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“That won’t happen.”
She scoffed. “I’m a Rojas, even abandoned as I am,” she said. “They’ll never accept me.”
I tightened my hold on her, until my muscles were screaming from the strain. “They will,” I promised. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“But if they don’t?”
“Then we’ll figure something out.” I pressed my lips against the top of her head. “I would do anything for you.” It was a bold declaration, and I wasn’t even sure why I said it…but I knew that I would. Was that love? I wasn’t sure, but I had never felt this way before.
“Anything?” Lyse asked, and her voice was teasing now.
“Anything,” I said. “You want your father’s head on a platter? I’ll bring it to you personally.”
It might have been a step too far, but Lyse laughed and rubbed her face against my chest. The sound thrilled through me; I didn’t think that I would ever get tired of it. “I don’t think people who commit patricide live long in our circles,” she said lightly, but it felt like a bucket of ice water was dumped over my head.
“Sometimes it’s necessary,” I said. My head felt like it was full of cotton.
“What do you mean?”
I took a breath. If I told her this, it would truly lash us together. “My Padre is dead,” I said.
Lyse wasn’t surprised. “My father said he was sick. They had meetings at the hospice he was staying in.”
Well…that’s interesting. I filed that information away for later; it might not matter that Luis was close to Padre, but Angel might want to know just how close our fathers were. “I killed him.”
Lyse sat up, alarmed. “You did what?”
I wanted to pull her down into my arms, but I didn’t. I wouldn’t force her into my arms if she didn’t want to be there. “The night that I attacked your engagement dinner,” I said, heart beginning to thump against my chest, “Angel was rushed back into surgery because he was hemorrhaging. My sister-in-law was screaming; everything was chaotic…and Ineededto make someone pay. I knew that Angel had gone to the nursing home to visit Padre the night that he was attacked. Angel never told us where he’d stashed him, but it wasn’t hard to find the location in his office. I didn’t know if he was dead or not, but I had to check. When I got there, he was still alive, and when he saw me, he started laughing and congratulating me on ‘winning’ over Angel finally, and I knew that Padre had planned everything.” I sneered. “As if I ever wanted to be in charge. As if I wouldeverwant Angel dead.”
Lyse started rubbing my arm, and after a moment of hesitation, she lay back down in my arms and held me close. I tipped her head up and kissed her; I wanted to be as close to her as I possibly could. “He was a cruel man,” she murmured.
I nodded. “I nearly couldn’t do it.” Shame flooded through me. I wasn’t sure if I was embarrassed about what I had done, or the fact that Icouldn’tput my hands directly on my father. “I put a pillow over his face. He was too weak to fight me off. It didn’t—” I took in a breath. “It didn’t take long.”
The flatlining machine had brought the nurses running while I managed to slip out undetected. I had killed so many men at this point, but this was the only one that I thought about. Had nightmares about.
But that didn’t mean that I regretted my decision. My Padre had to die, just like the Rojas had to die. It was the only thing that would make what happened okay. I could handle the nightmares. I could make Angel understand when I told him, I think. He would protect me as much as he could when word got out that I committed the greatest of sins. I was nearly sure of it.
Lyse lay against me for a long while. “I wish you would have gotten Apá too,” she admitted softly. “He deserves to die.”
“Tell me when,” I said, “and I’ll make it happen.”
* * *
Lyse
What I’d said was evil. To hope for my father’s death wasevil, but the longer Omar looked at me, the more I shivered in a mix of horror and desire. “Omar,” I sighed.Why do I want him?He was injured; he had basically promised to murder my family…and yet I didn’t think I had ever wanted him more than I did right then.
He picked up on it immediately, and a smug smile stretched across his face. “What do you need,conejita?”
“You’re hurt.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Omar.” He took my hand, kissed my fingers, before placing them against the zipper on his dark jeans. I gasped: he was hard.How?“That’s a bad idea,” I told him. “We can’t—”
“What do youneed, Lyse? You can have it.” He pressed our hands down against him. “I can give it to you.”
My lower belly clenched with want. “How would this work?”
