AllFreeNovel
Share Us
11
SANTOS
Ilove you.
I hold her, her body surrendered to me in sleep, her breathing quiet, skin warm and soft.
Did she mean to say those words? How can she feel that way? How can she love me? The thought of it, the idea of it, is so foreign and strange that I can’t quite process it. I care about her. I meant what I said about protecting her. But love?
A half-sleep steals me away, but I’m restless. The day has been long, and my brain won’t switch off. It keeps going over everything that’s happened, giving me flashes of images—some of which I’ve seen, while some it’s making up along the way.
Camilla with the two-pronged tongue of a snake as she sows seeds of doubt about my brother.
Thiago sitting across from me at the strip club, his head smashed in, his face a partial skull. The whiskey he’s drinking is pouring out of the open gash in his neck where the rope has sliced through to bone.
Thiago telling me I can trust no one.
Caius’s face swims before my eyes. He smiles, dimples making him look five years younger than he is. He pats my back and ruffles my hair and all the while, he has a hand in his pocket and his head is cocked to the side. His tell when he lies.
“You know what you did. This is your punishment,” my father says as if a voice over commercial.
The Commander the way he was at the end. On the last night of his life. Laughing at us. Stance casual and relaxed. Until Thiago strikes. Until I do. A life lived in violence ended in violence. We each reap what we sow.
Madelena at the lighthouse. Madelena pursued, running out onto the catwalk. Madelena in Thiago’s place too close to the edge. A hand on her chest. She catches the wrist of that hand but she’s not strong enough to hold on when she’s pushed and she goes tumbling. A thousand little blue stones bounce onto the catwalk, raining down on her as she falls, falls, falls, hair a dark halo around her, arms reaching, grasping at air, at nothing, her mouth open on a scream.
My eyelids fly open, and I bolt upright. Sweat covers me from head to toe as I gasp for breath. My chest feels like someone is sitting on it and I can’t breathe.
“Santos?”
I blink, then shift my gaze to Madelena. She looks up, sleepy, and smiles. She closes her eyes and stills again.
Just a nightmare. Just my mind working overtime. She’s here, at my side, in my bed. She’s safe.
I know one thing for sure. I know it in my heart, in my head. I caress her hair, slip out of the bed, and tuck the blanket around her. I lean down to kiss her forehead and whisper the same words into her ear that she’d whispered to me in her half-sleep.
“I love you, too.”
I look at her for a long, long moment before straightening. I pull on my pants and on my way to the door, I glance at the box. One of the kitchen staff mentioned to Val that she’d seen Madelena emerge from my study. With a quick look around, I’d found the bent pin on the floor in front of my desk and put two and two together.
I slide my hand into my pocket to take out the key, ignoring the smooth, hard bead of the bracelet I’d thought belonged to my brother. Sliding the key into the lock, I turn it, then open the box. I glance inside and find the feelings that usually come with looking at the contents of this box are different… not so powerful, suddenly.
Leaving it like that, I grab my shirt on my way out of the bedroom. Down the hall, I choose an empty guest room. There, I shower so as not to wake Madelena and put on the same clothes I’d worn earlier. I go downstairs to the kitchen, where a whole roasted chicken sits wrapped in the refrigerator. The dinner we missed.
I find some bread, make myself a chicken sandwich, and carry it into the study. The house is quiet; the staff all went to bed hours ago. I close the door behind me and switch on the overhead light. Setting the plate on the edge of my desk, I pick up the sandwich and take a bite, looking around at the boxes that need to be unpacked. It’s not too bad. Most of what I keep is electronic, and anything pertinent to have on paper is locked up in the safe only I have the combination to.
The chicken is good, and I’m hungry. I eat the sandwich and look up at my dad’s portrait.
“What did you mean leaving that letter, old man?”
Once I’ve finished the sandwich, I set the plate aside and move to sit in my chair. I swivel around and slide open the cabinet door to unlock the safe. Inside are stacks of cash—which are always handy—and some personal documents. There are also several USB sticks containing five years’ worth of highly sensitive information on too many high-ranking officials to count, including the Avery family, all of it collected during my time with them.
But those aren’t the things I’m interested in.
I take out the envelope I want and swivel my chair back around to set it on the desk. I take out the single sentence letter inside. I look at my dad’s familiar writing, the pen pushing a little too hard:
I know what you did, and this is your punishment.
“What did you mean? Who did you mean?”
