shit out of me.”

I wince because while the world is scary, she should still experience it. I can’t even promise to protect her from it all, because of how epically I failed her last time. Putting the dishes away after drying them, I stand there methodically drying my hands.

Rachelle and Liliana are staring hard at me, and a smile pulls at my lips.

“What? Do I have something on my face?” I ask, chuckling softly.

“It’s unfair how hot you look doing dishes,” Rachelle practically purrs.

“That,” Liliana sighs happily. “He grew up well, baby.”

She pretends to dry a few tears as I bark out a laugh and hang up the towel.

“That’s funny,” I say. “Why don’t you show Rachelle the house, starting with your bedroom. I think we have some unfinished business to continue.”

Liliana grabs her hand and they hop off the stools to take off together.

“Ready or not, here I come!” I yell, running after them.

“I hear a lot of promises!” Rachelle squeaks breathlessly.

Oh, that’s cute. I can’t wait to make her scream for me.