Page 88 of Game of Revenge

“I am.” Mathias sighed.

“You know, you don’t have to. I can make sure the exchange is made with minimal casualties. I need her alive as well.”

“No. I get that, but there is no way in hell I’m not going. She is staying by my side until the very last minute.”

Mathias hesitated and shook his head.

“You don’t think he will recognize you?”

“I don’t intend to get close.”

“Yes, but who knows what could happen?” He pushed.

“If I get exposed, I’ll deal with it. But she’s either going with me, or the deal is off.”

“Alejandro, mira, I’m the one who calls the shots here.”

“Not when it comes to Amelia’s safety you don’t. I thought I had made that clear.” We stared at each other in silence for a while.

“Fine,” said Mathias as he shook his head. He walked to the back of the room and poured us each a glass of scotch. We drank them in silence, preparing for what was to come.

Once we agreed on the final details, I drove back as fast as I could to the beach house, the sun already setting. We didn’t have a lot of time.

I arranged for Amelia and Richard to be followed once she was with him. I also planned on giving her back the bracelet that broke when she fell in the pool. I’d had it fixed, but I also had someone add a tracker in it so I would know where she was at all times.

The thought that I had to hand her back to this fucking criminal, that I had to let her go with him, drove me fucking nuts. I hit the steering wheel with my fist as hard as I could to take the pain away.

“Fuck!” I screamed, feeling impotent.

It had taken everything I had in me to stay calm when I saw the news on my phone while on the plane ride back to Mexico the other day. Amelia had somehow convinced Elena to help her let the world know she was still alive, forcing Richard’s hand. It was a brilliant idea. But it broke me. I didn’t know what to make of it.

Amelia had set it all up—that I knew. Elena was great, but this ten-step process had Amelia’s name written all over it. Neither of them denied it either.

It wrecked me, thinking that, after all that we shared, it had been so easy for her to throw it away.

Our time together hadn’t been enough to make her walk away from her previous life—a life without me, without us.

I couldn’t blame her. After all, she spent months thinking I was a criminal, while I had more time to see the real her, to fall for her. And now she was slipping through my fingers. I was grasping onto what I could, but I was failing.

What gave me a sliver of hope were those tears I couldn’t handle. It was the fact that she didn't escape when she had the chance. It was the way she had looked at me. The way she asked me to make love to her last night. The way she rode me like she wanted to engrave every second of us in her brain.

I wasn’t going to give up, not now that I knew what it was to live. Life without her would be a death sentence. I had no interest in that.

This mess had to end, she wasn’t wrong in that. But that didn’t mean there would be an end to us. This would be a new beginning—with Richard behind bars and Amelia free. I just had to make sure that when she got her life together, she still wanted me to be in it.

Chapter 44

Amelia

Dolores and I anxiously waited for Alejandro to come back. I wore the most comfortable clothes I could find—a pair of light-blue jeans, comfortable lace-less sneakers, a white t-shirt, and a gray sweater. I washed and dried my hair without too much care and put no makeup on. I didn’t want to raise suspicions by looking too put-together. I needed to play the victim part.

I put the ring in my pocket. I stored the paper on which I had written Alejandro’s, Mathias’s, Elena’s, and Dolores’s phone numbers.

I reminisced on the last conversation between Alejandro and Elena that I overheard. I hadn’t meant for Elena to pay for the consequences of my plan, but I couldn’t help the hint of a smile drawing on the right side of my lips when I recalled Alejandro telling her they were not together, followed by a pinch of guilt, thinking of Elena’s pain.

When Alejandro finally got back home, he didn’t come in. He waited in the car for me to come out. It was all feeling like a dream—no, a nightmare—from which I desperately wanted to wake up.

I wanted to go back to the time before I decided to be so clever and put an end to things. But there was no going back. Dolores walked me to the door slowly. She wanted me to take some clothes with me, but of course, that wouldn’t make a lot of sense. I was supposed to have been in that terrible room in the first house, being treated miserably this whole time. Generally, kidnapped people didn’t get a whole closet of clothes given to them that they got to keep. I wanted to tell Dolores that it was okay, that she would give me the luggage she had prepared when we saw each other again, but I didn’t think that would happen.