“Ella tells me you’re wondering why I hate you.” Julio’s voice holds a deeper baritone, his hair lined with gray.
These are details Moira hadn’t taken the time to acknowledge until now.
And now that he’s in front of her, she can see why Ella would desire him. Though older, he has an air about him; a confidence that makes his relationship with Sol seem as though they were paired in their like-mindedness.
“Are you here to feed me an answer?” Moira doesn’t always listen to her feelings and they have the room to be incorrect. But in this moment, something tells her to get as far away from this man as possible.
“Your mere existence has caused undue hardship in the lives of people I love.”
Still, the idea of answers, from any source, has her staying right where she is.
“Who are these people?” she asks, a fish on a hook.
Julio chuckles, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He takes his time, pulling one out, putting it between his lips, pushing the pack back in his pocket, and lighting a match.
As he brings the flame closer to his face, Moira can see the devil in his eyes too.
But the devil in Sol’s eyes warms at the sight of her.
“If you aren’t going to answer me—”
“I’m the only one who will answer you. It seems pillow talk with our friend has been lacking.” He grins, the cigarette now between his teeth.
The stench of the smoke has her jerking away from him. It has her taking backward steps to create more space between them. Space he looks through as if it doesn’t exist.
“Not on your end, clearly,” she says, attempting to sound flippant.
Julio snorts before exhaling, smoke billowing through his nose. He looks like a bull, ready to charge at her. “Ella does not require pillow talk.” He turns away, but turns back to say, “And I do not give it.”
“You do not give answers either,” she tells him, ready to walk away from him and his games.
“The man you sleep next to,” he says.
She stops short and closes her eyes.
Moira doesn’t know what to make of Julio. If he’s a liar or if he feeds her the truth because he knows it will hurt her. Either way, as she opens her eyes, he turns back and looks at her.
“What does that mean?” she asks him.
He pulls the cigarette from his lips and gestures toward the stairs. “It means you have enemies and one of them is the man who stole you. The very same one you’ve caught yourself in love with.”
At the tail end of his words, he places the cigarette back between his lips. His inhale is slow and deep, his exhale the same. The smoke he releases is like a curtain and once it fades, she doesn’t know what to think.
“He was hired to kill me?”
Julio shakes his head, his eyes on her like the pathetic creature she’s starting to feel like. He even smirks, and it makes her want to claw his lips from his face.
“No, Moira. He was not.” There’s a patience in his tone.
“And I should choose to believe you?”
He shrugs, inhaling the last bit of tobacco before tossing the butt in the fireplace. “Choose what you like. It does not alter the truth, even if it’s in a form that you do not like.”
Moira glares at him, wishing he would continue but feeling as though what comes next may tear her precariously assembled world apart.
But nothing prepares her for the sound of the door opening, loud enough to make her jump.
Julio only smiles and steps away, taking a seat on a nearby chair. Two of his fingers find purchase on his lips. The ease in his hands and face nearly eclipse the sight of his foot that now taps against the carpet.
Whoever entered the home is on their way to this room, the click of heels unmistakable. It’s a sound Moira has come to know nearly as well as her own heartbeat.
Moira almost expects to see her mother round the corner but the woman who enters looks nothing like her. It’s the only thought she can gather before the newcomer arches a brow.
“You are quite beautiful. More beautiful than I remember,” the woman says, and her accent mirrors Julio’s.
“I don’t ken you,” Moira tells her.
Her eyes look familiar and she is striking with her golden skin, and black furs that she removes and tosses on the chaise lounge. But Moira could not place her if she tried.
“But you do, lass. You do.” She hums with a smile as she looks around, glancing at the ceiling and walking about the room, the thin stilts of her heels punctuating the power that emanates from her. When she stops in front of Julio, she stands there, her hands on her hips. “Aren’t you going to greet your wife?”
All of these scattered pieces of information are laid before Moira, still not making sense. Not until her captor, the man she’s fallen in love with, rushes down the steps and sees their guest.
“Angelina,” Sol starts, his beautiful wide eyes assessing the room before landing on Moira. He walks toward her, just as the woman—Angelina—speaks.
“Hello, little brother.” She stops glaring at Julio to smile up at Sol. “I’ve come to clean up your mess.”
26
“You have a sister?” Moira asks, peering from behind him at the woman in question.
Sol says her name in a way Moira would not.
Ahn-hell-ee-nah.
The scowl she wears, aimed at Sol, has Moira wondering what the hell is going on.
“You…you didn’t even tell her anything?” It’s the first time Angelina falters, but she makes up for it with flourish. “No matter. I will.”
“¡Cállate!”
At Sol’s outburst, Angelina looks back at Julio, who stands. He is quiet, but his face menacing, his eyes piercing through Sol.
“Ah, so mi esposo is finally good for something,” she muses, sitting on the chaise she’d set her furs on. Julio rolls his eyes, but she continues. “It’s so dreary here. No wonder you bedded her.”
Does she know that her husband is bedding Ella as well? Moira asks herself the question but doesn’t bother speaking, watching the interaction unfold of its own volition.
She can feel those damned puzzle pieces finally making sense of themselves. But…there’s more. For Moira, none of it fits perfectly yet.
“Now, where shall we start?” Angelina claps her hands and pauses. She lifts a finger, as if she’s finally caught the moment worth beginning at.
“We are in no real danger, Moira,” Sol says, his arm keeping her partially behind him. “I will kill Julio without hesitation if it comes down to it and he knows it.”
Before Moira can respond, Angelina giggles. “Has she sunk her claws so deeply within you that you would turn against your own familia?” She adjusts in her seat, leaning to the side so she meets Moira’s eyes. “My poor little brother was half in love with you from the moment he first saw you, wearing the braids my mother put in your pretty orange hair. Do you not remember?”
Her mother?
“Ella no sabe, Angelina,” Sol starts.
“Don’t bother speaking Spanish,” Angelina snaps. “Our dear mother taught her. This is what happens when you leave men to do a woman’s work.”
Secrets are being unveiled and Moira isn’t prepared for it, her gasp at the final pieces that make it all come together forcing her to step back from Sol.