“You already know the answer to that.” I hold her gaze, my throat dry, my voice scratchy from disuse.
“Tell me where Teo Vitale is hiding.”
“I don’t know,” I bite out.
Round and round in circles, all over again.
“You’re aware of what my father is capable of?” her cold tone betrays a hint of irritation. “You’re aware of what happens to you if you don’t cooperate?”
I stick out my chin stubbornly. “I’d rather die.”
Her eyes narrow, furious flames cracking through the ice. “When did you learn to be so loyal?”
And there it is. The crux of it all.
Beneath the months of grief and isolation and torment lies the huge emotion that started it all: guilt.
I betrayed Carmen Rubio, and I would do it again if it kept my family safe. But there’s not one second that I don’t regret throwing her back into that world without so much as a tether to reality.
I saw firsthand how they treated her and knew they intended so much worse for the debutant, and yet I walked away with the belief that I never once cared for her.
The truth is that I did, more so than I had ever intended. I still do.
“You don’t need to do this, Carmen,” I whisper.
Her gaze hardens, and she leans back in her chair. “What I need is for you to answer these damn questions so he doesn’t kill you.”
“Why are you doing this? You don’t have to follow him—be like him. You’re better than this.”
For the first time, her composure completely cracks.
“Better?” she spits, her voice trembling with barely contained anger. “I trusted you, Mia. I thought you cared about me. But the whole time, you were lying. Spying. Using me.”
Her words hit me like a punch to the gut. “Carmen?—”
“Don’t!” she cuts me off, her voice rising. Her eyes glisten, but she blinks rapidly, refusing to let the tears fall. “You’re smarter than this, Mia. Make yourself invaluable, please. Give me something. Please.”
My heart begins to break. “You shouldn’t care about that.”
“You think I don’t know that? When you turned out exactly like everyone else? Playing me. Manipulating me.”
“I care about you too,” I whisper, the words barely audible.
She slams her hand down on the table, making me flinch. “No, you don’t! If you cared, you wouldn’t have betrayed me.”
I can’t answer that. I don’t know how to. The silence stretches between us, thick and suffocating.
Carmen wipes a hand across her face, her jaw tight as she fights to regain control.
“You were the only person I thought was real,” she murmurs, more to herself than to me. “And now you’re just...nothing but a walking death wish.”
She rises from her chair abruptly, pushing it back with a screech. For a moment, I think she’s going to storm out, but she pauses at the door, her back to me.
“Tell me why, Mia,” she says quietly. “Why did you do it?”
I open my mouth, the words forming on my tongue, but the sudden wail of an alarm cut me off.
The shrill, piercing sound makes me jump, and I see Carmen flinch, too, her hand jerking back from the door as if it were electrified.
