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I’m so fuckin’ close I can feel it.
“Get out!”Sara’s voice in my head is urgent. Panicked.“Get out, get out, get out,”she chants over and over until I have to press my hands over my ears to stop her voice assaulting me.
When her voice disappears and I’m left with silence, I turn to open the door. The guards are gone, and when I don’t hear footsteps, I crack the door open further and continue toward Manuel Santos’ bedroom.
I count to three in my head before I reach for the handle of Santos’ door. Turning it slowly, I hold my breath until the handle is turned all the way, then I give it a light push.
Fuck.
***
Isadora
Earlier…
“Are you one of Zain’s biker friends?” I ask Liam as he steers his sleek rental car onto the highway.
He chuckles. “No, I’m not one ofZain’sbiker friends.”
“Where are you taking me?”
Eyes on the road, he replies, “Somewhere safe.”
Huffing in annoyance, I ask, “You know it’s possible to speak in sentences. You know those things that contain more than two words?”
“I am aware,” he says.
“Look, I know you don’t really want to help me, so how about you just let me out at the next gas station, and we’ll call it even. I’ll find my own way from there.” I pull my bag to my chest and stare at the trees as we head to an unknown destination.
“Okay,” Liam says.
Confused, I turn my head to stare at this strange man. “Okay?” I ask. “You’re just going to say okay… and let me go?”
Liam shrugs. “If that’s what you want.” He shifts in his seat, one elbow resting on the door, and one hand on the steering wheel. “Or… we can figure out a way to get into the mansion and help Demon take down your father.”
My eyes grow wide, and a smile stretches across my lips. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
Liam smiles. “You remind me of my sister,” he says.
I swallow down the lump in my throat and ask quietly, “Did the cartel hurt her? Is that why you’re helping Zain?”
“Yes.”
Another life ruined by my father. I close my eyes and hundreds of nameless faces play through my mind, a silent film of all those I couldn’t save.
I remember them all.
“It’s not your fault, Isadora. Men like your father, they seek power over everything. Everyone is a pawn, a body to be used, a shield to be struck. The entire world could burn, and still, like the serpent in the Garden of Eden, evil will find a way.” Liam speaks as though he’s experienced this life firsthand, and I want to ask him about it, ask him more about Zain.
In the end, I remain silent.
Before the auction, I thought the only thing the world had for me was pain. Despair and agony had left scars on every crevice of my soul.
Days.
That’s how long it took Zain to burrow inside.
His pain, so hauntingly beautiful, called to mine.
