“Everything okay?” I ask, but he completely ignores me, marching right past with his chin up and his jaw flexed.
The next morning I hear doors slamming. Something falls to the floor and then another door slams shut. Gasping, I sit straight up, hurrying for my robe and sliding my arms into it, wrapping it around me and covering my gown.
I rush out of the bedroom, but the living room is completely empty. The pool water is still. There is utter silence.
I walk to the empty kitchen, checking the patio. I start to think it was all in my head—that I was hearing things—until I hear stomping and Mrs. Molina asking, “WHERE IS SHE?” in Spanish.
She storms into the kitchen, her eyes puffy, gray hair a frizzy mess. I’ve never seen her so distraught. So…unhinged.
She charges for me, pointing a fierce finger in my face.
“You! What have you done?” she roars in Spanish. “What have you done, Gianna!”
I blink rapidly. Guilt courses through me, taking over every single fiber of my being. “W-what are you—”
“No!” she snarls. “Do not play dumb with me!” She’s still speaking Spanish, the words flying at me like sharp spears. “He is dead because of you! My only nephew is dead! Why didn’t you listen to Draco? Why? He trusted you!”
I feel my bottom lip quivering, my eyes bulging out of my head. Emilio and Patanza appear behind her. Emilio grabs Mrs. Molina by the shoulders but she shrugs him off.
“Señora, please,” he pleads, grabbing for her again.
This time she doesn’t shrug him off, but she does glare at me. Hard. Cold. In this moment she looks exactly like her son—ready to defend and kill if she must.
“He trusted you. I trusted you.” She points at herself, stabbing a hard finger into her own chest. “I thought you would be good for him. I thought you would give him some hope, but all you did was snatch that hope and light away from him. You’ve ruined him!” Her voice breaks.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, holding my hands out, but she shakes her head, standing up tall.
“You are not sorry! You are weak and just like the others! You had a chance, and you blew it. Thiago was all we had, Gianna. All we had.” Her tears are continuous, like waterfalls, overflowing. “Because of you…he is gone. They took him, because you didn’t trust my son enough—because you wanted to be better than him. You did the wrong thing.” She sniffles hard, and my throat thickens with unwanted emotion. “I will not be surprised if he never forgives you, Gia.” Her head shakes swiftly as she swipes a tear away. “Your father would be so disappointed in you.”
When she airs her last sentence, I feel a crack form in my chest. My heart, which was pounding in my chest, stops. My hands, which were shaking with adrenaline, are cold and still.
I didn’t know my heart could be any more broken than it already is, but she just did me in.
The pieces are crumbling and wilting away, but only because I know what she says is true.
Daddy would be angry.
He wouldn’t have forgiven me, if I’d done this to him.
And because I know this godawful truth, I am devastated. What the hell have I done?
Emilio finally gets her out of the kitchen, looking back at me once with sympathetic eyes. Patanza still stands there, her lips pressed. With one shake of the head, she turns her back to me and walks away.
When they are gone, I sink onto a barstool, dropping my face into the palms of my hands. I don’t cry. I can’t cry. Instead, I fight the tears, though it’s hard as hell to do.
I hear footsteps, but I don’t look to find where they’re coming from.
I don’t care who it is—that is until the familiar voice says, “If you want to cry and be useless, go to your fucking room and do it. I don’t want your tears on my countertops.”
I pick my head up, frowning at Draco, who is standing at the door of the kitchen. His first words to me in nearly forty-eight hours, and that’s what he has to say?
I push off the stool, walking up to him, getting in his face. “You think I don’t feel bad about this?” He doesn’t answer me. He matches my stare, challenging me in all the wrong ways. “If you are so angry, why haven’t you punished me for it yet? If I’m just like the others, why am I still here? Why?” I demand.
Still, nothing.
His jaw ticks as he pushes me aside and walks toward a liquor cabinet, taking down a box of cigars. I watch him as he sniffs one and then locks it between his teeth.
After putting the box back where it belongs, he’s walking in my direction again, but he goes right past me, his eyes far away from mine.