I change direction and head toward him, wishing I had that nail file to stab him in the eye. I know it wouldn’t kill him but I’m good with maiming him for life. For now, at least.
As I approach, he stops a passing waiter and takes two champagne flutes off his tray. He holds one out to me.
“There she is,” he says, a smile on his face. This man who just days ago was ready to pull the trigger and kill Noah and me. The man who executed Diego and Angel.
I want to slap that champagne out of his hands but when I’m close enough, he must see my intent, because he sets both glasses down and squares his shoulders to meet me.
“You look stunning,” he says, his eyes moving slowly over me, pausing at my breasts. “Your tits are practically on display, though.”
“You’re disgusting.”
He shrugs a shoulder. “You have a bad habit of attracting men who’ll do that to a woman. Make a whore of her. What does that say about you, I wonder?”
I step into his space. I’m only a few inches shorter than him and I make a point of looking him right in the eye. This bastard doesn’t scare me. Not anymore. I wonder when that happened. Maybe the day I became less afraid of dying than I did of living.
“I’m going to kill you one day, Uncle.”
He laughs outright. “I don’t think so.”
“When you least expect it, I’m going to drive a knife into your stomach and I’m going to twist slowly, so slowly, slicing all the way up to your heart so it lasts a long, long time. I’m going to watch your life slip away. I’m going to soak my hands in your blood.”
He laughs. It’s a nervous laugh, though. He was always a coward hiding behind my father. He’s not actually a blood relative. He married my aunt, my father’s sister, and took her last name in deference to my father.
“You’re not being very nice, Scarlett, when I was just sticking around to congratulate you. Boring, these fundraisers.”
“Congratulate me on what?”
“Your upcoming nuptials, of course. And here I thought Cristiano was just your rebound guy.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
He cocks his head to the side like he’s shocked. “Did I ruin the surprise? Hasn’t he asked yet? Well, proposed.” His face hardens. “You’ll do as you’re told. For the cartel. But then again, you did always like something hard between your legs. At least if you’re married, they won’t call you a whore anymore. I should warn you though,” he leans in close, “he’s probably expecting a virgin.”
I draw my arm back to slap him but before I can, a loud explosion goes off somewhere nearby. The ground beneath me shakes. The lights blink once, twice and the room goes dark.
Men and women scream, running haphazard around us.
My uncle grasps my arms hard. I stumble back, instinctively wanting to be away from him, but there’s a strange look on his face. I feel something warm on the skin of my chest, my face, as his hands fall away and he drops first to his knees, then completely prone on the ground.
I stare at him, watch blood pool around him. I look down at my arms. At the red that stains them.
Blood.
Blood again.
I wipe my face with the back of my hand.
A woman bumps into me and gunshots ring out, panic everywhere, and all I can do is look at my uncle on the floor. Then someone body slams me, knocking the air out of me and taking me to the ground.
“Stay down!” It’s Cristiano, his full weight on me making it hard to breathe. Machine gun fire ricochets all around us.
I crane my neck to look at him and see he’s got a pistol in his hand. It’s deadly but it’s not a machine gun. More bullets shatter what glass remains as Cristiano points to a door.
“We’re moving,” he says over the noise, and simultaneously gets to his feet. He bends to keep low creating a cocoon around me as we rush toward that door.
Bullets whip by. Cristiano lets out a grunt, his step faltering only momentarily but an instant later, cold air assaults me. I realize one shoe is gone when I step onto gravelly pavement. Alec takes hold of me and two men flank him, all with heavy weapons drawn.
“What’s happening?” I scream to Cristiano. It’s loud out here, sirens blaring, people screaming, the blades of a chopper not too far away.
“Straight to the island. Go. Get her out of here,” Cristiano yells to Alec and turns to run back into that room where it sounds like war has broken out.
“Cristiano!” I break free of Alec and grab Cristiano’s arm. His hand is pressed to his side.
He stops, turns back, looking at me for an instant, only it feels like an eternity. “Go. Get out of here.”
Alec takes hold of me again and pulls me away from Cristiano. His expression is unreadable as he disappears back into that building. More gunshots ring out, automatic weapons keeping a cadence. The glimpse I have just before the door closes behind Cristiano and I’m carried away, is that of a battlefield. A blood bath.
21
Scarlett
I take a sip of tea that’s gone cold. The same cup Lenore gave me hours ago. I wonder where she is now. She’s worried about him. I saw it on her face.
I didn’t know she was Alec’s aunt. When Alec and our small party got back to the island, I saw that he had caught a bullet, but it was a flesh wound. Still, seeing it, seeing her peel the shirt off his bloody skin and watching his face, I know it hurt like hell. It may have hurt her as much, from the look on her face.
They’d called a doctor in. She said Cristiano and the other men may need him when they’re back. When. Not if.
But before the doctor got to the house—because we had to wait for transport by either boat or chopper—Lenore had cleaned the wound. I just sat there and watched.
Blood doesn’t bother me. It’s strange, in situations like tonight, I’m just really quiet. Calm even. At least on the outside. I’m not sure, maybe it’s that I’m slow to process what’s happening, to absorb the shock of it. Even after all this time, it is still shocking to hear gunfire considering I was born into a cartel family.
I see my uncle’s face again, the moment his body jerked, and he grabbed hold of me. His eyes had gone wide, filled with fear. But they were also remote. The look before death. Before violent death. Maybe it’s a godsend.
A gift. A mercy he didn’t deserve.
I didn’t see my father killed but I watched my mom as she died. Her eyes looked the same as his.
I swipe my eyes with the heels of my hands and drink another sip of cold tea. I’m sitting on the floor of Cristiano’s bedroom leaning against the wall, staring out the open window at the still dark sky. I should close it. It’s cold but I don’t care. Cerberus is beside me, keeping vigil with me. He’s quiet. I wonder if he senses his master may be in trouble.
May be dead.
God.
What if Cristiano dies?
No. I can’t think about that. It can’t happen.
They wouldn’t let me bring Noah upstairs. Only let me down to see him when I screamed bloody murder. What if someone had gotten to him? He’s an easy target in that cell. But he was all right. Calmer than me when the guards dragged me back upstairs.