Page 57 of Bad Blood
I close my eyes as something jagged rips strips inside of me.
“I’m walking out of here as Thalia Carrera,” I tell him softly—regretfully. “And she makes her own decisions now.”
Who knew heartbreak could be such a physical thing?There’s pain in every part of my body as I hit the elevator call button.
Spilling out into the lobby, I make it all the way to Santi’s car before the first bullet is ricocheting off the sidewalk behind me.
I freeze, too shocked to move.
Is my fathershootingat me?
“Thalia!” Santi erupts from the Aston Martin with his gun in his hand as another bullet strays too close to my head. “Get in the car!”
I watch in a daze as he fires five rounds in the direction of my apartment block, the squeals and gasps of passers-by resonating all around. As they crouch for cover in shop doorways, another stray bullet hits the sidewalk and I’m throwing myself into the Aston Martin. A beat later, a string of returning fire is shattering the back windshield.
“Keep your head down,” Santi orders, swinging in beside me. He’s cool as ice, but his grip on his gun is a white-knuckled ride. “I take it our happy news didn’t go over so well?”
Not waiting for my reply, he spins the car into a savage one-eighty in the middle of the street. With steam still rising up from the tires, he fires three more shots as a final goodbye before his foot hits the gas and I’m being flung backward into my seat
He’s running red lights like he’s on a suicide mission, weaving in and out of yellow cabs to put as much distance between us and 9th Avenue as possible.
As for me, I’m too numb to cry. For all the angry words exchanged, for all the resentment and frustration I’ve felt toward him and this life he brought me into, deep down I’ve always loved my father.
I thought we were unbreakable.
But the way he looked at me back there... The fury in his voice. The betrayal he heard in my words... I know there’s no coming back from that.
I didn’t count the cards right.
There were too many shots fired.
I’ve gambled and lost everything to a man who flat-out despises me.
Chapter Eighteen
Santi
I keepthe pedal to the floor until we’re on the Atlantic City Expressway. It’s hard to let up when there’s more octane than blood pumping through my veins.
The back windshield is completely blown out. The only thing circulating in my Aston Martin is air. No conversation. No explanation. We haven’t spoken since 9thAvenue, but she doesn’t like the silence. It’s there in the way she’s hugging her arms across her body and gazing out of the window, the breeze from the blown-out window wrapping her long hair around her neck like a black silk noose.
She looks trapped.
She is trapped.
But what to do with my prey now?
As a wedding gift, her father just pulled the pin on an invisible grenade and tossed it into the backseat. It’s as if she’s shielding herself, waiting for me to explode.
Not today, mi amada.
Controlled composure elicits a stronger reaction than rage. If I push her hard enough, maybe she’ll start opening up to me. Maybe we’re finally have a fucking conversation in this marriage, instead of trading insults with one another.
As I pull the car into Legado’s underground parking garage, the overhead lighting slices through the shattered windshield, casting a serrated prism across Thalia’s face.
How appropriate:shadow and light, twisted together in a forbidden union.
Killing the ignition, I sit there for a moment, absorbing the tension—growing stronger from it… Harder.
