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“The doctor is waiting upstairs,” he warns to preface the arrival of the stern-faced brunette I met once before in Jaguar’s villa. She ushers me into the empty bedroom and commences a succinct inspection of my scratches and bruises. In the end, her only prescription is for rest with the aid of a sleeping medication she leaves on the nightstand. As soon she exits the room for good, every ounce of guilt I had suppressed until then comes rushing back. I start to follow her, only to change course and wind up in the bathroom attached to Franco’s room. If I breathe in deeply enough, I swear I can still smell him, though all other traces of his presence are gone.
The pathetic woman I am, I hoard every memory I can and huddle in the bath where I washed him just days ago. There, I forget my promise to myself. I don’t pick up the pieces and remain stoically behind my armor.
I just sink beneath the water, letting it rise until my entire body is submerged. I wait until my lungs burn before I come up for air. The second I do, I hear a knock on the door.
“Señora.Is everything okay?” The voice is Horatio’s.
I don’t put it past him to break down the door if I don’t respond quickly enough. Not out of concern for me, but loyalty to his boss. No matter what, he will protect Jaguar’s investment.
The sobering thought snaps some sense back into me. “I’m fine,” I call out. With a sigh, I climb from the tub and step into a towel. Dripping wet, I leave Franco’s room—thankfully, without running into Horatio—and pad down the hall into the room Jaguar and I shared.
More than a few things have changed since my last visit. For one, “our” bed has been modified, with a thicker set of blankets placed atop the black sheets. One side has been drawn back, with a black silk sleeping mask resting on the pillow, presumably on the side I’m meant to claim.
And that isn’t all.
Jaguar has already upheld one promise to me—a new phone is waiting for me at the foot of the bed. Alongside it is a replacement for my purse—only instead of the knockoff one I borrowed from Pedro, this black leather bag looks real. Real designer. Real fucking expensive, too. Warily, I peek inside it before turning my attention to the other “gifts” Jaguar had left for me to find.
Alongside the phone is my passport—mine, not Tiena’s, along with a driver’s license and an object that makes me do a double take. It resembles the car keys Pedro likes to wave around. The kind meant for a very expensive car, in fact. For now, I shove them inside the purse.
The phone itself has only two numbers programmed into it. One is for Franco, and I can’t silence a sob of relief. The other number, however, undercuts any gratitude I may feel.Julian.This intimate detail puts me on guard, and a warning bell rings in my head.
To compound my growing unease, the phone rings as if he’s watching me from afar, waiting for this exact moment.
With a sigh, I answer.
“You received my gifts,” a low voice states. “There is more. When I join you, I will give the bulk to you then. In the meantime, we have reason to believe Pedro is still alive. My men are still tracking down his whereabouts.”
“Thank God,” I breathe out. “But how do you know?”
There are a few seconds of silence. Hesitation on his part? Then, “I will explain in person.”
I can’t hide my frustration. “So, you expect me to just sit around twiddling my thumbs until then?”
“No. I expect you to fully discover everything I left for you,” he says, eerily calm.
More money. More designer purses, I suspect. More Band-Aids to plaster over the damage he’s done. The sad part?
I don’t know how to react to them. Diego never apologized to me with gifts. I was weak enough to forgive him outright, even when he didn’t ask.
“I would be a fool to stay here. You lied to me, Jaguar,” I hear myself say in a voice I don’t recognize. “You… You let those men hurt me. You watched them do it.”
A reply doesn’t come, but I can hear him breathing into the phone. Then the line goes dead, and maybe some small part of me is grateful for the sudden disconnect. It means he chose not to lie. Not to deny.
Ironically, it’s a small shred of dignity Diego never gave me. And it makes it even easier for me to resent the man standing in his place.
I set the phone aside, and lie back, though I know better than to even try to sleep.
After a fruitless few seconds of tossing and turning, I get up. If Jaguar’s loyalty means offering me on a platter to be abused by his enemies, then his concept of privacy means nothing. Head held high, I dress blindly in a shirt from his closet and head downstairs. As I near the bottom step, Horatio appears seemingly from nowhere.
“He wants you to rest,” he insists, his expression blank. “Until he comes back.”
I ignore him and push past him into the basement. When I reach the room designated as Jaguar’s office, I half expect to find it empty, devoid of any secrets I could parse through in his absence. Instead, the door isn’t locked, and it contains the items I remember. Bookshelves, a desk, and a computer.
As I scan the room, what he said on the phone finally clicks—even here, it seems he left some gifts for me. There is a stack of files on the desk. Horatio doesn’t seem surprised by their presence, and when I reach for the topmost folder, he merely sighs in disapproval.
“He wanted you to rest first,” he explains in a scolding tone. “You better understand then.”
Bullshit.
