“I already told you Fernando Ruiz, the Hidalgo cartel leader, has been captured, tried, and convicted. I doubt Phil has any further association with the Hidalgo cartel. Still”—Thomas taps the pen against his thumb knuckle—“keep your eyes open. We have nothing but my gut telling me he tried to kill you and I have no idea what he’ll do when he gets out. He still doesn’t know you’re alive.”
James fist-bumps the door. “Jesus, Thomas, really? You were supposed to tell him.” James thought he would have time to visit Phil before he got out of prison. “Do you really think he’ll come after me again? What’s the point? Everything’s resolved. The Feds got their man and you got Phil in prison.”
“Phil will seek you out if you have something that implicates him in your attempted murder.”
“We don’t know if he, or anyone, for that matter, tried to kill me,” James points out. “I can’t remember a goddamn thing.”
“Nothing at all?”
“No.”
Thomas swears under his breath. “You’d tell me if you remembered something, right? Make sure you get in touch with me the second you do.”
James gives him a clipped nod. It might be important to Thomas, but to James, what happened, happened. He messed up, chasing after Phil without any sort of plan. He’d been furious Phil assaulted Aimee, disgusted Thomas showed no interest in stopping Phil’s laundering, and he was angry at how Phil planned to ruin the family. In the end, James failed everyone, especially Aimee.
He yanks open the door, a solid mahogany slab.
“James.”
He angles his head toward Thomas but doesn’t look at him.
“It’s good to have you home.”
James walks out of the office and quietly shuts the door behind him. He glances across the lobby, relieved to see his sons are still in the conference room. Boys Carlos didn’t trust James to raise.
CHAPTER 2
CARLOS
Five and a Half Years Ago
December 1
Puerto Escondido, Mexico
He lurked outside Casa del sol’s beach bar, that guy who came with Aimee. Ian, that was his name. Camera slung over his shoulder, he looked at me every so often. Why was he still here? He should have left with her.
Imelda Rodriguez, the hotel’s owner and the woman who posed as my sister, told me Aimee had flown home the day before, a few hours after I’d dropped her off at the hotel. The only reason I knew that was because I’d come by the hotel again this afternoon to deliver Imelda a clear message: Stay away from me and my sons. She was not my sister or their aunt. I didn’t want her in our lives. She’d schemed, she’d manipulated, she’d lied. All so she wouldn’t lose her hotel, of which she was behind on payments. Thomas Donato had paid her to keep up the fabricated life he created for me.
I still didn’t know why he felt the need to involve Imelda. And at the moment I didn’t give a flying crap about him. Sitting at the bar, I tossed back a shot of Patrón and swiped my mouth with the back of my hand.
Two days before, Imelda had confessed I was not Jaime Carlos Dominguez. My name was James Charles Donato and I’d been living in a dissociative fugue state for nineteen months and counting. Anytime, any day, anywhere, I could snap out of it. Boom! I’d be James again. The real me. When that happened, I’d lose every memory I’d had since that day I woke in the hospital to the whir of machines, tubes snaking from my arms, and the gagging stench of dried blood, antiseptic, and my own unwashed body. I didn’t have any idea who I was or where I was from. I didn’t have a single memory in my head but for that first one. That of a doctor looming over me and asking for my name.
When I would emerge from the fugue, I’d forget how much I had loved my deceased wife, Raquel, and my sons. I wouldn’t remember Julian’s hug when he learned I’d adopted him as my son, or recall the first time Marcus squeezed my finger and gave me a toothless smile.
I would forget who I was now. Jaime Carlos Dominguez.
For nineteen months I hadn’t been living a lie. I’d been a lie. A man with a false identity and no past.
As for my future, it seemed I might not have one. My brain would flip the switch from Carlos to James, and the man I was today would disappear tomorrow. And when I did, my sons would have a father who didn’t know them and might not want them.
¡Dios! What will happen to my sons?
I slammed back a few more shots and swallowed the tequila’s burn. I swore I intended to go home after seeing Imelda, but hell. I needed a drink, or two. I emptied another shot glass. Make that five.
The tequila knotted in my esophagus. I hissed through my teeth, pounding my sternum with a fist, then coughed.
I glanced at my watch. Good, I had some time to hang around before returning home. Natalya, my deceased wife’s half sister, was watching the boys. As a representative for her father’s business, Hayes Boards, she was in town for Puerto Escondido’s annual torneo de surf. She planned to leave this morning but given the nuclear bomb that went off this past weekend, she’d stay another week. I needed to deal with the fallout without worrying about who was caring for Julian and Marcus.
I needed another drink.
Pouring more shots, I emptied them in quick succession—one, two, three—striking the glass on the counter after each round. After downing my ninth shot, I stared at my reflection in the mirror behind the bar. Bloodshot eyes embedded in a face with three days’ growth on my jaw stared back at me. The mirror tilted.
“Whoa,” said the guy on the stool beside me. He pushed me back in my seat.
“Lo siento.” I leaned on my elbows and lowered my head into my hands.
“No worries, dude.” He clapped my sweat-drenched back. Sun-bleached hair fell over his brows. He tossed it back with the flip of his head and grinned.
“You’re done here, Carlos. I’m cutting you off, friend,” Pedro the bartender told me in Spanish. He swiped my glass off the bar and underhanded it into the sink, where it clattered against the other dirty glasses.
I snagged the bottle of Patrón, the finger of liquor left inside sloshing around, and stumbled off my stool. Pedro yelled at me as I left. I waved a hand behind my head. “Put it on my tab.”
I took a long step off the bar’s deck and dropped into the sand. The early evening sun scorched my face, temporarily blinding me. Squinting against the glare, I trudged across the sand, and sought refuge under the shade of a lone palm. It offered no reprieve from the dry heat.
Neither did the tequila, I thought, wiping the sweat off my forehead. I was still the guy with the fake name and doomed future. And I didn’t have an ounce of control over it.
Leaning back against the palm trunk, I gazed at the sun taking a dunk into the ocean’s horizon. Bile thickened in my throat, and my stomach gurgled in that unsettled I-have-to-vomit sort of way. I rubbed the front of my shirt and eyed the trash can nearby. A camera clicked.
I scowled at the photographer.
Ian lowered his camera, letting it hang from the strap over his shoulder. He used his hand as a visor, shading his face. “The lighting’s phenomenal. It was a good shot.”
I flipped him off.
He held up his hands, palms out. “Hey, I should have asked.”
“Forget about it.” I probably would. One day. I offered the near-empty bottle. “Drink?”
He grabbed the bottle’s neck, wiped the lip with his shirt, and drank. His lips spread thin over his teeth as the liquor’s sourness made its way to his stomach. He returned the bottle, now empty.
“Why are you still here?”
He clipped a cap on the lens. “Imelda’s looking up some information for me.”
I overhanded the Patrón into the nearest trash can and missed. It dropped into the sand. Shit. “I wouldn’t trust anything she tells you.”
“My situation is unrelated to yours.”
“You mean she hasn’t been paid to lie to you?” I pushed away from the tree and the horizon tilted.
“Steady, man.” Ian snagged my arm. He scooped up the Patrón and waved the bottle at me. “Did you drink the entire thing?” he asked, tossing it into the trash. It crashed onto a pile of empty Corona bottles left over from the torneo.