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“I thought it would be bigger. You own most of Manhattan, after all…”
“Some things are worth more than material possessions.”
“Is that your fortune cookie answer, or something you actually believe in?” Sitting up, I wrap my arms around my knees, adopting my very own version of the brace position.
“I don’t sleep much.”
“Should I be reading anything into that?”
“There’s another room down the hall,” he snaps, shooting me a dirty look.
“Is it time?” I suck in a breath. “Are we opening all our boxes now?”
He doesn’t answer.Big surprise. But I’m done waiting.
“Here.” Selecting a white pill bottle from my meds stash, I toss it across the room, and he catches it with a killer’s reflexes. “Whoever holds the Ambien, gets to ask the questions. You go first.”
“Fuck the Ambien!” Staggering to his feet, he hurls it at the far wall and the pill bottle explodes on impact showering the room in tiny white pebbles. “I told you to let this story go, Ella. I even boughtThe Eagleto make it disappear. And what do you do? Ignore me and run straight into a burning building covered in gasoline.” He scrapes his hand across his jaw as he struggles to contain his fury. “Now I have three dead bodyguards, and your father breathing down my neck again.”
I’ve never seen him lose control like this before. Everything about him is so tightly wound and impenetrable.
Then I think about Antonio and my other bodyguards, and the guilt overwhelms me.
“We have the same target. We’re just coming at it from different angles.”
“What do you mean by that?”
He glances away as if he’s said too much already.
“We just went to meet a source—”
“And walked yourself into a major set up. I told you last week you’d always be a cartel princess first. It doesn’t matter how much you dress it down in low-end retail, or with a job that pays less money a year than I make on the streets in an hour. You can’t change your blood,Mi Cielo. You either embrace it, or you drown in it.”
“Is that what you’re doing, drowning in Hurtados blood?” I say, glaring at him. “If you need to find this target, let me help you. Let’s work together for a change, instead of running in opposite directions.”
“It’s too late.”
A horrible thought surfaces and I quickly unthink it.
“What did you tell my father?”
“That you’d had a moment of temporary insanity…again.”
We’ve danced around this subject before, but we’ve never actually met it head on.
“Did you watch it?”I ask, blushing.
“The tape last year? Yes, I fucking watched it. I needed the motivation for when I tortured themalparidoswho made it. They all died screaming by the way,” he adds viciously. “You can thank me later.”
“You give menothing,” I say in despair. “You talk in endless riddles, and then you disappear for days…years. I knew this story was connected to your past when you warned me off it. I was tired of waiting for you to—”
“I was protecting you.” He spins away and starts pacing the room.
“No, you were trying to control the situation by shutting me out again. You’re like some Russian propaganda machine, filtering out the truth, while drip-feeding me pieces of yourself that will never be enough to make me a whole.” Kicking the bedsheet away, I swing my legs out of bed and reach for the water.
“What are you doing?”
“Drinking,” I bite back, taking a sip. “Admittedly it’s not a bottle of Macallan, but it’s the best a teetotaler like me can do. After that, I’m going to stop, take a big deep breath, and then I’m going to try not to throw this glass at your head.”
