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She put the plate down on my desk hard. The porcelain of the plate clattered against the hardwood, and the cachitos jumped. “If you keep speaking to me that way, you won’t befuckingme anywhere.”
It was the wrong thing to say. I snatched the plate off the desk and threw it past her so that it burst into an explosion of porcelain. Lyse yelped and shrank away, making herself smaller. “Get. Out.”
“Omar!”
“Get out!” The words came out in a scream, and when Lyse turned and fled, I went after her. “You don’t get to do whatever you want,” I pelted the words at her back. “You can’t just barge into my office, full of documents that are important to the Castillos, when I havespecificallytold you that it was off-limits. Do you want to die? If Angel found out that I let you near any of that, he would flay you alive! Do you understand?”
I chased her up the stairs and down the long corridor until she flung herself into her room and slammed the door in my face. It locked from the outside, of course, so she couldn’treallykeep me out. But the sound of the door snapping shut forced some sense into my brain. The haze retreated.
What have I done?
Taking a breath, I gently knocked at the door. “Lyse? I’m so sorry.”
“What in Heaven’s name are you doing?” Helena came barreling down the hallway at me. Her sharp hands shoved at my shoulder, and I winced at the flare-up of pain. The bruises from the attack and accident were fading to a mottled yellow, but it didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt if a grown woman bulldozed into me. “Carrying on that way?” Her voice was shrill; it made my head hurt. “You’re acting like a child.”
“I’m—” I swallowed. “She—”
“She was bringing you breakfast, not trying to gather the business secrets of the Castillos, and you know that.”
I did. Lyse couldn’t have been clearer about how much she didn’t care about the business end of either family. “I’m sorry.”
Helena snorted. “It’s not me that you should be apologizing to.”
I gestured to the closed door. “What did you think I was doing when you came running into me?”
“Chasing her up here and changing your mind at the last second is not the time for a sincere apology.” She smacked me again. “Honestly!¿Que te crio?”
“Helena.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t try to intimidate me now,jefe. You know you’re in the wrong, so you’re getting defensive, but I won’t put up with that nonsense.” She pointed her finger in my face: a bold move, even for her. “You find a way to make it up to her, do you hear me?”
I shouldn’t let her get away with how she talks to me. But instead of saying anything, I just nodded. “I will.” She pushed me down the hall, away from her door. “What are you doing? How am I supposed to apologize?”
“First, you’re going to clean up the mess you made in your office,” she said. “That’ll give you time to think before you say or do anything else that stupid.” Shetskedsoftly. “You’re better than this, Omar.” Helena sounded so disappointed that it actually hurt.
But I wasn’t better than this. Big and violent was all I’d ever be.
CHAPTER25
Lyse
My lungs refused to pull in oxygen. I leaned against the door and tried to force myself to take in as deep a breath as I could, but my diaphragm was trapped under the weight of my panic.We were past that, I thought.Right?
Omar had promised me that he took care of what belonged to him…but the look that I saw in his eyes before I ran from his office hadn’t been the man who’d shared his smiles and his bed with me. They couldn’t be the same person.
Except that I knew they were. I’d known that all along: Omar wasn’t calledLa Bestiaout of some misunderstanding or exaggeration. He was capable of carnage, and he’d proven that true again and again.
I shivered and swiped at the tears running down my face. I’d heard Helena out in the hallway and their retreating footsteps. It was a good thing: I couldn’t be trapped in this room again. I’d lose my mind first. Turning around, I grabbed the doorknob, and for a moment, I felt a real fear that he’d locked it without my noticing.
But the door opened without an issue, and I was able to step out into the empty hallway. I felt like I was right back where I started, scampering around half-afraid that Omar would jump out and grab me. Squaring my shoulders, I trekked downstairs and found Helena in the kitchen, eating one of the cachitos that we made. “Come sit,” she called as soon as she saw me.
“Omar isn’t here?”
“He’s been sent to clean his office, and then he’s to be outdoors until at least lunch.”
I let out a relieved sigh, and I accepted it when she handed me one of the pastries. It was flaky and smelled delicious; it was something that I might have made with Madre when I was very young, before my “duty” became my entire life.
“You don’t have to forgive him,” Helena said after the silence had stretched between us for way too long.
