Crazed: A Blood Money Novel by Edie Harris

Author:Edie Harris [Harris, Edie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Contemporary, Military, Romantic Suspense, Mystery & Suspense, Suspense
Publisher: Carina Press
Published: 2016-01-12T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

The chapel was unrecognizable.

He’d been stupid to expect he might come here and find a single piece of paper from four years ago somehow, miraculously, intact. As though his marriage certificate could have survived the blaze that had shelled out their wedding chapel.

The story of the chapel’s destruction and subsequent reconstruction was lovingly preserved on the unmarred white walls of the chapel’s foyer. Image after image of fire and rubble, hardworking crews, the funeral of the priest. More images still of Pipe meeting with an architect, digging the first hole for the new foundation, laying the cornerstone, being blessed by the new priest and thanked for the great generosity he’d shown this little church adjacent to his hacienda.

Before, it had been a crumbling, ancient-looking structure, overrun by greenery and attended by only a few locals for mass. That was the main reason Casey had chosen it as the site for his secret union with Ilda. Now, however, it was a picturesque monument to triumph over cartel violence, an indictment of what the Orras organization had done on this plot of land four years ago, by the proud bearing of Pipe’s colors—red and orange—on the plaque beside the front door:

Born Again on the Backs of Friends.

From his spot in a gleaming pew, Casey studied the pristine vaulted ceiling of the sanctuary, painted perfect white as with every other flat surface in the structure, clean wood beams shaping the interior like bones, a rib cage viewed from the inside. Behind the simple altar was an image of the Virgin Mary in her typical blue robes, a pink-and-gold crown of sun and stars glowing behind her head and a chubby infant swaddled in ivory cloth cradled gently in her arms. Lit candles flickered in front of the painting and on either side of a gilded box that no doubt served some purpose. Not that Casey knew what that purpose was, but Ilda could tell him, if he asked.

Sighing, he closed his eyes against the memories. Didn’t matter that nothing looked the same; the last time he’d been inside these walls, he had made desperate love to his new wife and believed wholeheartedly that their entire future was laid out before them, ripe for the picking. The universe must have laughed as it punished him for his foolish, naive hope.

She had been right to call him selfish yesterday. Her damning words had echoed in his mind for the rest of the day and well into the night, invading his dreams and greeting him upon waking. He’d been continuously smacked upside the head by the unexpected since stepping foot on Colombian soil, but instead of thinking like the trained tactician he was—looking at the bigger picture, examining the variables to understand how they’d affect the mission—he’d focused solely on what the new knowledge meant to him and him alone.

Before Ilda, he’d never experienced possessive need over a woman, and he certainly hadn’t felt it since. She remained unique to him, and years later, the animalistic urges growled louder than ever.

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