Crazy Enough

Crazy Enough: Chapter 10

"One?" he asked in disbelief, not noticing her hand on his chest. "Are you a lightweight?"

"Of course not," she protested weakly, curling her fingers into his shirt. Up went the contents of her stomach, and she swallowed it back down.

"You were in there all night," he reminded her, as if she had completely forgotten that little sin of his. "Are you sure it was just one bottle?"

"Yeah...I think," she said and swallowed again. That time, she tasted chilies and salted plums, and it wasn't as great coming up as it had been going down.

"Are you going to be sick?"

She batted her eyelashes, and not in the flirtatious way. Her head began to droop as her stomach rose again, and that was never good. "Yes."

"Shit," he muttered, picked her up like a child and rushed her to the bathroom. He set her down just in time, and as she expelled her late-night snack, he kept her hair away from her face and rubbed gentle circles down her back. "What am I going to do with you?" he asked in a tender voice.

"You can...give...me back...my pictures," she answered between heaves. And he chuckled.

"I really wish you'd understand where I'm coming from," he said, still soothing her. "Even if all you wanted were the pictures of Sultanovich, I can't allow you to publish them anywhere. Government agencies all over the world will want to know why a dead man was in Mexico, and word will get around about that secret meeting. I'm this close to taking down Espinoza. If you print anything, then he'll get spooked, and I'm back to square one. And you'll put me and everyone involved in this in mortal danger. Do you want that?"

Corkie's stomach finally felt hollow enough for her to sit back and rest. Alex handed her a small wet towel and she wiped her mouth. "What was really going on down in that valley, Alex? I swear all I was told was that Niro was supposed to be there."

He shook his head and let out an exhausted breath. "I can't tell you. The fact that you knew what you did worries me. It took me months to get the intel on that meeting. I can't give you anymore information, I can't give you those pictures back, and you have to promise that you won't say a word to anyone about this."

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall. This wasn't working out the way she hoped. There was no changing his mind.

"Corkie," he said quietly, getting down his knees in front of her. "I need you to trust me on this."

"You don't trust me," she said from behind her eyelids. "So any promise I give you won't be taken seriously."

"Nińa, please," he said.

She looked at him. "I won't make that promise."

"Why?!"

"Because those photos are my job!"

"That man is not Niro Sultanovich!" Alex roared as he shot to his feet. "He's dead, nińa!"

Corkie stood up, too, using the wall to support her. "You say you've been working on Espinoza for one year...well, I've been working on the Sultanoviches for nearly ten. In my line of work, they are my insignia. I am known for my photos of that family. I have catalogued every freaking birth, death, marriage, divorce, scandal, crime and secret that family owns for the past decade. The only thing that ever got by me was Niro's fake death. And now I find out it was real, and this Niro is a fake, and I will not let someone else get a photo of him first!"

With his fists clenched tightly by his side, Alex's face turned to pure stone. His gray eyes were granite chips set menacingly in that stone, and he bent over and said, "Let me repeat, nińa...You. Can. Not. Have. Them. I'll burn that memory disk before I let you have it."