Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 86768 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86768 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
I scramble away from the door when they finish talking, but I’m pretty sure it’s obvious I was listening when Santos enters the bedroom.
“Why aren’t you ready for bed?” he asks, looking me over. He’d instructed me to get to bed before he’d left to talk to Val.
“Because I’m not a child who needs to be put to bed.”
He sighs heavily.
“I have questions,” I say, folding my arms across my chest.
“Not tonight. I need to go.” He crosses the room to where one of our suitcases is sitting on top of a luggage rack and opens it. I have no idea what’s in them since I didn’t pack anything. Rifling through, he finds what he wants and turns to me. It’s a lace nightie. “Put this on,” he says, tossing it onto the bed and walking into the bathroom. He doesn’t close the door, and I hear the water run. He returns a moment later, wiping his face on a towel. He looks unsettled, like what happened and those people got to him.
“Where are you going?” I ask, not having moved.
“Meeting.”
“With the Commander?”
At that, Santos’s jaw tightens, his entire body tensing.
He’s been known to crush bigger creatures than you.
Santos fists the towel, eyes on me, and I see the effort it’s taking him to draw in a slow breath. I wonder if he’s counting to ten. He sets the towel on a nearby table and comes toward me.
“You need to get some rest.” He reaches for me, but I back away.
“Stop. Tell me who the Commander is. Who that family is. Because they know me, Santos. They know about this.” I hold up my hand, palm to him. “And from how it sounded, they know you pretty well. So, who are they?”
“You don’t have to worry about them. They won’t come near you again.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“They have nothing to do with you. Get changed. Get to bed. I’ll take care of it.” He steps toward me, ready to force me into submission, but I won’t let him have his way without a fight.
“What was that scar on Thiago’s neck?”
“For fuck’s sake, just do as I say.” This time, he takes me by the arms and marches me to the bed.
I struggle, but we both know he’s stronger than me. “Okay, how about this. How about telling me what the fuck that was in the bathroom? Or is that just how it’s going to be from now on? You scrub my skin raw then bend me over and fuck me?” I ask when the backs of my knees hit the bed. “Have me tell you I’m yours until you come? You’re not that insecure, are you, husband?”
His hands tighten around my arms, and he growls with frustration.
“Because that was fucking weird,” I add.
“It’s not about insecurity. You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it.”
Nothing.
“If we’re running in the same circles with these people, I should be prepared, don’t you think?”
“You won’t be seeing them again.”
“I doubt that. They seemed pretty determined to corner me.”
He checks his watch, jaw tight. “The Averys… They’re a poison, Madelena. They destroy anything they touch. I won’t let them touch you.”
“They said they knew you. Really well, actually. Were you with Camilla or something?” I find myself sounding defensive when I ask the question, not really sure why I’d ask that.
“Camilla?” There’s a burst of unhinged laughter. “She’s a fucking psychopath. Exactly like her father.”
“Her father, the Commander?”
His eyes narrow, but he nods once. That’s something. “I lived with them for a time. Not by choice. And they don’t like how I left. Satisfied?”
“How long?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does to me. Tell me. And don’t lie about it.”
“I have never lied to you.”
“Withholding is lying,” I say.
“It’s a mercy.”
“I don’t want your mercy. Why do they hate you?”
“Madelena—”
“Just tell me.”
He studies me, and a moment later, he must make some decision or maybe see some way out because his posture relaxes a little. “Their father disappeared around the time I left,” he says grimly.
“Disappeared?” A chill makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
Santos nods. “Don’t feel sorry for him. He was an evil man. Inhuman.”
“Was?”
This, he doesn’t answer with words but with a long, heavy silence. He then releases me and steps backward, taking a moment to look out of the window onto the quiet, dark street below. “Thiago’s scar? The Commander gave it to him—a lesson in obedience.”
I feel nauseated. How fathers can hurt their own flesh and blood is something I’ll never be able to wrap my brain around. Mothers too.
“His wife, Bea, is no better. All they left were scars,” Santos adds, sounding distracted and, strangely, sad. Hopeless.
“Did he leave the marks on you?” I ask, my mouth going dry. “Those lines?”
It’s so long before he speaks that I’m not sure he’s going to answer me. Finally, he turns to me, studies me, and his answer when he does respond is more unsettling than I imagined it could be. “No, sweetheart,” he says, his tone defeated. “The scars he left me with run much deeper.”