Page 39 of Bad Blood
I’ll play his stupid games. I’ll wear his stupid ring, but as soon as Bardi is paid off and I get that footage, I’ll be serving Santi Carrera with an annulment so fast he’ll be bleeding out from all the paper cuts.
Chapter Twelve
Santi
Driving is becoming a reckless endeavor.
“Bardi, it’s me. I have your money, but I need a couple more days. Meet me at that bar you picked me up outside yesterday at nine p.m., next Friday.”
That’s the third time I've listened to her begging that Italian piece of shit to call her back. I have to tighten my grip on the steering wheel just so I don’t drive my fist through the windshield. She sounds desperate. Panicked.So fucking broken.
She was telling the truth last night. She didn’t toss Bardi whatever information he’s clinging to like a lifeline. Even so,an innocent Santiago is the living definition of an oxymoron.
Still, I think of how she’d stood up to me in my office last night, with her attitude and confidence. How she’d absorbed my threats—choosing to face her fate head on with dignity instead of tears. I think of the woman who’d sashayed into my casino in a crimson dress, laying her life on the line to salvage her sister’s.
I listen to it again.
Hearing the pain in her voice makes me crave to hearhimbeg. To break him like he broke her. I have no idea how to reconcile the urge to protect a Santiago with the hate I’m supposed to feel for her.
I knew she’d call him. I’d counted on it. My plan can’t proceed without a scheduled rendezvous between my bride-to-be and the man who betrayed her. Thalia has no idea I’m pulling all the strings in this puppet show. Now that there’s a confirmed date, all that’s left to do is open the curtain and make my marionettes dance.
“You know the definition of insanity, Santi?” Lola asks, nodding to where Bardi’s phone is still plastered to the side of my head.
“Picking you up, instead of calling Uber?”
Cocking her head, she wrinkles her nose. “Cute, but no. It’s doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Like listening to the same message four times, thinking maybe the fifth won’t cause that vein in the middle of your forehead to pop and give you an aneurysm.”
Scowling, I drop Bardi’s phone in the console.
Lola mutters a string of curses and scrambles for the overhead handle as I take the car in a sharp hairpin turn toward Legado. “Dios mío, slow down!” she yells, wincing as her shoulder slams against her window. “I didn’t survive getting shot only to die by vehicular manslaughter.”
“You were grazed by a bullet. Don’t be dramatic.”
“I’mbeingdramatic? You kept me locked in a hospital room forobservation.” She punctuates the word with air quotes. “A few stitches and you acted like I needed to be given last rites.”
I’m not having this argument with her again. She’s pissed and rightly so. I’ve given her a string of vague answers and half-truths concerning the events from last night and my reason for,and I quote, “acting like a total shitbag and treating her like a criminal.”
I want to tell her that what I’m doing is forher. For my mother. For the Carrera name. For two decades of sins against all three.
I pull the car into the circular valet station in front of the casino’s main entrance. As the car slows to a stop, I steal a look at her out of the corner of my eye. “After what happened at Rutgers, can you blame me for being overprotective?”
My words hit their mark. Lola flinches, her shoulders curving at the direct hit. Regardless of what she claims, she didn’t spill theentiretruth about what happened between her and Sam Sanders last year. The “kidnapping” story she spun to our father had more holes than a slice of Swiss Cheese.
However, the truth will come out eventually.
It always does.
Just like it will with Thalia.
Thalia…
Her name spreads an unfamiliar warmth throughout my chest. She’s a welcome departure from the parade of vapid whores constantly vying for my attention. The youngest Santiago may be intimidated by me, but that acid tongue of hers is so easily provoked.
Most women I encounter open their mouths for one thing, and it tends to impede further conversation. But Thalia… That iron will and sharp wit hardens my dick more than any blow job ever could. I shift uncomfortably in my seat.Something I’ll have to take care of myself, sooner rather than later.
More memories of her efforts to stand her ground last night bring a ghost of a smile to my lips. My little thief is holding her cards close, but she forgets that this is my casino. My playground. My rules. Last night, she agreed to the highest stakes game of her life—and I never sit at the table without an ace up my sleeve.
I think of the horror on her face when I tossed that diamond ring at her. Perk of owning a casino? There are always drunken assholes willing to tie the knot over the spin of a roulette wheel. Legado caters to their every need, as long as their credit is good.
