Page 17 of Bad Blood
Ashford’s screams are a calming melody, and I hum the familiar tune. This is where my demons dance. Uncaged, they chant their oaths to the devil while reveling in their own sin.
Four floors up, I am a shark in a designer suit.
Below their feet, I amEl Muerte.
My shirt is no longer white. Streaks of red soak the front, sealing it to my chest like a second skin.
RJ grabs a handful of Ashford’s dark blond hair, snapping the man’s head back like a rubber band. Barely conscious, he stares up at me through glassy eyes. He’s no longer sniveling. There’s a calmness blanketing him that I don’t like. It’s as if he’s straddling two worlds and the gateway is an opaque window.
“Your guilt will force you to choose one day,” he wheezes, death rattling in his chest.
Leaning down, I flash a rare smile. “I always choose revenge.”
Drawing my arm back, I swing the cleaver, lodging it deep into his carotid artery.
* * *
Lola’s head snaps up as I open the glass doors to the executive offices. Shoving her chair back, she glides around her desk, her high heels clicking in a staccato rhythm. “Where have you been?”
“Out.”
Frowning, she slams the heel of her palm against my chest, halting my movement. “It’s ten o’clock at night. Normal secretaries don’t keep these kinds of hours,Santi.”
“Normal secretaries don’t have three-fourths of her family plastered across the Ten Most Wanted list,Lola.”
That shuts her up, which would give me a modicum of satisfaction if this entire day hadn’t gone completely left of center.
Leaving her to roll that around in that stubborn head of hers, I take a step forward only to find her blocking my path again. “I’ve called you six times. That Spader guy has been waiting in your office for over forty minutes.” Huffing out a breath, she glances over her shoulder at my closed office door. “He’s a real barrel of laughs, huh?”
I know that tone. Subtlety isn’t one of my sister’s finer qualities. Instead of tiptoeing around a subject, she prefers to hit it head on, run it over, and drag it a couple miles.
On edge from a lack of sleep and waning adrenaline, I scrub my hand down my face—two days of stubble scraping my palm. “Tell me you didn’t mouth off to Atlantic City’s chief gaming commissioner.”
“Okay, I won’t tell you.”
“Lola,” I warn.
“¡Ay, Dios mío!I’m kidding.” She pats my chest. “Lighten up or you’re going to have a stroke before you’re thirty.” When I don’t laugh, she sighs. “Look, you may have saddled me with a shitty, and frankly demeaning job, but I’m not going to make my own brother look bad.”
I stiffen at her affection, but force myself not to react. No one is allowed to touch me. It’s an unfortunate by-product of having a mother who didn’t know who I was until I was nearly eight years old. That kind of shit damages a kid. Although it wasn’t her fault, the scars run deep.
Not her fault.
A common theme in my family with one twisted Colombian root.
The smile on Lola’s face slips along with her hand. “I told him your meeting was running late, and you’d be here in ten minutes—of course that was four ten minutes’ ago…” Her voice trails off as she tilts her head, her focus dropping from my face. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“You have something on your neck.” Before I can stop her, she licks her thumb and scrubs at a patch of skin below my ear. Drawing her arm back, she rubs the pads of her thumb and index finger together, the leftover evidence of my sins coating her skin. As her pursed lips slowly part, I brace myself for what I know is coming next. “It’s—”
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with.” Taking hold of her wrist, I wipe the red stain onto my black suit jacket. “I cut myself shaving.”
She doesn’t answer, and with good reason. We both know I’m full of shit. My sister grew up on a compound in Mexico City surrounded by guards armed with military grade artillery where a day’s body count was nothing more than dinner conversation.
I’ve never hidden who I am or what I do from her. However, I prefer to keep her on the outskirts of it, if at all possible.
Releasing her wrist, I slide my gaze toward my office. Smoothing the frayed ends of my patience, I push my family out of my mind and center myself on the business at hand.
