Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 80139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Even from the grave, she’s still offering me assistance.
The knife must have dislodged when Señora fell.
I close my fingers around the handle.
Zabala sees it too late. He lunges for my wrist.
I turn with him, using his momentum, and drive the blade upward.
Into his throat.
A gurgling sound leaves him that I’ll hear for the rest of my life.
His eyes go wide.
His hands fly to his neck, but the knife is already buried deep. Blood pulses between his fingers.
I shove him off me.
He collapses onto his side, choking.
I stagger backward on my hands, chest heaving, throat burning, jaw throbbing.
Zabala reaches for me.
Or maybe for the gun.
Or maybe for nothing at all.
His legs kick once. Twice.
Blood spreads across the porch.
His eyes are wide. His mouth moves.
No words.
Just blood.
Then he’s gone.
Blood.
Blood on my hands.
Not a little.
Not someone else’s splatter from a beating.
This is mine.
I killed him.
The thought arrives muddled.
Not because I don’t understand what happened.
I’ve hurt men before. Badly. I’ve delivered prisoners to people who will hurt them worse. I’ve stood guard while others screamed. I’ve followed orders that made me complicit in things decent men would spend their lives trying to forget.
But I’ve always kept one line untouched.
Never have I killed a man with my own hands.
Until now.
Zabala’s blood moves toward the edge of the porch in a dark stream.
I look back through the open doorway.
Señora Valentina lies where she fell.
Everything inside me caves in.
I scramble to her, slipping once on blood, mine or his or hers, I don’t know. I drop to my knees beside her.
“Señora,” I say.
I press my hands to her chest, to the wound, as if pressure can undo what’s already done.
“No. No, no, no.” I lean over her. “Stay with me.”
Her eyes are half-open.
Not seeing me.
“Please,” I whisper.
The word feels childish.
Please don’t leave.
Please wake up.
Please be stronger than bullets.
She’s gone.
But at least Zabala’s gone too.
I killed one of Vega’s men. Vega will hear. Adriana will hear. If they were hunting me before, now they’ll burn the world to find me.
This is the final nail.
My coffin closing.
And somewhere in the house, Robin is hiding. What will she see when she looks at me now? Knowing that I’ve killed? Knowing that my actions directly led to Señora Valentina’s death?
Will she still want to help me?
Because if she doesn’t, I’m a dead man walking.
33
ROBIN
I’m folded inside an armoire that smells like cedar and sex.
My knees are pressed to my chest. My shoulder is shoved against a row of dresses. Esmeralda is beside me, one trembling hand clamped over her mouth, the other gripping my wrist so tightly my fingers are starting to tingle.
Neither of us moves.
Neither of us breathes much either.
The armoire is ridiculously beautiful—carved dark wood with curling vines and flowers etched into the doors. In another life, I might have admired it. I might have run my fingers over the craftsmanship and haggled with its owner.
But in this life, the one I apparently live in now, I’m hiding inside it clutching the hand of a prostitute who predicted my death only hours ago.
My stomach turns.
We heard the shot.
Of course we heard the shot.
One second, Cruz told me to hide. The next, the whole house cracked open with the sound of gunfire.
I took the stairwell as he commanded. I obeyed without question, even though a big part of me wanted to stay with him.
I made it out of the sitting room and almost crashed into Esmeralda in the hallway. Her eyes were huge. She had come running from the kitchen.
“What’s happening?” she whispered.
I grabbed her arm. “Hide.”
“Mercedes—”
“Where is she?”
“She went back upstairs.”
“We’ll tell her when we get up there. We’ll tell her to hide. Are there any others here?”
She nodded. “Upstairs.”
Another crash came from downstairs.
A man’s shout.
Cruz’s voice.
Something heavy hitting wood.
“There’s no time to tell the others.” Esmeralda pulled me into what I assumed is her room. “They’ll hear the guns. They’ll hide.” She pushed me toward the armoire. “In.”
I went.
Now here we are.
Hidden like children.
I hate it.
I hate every second of it.
A loud thud echoes from somewhere below. Esmeralda flinches so hard her shoulder knocks into mine. I squeeze her wrist, even though I have no comfort to offer.
My own pulse is screaming.
I try to listen past it.
Footsteps?
Voices?
Another gunshot?
Nothing.
Then something worse.
Silence.
The kind that comes when everyone is too afraid to move.
Esmeralda’s breath shakes. Tears slide down her cheeks, but she makes no sound.
I think about Señora Valentina’s voice in the kitchen.
You are safe in this house.
God.
I close my eyes.
No.
Not now.
I can’t fall apart in an armoire. I can’t let my mind take me somewhere else. Not Romania. Not Adriana’s house. Not the cell. Not any of the places where I was helpless.
I need to stay here.
In this room.
In this body.
In this horrible moment.
A floorboard creaks outside the bedroom.
Esmeralda’s nails dig into my wrist.
I open my eyes.
Another creak.
Someone is in the hall.