Page 128 of Forbidden Fate

She digs her fingers into my shirt, into the blood and torn fabric.

“Tell me!” she says. “Who was it?”

I can’t breathe.

Some part of her already knows. I see the answer forming in her eyes along with the desperate hope that she is wrong.

I want to lie.

For the first time since I chose to tell her the truth, I want to lie so badly it hurts. I’d give my life to spare her this.

But I promised her the truth. So I’ll tell her. And though I saved her life, I will now lose her.

I take a deep breath in, pausing before I deliver the words that will end whatever potential exists between us forever.

“It was your brother. Eagle.”

35

ROBIN

Eagle.

My brother.

My blood.

My annoying, damaged, frustrating, wounded, beautiful brother.

I stare at Cruz, waiting for him to take it back. Tell me he’s joking. As if he could ever joke about something like that.

He doesn’t.

Cruz Moreno, who dragged me from Texas to Colombia, who has blood all over his face and grief carved into his mouth, doesn’t take it back.

“What did you just say?” I say through gritted teeth.

My voice is calm.

Too calm.

So calm it sounds like someone else’s.

Cruz’s jaw tightens. “Robin⁠—”

“No.” I step closer. “Say it again.”

He doesn’t.

I hear movement above me. Esmeralda and the others leaving the house.

But that all fades beneath the roar building in my ears.

Eagle’s overdose was staged.

Not an overdose.

Not a relapse gone horribly wrong.