Page 121 of The Lost Guardian

He watched her face shift from conflict to resignation.

“Yes.”

It was one word. One simple word, but it physically knocked him back. Santiago nearly stumbled, then he caught himself.

“How?” he demanded, pressing a hand against his roiling stomach.

“Does it matter?” Ali dropped her gaze.

“Just tell me.” He wasn’t sure that it did matter. Actually, he was pretty sure that it didn’t. But he needed something, anything to tether him back to reality.

“A satellite phone,” Ali answered. “Which we can now safely assume has a tracker inside.”

Santiago suddenly remembered the night in the cave, the soft voices outside the tent. Not ghosts after all, just Ali.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Don’t.” He threw up a hand to stop her words from landing. To stop the pain from coming. It didn’t work, of course.

Sorry? How could she? How dare she.

With stiff fingers, Ali finished bandaging her wound. Santiago only watched. He didn’t find any satisfaction in the struggle, but he wasn’t tempted to help her, either.

The world unfolded before him like a movie. It couldn’t be real.

Guns and smoke bombs. Roguish professors thwarted by ancient spirits. It was all special effects. Hollywood magic.

Santiago longed to believe that.

“How could you do this?” It wasn’t an accusation. It was sheer disbelief. He didn’t understand. How was this happening?

“I had to,” she answered, thought it didn’t answer anything at all.

Santiago shook his head.

“Please believe me when I say that I had nothing to do with Manco’s death.”

Santiago flinched at the sound of his grandfather’s name on her soft, traitorous lips. She had no right to use it.

“Why would I believe you?” Santiago laughed, a little wildly. “How am I supposed to trust anything you say?”

“I didn’t choose this life, you know,” Ali snapped, the first flash of real emotion he’d witnessed since discovering her secret. It sparked something in him.

Good, Santiago thought. Anger was good. Anger was safe. It was better than…well, it was better than the alternative. He wasn’t sure he would survive the alternative.

“The life of a criminal, you mean?” Santiago growled. His hands clenched into fists at his sides. “A mercenary? A traitor?”

“I didn’t mean to—” Ali bit her lip. “When my parents died, it was up to me to protect my sister.” She tried leaning forward, then hissed when that pulled at her wound. “I was only fifteen. No honest business would hire me. At least not full-time, not when I was supposed to be in school. How could I keep Naya housed, fed, and clothed if I couldn’t work?”

She leaned forward, her eyes pleading through the pain.

“She’s so smart, so much cleverer than I am!” she continued. “She deserved to go to the best schools, to have an opportunity for college. We weren’t going to get that if we ended up in an orphanage. We would have been separated. I couldn’t let that happen.”

“So you work for Torres,” Santiago said, venom dripping from every word. “You pillage our culture and sell it to the highest bidder.”

She works for Bernardo Torres. The knowledge of it felt wrong. But at the same time…shouldn’t he have known?

What law-abiding citizen could handle a motorcycle chase like that? And the gunfights? Santiago felt like a fool.