Page 60 of When She Unravels
I meet Ras’s hard gaze. He’s not offended by my tone. It’s worse. He’s concerned.
I check my watch. “It’s nearly eight. Mari, I promised to take you to your dance class,” I say roughly. Out of the corner of my eye, I see my sister stand up. She’s barely said a word since she saw Ale.
“I can skip it,” she says, her eyes trained on the unconscious woman our cousin is holding. “I thought I saw her when I landed in Barcelona, but I was so tired, I was sure I was imagining it.”
The memory of the day Mari came back slams into me. I’d never seen my sister so shattered. It terrified me. The thought of her no longer being alive was so hard to stomach that I refused to entertain it, even on that day.
“I want you to go to your class. Señorita Perez is expecting you,” I say. My sister is still healing, and her progress has been tepid. I’ve just managed to convince her to return to her dance classes this week.
Mari tugs on the sleeves of her loose linen top, but I know she won’t protest further. My sister is unfailingly obedient to me. “Okay. I’ll go.”
There’s a sad note in her voice that tugs on my heart. “Hey. Come here for a second.” I open my arms wide.
She walks into my embrace and puts her cheek against my chest. “I’m sorry I screamed,” she mutters. “I couldn’t believe it was her. What is she doing here, Dem?”
“She works—worked here.”
“Was she looking for me?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll find out.” I kiss the top of her head. “You’re safe now. That woman won’t bring any harm to you.”
My sister steps away. “I don’t think she wanted to hurt me. I don’t think she and her husband got along.”
I stay silent. My sister doesn’t need to know how easy it is for a practiced criminal to put on an innocent act. Mari was born to the deadliest family in thesistema, but the stories of my father’s brutality disappeared with his and my mother’s deaths. I have no desire to share those stories with Mari. I’ve spent all my life protecting my sister from those who’d harm her, and that includes the ghosts of our past.
“We’ll take the back door,” I tell Ras. He nods and walks through the bookshelf that secretly opens to my private garage. While Mari gets into my car, I watch Ras start to put Ale in the back of his.
“Put her in the trunk,” I tell him.
“It’s a bumpy ride.”
I slam the door shut, so that Mari won’t hear. “Good. And string her up for me, just like Mari told us they did to her.”
Ras sniffs and purses his lips. “Maybe you should talk to her first.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t question your capo.” I don’t wait for his response before I slide into the driver’s seat and turn on the ignition.
Before all this, I was thinking I’d take Ale out on a date tonight.
Looks like our date just got a whole lot more interesting.
CHAPTER18
VALENTINA
When I crackopen my eyelids, I blink a few times to make sure I’m not dreaming. My thoughts are muddy, my tongue is dry, and my wrists really hurt. There’s a weird medicinal taste in my mouth that I want to spit out, but I’m seriously low on saliva. I shake my head to try to get rid of the brain fog and get rewarded with a sharp pain in my shoulder.
Oh, that might be due to the fact that someone tied my wrists together with a rough rope and left me hanging by my arms.
I’m in a square room, about the size of a bedroom. Tiled floor, unfinished walls, and a narrow window near the ceiling that’s mostly covered with newspaper, but there’s bright light coming through the gaps. It faces somewhere outside. A soft trickle of a bossa nova song makes it past the glass.
Dread swoops in faster than my memory. Where the hell am I, and how did I get here? My toes bump against the ground. I quickly realize if I stand up straight, I can take my weight off my arms, so I do exactly that.
And then it hits me. Damiano’s office. Martina. His strange unnatural smile when he handed me that water.
Hedruggedme.
How long have I been out for? Judging by how sore my arms are, it must have been a while. I whirl in one direction, then the other. There’s a door with no handle. I try to kick at it with my foot, but it’s way too far for me to even come close to reaching it. Instead, I lose my balance and get rewarded with more agony in my arms.
