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I clench my teeth, annoyance prickling against my skin. “He can’t see me before the wedding, it’s bad luck.”
Plus, I don’t want to spend any more time with him than absolutely necessary.
“Please, miss. He’s not feeling well, and says you’re the only one he’ll speak to.”
Sighing, I look at Mamá, who shrugs. “We make our own luck anyway, right?” Kissing me on both cheeks, she slings her purse over her shoulder, heading for the door. “Take care of it and meet us at the church as soon as possible!”
I stare at the staff member’s name tag—Marcelline, it says, printed in big block letters—silently for a few beats, wondering if this is another of Mateo’s ruses to goad me into a fight, or something worse. Still, I don’t want him causing a scene and delaying the inevitable, so I follow this woman down the hall to Mateo’s bedroom.
Once inside, I pause, noting that it looks as much like a guest room as the one I’ve just left; with no hint of memorabilia or personal effects cluttering the walls or dresser, it’s almost as if this room belongs to a ghost.
Or, I realize as I find Mateo sitting on the edge of the bed, someone on their way to becoming one.
“What the fuck?” I hiss, hurrying to his side.
He clutches his stomach, hunching over to hurl violently into a plastic wastebasket.
“Jesus, Mateo, what happened?”
Sucking in a breath that sounds like it gets caught in his throat, he glances up at me through glassy eyes, panic lacing his brown irises. A deep crimson flush crawls up his exposed skin, and his hand lashes out awkwardly, grasping at nothing as another wave of vomit barrels out of him.
“I heard food poisoning,” comes a voice from somewhere behind me. “Doesn’t present like it, though.”
One I recognize better than my own.
It caresses my skin, its heat ghosting across the back of my neck, telling me the owner is close.
“What do you think, little one?”
A sheen of sweat beads along Mateo’s brown hairline, and the basket falls from his grip to the floor, toppling onto its side as he collapses in a convulsive fit.
My stomach churns, bile teasing the back of my throat as the voice materializes at my side, the physical manifestation of the phantom I’ve tried to rid myself of over the last few weeks.
I don’t speak, fear gripping my entire being in its claws, squeezing until I’m completely helpless to watch my fiancé writhe on his bed, seizing and drooling with no interference.
Even though the man at my side is a doctor.
His presence tells me that right here, right now, he’s my father’s fixer.
That this was a hit.
As Mateo’s body goes slack, his life force bleeding from his body within minutes, I watch Kal Anderson from my peripheral, trying to rectify this being with the man I once cared for.
The man who took my virginity eight weeks ago, and left me before the sun was up, scarred in more ways than one.
Tousled, inky black hair sweeps back over his head, like he’s spent his time combing through it. His jaw is sharp enough to cut glass, covered in a thin layer of stubble and framing Adonis-style bone structure, while his dark eyes are more reminiscent of the evil he’s rumored to be.
He towers over me, taller than anyone else I’ve ever known, the black material of his expensive suit perfectly fitted to every muscle and curve of his lean, sturdy body.
His gloved hand lifts, pointing a cell phone in my direction, and I realize what he’s doing.
Why I was called up here.
“Let’s chat.”
