Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Rosario
“You don’t know where I am?” I shake my head, trying to fight the urge to sleep again.
My brain tries to make sense of his words, but the confusion gets worse the more I try to focus.
Why am I so tired?
I pull up my arm to cover my chest from his view, and the pain in my side grows. I reach for it, but he stops me with a gentle hand on my shoulder.
“Don’t touch it. I need to clean the wound and close it.
The blood was yours. We’re in the Alps. I have no idea how you got here or who you are.
So, how about you share your name with me while I clean you up and get you some clothes?
Then we’ll figure out how to get out of here.
” I frown as I sit up more and hiss at the way the wounds pull.
I push the blanket aside and gasp at the seeping blood from my side.
“Alps?” I couldn’t have heard that right.
I was in Cuba with abuelo. We were enjoying roast pork on his balcony, watching the sunset over the ocean. It was hot with the late-day sun on my back, but the sea breeze was so cool on my skin it wasn’t uncomfortable.
A chill makes me shiver, and I can feel my jaw shudder from the cold that seems to be locked in my bones now.
“Baby girl, I really need to know who you are.” He crouches down to my level, forcing me to really look at him.
His hands adjust the blanket back over my shoulders and close it, hiding my body from his view, but my eyes are stuck on his firm jaw line. The more I stare at him, the clearer my vision becomes, as if the fog on my brain is finally lifting.
“You’re supposed to be dead.” His eyes meet mine, and his one eye rises as his lips move into a smirk.
“According to whom?”
Sugar and tea.
I bite my lip out of habit when I try to correct the fact that I know more than I should, but it’s never hurt badly. My lips are so chapped that I taste my own blood and gasp in shock. I bring my hand up to touch the ache, but his thumb beats me to it.
“Easy, now. I’m going to start the fire and clean your wound.” He stands after another long look at me, and I miss the warmth of his immediacy.
“Rosario,” I blurt my name out to his back.
“Last name?” He’s frozen with one hand on the handle of the door while his other hand balls into a fist.
“Battle,” I whisper the word that usually sends people running.
It’s a very unconventional surname for anyone, let alone someone of Cuban descent. But my grandfather chose it carefully years before I was ever born. I drop my head in shame at what my family is known for.
I didn’t choose them, and for all the wrong they do, they’re still my family, and I love them.
Does that make me a horrible person?
I used to think so, and that’s why I wanted to become a nun. Until abuelo told me that wasn’t going to happen at dinner. The memories are slowly coming back to me now.
“You’re Jose Miguel Battle’s granddauthger. The founder of the Latin Kings?” He turns to look at me slowly.
His eyes are narrowed. The face I thought handsome has turned rigid and cold. I look away as I nod.
“So you know him then.” He lets out a loud noise I can only describe as a snarl accompanied by a hysterical laugh.
“That motherfucker! Of all the women, he sends his only true heir. Are you even eighteen yet? Did he tell you who I am? What I’ve done!” His voice grows deeper and lower the longer he talks.
“I’ve heard your name several times. I got the impression abuelo hated you for some readon but I was never told why.” He finally opens the door and grabs a large red bag with a white cross on it before slamming the door shut.
He slams the bag down next to me and glares down at my face.
“Your grandfather is one of the world’s most distinguished men I’ve ever met.
He’s had whole villages of people killed for the drugs he could make in the fields they owned.
He’s sold the children and women into slavery.
Sold drugs to anyone who could pay and has butchered innocents in gang-related wars that have lined his pockets for decades.
And none of that compares to the shit I’ve done.
” He rips open the medical bag and starts pulling out supplies.
“What have you done?” Nothing he said about abuelo is a shock to me.
I don’t scare easy but I need to know what I’m dealing with.
“I’m the monster your family fears. The only man to stand up to your grandfather and live to talk about it. It’s the reason I’m here in hiding waiting for the old fuck to die.” I shake my head at his words as he reaches for the blanket and moves it out of his way to start cleaning off the wound.
“I don’t understand. He wouldn’t leave you alive unless he needed or wanted something from you. If you were a threat to my family, you’d be dead.” He chuckles darkly at my words.
I thought I understood my family pretty well.
I’ve stayed quiet and observed more than they could ever possibly dream.
They all think I’m a weak young girl who has lived this charmed, sheltered lifestyle, but I was always in the shadows watching, learning.
It’s why I vowed never be like them. To give myself for god to save their souls.
If I could do as much good in my life, surely God would forgive my family of their sins.
How naive have I been to think I wasn’t as expendable as all the rest?
“What did you do?” I ask again, knowing that whatever it is will change my life.
“Oh, Rosario. I killed your parents.”