“He stole everything that was supposed to be mine.”
He doesn’t elaborate and I don’t dig deeper, worried I’ve already been too obvious with my questions.
“My sister and I...” I swallow thickly, remembering my maid’s tragic story. “We were taken by a cartel and enslaved. I haven’t seen her or my father in a decade.”
“How sad,” he says in a mocking voice. “You think you’re the only one with a tragic story? You think you don’t deserve to die? We all die in the end, Adelina. That’s what will happen to you, too. Seems like you’ve led a miserable life, anyway. Why do you care?”
This time I don’t need to lie.
“Heath,” I respond. “I need to make him better, I need to be with him.”
“You’re in love with him?”
My breath catches in my throat, and I nod without thinking. The line between truth and lie is thinner than ever.
“I was in love once,” Xander mutters. “Her name was Ivette.”
“Ivette,” I whisper, sending him launching at me.
“Don’t you dare say her name,” he snarls in my face.
I turn to the side, shivering beneath his imposing form. “Fine, relax. I’m sorry. Please. Don’t hurt me.”
Once again, I notice the effect my begging has on Xander. He backs down almost instantly. I tuck my hair behind my ears with my free hand, waiting for him to pull back. Luckily for me, he seems to have calmed down.
“Please, I want to eat something, to shower.”
“I’ll send some food up,” he mutters reluctantly. “There’s a bathroom right through there. But don’t try anything funny, you’re being watched.”
He points to a camera overlooking the bed and I force myself to swallow the insult on the tip of my tongue.
“Fine,” I hiss. “Can you uncuff me?”
Reluctantly, he pulls out a key and unlocks the handcuffs. He watches me closely, anticipating an attack that doesn’t come. My heart skips a beat as he finally pulls back.
“I’ll be watching, Adelina.”
“I’m sure you will,” I hiss, walking to the bathroom and slamming the door in his face.
I quickly check the room and locate the camera. Luckily, it’s pointed away from the toilet. As if I don’t have a care in the world, I sit down on it. My shaky hand touches my thigh where the pink revolver Heath gave me is strapped into a holster.
I need to hide it before Xander finds out I still have it.
That gun is going to be my ticket out of here.
Chapter 2
HEATH
The thing that shocks me most about being shot isn’t the pain. It’s the blood. There is so fucking much of it. The sight of it soaking my clothes and the sea will haunt me for a long time.
Liberato is the one to pull me out of the ocean after Xavier takes his shot.
By the time I come to my senses again, Liberato admits it’s days later. I want to kill someone when I find out they still haven’t found Rain, but I’m so fucking weak I need to accept the help I’m offered before I can even consider going after her myself.
“Water,” I grunt. Liberato passes me a glass and I take long gulps of the cool liquid. “Why am I so goddamn thirsty all the time?”
“Probably the loss of blood or some shit,” my brother mutters. “You need to lie down, Heath. It’s still too soon for you to be up and walking around. You almost died out there, man.”
I remember the details all too clearly. Wading into the sea to go after Rain, then the bullet burying itself beneath my skin, killing me slowly.
“I keep telling you, we need to go after the bastard that did this,” I reply, sitting up in my bed with a low hiss.
Everything fucking hurts from this bullet wound. Even though I’m getting medical help, the pain is fucking horrible. I long for my powders and my injections, but I know L won’t listen to me if I ask for them now. And I’m still too weak to get some myself.
“Yeah, and you keep telling me it was your uncle, too.”
My enraged gaze turns to Liberato. “It was.”
“I don’t think so, Heath. He does not know who you are, where you are, or that you’re even alive.”
“I know what I saw,” I growl.
“Your mind could be playing tricks on you, you’ve been through a lot,” L mutters with a heavy sigh. “But I’m telling you, that wasn’t Xavier.”
But the unspoken question remains. If not my uncle, who attacked us? And why did they take Rain?
As the days pass without a ransom note or any other information, I become more and more convinced Xavier is the one who stole Rain. But the more I try to convince Liberato we need to attack him, the more my friend tries to convince me it’s pointless.
Rage bubbles right under the surface of my skin. I’m still so fucking weak. For days, they weren’t sure if I’d survive. But I’m still fucking here, and now there’s only one thing on my mind—Rain.