Page 28 of Empire of Carnage
Her jaw clenched hard, a familiar mannerism of Ronan’s. Little moments like this always reminded me that they’d grown up together. Now I saw it for what it really was. It was her behavior not his. He had been mirroringherall this time. It made me wonder if she’d learned it from her father.
She was calculating her options.
Damn, I loved a smart woman.
“Everybody out.” She didn’t even have to say it loud, and the room cleared out fast. All the little techie nerds that were already working to reinstate all of the built-in systems promptly stood and vacated to God knows the fuck where.
César stood as well, and she stood with her arms crossed, waiting for the room to empty completely.
“Are you not going to say anything?” I asked Santos, who still sat on a foldout chair, ankle over his knees and hands behind his head.
“Nah.” He chewed on the toothpick pressed between his back teeth.
Of course he wouldn’t, so I would be the only insane one who wanted to suffocate her because I couldn’t handle the idea of her being on her own without her. Even though history would prove…
Either way. That wasn’t fucking fair. Ronan wouldn’t disagree because he was never going to be saying no to Celia ever again. And Santos, well… I didn’t really know what his fucking deal was. I figured he was just handling the post torture shit poorly. Wouldn’t blame him. He didn’t talk much about it, but she did. She’d told me in confidence. Every day Guillermo would ask him if he still wanted to protect her, still wanted to take her pain for himself. Every day he gave him the option to swear himself back to Los Muertos, to kill her instead.
Every day he took what was meant for her, and they’d hurt him instead. And every day she watched. I hated that she had to do what she did, but I respected her for it. But Santos, he was still haunted by it and having a hard time looking past anything but his own failures.
14
Celia
Things were different between me and Santos now because we were different now. We no longer saw the need to keep putting on the mask we did with everyone else. We saw each other at our worst, we saw all of each other’s flaws. I knew exactly who he was inside, and he knew the same about me.
It was comforting in a way, to have someone you could be your truest self with.
It was like letting go of a breath you’d been holding your entire life.
When you wore a mask at all times, you kind of forgot what your real face looked like. If I took too much time to think about it, it always sent me into a spiral of panic. An identity crisis that never resolved itself. I’d spent my entire life pretending to be whoever it took to get me through the next chapter, and I ended up forgetting who I was underneath the mask.
Santos saw through it now.
And he couldn’t hide from me either.
The problem was that at my core, I wasn’t sure who was behind the mask anymore. I felt like an insecure little girl with no personality and a watered down version of her culture that’d been forgotten through years of Americanization.Assimilate or die. It was a rough game, but by the time I realized what a good job I’d done blending into the crowd, it was too late. I was a thirty year old orphan with a second-grade education level in the country I’d impulsively moved ‘home’ to.
Oh, fuck. It was happening again.
I lowered down to a squat on the ground, hovering my ass just an inch from the floor while my head dropped between my knees. I took deep breaths, but the room just closed in on me faster with each exhale, and all I could hear was the high-pitched electronic sound coming from the computers.
And then Ronan’s shoes appeared on the ground right in front of my face. I lifted my gaze up to find him there, head tilted as he waited for my eyes to follow all the way up to his. His hand extended out as he reached and caressed the side of my face, his Bleu de Chanel scent reminding me that it didn’t matter who I was because he’d find a way to love all those versions of me.
Maybe they all would.
“Let me leave the goldendoodle with you, flower. I’ll sleep better knowing you won’t be alone in that big house.” He smirked, navigating through my ego in a way that only he knew how to do in order to get me to acquiesce to his needs.
My heart slowed down with each stroke of his thumb against my cheek, and I used it as a guide to steady my breathing.
“You’ll take Santos with you, to keep you safe?” I asked and he huffed out a laugh.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll take Álvarez to keep me safe.” Their eyes met, but neither one showed any expression.
They still weren’t seeing eye to eye, which was insane because at this point I thought we’d chalked everything up to water under the bridge. Maybe I was the only one standing on the bridge though. Poor Mateo wasn’t even aware there was water to go over, he was so faultless in everything.
“Then yes, I’ll keep the goldendoodle.” I smiled back at Ronan.
“Did we get a dog?” Mateo asked and finally Santos cracked a smile.
