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)
I wait until she meets my eyes again to speak.
“You’re a conniving, slithering thing. A snake. Although a snake is only acting on the instinct to survive. A snake is not evil,” I say, feeling sick for the words. “You’ve hurt so many, taken too much. Even Caius, you’ve damaged beyond repair.”
“I—”
I shake my head and she quiets. “But you are my mother still. And I am merciful, still, in spite of the Commander.” I turn to the man. “I want her knocked out during the procedure. Make sure there are antibiotics. I don’t want infection. But no painkillers. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Santos!” My mother is on her feet, the hand on her shoulder the only thing holding her back.
I turn to her.
“What are you going to do?”
“You’ll wear the tongue of a serpent. For all the lies you’ve told, for all the damage you’ve done.”
She blanches but waits. I’m not finished and she knows it.
“And you will lose the hand that began this.”
“Wh… What?”
I step toward her but find I don’t want to be too close. “But you will live. Not like so many others who are long dead.”
Her face loses the last of its color.
“That is my mercy. It’s more than you deserve.”
“Please—”
“It’s what I learned all those years. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But like I said, you are my mother, and perhaps in that warped mind of yours, you thought you were doing the right thing. I’m going to try really hard to believe that.”
“Santos, you can’t.”
I can’t look at her for another minute because the longer I do, the filthier I feel.
“Goodbye, Mother.”
“No! Wait!”
But I don’t. I turn my back on my mother as she calls for me, panicked, and walk out of that house. I want to run, to get away from her. From it. I want to burn my clothes and scrub my skin and forget this day. I decide to do just that, even as her scream pierces my ear long after I’ve closed the door, long after I’m miles away. Long after I leave the disease that is my mother behind forever.
I vow that no matter what, I will not let my sons and daughters ever know the blood that taints us all, that dirties us, uglies us.
I swear to keep them innocent, to keep them good.
Like Madelena is innocent, is good.
And I return home to her. To my salvation.
EPILOGUE
MADELENA
It’s a warm day, and I’m sitting outside on one of the patio chairs sipping lemonade from a tall glass and watching the workmen fill the swimming pool. Odin is sitting in the chair beside mine, sunglasses in place, watching one man in particular. Santos is on a business trip, although the word business is used quite loosely, I’m learning, with him. I wonder if he found his mother.
I tilt my sunglasses up and look at my brother. “I thought you were in a relationship,” I say to him.
Odin came out a few weeks ago when our father decided it was time he settled down. Odin agreed wholeheartedly and announced he’d be settling down with Rick—not exactly what our father meant, but it doesn’t matter. He’ll get over it. Besides, the worst he can do is cut Odin out of his life and his will. The former doesn’t matter, and the latter won’t happen. If he cuts Odin out, who will he leave the De Léon fortune to? Not me. And certainly not a charity. He’s too greedy for that.
Besides, when I mentioned what Uncle Jax had kept, he tucked tail like the coward he is. We hardly see him.
Odin glances at me. “I thought you were married.”
I push my sunglasses back down.
Odin has grown stronger over the last few months. Less fearful of our father. I think Santos is to thank for that but not because he voluntarily helped him. More because he forced Odin to become the man he is now.
“I see you looking too, by the way. You’re not fooling anyone with those huge glasses.”
I sip the last of my lemonade and grin, putting a hand to my very round belly to feel the baby do a little flip.
“I will never get used to seeing that,” Odin says, looking a little creeped out.
“Never get used to seeing what?” Santos asks. I look up at him. He’s freshly showered, hair still wet. I guess he showered before coming out to see us.
“When did you get back?”
“Just twenty minutes ago. Wanted to get the grime off.”
Grime. I don’t push.
He leans over my chair to kiss me on the lips and raises his eyebrows at the movement beneath the thin material of my dress.
I watch my husband, who has a little more gray in his hair these days. Whose eyes, although used to laughter now, still carry inside them the shadow of the past. But with me, it’s almost as though he clings to the light, as if he will have the light no matter what.