Page 104 of Tainted Blood

I lift the gun and take aim, firing eight rounds at the tail rotor, and then watching as the helicopter veers violently off to one side, billowing gray smoke and flames. The moment it disappears from view, once gravity has taken her final savage shot, I’m flinging the gun away and turning back to Santi.

He’s on his feet again and clutching at his shoulder.

“Don’t tell Grayson, but your aim is better than his,” he says through gritted teeth.

Five more steps and I’m back in his arms. I’m back in the only place I want to be.

“This birthday sucks,” I mumble into his neck.

“Give me a week in a hospital, and I’ll make it up to you.”

“If I give you a lifetime, will you give me yours?”

He catches my mouth in a rough kiss that tastes of our future.

I kiss him back with one that tastes of shadows and stars.

Epilogue

Santi

One Year Later

They say when you find yourself standing at the end, return to the beginning.

I remember thinking those exact words the night my world darkened, and my greatest sin became my ultimate salvation. With that in mind, it seems only fitting to bind our hearts in the same place that first breathed life into them.

A place where a snow angel showed me the meaning of courage.

The small vestibule at the back of Sacred Heart Church is draped in silence, and for the first time since Thalia entered my life, I chase it instead of running from it.

My request for solitude isn’t a regression. It’s a leap forward, stemming from a need to embrace the peace it offers rather than the loneliness.

Unbuttoning my tuxedo jacket, I lean back in my chair and slowly flip a quarter between my fingers, watching as fate is decided with the turn of a coin.

I’m so focused I barely register the door opening. Even then, I don’t have to look up to know who’s there. My father’s presence can suffocate a room, just as quickly as command it.

“What are you doing?” he asks, coming to stand beside me.

“Thinking about something Lola said last year.”

“Dangerous waters,” he notes dryly, but I hear the amusement in his voice as he slides his hands in the pockets of his tuxedo pants.

I chuckle, my gaze still on the quarter. “Last year, when Thalia asked for distance...” I clarify, my brief smile fading as I glance up at him. “But men like us aren’t wired to back away as much as smother.” Exhaling a rough breath, I close my fist around the coin. “Letting go tested my strength more than any bullet. Remembering the talk I had with Lola back then got me thinking about everything.”

“Everything?” he repeats. “That’s quite an extensive topic.”

“La Boda Roja,” I clarify. “The war with the Santiagos, my ambition, crossing paths with Thalia… I asked Lola if she’d ever considered if all of it was somehow predetermined. That it was only a matter of time before the two sides blurred and it stopped being heads or tails”—looking up, I meet his intrigued gaze—“and just became one coin.”

He leans back against an antique desk to consider this, and once again, I note how similar we are. It’s not just our matching tuxedos—simple, understated, and very un-Carrera-like. It’s in the stubborn set of our jaws. The mirrored mannerisms. The slicked back dark hair, forced into submission to present an air of authority.

His choice not to sit down next to me isn’t a power play, and for once in our relationship, I don’t bristle at it. After forging a truce with our enemy, we forged our own. I’m no longer the heir fighting for his name. I’m the son who shares it with a willing king.

“What did she say?” he asks eventually.

“She said she didn’t think war fated love. She believed love ended it.’”

Twenty years of hate and vengeance condensed in a piece of sage wisdom I’ve never forgotten. Priceless in its simplicity.

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