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It’s chaos. Renata’s men all draw their weapons, shouting at Zane to drop his gun while simultaneously screaming at me to back up and get out of the way.
“Stop it!” I shriek, holding him back with my hands pressed to his chest. I know for a fact I weigh nothing at all to him, but he doesn’t fight me. I think he knows he might accidentally hurt me if he does. “Nobody fucking move! What the hell has gotten into you? Talk to me, Zane. Now.”
“Esteban and Arturo are outside. They have my family hostage. If I don’t come out with Renata’s head, they’ll kill my brothers and daughter.”
A chill rips through me. Oh, God. This can’t be happening. It can’t.
“We’ll think of something,” I say quickly, so dizzy I can barely see straight. “Maybe we can negotiate. Maybe we can—”
“The negotiation has already been made, my dear,” Renata says coldly. “He’s already agreed, which means he has to die.”
“No!” I yell, holding my hand out to her. I place myself between Zane and her guards, not caring that at least a dozen guns are pointed at me. “Nobody move a muscle. We can work this out. We can think of something!”
“There’s no other way,” Zane bellows. “Either Renata dies, or my family does.”
My grandmother shakes her head in disapproval.
I can’t stop crying. This is all so messed up. Why won’t anybody listen to me? If I don’t think of something soon, I’ll have a pile of bodies at my feet—and maybe find myself full of bullet holes, too. I can already feel my heart tearing into pieces. I have no time to think, no time to formulate a plan.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Guadalupe, Renata’s pet snake. Her tank has been moved inside, placed on a low hallway table. The snake in question appears largely unperturbed by all the chaos on the other side of her glass confinement.
An idea pops into my head.
“I’ve got it!” I wheeze, shouting so loud I almost black out from the effort. “I know how we can work around this.”
“Move, Willow,” Renata says coldly.
“Out of the way, darling,” Zane says, just as cold and terrifying.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” I hiss. “We can trick them into thinking Renata is dead. Nobody has to die. Yet. Esteban just needs to think my grandmother is dead, right?”
Zane furrows his brow. “He’ll probably want visual confirmation.”
“Then make sure he doesn’t get close.”
Renata continues to glare at Zane. “What are you plotting?”
“You said one bite from Guadalupe is enough to put you to sleep, right? But it won’t actually kill you?”
My grandmother’s expression drops, a realization dawning on her. My words seem to be getting through. “It’s a crazy plan,” she says. “I don’t think Esteban or your father will believe it.”
“They’ll believe it because they want to,” I insist. “They’re desperate and backed into a corner. If we show them what they want to see, well then that’s not our fault, is it?”
Slowly—very slowly—everyone in the room lowers their weapons. Zane does so, too, though his finger remains wrapped around the trigger and his body is rigid against me.
“It’s risky,” he says.
“What other choice do we have?” I reply. “Someone’s going to end up dead, so we might as well try it. We have nothing left to lose.”
The tension in the air is so thick I almost gag on it. Nobody says a word, even though we’re more than a little aware that we’re running out of time. Every second that passes is another second for Esteban and Arturo to grow suspicious. We need this to look quick and messy and unplanned—and we only have one chance to pull this off.
Renata sighs. “Someone get me my snake.”
Chapter 37
Zane
The stage is set.
