Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
He steps closer, and with a hand under my chin, tilts my head up. “Your brother is a wealth of information, isn’t he?”
My mouth falls open, and my heart drops to my stomach.
He grins, my expression the confirmation he needs. “I’m going to teach him to mind his own business.”
“No!” I leap up onto my knees and grab hold of him when he turns to leave, wrapping my arms around him and using all my power to keep him there because it’s Odin he’s sending to the basement.
“No?” He dislodges me easily and takes hold of my arms.
“No. Please. No!”
“Your brother told you a story and look what happened. You put a fucking letter opener in me. Then you almost got yourself killed at that damned lighthouse. Which, what the fuck were you thinking going out there? Huh? What did I tell you about hurting what is mine?”
He gives me a shake that has me clutching his shoulders as the room spins.
“Shit,” he mutters, that tight grip shifting into something else, something gentler until he’s simply holding me. I wonder if he realizes how much stronger than me he is. How easily he can hurt me. Break me. “Are you okay, Madelena?”
“I feel sick.”
He grits his teeth, eyes intent on me. I see hesitation in them. It’s all I need.
I reach to touch his face. “Please don’t hurt him. Please.”
“You might have a concussion. You need to rest.”
When he releases me, I grip his sweater to stop him from walking away. “Please. Please. He’s all I have.”
“Yeah, that’s the thing, Madelena,” he starts, closing his hands over mine. “He’s not all you have. You have me. I don’t know what it’s going to take to get that through your thick skull, but you have me. You have for the last five years. You just need to trust me.”
Tears stream down my face, and I curl my fingers into his sweater. He shakes his head, drags my hands off but holds onto them. His expression softens, and I hear those words he just said repeat.
Trust him.
But how can I trust him?
“Please don’t hurt him. I’ll do what you want. Anything you want!”
“Tell me something then. Give me something like I gave you something. Answer my question. Why did you go to the lighthouse? Why there?”
I drop back onto my heels, feeling miserable—because that’s the one question I can’t answer. Saying it out loud would make it too real. “I don’t know.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Don’t hurt him. Please,” I plead.
“Tell me the truth, and I won’t hurt him.”
“You’re going to blackmail me?” I ask through tears.
“Tell me, Madelena. Say it.”
I push my hand into my hair, shake my head. I can’t. Doesn’t he know that?
With a sigh, Santos turns to go.
“Thiago said something,” I blurt out, stumbling to get out of the bed but getting caught in the heavy duvet. “He said something before the other man came out onto the catwalk.” He stops. I hurry to get the words out, to give him something. “He said he wasn’t my enemy. That my enemy is closer to home and that the blood of a monster runs in his veins.”
Santos goes rigid.
“I don’t know who he was talking about,” I add, going to him. I stand directly in front of him and put my hands on his shoulders to look at his face, which has gone stone-still. “I will learn to trust you. This is me trying. But if you hurt Odin, anything between us is gone. That’s a given, Santos.”
He draws a tight breath in and nods, but I don’t know what he’s nodding about. He draws my hands away and releases me. Without a word, he turns and walks away, out of the room, not caring that I chase after him, not hearing my pleas. Nothing.
He only stops for a moment to tell the guard outside my door that under no circumstances am I to leave the room.
3
SANTOS
I know why she went out there, but I want to hear her say it. Maybe if she does, and we share this dark secret, just maybe she can start trusting me.
But that’s not what’s on my mind as I make my way down the dimly lit hallway of the mansion my father purchased five years ago. It was a defining moment for him, the physical manifestation of how far we Augustines had come.
At the time, it was a run-down, forgotten place. It had been abandoned by the last family who lived here when they ran out of money and left it to rot back into the earth. My father had put his heart and soul into rebuilding it. I take my time as I near the grand staircase that will lead to the main floor and pause once I’m there. I look at the walls surrounding me, the paintings, the stained-glass windows. I love this house. I have since day one. Caius and my mother have always made their preference for something more modern clear. I wonder if now is the time for them to move to the luxury apartments of Augustine’s, for me to move back home with my wife.