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)
“He was an accomplished swimmer who did the same laps in the same pool for over twenty years. You and I have always known he didn’t drown.”
“But…” I don’t want this to be true.
“And there’s more.”
My hands feel clammy against Odin’s suit jacket, and the meal I ate sits heavy in my stomach.
“When Santos was a few weeks shy of eighteen, he killed a man.”
“What?”
“I don’t know the full story. Had to do something with the man’s daughter. He was arrested.”
I know his past is violent. He’s made no secret of it.
“But then the whole thing went away. Like no crime had been committed. And Santos went MIA for five years. The Augustine family didn’t have the kind of power to make that happen. Not then. They were low level criminals. Thugs.”
“Is that when he lived with the Avery family?”
He nods, looks over my shoulder. “You know about the Commander then? He told you?”
“A little.”
“The Commander headed up a secret police force that operated out of Miami, but there was more. His power reached much farther. And this force, I get the feeling a lot of people turned a blind eye. The end justifying the means sort of thing.”
I think about what Santos said about Thiago’s scar. But then Caius’s different version comes to mind.
“This Commander had private dealings in the northeast,” Odin continues. “Holdings and investments up and down the coast, actually. From what I gathered, he used Santos as well as his own son, Thiago Avery, as his enforcers.”
“God.”
“They did some bad shit, Maddy. Really bad.”
“May I cut in?”
Odin stiffens.
I startle at Santos’s sudden appearance. When did he get so close without us noticing? And what did he hear?
Odin turns to face him, but Santos doesn’t take his eyes from me, and I can’t drag mine from his. Odin hands me off because Santos wasn’t asking, and I shudder when Santos’s big hands touch me, one wrapping around my waist to span my lower back, the other holding my now limp hand.
I watch him, my husband. I knew what he was the night I met him, didn’t I? What man does what he did to me when I was only fifteen years old? The Augustine family is a mafia family. No matter how far they’ve come, their hands are dirty, and they’ve probably climbed that social ladder on the backs of the corpses they’ve left in their wake.
But my uncle? Was my uncle one of those corpses?
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I shake my head, force myself to breathe. “It’s hot in here. I need some air.” I slip out of his grasp before he can stop me, and honestly, if I don’t, I might just throw up right here on the dance floor.
He follows as I weave through the room, hurrying to one of the exits. The closest one happens to be at the back of the building.
As if on cue or some strange sign from above, lightning crashes overhead as soon as I step outside. I jump, shuddering with the sudden cold. Sea water slams loud and violent against the cliffs beyond, the eerie beacon of the lighthouse ever present over the wild sea. I run from the building, the music, the light inside, and all those happy people.
“Madelena!” Santos is behind me, but I don’t stop. Water pelts my bare arms, my hair, my face. It’s ice cold but nowhere near the snowstorm of a few nights ago, the remnants of which have turned to slush. “Madelena, stop!”
He catches me, his hand closing over my arm and tugging me into his chest. Momentum has me bouncing backward, but he keeps me from falling. Santos’s forehead creases with worry. I shiver, my teeth chattering, and within a moment, he’s slipped off his jacket and has wrapped it around my shoulders. It’s warm and smells like him, like the cologne I had made for myself years ago. I want to hug it to myself.
The thought leaves me with a longing so deep, it hurts.
Because I realize something, and the knowledge of it has me stumbling backward out of his grasp and doubling over.
“Madelena?” Santos asks.
How long has it been? How long have I been falling in love with this man?
Are you so unaccustomed to being wanted?
Because as I straighten to look up at him, I know that’s what it is. I have been falling in love with him in small increments over the years. From the first words he spoke to me, and every time he appeared as if by magic to rescue me from one evil or another, I have been falling in love with Santos Augustine. I have been wanting to be wanted by him. And this new truth, his betrayal, it hurts so much.
“Did you kill him?” I blurt out, wind howling, stealing my words, carrying them away.