“I don’t need you telling me what I need.” I hate how petulant I sound.
“Eva.” Miguel steps toward me.
What the hell? I’m sick and tired of them saying my name. I feel like I’m the rope in some tug of war. I’m torn. I don’t want to release Jared’s hand, but I do need to talk with them. I have a lot I need to say, to make clear to them. But Jared and I have so much to catch up on. So much left to say.
“Jared.” I twist on my heel to face him, giving my back to everyone and lowering my voice so only he can hear. “I want to talk some more when it’s just us. Let me give you my number.”
Still holding my hand, he takes his phone out of his pocket, unlocks it, and hands it to me. With one hand—he won’t let go of me and I don’t want him to—I fumble to enter my long-distance number.
“Okay, I’m in there now, and I sent a text to myself so I have yours.” I press onto the tips of my toes and plant a quick kiss on his cheek.
Pulling away is hard, yet my lips can’t linger on his salty flesh without getting lost in all that is him.
19
Plot its demise
JARED
My mind spins, heart clenching and swelling as if the organ is in the palm of my hand. The cold fingers squeeze all life out of it and then release enough for blood to fill the chambers before they begin to kill it again.
Quint closes the door to the suite. Eva, her father, and that guy have left, leaving me alone with Bianca.
Anxious, I slide my hand into the front pocket of my leather pants, and my fingers wrap around the small, smooth object. Sanity and a sense of grounding wash over me.
Bianca stares, cagey and uncertain. For the first time in a long time, I see the teenager I first met. Full of false bravado, desperately wanting to be independent but not knowing how to go about it.
I used to think we were similar. Survivors. We’d shared a great loss and she became like a sister to me, a friend. But we are nothing alike.
We started out as acquaintances, brought together by her then boyfriend, Tito, and her sister. Eva. The one I cherish more than anything in this world.
Despite all the obstacles and differences—their father, Val, foster care, and for a while there, Ike—Eva and I fit. Bianca can’t deny what her sister meant to me.
“What the fuck, Bianca? You lied to me. You knew all this time and never said a goddamn thing?” My roar causes Quint to stick his head back into the room.
I stab him with a get lost glare and he nods, closing the door once more.
“Jared, let me explain.” Fidgeting with her fingers entwined in front of her, she edges toward me.
She’s Judas, the traitor. She not only betrayed my trust, but also her sister’s. “I can’t think of one fucking excuse you could give me that I could live with.”
A sheen coats her dark eyes, and she rambles about her father and how difficult their relationship was after the death of her mother. All true but it’s a poor excuse.
And how no matter what she did, she could never please him. Then Eva died…no, she didn’t die.
Fuck, she didn’t die.
My hands clutch the sides of my head, fingers threading through my hair. For all of these years, I’ve been led to believe she died in the car accident, and I blamed myself. It was a fucking rainstorm, and I let her drive even knowing she was inexperienced.
But even at that, there’s nothing I could have done. I could have just as easily been driving and the outcome would have been the same. Eva drove the car perfectly, within the speed limit, and did everything she was supposed to do. There was little to no traffic.
Some guy, high on coke and out of his mind, peeled through the red light, T-boning the Jeep. His SUV hit my side, back end, and we were thrown into a tailspin, spinning and spinning until the driver’s side smashed into a utility pole and flipped over.
I was told she died instantly.
“How do you live with yourself?” I cut her off midsentence.
“What?” Dazed, she stares up at me.
“You were the one to tell me she died. Not the doctors or your father…you.” My finger slashes at her like a sword cutting her down and then I step away from her, not trusting my anger to stay in check.
She staggers back as if I struck her. “I-I-I’m so sorry.”
Her father refused to talk to me or see me. Bianca was the one to come to my room. Once I woke up, I kept asking about Eva. Not the nurses or Brenda, my social worker, not even the fucking Garcias with their false concern, would tell me anything.
“You told me she died on impact. And then you all disappeared. I couldn’t even go to her funeral.” I’m shouting, my blood pressure soaring, and it’s as if I’m stuck, again, in those dark, lonely days after I lost everything.
Haven’t I always been stuck back there? Even in those moments in my life when I had more success than I deserved, when people looking in would think I was the luckiest man alive, I was still trapped in the darkness.
“I couldn’t tell you anything different. He’s my father.” Now she’s wailing and her turmoil, if it’s even real, is plastered across her face.
I feel no sympathy for her. She forgets I know her. Even in high school, she could be cunning and devious. And growing up only made her more so. But what I can’t figure out is why? Did she hate me as much as her father did?
“As if the fucking lie wasn’t enough. You cut me off from anything to do with her.”
Once I was out of the hospital, I looked for Bianca, wanting to know more. The Ramirez house was locked up. No signs of life. No one answered the door. I even spoke to Lucia Bernal and she told me they were gone.
“I wasn’t even allowed to mourn her. You had a memorial without me…fuck, did you even have one?”
My brow knits, and an ugly churning starts low in my belly. None of what she told me was likely true. All these years with Bianca in my life, how can I trust anything she’s said?
“Why the hell did you come back into my life?” I stalk to her, getting in her face.
She gasps, taking a few steps back until her legs hit the edge of a table. “I needed to make sure—”
“I didn’t find Eva?” A bitter taste surges in my mouth, and my hands ball at my sides.
The desire to destroy something is a fierce beast, roaming, howling inside of me. Clawing at my heart, tearing at my lungs, desperate for blood, for vengeance.
“No, it was more than that. Eva loved you, and I wanted to make sure you were okay. For her. And when our lives meshed—both of us into music—there was another reason to stay close and watch over you.”
I release a scathing snort. “Watch over me? More like a fucking spy.”
Folding my arms over my chest, it takes everything in me to stop myself from doing something I’ll regret. I’d never hit a woman, but I might tear this room apart.
I square my shoulders and pour all my pain into an unforgiving glare. “You’re fired. Get the fuck out. I never want to see you again.”
“No, wait. Don’t be stupid. Think about this.”
“Stupid?” I bellow. “I’ve been stupid for more than ten years, letting you into my life. Trusting you when all you’ve been doing is lying.”