Page 69 of No Darker Temptation

White-hot panic whips through me when I realize…

We’re in the heart of Sandro’s territory.

Alejandro

“What the hell happened? I was in the middle of something.”

Diego swings around, the expression in his eyes nothing short of vitriolic. The fury glistening behind his gaze makes his eyes glow like blue fire. I almost lose my footing on the last step as I reach the landing, confused by the unadulterated rage in his voice when he says, “I called you twenty minutes ago.”

“Dimitrio and I were upstairs and I left my phone charging in the office…”

Diego rises to his full height and I realize Dahlia is sitting at one of the tables in the lounge, Karina beside her, perplexed, but doing her best to console her cousin. She has her face buried in her hands and won’t say a word, shoulders trembling with the effort to contain herself.

A million different things run through my mind and none of them are pleasant. I close the distance between us in two long strides, chest tightening with anxiety and anticipation. Did something happen? Did someone die? Is she hurt, sick, afraid⁠—?

“Karina, could you wait for us upstairs please?” Diego says.

Karina eyes him suspiciously. “No. I will not.”

“Hey.” I kneel in front of Dahlia, gently pulling her hands away from her face. “What’s wrong?”

Dahlia opens her mouth in an attempt to speak but her breath catches instead. Goosebumps cover her arms and her cheeks are streaked with tears, lips red from having gnawed at them to the point of piercing the delicate skin. She gasps and tries to formulate a response but can’t. My heart picks up and all the blood in my body rushes to my head.

“Dahlia,” I tell her, more firmly than I intend to. “You’re scaring me. What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

“I—” She hiccups and turns to Karina. “Go upstairs,” she whispers.

Karina bolts upright. Voice sharp with indignation, she says, “No!”

“Kay.” Dahlia hiccups again, curling over in her chair. “Please.”

Her lips purse and she looks to the rest of us for support. Diego stands firm and I avoid Karina head on, more concerned by the state Dahlia is in to care about how she feels right now. Because if Dahlia wants Karina to leave, it can’t be good.

It means something happened her cousin can’t know about.

“I’m going to call my husband. I’ll be upstairs.”

Diego almost hisses and he turns away abruptly. The sudden shift surprises me, but I don’t have time to comment on it.

Once she’s gone, Dahlia releases a sob. “We were in El Raval.”

My back stiffens. “You what?”

She shakes her head frantically, tears flying everywhere. “It was an accident. I’m not familiar with that part of the city; I never go farther than the house or the lounge. We were on the train and Karina—” Her breath catches. “Wanted to go see a marketplace she found online and…and…”

Some of the initial anger fizzles away, replaced only by an intensifying fear that escalates with every word out of her mouth.

“We were at La Boqueria.” Her breath catches and I wipe away each tear as it falls. “Sandro found me.”

My hand stills.

“Karina went to go look at something and I was picking fruit from a booth when he…he asked me if you got his message. He killed Manuel.” She cries. “And then he told me that if you ever did something like that again⁠—”

“He threatened her,” Diego practically seethes. “With a gun.”

Dahlia shakes her head. “The gun was the least of my worries. I wasn’t so much afraid of that as…as when…” She swallows hard and struggles to catch her breath. When she finally finds it in herself to speak, something in her shatters, the glisten of amber in her eyes going dull. “He…he touched me.”

I don’t hear anything anyone says after that. Diego kneels down and tries to comfort her but once more she shakes her head, vibrant waves of red hair flying awry, as her pleading turns desperate.