“My relationship with Eli is much newer,” Catarina said. She took a slow sip of iced tea and then raised the glass to her forehead. “We didn’t start out very well either. I was on the run from Rafe Cordeau. I was raised in his home, and he was waiting for my leopard to emerge. I had no idea I was leopard, but I knew whatever he wanted from me, I didn’t want to give him. So I ran.”

Siena didn’t know a lot about Cordeau, but she’d heard some of the rumors, and none of them had been good. She was beginning to think leopards had a penchant for living outside the law. And some of them were savage. Maybe most of them.

“Eli was undercover, and he . . .” Catarina took a breath. Clearly it still hurt. “He got close to me. Really close. I was falling in love with him even though I knew I shouldn’t. He was the first person I let in, and when I found out he was DEA I was devastated.”

Siena couldn’t imagine what that must have felt like. Catarina looked vulnerable and fragile all of a sudden. “The first time I ever had sex with Elijah, and it was my very first time at all, he threw me naked out his front door and said horrid things to me. Really, really humiliating and horrid things. I can’t think about it without it hurting.”

She blurted the truth out because she couldn’t stand the look on Catarina’s face. The naked pain there. She had to give something of herself to these two women who had opened up their friendship to include her. She mostly sat back while they talked. She enjoyed their company and wanted to be a part of their circle, but she didn’t know how. She clapped her hand over her mouth, stricken that she’d told them something so awful. She didn’t want them to think badly of Elijah.

Catarina’s eyes widened. “Naked? Threw you out?”

Siena nodded. “He thought I’d come there to distract him with sex so a hit man could sneak in and kill him.”

Emma burst out laughing. “You have got to be kidding me. Oh. My. God. That’s priceless. He must rock in bed or you wouldn’t have given him a second chance.”

“Well. He does sort of rock in bed,” Siena admitted. Elijah had said it was safe to talk to Catarina and Emma, that Eli and Jake worked with Drake Donovan. Still, she knew she had to be careful. She probably shouldn’t have mentioned the hit man but then she hadn’t planned to blurt all that out just to make Catarina feel better.

“Eli helped Elijah with that,” Catarina said, making her feel better without even realizing it. “He didn’t mention you to Eli.”