Page 57 of Tainted Blood
I don’t wait for him to ask. Pouring him a glass, I push it across the small table separating our seats.
“An improvement,” he remarks. “Though I hate tequila.”
“Stop being such a pussy.”
Gritting his jaw, he slides the glass off the table and tips it back, draining it in one. “We need to talk about Lorenzo—”
“Save it. I’ve heard enough about Villefort these last two days. Our cartels fought a twenty-year war. This one will still be here tomorrow.”
Rising from my seat, I make my way toward the back of the plane and into the small bedroom. The Italian doctor looks up from adjusting the IV stand. He nods a respectful greeting before swiftly making his exit.
Thalia is curled up on her side. She’s bruised and weak, but she’s clean and dressed in a red silk nightgown I found for her in Florence. Red reminds me of her. It’s the color that’s shaded every major event in our short marriage.
The color of blood.
Hate.
Passion.
Love?
I sit down on the edge of the bed, dusting my finger along the length of her cheek, before reaching into my pocket to retrieve the hope I’ve been holding on to these past few days.
Lifting her left hand, I slip her wedding rings back onto her third finger.
Where they belong.
“Muñequita,” I murmur, pressing my lips to her forehead. “I’ve waited ten years to tell you a story. It’s about how a thirteen-year-old boy sacrificed his loyalty for your innocence. Wake up, Thalia. I want to hear the one about how a queen sacrificed her innocence for loyalty.”
Chapter Fifteen
Thalia
Nine Days Later
Hope swims.
Loss sinks.
But survival?
She’s like the stagnant water of the two—a weightless woman who can’t move forward with the current, but one who’s too afraid to face the stormy oceans of her past.
Right now, she’s cocooned in a fortress of white sheets with no desire to go anywhere. With no desire for much of anything anymore.
I don’t want to feel.
I don’t want to see.
I just want to be—floating in this bed that smells of lies and forgotten promises.
It’s been nine days since Lola and I were rescued. Since a small hilltop town in northern Italy was decimated by cartel fire and fury. Since the life-saving operation in Florence to save my leg, and then the long, long flight back to America…
Or so I’ve been told.
I don’t remember any of it, of course. I was unconscious the whole time. I learned the details from Ella who lies with me most days and nights, stroking my hair, whispering her warmth and reassurance so tenderly I’d cry from the beauty of it if I had any tears left to shed.
I never acknowledge her. I never react. I keep my eyes shut tight to reject a life I have no interest in living at the moment. I know where I am, though. I can sense it. I’m back in his room. In his bed. The floor-to-ceiling windows tempting me with a view of the New Jersey skyline.