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“I never said you were.” She smiled in a far too motherly way, and I felt a pang. I hardly remembered my own mother, but Padre had a knack for hiring matronly women to care for his children. Helena might exasperate me on a daily basis, especially lately, but she saw me in a way that Padre never had. It could be absolutely humiliating. “But I’ve never seen you so invested in a woman before.”
“She’s my—”
“Hostage, I know.” But Helena and I both knew how keeping someone hostage went, and this wasn’t it, especially not after the conditions of release weren’t met. She should be dead. Or under lock and key. Instead, I was allowing her to amble around as she pleased. “But it doesn’t change the fact that you’re treating her as if she’s special.”
I ground my teeth together. “I know.”
“Mijo.” Helena tutted. “It’s okay to realize that she isn’t the Devil, you know. I know she’s a Rojas…but people aren’t alwaysjusttheir family.”
It was a concept that was hard for me to swallow. The Castillos were a unit; we moved and operated for the greater good of the whole. It left little room for individuality, and it wasabundantlyclear that when I made decisions for myself, I made mistakes. Separating Lyse out from her family was hard to do.
“It wouldn’t matter what I did anyway. I slaughtered her family for what they did to Angel. We couldn’t move past that.”
“Do you want to?”
Helena was goading me, and I knew it, but it was hard not to rise to her challenge. “It wouldn’t matter,” I insisted. “She can’t swim. She’sterrifiedof deep water, and I threw her off the dock and watched her drown.”
She studied me for a long while. “There’s nothing you can say,” she agreed. “But if you have feelings for her, you could do something for her.Showher that you have feelings for her.”
I stared at her blankly. “Like how?”
“How do you normally get women’s attention,mijo? It’s not that different.”
Was she kidding? “I’ve never tried to seduce a woman that I’ve done such an injury to.”
Helena scoffed. “Are you Omar Castillo, or aren’t you?” she asked before turning and walking away.
Before Emma became Angel’s wife, my brother had only had casual relationships; he had little interest in settling down with anyone, but he disliked the messiness of hookups and would only indulge occasionally. Unlike my brother, I had few qualms about finding a fling for the weekend.
But I didn’t have to seduce those women. So long as I showed an interest, they came to me…and seduction wasn’t exactly the same as romance in any case.
Romance? A Rojas?I snorted. I should put a bullet through my skull for the very thought.
Still…I glanced out the window and caught sight of Lyse again. She was making her way down to the beach where she would, undoubtedly, draw again. She’d been doing that a lot, but ever since that first time I caught her, she had erased everything before I could get close enough to get a peek.
While I pretended that Iwasn’tstaring, a thought came to mind. There was something that I could do for her. It might even make her smile.
After checking in with Lili — no change in Angel, though they were going to start lightening his sedation — I locked my office and went to seek out Lyse.
Since I’d unlocked her door, she’d stayed on the beach near the house, but today, I found her on the other side of the island. It faced the open ocean; the water was a little darker, and the beach a little more unkempt. She sat in the sand, eyes set on the horizon, like she was trying to memorize it.
“I’m starting to think you’re obsessed.”
Lyse jerked and looked at me. Her eyes were wary. “What do you want?”
Irritation flickered through me, but it was chased with a warm fondness that I refused to think about. What was it about this woman mouthing off to me? I was feared and respected…and yet, Lyse Rojas could speak to me in a way that no one had ever dared, bar Padre and Angel.
I held out my hand. “I want to show you something. Come with me.”
She snorted and looked out at the horizon. “No.”
“Do I need to carry you,conejita?”
Lyse practically yelped at the mention of me carrying her, and I had to bite back a wince.Not the smartest thing to say given what happened, I berated myself. She stood up and dusted the sand off her legs. My eyes dragged down the length of her, following the movement of her hands, and it took her clearing her throat for me to come back to attention. “Show me whatever you need to show me.”
I beckoned her to follow me to the house, and the closer we got, the more tense she became. She relaxed a little bit when she realized that we were going into the house, but she went ramrod straight again when I started climbing the stairs.
“I’m not locking you up again,” I said. “I promise.” Lyse didn’t believe me, I could tell, and I couldn’t exactly blame her. “Just—” The wordstrust menearly made their way out of my mouth. There was no way that she was going to trust me. “Just follow me,” I said as I opened a door that hid the stairs to the attic space.
