Love Beyond Words (City Lights, #1)(70)
David shook his head vigorously. “No, no, you won’t be doing that at all.” He tore at his hair in a sudden flash of fury. “You stupid bitch, why? Why did you have to show up? We were doing just fine without you!”
Without another word, Natalie moved toward her cell phone on the coffee table. From the corner of her eyes she saw a flap of coat and then a dark shape gripped in David’s hand. Time slowed down for an instant, reality became bent and twisted as she understood, before she turned to face him, that David had pulled a gun out of his pocket and was now training it on her.
She uttered a little shrieked and dropped to her knees beside the couch, huddled against it, one arm thrown over her head. “No, no, no, please, no…” Mind-numbing fear paralyzed her senses and she fought for breath. This isn’t happening. How can this be happening? “P-Please,” Natalie whimpered from under her arm. “Put the g-gun away…please.”
David behaved as though he hadn’t heard her. “You have to stop seeing him. You have to disappear out of his life? Do you get me?”
Natalie screamed as he brandished the gun over her, then prodded her in the shoulder with it.
“Say it! Say you’ll leave Julian alone!” he thundered, and with equal and alarming suddenness, he backed off and resumed pacing. “You don’t even know the problems you’ve caused, do you? No clue at all.”
Natalie peeked from behind her arm, gulping air to try to calm her racing heart. “David, please. I can’t…I can’t talk to you with the gun out. I can’t.” She began to cry, hands shaking and teeth chattering. “Please put it away…and I—we’ll talk. Please.”
David ceased his pacing and after a moment of deliberation, returned the gun to his pocket. “But I’m leaving my hand on it. If you try anything…”
Natalie bobbed her head, sobbing with relief. “I won’t. I swear it. Thank you. Thank you.”
“All right, get up,” David barked. “Get on the couch and listen because I’m not going to tell you this twice.”
Natalie crept slowly, her arms and legs so stiff with fear they could hardly bend, and moved from the side of the couch to the front and sat on one end. She hugged a pillow protectively to her. David moved his pacing so that he was in front of her, one hand shoved deep in his pocket that drooped with the weight of the gun.
“Here’s the deal. You aren’t going to see Julian anymore. Do you understand me? No more. Not ever again.”
“Why?”
“To keep him safe!” David roared and Natalie cowered behind her pillow. “Don’t you realize the danger you’ve put him in? All this talk of him naming himself? It’s all because of you! Before you, we were doing just fine. But now, everything’s all messed up and it’s all your fault.”
Natalie thought of the dividend check and the missing money. “The money…It’s about that money, isn’t it?”
“That’s none of your business. It was my business, but you just had to stick your nose up in it. didn’t you? I was doing my job. I was keeping Julian safe but now…”
“What do you mean? What have you done, David?”
“I didn’t mean to. I was drunk and I said some things I shouldn’t have. Some things I swore I would never say.”
“What are you talking about?”
“All I have is Julian.” The man looked as though he were about to cry; his breath hitched, on the verge of hysteria. “And after five years, I couldn’t…I couldn’t take it any more. A year ago I asked him if he felt the same…and he said no…” Tears spilled from beneath his glasses. “He said no, so I just started driving. I found a bar and I got drunk and I had no one to talk to but the bartender. And you’re supposed to be able to tell a bartender anything and it’s safe. Like confession. So I told the bartender how much I ...how much I appreciate Julian and what he’s done for me. And I kept talking and drinking and talking and drinking, and then I told him who Julian was. It just slipped out! But the bartender wasn’t supposed to know about Rafael Mendón, and he sure as hell wasn’t supposed to have read him! He wasn’t supposed to know he was reclusive; he wasn’t supposed to care. But he did. Goddammit, he did.”
He broke down. He stood, bent and sobbing in the middle of Natalie’s apartment, his tears mingling with the rainwater dripping from under his hairline.
Natalie set aside her pillow and held out her hands—still trembling. “David, it’s all right. I’m sure it’s not so bad as you think…”
David whirled on her, the gun in his hand again. The terror gripped Natalie all over again, and she cowered against the couch.
“This is why you’re so damned stupid! You don’t know! Those men? The bartender and his cousins or brothers or whoever they are? They are dangerous. And the only way to keep them off Julian is to pay them. But I don’t have any money. I have to give them Julian’s money. For his protection. I can’t let anything happen to Julian…And dammit, if I had just kept my stupid mouth shut! I tried. I tried another way to keep him safe, but no, no…You had to butt in again.”
“What do you mean, you tried ‘another way’?”
“I just wanted him home. Safe. So I could take care of him. That’s how it’s supposed to be.”