I reach out, and Valeria puts her hand into mine. The diamond ring I gave her sparkles in the sunlight. “I’m sure it’s no one’s fault. Some teenagers are troubled, but she’ll grow out of it.”
“Perhaps you’re right.” Valeria doesn’t sound like she believes me. She glances over my shoulder and sits up. “Ah, here she is.”
I turn and look. A slender young woman with long, long dark hair is coming across the square toward us. She picks her way over the cobbles in high-heeled espadrilles. A spaghetti strap on her sundress slips down over one olive-toned shoulder, and she raises a hand to slide it back up. I swear I can feel the way it slides against her delicate flesh; hear her soft intake of breath.
The church clock starts to chime midday. Each peal gets further and further apart as the world slows down.
Down.
Down.
Distantly, I hear a woman’s maniacal laugh. A cruel laugh, one I’ve heard only in my nightmares.
Lolita. Lola. Little Lo.
The lines of her body are graceful and curvy, and her breasts are full and bounce as she walks. It’s not even that she’s a beauty that’s making my heart pound and my mouth go dry.
It’s that she’s mine.
I know it with more certainty than I know my own name. This girl is mine.
Time has become molten as I get to my feet. I reach for her hand, the milliseconds ticking past like centuries. Her cool fingers touch mine, and in that moment I know I will kill for this girl. I’ll slay anyone who keeps me from her.
“Darling, this is Zacarias. Your new stepfather.”
Her brown eyes gaze into mine. Whole universes are held within those warm depths and I want to tip forward and fall into them, floating in bliss forever.
The last hour chimes.
My world shatters.
Stepfather.
“Hola,” my angel murmurs, a shy expression in her eyes as she looks at me through her lashes. She comes up to my chin. Her waist is perfectly proportioned to be encircled by my arm. The way she sings in the shower makes flower blossoms patter against my heart. Watching her talk with her hands when she’s excited by an idea is a balm to my tired soul. I know all this as if I’ve already witnessed it. How do I know all this?
The laugh goes on and on, ringing in my ears like the peals of doomsday.
“How did you go in your exams, darling?” Valeria asks.
I blink, and realize we’re all sitting down and a waiter in a white shirt and black apron is handing us menus.
“Three As and two Bs, Mama,” Lolita murmurs, looking down the list of dishes.
Valeria shoots me a pained look. Lolita’s barely said hello and she’s already lying. As I watch, Lolita leans down to her handbag and her dress rides up her thigh. Plump, soft flesh that my fingers could dig into as she pants my name.
I snap my head to the side and glare across the square. Stepdaughter. Stepdaughter.
“I want to move tables.”
Distractedly, I turn back to my wife. The petulance in her voice makes irritation prickle down my spine. “Why, mi amor?”
Valeria shivers a little in her seat, though the day is warm. “That ridiculous statue. I’m sitting in its shadow.”
The sun moved while we waited for Lolita, and a large shadow has fallen over her. The nine-foot statue dominates the square. It’s of a man, fists pressed proudly into his hips and his cape sculpted to look as if it’s fluttering in a breeze. On his head is a broad-brimmed hat and his eyes are concealed by a mask.
Lolita gasps in shock. “Mama! The Black Fox is a hero.”
She gazes up at the statue with reverence in her eyes. The town erected this statue to me ten years ago, when I saved the residents from a series of burglaries that were damaging local businesses. I was just starting to gather a following and the residents of forgotten, corrupt towns were grateful to me. I didn’t do it for a statue, though. I grew up in a forgotten, corrupt town.
“They should tear it down,” Valeria says, taking a sip of her wine. “Carrying on like he’s some sort of hero when he only caught a few embezzlers and petty thieves—something the police should have done themselves—makes this a monument to our national shame.”
Two spots of color burn in Lolita’s cheeks. “He never asked for this statue. He never asked for any reward or acknowledgment at all. The people did this for him and he gives them hope. He gives me hope, too.”
Valeria casts her eyes to the heavens. “Hope for what?”
“That there’s still justice in the world.”
I sit back, enjoying the sight of Lolita quivering in righteous anger on my behalf. How I’d like to pat my knee and invite her to have a cuddle in my lap. Maybe slide those straps down her shoulders and tell her that daddy wants to suck her nipples.