“And who?” I snap, guessing what’s coming but wanting to hear it anyway.
“Your first daughter, Isabella,” she finishes quietly.
This time I do more than blink. I lower my weapon. “What did you say?”
“I was eight when Gabriela found me,” she says, her face working hard to push emotion away again. “Just a year after she swore to raise your daughter as her own. I loved her like a sister until she—”
“Shut your goddamn mouth,” I snarl, raising my weapon to shoulder height again. “You have no right to claim a piece of her after what your father did.”
“And you have no right to be pointing a gun at me when all I’m guilty of, in your eyes, is being a blood-burden.”
Silence falls over the kitchen.
Is she bracing herself? Is she saying her prayers?
Finally, I shock the shit out of both of us by clicking the safety back on.
“Get the fuck out of my sight,” I tell her gruffly, collecting the bourbon on my way to the door. “The next time I see you, the quality of my mercy will be a damn sight weaker than it is now.”
29
Anna
I wake to peace. And cicadas... Their endless chirp is a soothing rhythm to me now.
Rolling over to begin another moment, I’m disappointed to find the bed empty. His chain has gone from the nightstand. There’s nothing left of him except the empty silver blister packs of morphine.
Frowning, I scoot across the tiles to use the bathroom, each step intensifying the ache between my legs. He took my permission and ran with it. He fucked me just the way he said he would. He crumbled my walls, he turned my tides; I screamed and I shattered in his hands, and now? I see only him. I want only him. Again and again, until my lungs are hoarse and my body is begging for mercy.
“I hope that morphine’s kicking in a treat, Joseph Grayson,” I whisper to my reflection in the mirror. “I’ll be seeking you out in a minute and forcing you to make me whole again.”
I take a shower and dress in the simple black summer dress that Gabriela lent me yesterday. It must be one of Vi’s because there’s not much on the material side and a lot on the sexy side.
I know I have some serious explaining to do to her, not least because she’s currently sharing a mansion with her nemesis—the man she hates most in the world—and it’s all my fault.
Once I’ve brushed my hair, I follow a trail of male voices downstairs, which leads me into another over-the-top living area. I see Dante first. He’s sprawled out on a red velvet couch with his boots resting on a gilded coffee table in front of him, looking as sleek and deadly as a black and tan rattlesnake. He’s deep in conversation with a small, overweight man with thinning gray hair, but they break it off as soon as I enter.
Dante looks over and glowers. I guess he hasn't got over the whole me slapping him in the face thing yet.
“Where’s Gabriela?” I ask, as his companion’s eyes feast on my body, making my skin rash up with disgust.
“How the fuck should I know?” comes his growl of a response. “Try the other wing. That’s where she keeps the girls.”
What are they? Cattle? “Joseph, then?” I ask coolly. How Eve deals with his shitty moods is anyone’s guess.
“Recovering, most likely.” This time there’s a hint of amusement in his dark expression, which makes me blush scarlet. Asshole. “He’s with the doctor. He busted a stitch. Second door on the left,” he adds, dismissing me back into the hallway with a flick of his hand.
I go to push the door open when a soft hand and a familiar scent slip into my senses and drag me sideways into an adjoining room.
“Holy shit, parcera, where the hell have you been?” hisses Vi, looking me over and frowning. “Hey, is that my dress?”
“Your aunt lent it to me. Is that—?”
“Whatever. It looks good on you.” She shakes her head as if it’s not important and plants her finger to her lips, beckoning me over to the other side of the room. “I’m trying to listen in on their conversation,” she confesses, pressing her ear to the ochre wall.
“Who? Dante and that guy’s?”
She shoots me a dirty look over her shoulder. “On a first name basis with him, are we?” She manages to sound both mad and hurt at the same time.
This is the downside of feeling again, I realize. All of my emotions are getting a look-in, including guilt.
“Listen, Vi, I know I should have told you everything, but—”
“Yeah, you think?” She pulls away from the wall and studies me for a second. “I guess we both had secrets we couldn’t share. I’ll go first, shall I? Brace yourself… Dante Santiago is my uncle.”
“He’s your what?” My expression can’t conceal my shock, and neither can my hands judging by the amount of motion going on with them.
“I’m his brother’s illegitimate daughter. Gabriela found out and adopted me when I was eight.”
“Does he know?”
She snorts. “Oh yeah, he knows. He hates my father so much he held a gun to my head last night.”
“And you lived?” I splutter.
“I guess he changed his mind,” she says, shrugging like it’s no big deal. How is she acting so calm about this? “I have to keep the hell away from him though, which is fine by me. Except when I want to hear what’s going on between him and Carlos Gomez.”
“The creep in there is Gomez?”
“Real pleasant, isn't he?” she says, rolling her eyes at me.
“Like a bikini wax on the last day of winter.” I watch her press her ear against the wall again. “I’m sorry I put you in that position. Believe me when I say I was desperate.”
“And I’m sorry I nearly sold you out to Fernandez, and shot your man,” she counters with a lopsided grin. I can tell she’s worried about it, though. “I’m glad he’s okay, ‘tho I gotta say I’m kinda bummed you chose El Asesino as your boyfriend.”
I laugh and shake my head. “I don’t know what we are… It’s complicated.”
“Just answer me one thing. Were you running from his fists or commitment?”
“Commitment,” I say honestly.
“Now that’s a language I can understand.”
“Are we okay?” I ask her anxiously. “I really want us to be.”
We’ve been through so much together these past couple of days. She’s had a big part to play in my healing process too.
“Sure we are… Now let me listen.”
I watch her for a beat, noting the deep concentration on her face.
“Why are you so interested in what they’re saying?”
“Fernandez has declared war on all of Los Cinco Grandes and Santiago. I want to know their strategies. I want to hear how it’s all going to play out.”
“You sound like a cartel queen in the making,” I say jokingly. “Either that, or a corrupt politician.”
“Like I said to Dante last night, the drugs aren’t going anywhere so why not make them work for us?”