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“You’re deflecting.”
Helena was right; I was deflecting. “She’s leverage,” I said, “that’s all. If her fiancé can’t help her, I’ll throw her off the dock myself.”
A look passed over Helena’s face, and I couldn’t tell if she wanted to tell me off, or if she was terrified that I so casually mentioned killing someone.Be more careful, I told myself.You can never quite tell who’s spying anymore. “She’s scared,” Helena said. “Maybe you should—”
“Scared? Why on Earth does that matter? She's a means to an end; all she has to do is stay in her room and speak into the phone when I give it to her.”
Helena ducked her head; her eyes were suddenly staring with great interest at my gore-soaked shoe. “The Rojas family is dangerous,” she said after a moment, “but I don’t think that girl is. She seems incredibly…sad.”
I snorted. I couldn’t help myself. “I killed over a dozen of her cousins. If she were happy about that, I might question her attachment to her family.”
She pressed her lips together, clearly annoyed with me, but not wanting to admit it. “Do things your way then,jefe,” she said, as if to wash her hands of me. She reached into her pocket and drew out a key; it was my responsibility to care for the prisoner since I brought her here.
I pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. “Thank you for the guilt trip and the clarity. And for sewing me up.”
Slowly, I made my way to the stairs at the front of the house. I eyed them, wary; there was a couch in the office that I could crash on, but there wasn’t a bathroom with a shower on the first level, and I was indesperateneed of a shower.
Exhaustion spread through me as I forced myself to climb the stairs. My stitches pulled. I thought when I got to the landing that I might hear Lyse crying or wailing in her room, but the second floor was deadly quiet.
Suspicious, I went down the hallway to the room that I knew she was in, and I opened the door, ready to throw her back in if she tried to escape. Lyse didn’t move; instead, she was standing by the one window in the room and looking up at the sky.
“Those are bulletproof windows,” I said by way of greeting.
Lyse turned around and forced her lips into a smile…though it looked more like a mockery of one. Her eyes were dry, and they weren’t swollen. She hadn’t been crying at all. “I know,” she said. “I have a set on my windows at home. Plus, I have the bars on top of that to keep me from going anywhere that I’m not supposed to.”
“You still have the bars on your windows?” I remembered when Lili got hers off; she exited through the window more than the front door for the next three months, just because she could.
“Those aren’t going anywhere,” she said. I didn’t like the faraway look in her eyes. It was as if she were compartmentalizing herself so that she could remain calm. How much of this had been trained into her since birth? And how much was survival strength? “My father can’t have me running away, after all.”
The way she said it told me that she had done it before. Or thought about it and told the wrong person. My vision blurred, and I dug my hand into the doorjamb to keep myself upright. I didn’t have time for this kind of chat. “We’re going to call your father and fiancé tomorrow,” I said. “We’ll see just how desperate they are to get you back.”
Lyse shook her head, but she didn’t say anything. Her indifference irritated me. “In case you get any ideas about trying to run in that little head of yours, know that you’re surrounded by water on all sides.”
She flashed a dark look in my direction. Fear masked by anger. That was better. “You don’t have to remind me,” she muttered.
I clung to the door, managing a smirk. “I just thought you’d like to know that an adult can drown in as little as two inches of water.”
At her haunted look, I closed and locked the door behind me.
CHAPTER7
Lyse
Iwatched the sky turn pink and gold through the window. The lighter it grew, the more I could see the spiderweb of metal embedded between the panes of glass that made it shatterproof. I had attempted to sleep, but it had proven impossible. My body was on high alert, and it refused to relax.
The door lock clicked, and the tension between my shoulder blades ratcheted up even more. I took a breath and schooled my face into something neutral.La Bestiawalked in carrying a tray. “I’m not eating that.”
Omar set the tray on the dresser; annoyance flashed across his features for a brief second. I hated to admit that he was even more handsome when he wasn’t coated in a layer of blood and gore, but it made it easier to see howtiredthe man looked.Good,I thought.I hope you never sleep again. “Helena made it, not me, but if you don’t want it, I don’t care.”
My stomach chose this moment to growl. The scrambled eggs and toast on the platedidlook appetizing, and there was orange juice and coffee. Probably the nicest meal any hostage could hope for. Squaring my shoulders, I walked past him, took the plate off the tray and retreated to my spot on the bed. I picked up one of the thick slices of toast and brought it to my lips. Before I took a bite, I looked over at him. “Is this my last meal?”
“If you keep reminding me how much I want you and your whole clan dead, it will be.” From his pocket, he pulled out a flip phone. He didn’t have to tell me that it was a burner; I was familiar with them at home. “You get to pick who you call: your father or your fiancé. Who will make a deal in order to get you back?”
I took the phone from him and quickly dialed Felix’s number. Apá might negotiate for my surrender, but I couldn’t be sure that if he came here, Omar wouldn’t kill him outright. There was no telling whatLa Bestiawould do when he was finally in the same room as the head of the Rojas family, especially after what my father did to his brother.
Besides, if the police were already involved, my father would be of no help. While we were able to control the police in our small territory, we didn’t have the same far reach as the Castillos. Felix, I knew, had police connections that my father coveted. He could help…I hoped.
When I went to lift the phone to my ear, Omar wrenched it out of my grip and pressed the button for the speakerphone. “Hello?”
