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He sighed. He knew as well as I did that we were out of moves. There was just one left. We couldn’t find Domínguez or his victims. And according to the asshole tonight, it was possible there weren’t any victims to be found. But if Domínguez didn’t keep them, then he killed them. The barrels of acid had left me in no doubt about that.
“We can’t walk away from this even if we wanted to,” I pressed on. “Or at least, I can’t. Not with Domínguez sending men after me. Letting him come for me is the right move.”
“It might be better to stash you away safely until we can find a better move,” he argued. “What we did withEl Víborawas a last resort, and we had Deo in there with you. You’d be on your own this time, Greta.”
“I know,” I said. I took a deep breath, forced my heart to slow down, and wrapped the bedsheet around me. “We’ll get through it, Gabe. We always do.”
“I’ll think about it,” he said, “and I’ll see what I can put together. But we’re going to need a few days. I want everyone ready if we go ahead with this, so promise me you’ll wait.”
“I’m not actually prone to doing stupid things,” I said, feigning offense.
He scoffed. “No, but you tend to be fearless,amica,and sometimes, there’s a very fine line between fearless and stupid.”
I sighed, nodding my head even if he couldn’t see it. Because he wasn’t wrong. It was a very fine line, and I teetered along it constantly.
I looked over at the closed bedroom door. “I’ll wait,” I agreed. God knew, I was going to need a few days to get Brute okay with this plan. Why I cared whether he was on board… I wasn’t going to analyze that. Nope. Because the answer that jumped into my head was not welcome. Not one bit.
So, instead of analyzing, I hung up the phone, dropped it down on the bed, and left the room.
The bright light in the hallway and the light coming from the rest of the house made my eyes squeeze shut reflexively. But as they did, I caught scent of an odd, almost industrial smell. A little charred, maybe. It was a scent I couldn’t place but it seemed to be coming from the only closed door; the room across the hall.
I thought about just walking in, but it felt uncomfortable somehow. We may have had sex, but barging in past closed doors was a whole different thing. So, I knocked.
“Come in,” I heard Brute’s voice call through the ornately carved door—maple, I think.
I opened the door and walked in without thinking, but if I’d known what I was walking into, I might have reconsidered.
There were slabs of wood all over the room, some big, some small, all of them stacked layer upon layer, and all of them with pictures, from mythical birds to old symbols and weapons. Not painted pictures, though. Burned. Etched into the wood with fire.
Brute was sitting on an old bench in the middle of the room, a miniature blowtorch in one hand and some sort of burning tool in the other. There was an enormous filter system on the ceiling above him—that explained why the charred scent was faint.
“You made all of these?” I asked, looking around in wonder. The charred detail of the broadsword burned into the wooden slab nearest me was so vivid, so fine, it was almost lifelike.
He nodded, setting the torch and the burning tool down. He was watching me, silent, as I looked around from one piece of art to the next. I could feel him waiting for me to say something.
“They’re beautiful,” I said in awe, but really, the word was an understatement.
He smiled lazily as he turned away and set his latest slab against the wall, beneath a window.
He’d made so many of them, and yet, none of them were hanging in his living room or in the foyer. They were all here, locked in this room. They were for him, not for show. And yet, he was showing me.
It hit me hard, almost like a blow to my solar plexus, leaving me a little breathless. There was a story here, a reason he did this, and I had a feeling he was letting me in.
I took a step back.
“I promise nothing in here will explode, darling,” he said as he turned to face me again.
“That’s what you think,” I muttered under my breath. I could leave, forget that he’d let me in here, walk away.
“Why?” I asked instead.
He cocked an eyebrow at me.
“This isn’t just art. If it was art, you’d have it hanging in your living room or by the front door.”
He tilted his head, considering me. Apparently, he hadn’t decided completely on letting me in. But then he nodded. “It’s cathartic, I suppose. Taking something bad and turning it into something good.”
“Something bad into something good? I’m not following.”
