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My stomach drops like a stone.
I knew that lipstick color was a warning.
“Are you positive?” I whisper.
“A hundred percent. I’ll message you the images now.”
I have to call Edier. I need to warn him...
“Look, I’ve got to go. I’m in a cab pulling up to her office on 72ndStreet.”
This has me throwing off the damp bedsheets and staggering from my bed in horror. “No, Ivy, NO! You can’t—”
“I’ve gotta go. I’ll call you later. I have no idea about time zones, sorry!”
“Ivy, wait!”
But she’s already gone.
With my heart in my mouth, I ring her back, but it goes straight to voicemail.
“Oh god, please answer, please answer.” Fumbling for my other phone. I hit Edier’s number, but it rings out too. I try it again, and it’s the same. “Shit, shit, shit!”
Dog barks and whines as I fire off urgent messages everywhere. She’s not staring at me, though. She’s staring straight at the window.
I try Sam next, and then the light on my nightstand goes out, along with the green power LED on my iPhone charger.
It must be a power cut.
Dog whines once more.
I’m stumbling for the door when the first round of gunfire hits the house.
32
EDIER
I glanceat my phone to find it’s Ella calling from Colombia and reluctantly switch it to silent. As much as I live to hear her soft voice, this business needs to conclude swiftly.
Sliding the device into the inside pocket of my suit jacket, I turn my attention to the stack of paperwork in front of me, signing each document in turn, and then tossing it to Queenie to be checked and verified. Through it all, she’s been perched on a chair a couple of seats away, chewing thoughtfully on her lower lip.
“Do I get a prize?” I chuck my pen down on the polished glass meeting table after dispatching with the final one. “A souvenir T-shirt, perhaps?”
“Don’t be greedy, Grayson,” she counters, her tone mild, her face impassive. “Señor Santiago has just signed over a substantial portion of his US assets to you. You’re now the fifth richest man in the country.”
A couple of years ago, this would have been music to my ears, but my new kingdom is missing a queen, and every victory feels like a hollow one since Ella went away. My obsession doesn’t stop because I have a hole in my bed and empty screens in my Black Room. I’ve been monitoring her GPS tracker numerous times a day, I have a direct line to my father’ssicariosback atEl Refugio, and I’m in regular contact with my adoptive mother for the first time in years.
It’s not enough, though.
I’m counting down the days.
I need her under me, defying me.Loving me.I’m craving the way her body rises when I’m pushing her to her limits. I miss those sweet, staccato gasps she makes right before she comes, as if I’m stealing her oxygen as well as her self-control.
Irrespective, something’s shifted inside me since she left, the same way it shifted all those years ago as I stood in front of a flaming pyre and watched thebrujaburn, only this time it’s blowing me in a different direction. Distances don’t seem so inaccessible anymore, and silences aren’t so vacant. I finally let her in, and it didn’t make the fucking sky fall down. She’s still safe. She still loves me. There’s still aforeverwaiting for us once this war is won and she’s well enough to come home.
I’m opening myself up to others too, despite pushing them away for so long. Typically, in meetings with Santiago, my father would sit to his left and avoid eye contact with me. Today, our gazes met as we sat down, and neither of us looked away. I’m seeing past my own pain for once. I’m seeing past hers. I’m seeing his.
“Shall we have a drink, instead?” Santiago motions to the bottle of bourbon on the table between us. It’s not to my tastes, but I can afford to be conciliatory. After all, the man just made me a king.
