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)
“Robin.”
“Don’t.” I rise onto my toes and kiss him. Just a soft touching of our lips, but for a second, the basement around us disappears.
Everything disappears.
The blood.
The panic.
The dead woman upstairs.
The brother in the hospital.
The men coming to kill us.
All of it falls away.
Cruz doesn’t grab me. Doesn’t deepen the kiss.
That ruins me more than if he had pulled me against him.
I press my lips to his harder, parting them, because I need to know. I need to know what I’m walking away from. I need one true thing in a morning full of horror.
He tastes like coffee, blood, and grief.
I pull back before I can change my mind.
His eyes are closed.
“I’ll take Señora Valentina’s car to the embassy,” I say. “I saw the keys hanging in the kitchen.”
“No.”
“Fine. I’ll take the stolen car. You take Señora’s. I don’t give a shit.”
“Robin, I’m not letting you drive alone.”
“You don’t get to decide what I do.” I exhale sharply. “I don’t care which car I take. I’ll go to the embassy. I’ll tell them what happened here. I won’t say anything about you killing Zabala unless I have to.” I draw in breath, hold it for a moment. “And I won’t tell my family what you did to Eagle.”
“Rob—”
I hold up a hand.
“I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it because if my brothers find out, they’ll hunt you to the ends of the earth.” My voice steadies. “And I don’t want more blood. Not because of me. Because you rescued me, I’ll spare you that.”
He exhales slowly and pulls bills out of his pocket. “At least take these. It’s not much. Worth maybe a hundred US dollars.”
I nod and take them. “So this is what happens,” I say. “You go. You live honestly from this point on. You stay away from Vega. Away from Adriana. Away from my family. If you do that”—I close my eyes and run my hands through my hair—“you won’t face repercussions from the Bellamys. Not from me. Not through me, anyway.”
“You can’t promise what your brothers will do.”
“They won’t know.”
“And if they find out?”
“Then I guess you’d better make damn sure they don’t. I’ll do my part.”
I turn then, wearing socks and sweats that aren’t mine, and walk up the stairs.
36
CRUZ
I stand in the basement with blood on my hands and the taste of Robin’s final kiss still on my mouth, and I can’t move.
I don’t care.
Vega’s men are on their way. They can arrive anytime, and I can’t make my feet fucking move off this concrete floor.
She said her piece. She made her choice. She kissed me goodbye, and then she turned her back on me and left.
I let her.
What else could I do?
I’ve already done enough to her.
I fucked this up.
Not today.
Not when I told her about Eagle, though that was the moment I watched whatever fragile bridge we had built collapse.
Not when I took her from Texas.
Not even when I stood over her brother’s unconscious body and jabbed him with a needle full of drugs.
I fucked this up years ago.
The moment I let Vega take me under his wing.
No. That’s a lie.
The moment I wanted him to.
I was young, though.
Young and stupid.
Young and afraid.
Young enough to believe power was the same thing as safety. Stupid enough to mistake attention for salvation. Afraid enough that when a beautiful woman came to a brothel and told me a wealthy man knew my name, I let curiosity get the best of me.
Does that excuse everything I’ve done?
No.
Nothing excuses it.
Not my mother’s death. Not grief. Not poverty. Not Adriana’s touch on my cheek. Not Vega’s promises. Not the way he found me when I was half boy, half man, and taught me that following his orders made me respectable.
I’ve hurt people.
I’ve followed orders that should have made me run.
I’ve moved bodies, staged crimes, guarded prisoners, held my tongue while better men would have screamed.
But I never killed a man.
Until Zabala.
I look at my hands.
The blood is darker now, drying into the lines of my palms. Zabala’s. Señora V’s. Some of mine too. It all looks the same once it leaves the body.
I killed him.
I rammed a knife into his throat and watched the life leave his eyes.
Would Robin have done anything different?
The question rises before I can stop it, and I hate that I’m wondering.
If she had been in my place, fifteen and grieving, with nowhere to go except a house full of women the world spat on, and a man like Vega opened a door, would she have stepped through?
What if every honest road looked closed and every criminal road came paved with protection?
Would she have done better?
Would anyone?
I’m sixteen now.
My clothes are better. My shoes fit. I eat meat more often than not. I have my own room in one of Vega’s houses, a small one near the back with white walls and a locked drawer in the desk. I’m being educated, not in the way Mamá wanted, but in the way Vega values.