Page 20 of When Sinners Dare

I’m gonna need a few goddamn drinks tonight.

CHAPTER SEVEN

MARIANA

Tell Abel.Like it’s so easy.

I pace, feeling the pressure of the impending conversation growing heavy in the pit of my stomach.

Mother’s body is still motionless. The spill of blood looks glossy and thick against the pale floor, it’s spread now slow and laboured.

No.I can’t stay here. I can’t face this.

A wave of panic sweeps over me as I stare at the reality before me. Dante might say it was an accident. It looks like an accident, but I caused it.

I pushed her.

I killed her.

The guilt grows like a living thing in my body, taking over and infecting my thoughts and tainting my feelings. But it’s the disappointment that I know will come from my family that churns in my stomach. Their opinion, their view. Despite her treatment of us, any of us, she is our mother.

Was.

Knox defended her from Abel. Would he take my side? Would he choose to blame me?

Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

My mind whirls with scenarios and runs away with visions of being outcast as a result of my actions. It makes me feel sick, that empty cavernous feeling in the pit of my stomach waiting to pull me in.

My brothers know death and have killed on countless occasions. It’s no secret within the family, and it’s never bothered me. Why should it? Until now, I’ve managed to avoid that particular part of the business, or rather, my brothers have shielded me as best they could.

But now I’m faced with my own mother’s body.

Dead from my hand.

But I can’t face it.

I slam the door to the kitchen and leave, shaking my head in a frenzy as I fight against the questions in my mind. Dante’s on his way and will know what to do. Looking around the hall, there’s a strange frenzy building inside of me, like I’m about to break apart in my mind. I can call Abel when I’m not looking over the body of my dead mother.

It’s like I’m on automatic; I race to the car and climb in. I put it into gear and drive off, but I’m not focused on driving. My mind rushes over every step and repeats every move and word of the conversation with Mother leading up to it. Repeat. Repeat. I clock into traffic in front of me, but my body is in control, going through the motions. Before I know it, I’m heading out of town and in a direction I have no apparent reason to be driving in. But I don’t fight it. I let the car eat up the road and try to clear my mind. The visions and memories keep coming. The screaming, the fights, the slaps and the abuse all come to the surface. The years of jibes and veiled threats, of condescension and ridicule. She never approved of me. She was never satisfied. She loved her boys – oh god, how she loved her boys – but how dare another woman carry the name Cortez.

My sorrow turns bitter, and the panic is overtaken by rage.

“Argh!” I crack and belt out a scream at the top of my lungs as my foot buries the accelerator into the floor. The car surges forward, eating up the tarmac as my lungs empty and the speed increases.

Faster and faster, my scream continues filling the car. My heart skips as the speed continues to increase, and it’s freeing.

For a moment.

The tyre hits a pothole, shaking the car, and I veer to the side and have to correct the direction, swerving across the road and forcing me to pull the car back and hit the brakes. There are no other cars on the stretch of road, and as I come to a stop, my heart pounds viciously against my chest as I catch my breath. A warning of sorts.

My forehead rests on my hands, still clenched around the steering wheel as I wrestle my composure back. A bubble of laughter slips out of me and sounds absurd. I’m sitting in my car, narrowly avoiding crashing after fleeing the house I killed my mother in.

More laughter rings in my ears, and it grows, before a loud horn blasts from behind me and brings me back to earth. I check the rear-view and pull off, keeping to a respectable speed until I see a bar just off the side of the road. The giant neon arrow flashing below the three letters tells me all I need to know about the place, so I pull off the road into the dusty car park to kill the engine.

I shake my head and clear my throat. My phone weighs heavy in my hand, but I do as Dante said and scroll to Abel’s name and hit call.

“Mariana, I’m tied up right now.”

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