Page 98 of Tainted Blood

I glance at Reece to see if he’s heard it too, but he just shrugs. “Gamblers getting rowdy. Carrera should be more selective with who he allows in.”

“The crowd looked pretty elite and well-behaved tonight,” I say doubtfully. “Do you think we should check?”

“Let Carrera’s men deal with it,” he says, waving it away.

He finds a discreet stereo behind the counter and switches on a chillingly haunting piece of classical music.

“What’s this?” I ask, my arms prickling with goosebumps as he turns the volume up louder.

“Debussy.”

“Doesn’t seem like Santi’s style. Something tells me he’s more an anti-establishment kind of a guy.”

My joke falls flat, so I finish making my Cosmopolitan in silence, convinced I can hear faint yelling above the music. The minor keys are sliding under my skin like rusty nails. I glance at the clock above the bar. Thirty minutes have passed since Santi left.

Reece’s phone beeps.

“Who’s that?”

“Your husband. He’s been detained.”

“Damn.” I sit down on the stool next to him and take a sip of my cocktail.

With a grunt, he loosens the top button of his black shirt and places his gun down on the counter. It seems we’re both settling in for a long night of staring at walls.

The music ends. Another track starts, and thirty minutes slowly trickles into an hour.

More messages come in for Reece, but nothing for me. I’m so bored, I find myself contemplating a game of Candy Crush.

“Do you know how long I’ve been working for your father?” Reece says suddenly, placing his phone next to his gun.

I shake my head. To me, Reece is a part of the fabric of my family. He’s attended every birthday party. He’s there in every photograph...

“Twenty-five years,” he answers.

This shakes me from my web of inertia. “That’s nearly as long as Edier’s father.”

“I was there in Miami when he met your mother.”

Now, I’m really curious. “What was he like back then?”

There’s a pause.

“Savage.”

It’s an ugly word that’s not in keeping with the elegance of this room.

Uneasiness feathers my stomach as Reece swaps tracks to another piece of classical music, one where the staccato piano notes sound like stabbing knives.

“There’s a kind of beauty in betrayal don’t you think?” he says, making me choke on my drink. “She’s like the perfect movie actress—a woman who you fantasize about for years—until one day you meet her in the street and she’s even more fucking beautiful than you ever imagined.”

“Reece—?”

“Did you know we share a birthday?”

I shake my head, staring back at a man who’s as familiar to me as my own father, yet whose gaze has started flickering to my chest in a way that’s anything but parental.

My uneasiness blooms into thorns.

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