Page 42 of Bad Blood
Once the doors slide shut, I lift a slot below the row of buttons and press my thumb against a hidden access pad. Right away, it illuminates, and we start to rise. I watch as the floors tick away, my anger slowly fading with each one. By the time we pass the twenty-second floor, I’m calm enough to face her again.
“That was reckless. Anyone could have overheard you.”
“Maybe if you’d stop treating me like a child, I wouldn’t have to resort to drastic measures.” She slams her crutch onto the floor. “I recognize a blitz attack when I see one. It doesn’t take a genius to see two plus two always adds up to four.” Sighing, she leans her head back against the elevator wall. “I know you, Santi. If Dante’s daughter is responsible for turning Legado into a goddamn turkey shoot, you’re not going to sit back and take it.”
Folding my arms across my chest, I stare at her—straight through her clipped words to the tremble on her lips. Her nerves are showing, along with her humanity.There’s so much of our mother in her.
“Why do you care so much?”
“I-I don’t,” she stammers, my question catching her off-guard. “I just don’t like being forced on the outside of my own inner circle, that’s all.”
Before I can answer, the elevator dings, and the doors slide open revealing the entrance to my sister’s “summer home”—an extravagant apartment, one floor below mine.
“It’s late,” I say, guiding her across the threshold and into the lavish accommodations. “You need your rest, and I need a drink. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”
Surprisingly, she doesn’t argue. After getting her settled in her bedroom, I slip away toward the kitchen—a room with enough bells and whistles to employ an entire fleet of Michelin star chefs. It’s bright, too. The kind of bright that makes you wonder if you’re about to sit down to a meal or meet your maker.
That’s by design.
I renovated the entire place when Lola announced her plans to spend the summer in New Jersey. I wanted her surroundings to be bright, white, and pure.
Unlike the penthouse sitting directly above it.
It’s that need to preserve her innocence that ultimately drives me to destroy her trust.
Chapter Thirteen
Santi
Filling a crystal glass with juice,I set it on the counter and retrieve two prescription bottles from the inside pocket of my suit jacket. Placing one beside the glass, I pop the cap on the other and shake two capsules into my palm.
I don’t stop to think about what I’m doing. If I do, I’ll change my mind. Breaking each capsule open, I dump ten milligrams of OxyContin into the orange liquid. Giving it a stir, I grab the glass in one hand and the second prescription bottle in the other before crossing the open-floor plan back to the bedroom.
Lola is tucked under the covers, stress and fatigue already claiming her.
“Here,” I say, offering her the glass and the pill bottle. “Take your antibiotics so you don’t get gangrene.”
“Funny.” She pops two pills in her mouth, and I hold my breath as she washes them down with half the glass.
“Finish it. You need the Vitamin C.”And I need assurance my wedding won’t be disturbed.
She rolls her eyes but doesn’t argue.
Fifteen minutes later, a wrecking ball could barrel through the floor to ceiling windows and Lola would be none the wiser. That’s because she’ll be spending the next ten to twelve hours in a narcotic wonderland.
Was it a dirty play? Of course.
The brother in me hates myself for drugging my own flesh and blood. However, the cartel boss accepts it for what it is—a necessary evil. This is a war, and sometimes the ends justify the means.
As I stare down at my sister, her face clean of makeup and her dark hair strewn across her cheeks, I’m struck with how young she looks.Barely twenty. Older than Thalia, but still younger than Ella. My chest flares with rage at the thought of anyone trying to hurt her. I’d turn the heavens black and the seas red in order to protect her.
Just like Thalia did for her sister.
At that moment, my hate for Marco Bardi becomes a living, breathing thing. Ella Santiago could have easily been Lola Carrera—and then a sister’s jaded desperation would have become a brother’s unholy crusade.
I can’t excuse her methods, and I won’t ignore her role in what I still believe to be a planned attack on my casino… But as a devoted brother, I respect the lengths Thalia wasand still is,willing to go to in the name of family.
Turning out the light, I kiss Lola’s forehead. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “Te amo, chaparrita.”
