Page 9 of Tide of Treason
Ah.
We left the institution in silence.
I’d been in there for nearly a month now. First half, I was laid out in a dim room with my skull cracked and my stomach empty, choking down IV fluids and answering every question with a fistful of vomit. I don’t remember the first three days at all. Elara said I thrashed so hard they had to strap me down. Said I muttered in Portuguese. Screamed in English. When I finally came to, the first thing I asked was whether the van was totaled and if anyone found my gun.
The second half was therapy. Or what passed for it. Daily psych evals, written questionnaires, state-mandated group sessions. I was due back in January for “further monitoring.” Which meant what, exactly? That if I didn’t improve, they’d sedate me for the rest of my life?
Kayla didn’t ask how the stay had been, and I didn’t offer. She drove as I imagined she did everything else: with a kind of surgical precision that made me want to wreck something.
We stopped at a traffic light at the intersection and it went through an agonizingly slow switch of colors. Every shift in hue painted her features in a new shade of shadow, until the orange glow licked across her lips—a deep scarlet reminiscent of blood. Red for the blood she carried in her veins, red to warn those who came too close.
“Tell me how you feel about your engagement.”
Her voice cut through the hum of the engine. Not a question, more of an order delivered with the warmth of a morgue slab.
Silence offered too much time to think.
“Delighted.” The word tasted bitter as I offered it, my gaze following a man trudging through the snow. “I doubt Viviana shares my enthusiasm, given you’re the one playing chauffeur in her car.”
The eye contact was abrupt and disconcertingly intense. A sore subject, apparently. “The circumstances of your union are unfortunate,” was her response. The light turned green. Car moved forward. “My sister does what she’s told. Regardless of how she feels.”
Hmm. How unfortunate it was, indeed.
I ran a tongue over the backs of my teeth, thinking of a response that would be both intelligent and clever, and wouldn’t get me slapped. The latter would be difficult. She seemed prone to slapping the hell out of an—
“Young age to get married.”
I made a show of inspecting my busted knuckles. “Yeah, I suppose.”
The seatbelt bit into my collarbone when she braked a little too hard at the next intersection. It didn’t hurt. It just pissed me off. Everything about her did. This woman made of marble and money, so sure the world would peel itself open for her just because she gave it a look.
“You don’t sound thrilled. You could at least pretend.”
“I could. But then you’d mistake me for someone who gives a fuck.”
“Still the same immature child.”
I chuckled, low. “Been thinking about me?”
Her fingers flexed around the wheel. “No.”
“Funny. You seem well-informed about all the catastrophes around here lately.” I let it linger.
“A few shootouts in Brooklyn’s industrial district. A drive-by in Little Italy. Care to explain?”
The mention of those escapades traced a trace of wariness down my spine. So, she’d been following my recent activity. Whether Kayla was doing it out of concern for this engagement to her sister, whether she was trying to keep me in line or keep me in a cage I wasn’t sure, but it had me on fucking edge.
My mind searched for a response that wouldn’t incriminate me and came up blank.
“You have the wrong guy. I’m innocent as a newborn baby.”
“Funny thing about babies. They shit themselves. Cry a lot. Need someone else to wipe their messes.”
I stared at the road with a growing anger. “Good to know you’re an expert on infantile behavior. Explains why you’re so motherly.”
The headlights painted long, ugly shadows across the road, slicing through the mist settling over Staten Island. I slouched deeper in my seat, glancing at her from the corner of my eye. Flawless posture. Hands at ten and two. Not a hair out of place. The heater hummed against my damp clothes, but it didn’t touch the chill sinking into my bones.
She tapped the turn signal.
