Chapter 7
Lyse
Iwatched the sky turn pink and gold through the window.
The lighter it grew, the more I could see the spider web of metal embedded between the panes of glass that made it shatterproof.
I had attempted to sleep, but it had proven impossible.
My body had been on high alert all night refusing to relax.
I could still feel Omar’s teeth on my earlobe. His breath against my face….I shivered. Stop thinking about it.
The door lock clicked, and the tension between my shoulder blades ratcheted up even more. I took a breath and schooled my face into something neutral. La Bestia walked in carrying a tray. “I’m not eating that.”
Omar set the tray on the dresser; annoyance flashed across his features for a brief second.
I hated to admit that he was even more handsome when he wasn’t coated in a layer of blood and gore, but it made it easier to see how tired the man looked.
Good, I thought. I hope you never sleep again.
“Helena made it, not me, but if you don’t want it, I don’t care. ”
My stomach chose this moment to growl. The scrambled eggs and toast on the plate did look appetizing, and there was orange juice and coffee.
Probably the nicest meal any hostage could hope for.
Squaring my shoulders, I walked past him, took the plate off the tray and retreated to my spot on the bed.
I picked up one of the thick slices of toast and brought it to my lips.
Before I took a bite, I looked over at him. “Is this my last meal?”
“If you keep reminding me how much I want you and your whole clan dead, it will be.” From his pocket, he pulled out a flip phone.
He didn’t have to tell me that it was a burner; I was familiar with them at home.
“You get to pick who you call: your father or your fiancé. Who will make a deal in order to get you back?”
I took the phone from him and quickly dialed Felix’s number.
Apá might negotiate for my surrender, but I couldn’t be sure that if he came here, Omar wouldn’t kill him outright.
There was no telling what La Bestia would do when he was finally in the same room as the head of the Rojas family, especially after what my father did to his brother.
Besides, if the police were already involved, my father would be of no help. While we were able to control the police in our small territory, we didn’t have the same far reach as the Castillos. Felix, I knew, had police connections that my father coveted. He could help…I hoped.
When I went to lift the phone to my ear, Omar wrenched it out of my grip and pressed the button for the speakerphone. “Hello?”
I had never been quite so happy to hear my fiancé’s voice. “Felix?”
“Lyse?” To say that Felix was surprised was an understatement: I had never heard his voice go so high before. It would have been funny if we weren’t in this situation. “Are you okay? Are you safe?”
“She’s not dead, Mr. Suarez,” Omar growled. “That should make you happy enough for now.”
“You son of a bitch!”
Omar tutted gently. “If you listen to what I’m about to say, I promise she’ll remain perfectly safe with me. If you don’t, I’ll let my men have fun with her while I watch.” I thought about the two men who helped me off the boat last night, and my stomach twisted sickeningly.
He wouldn’t do that, right? He wouldn’t give me to those men. Not when he could —
Stop it, I told myself.
“If anyone touches a hair on her head, you’ll live to regret it.
” Felix spat out in a way that sounded so much like Apá that I was taken aback.
Around me, at least until he’d pinched me last night, Felix was always polite in a distant sort of way.
He stared too long at times, but overall, he remained a consummate gentleman.
But now, he sounded just like any of my male relatives when they were threatening someone.
“You’re a man with connections, correct?” Omar asked, ignoring the threat entirely. It’s not like he couldn’t crush Felix to death with his bare hands, I thought, and I found myself staring at Omar’s bulging muscles. A little tingle set off in my belly.
Felix was quiet for a moment. “What do I need to do?”
“Get the police to back off,” he said. “I want to come home to my family.”
“You’re asking for the impossible. Your face is everywhere right now; the feds are getting involved in this. I can’t.”
Omar let out a growl that shook me to my core. I cowered away from him, afraid that he would snap. “If you ever want to see Lyse alive again, you’ll make it happen.”
“Don’t you touch her.”
There was something about the way he said it that made my skin crawl. Omar, however, grinned savagely, like he’d just been handed the keys to the kingdom. “That’s what gets you off, eh, pendejo? You want your little wifey to only ever have you.”
I clenched my hands into fists, my fingernails biting into my palms. “Felix,” I said and didn’t mask the shudder in my voice. Let him think it was my fear of Omar — that was there too — and not disgust. “I need your help. Please.”
“Lyse,” Felix sighed. “Tell me that he hasn’t touched you.”
“He hasn’t,” I promised and glanced up at Omar, who was grinding his jaw. He nodded for me to continue. “But I’m afraid that he will if you don’t do what he says. I don’t want his men to touch me. Please, don’t let them.”
Omar reached out and touched the apple of my cheek with his fingers, and I jumped back as if he’d scalded me. “She’s very pretty, Mr. Suarez. I would hate to ruin her.”
“I need a guarantee that she’ll be safe.”
“I won’t lay a hand on her, or let anyone else, so long as you do what I ask.”
“I’ll need some way to communicate with you. A number or an email or something.”
Omar scoffed. “Are we going to be texting buddies, pendejo? No, I will contact you in twenty-four hours, and you will let me know whether your precious fiancée gets to come home or not.”
Felix made a noise that was full of frustration and anger. “You have no idea how big of a fuck-up you are,” he said. “Twenty-four hours isn’t enough time to clean up the mess you made. Twenty people are dead or seriously wounded; you’re on camera stomping a man’s face in.”
There wasn’t a hint of remorse on Omar’s face.
If anything, he seemed…impressed with the number.
I was going to throw up. “How long do you think I can remain civil, Mr. Suarez?” he asked.
“I’m not a patient man; you’ve seen what I can do.
I have Lyse all to myself. There’s no telling what kind of games we could play together waiting for you to make this go away.
” Omar reached out, viper fast, and wrapped his fingers around my wrist. He squeezed until the bones felt like they were going to snap.
“Sing for him, conejita,” he murmured, and I yelped.
“Felix, please!”
“Stop, stop, stop!” Felix yelled. “I’ll do it! Give me one week, and I’ll do it.”
Omar wasn’t thrilled with the amount of time, I could tell, but he accepted. “One week; I won’t touch a hair on her head.” Then he shut the phone, cutting off Felix’s reply.
“Will you really not touch me?” I asked in the silence that followed. Last night, my biggest fear was that Omar would throw me off the boat on the way out of Miami. But that was before he pressed me into a window with his big body, before he promised to throw me to his men.
He looked at me with a storm raging in his dark eyes. “If he hasn’t fixed this in a week, I’m going to kill you, and I’m going to send you back to your fiancé in pieces. Do you understand?”
I swallowed. My throat felt like it was closing up.
After watching him brutalize my family at the hotel, I knew it wasn’t a threat, it was a promise.
My blood ran cold as the memory of gunshots rang in my ears.
If I hadn’t been there with my cousins, if I hadn’t found them first, Omar would have put a bullet in each of their tiny skulls.
Of that I was convinced. I didn’t want to die here, alone on this island.
I didn’t want my body to be dumped in the ocean.
I tried and failed to keep the tremor out of my voice. “I understand.”
He reached out and touched my cheek again. “Behave, conejita.” Then, he was gone, locking the door behind him as he went.
I looked around my prison cell, really taking in my surroundings for the first time since I arrived.
It was furnished and relatively comfortable.
In the bathroom, there were luxury products and what seemed to be a never-ending supply of hot water, which was impressive for an island.
In the dresser, I found plain but wearable clothes to swap my gown for.
But I was trapped behind a locked door and shatterproof glass.
It was just me and these four walls. Could I survive a week locked up like this?
I wasn’t sure. At my father’s house, I was never alone.
Even if I looked like I was alone, there was a guard somewhere keeping an eye on me.
I couldn’t be spoiled, after all; I was my father’s best bargaining chip.
I thought living in a panopticon was suffocating.
But being stuck with my own thoughts was far, far worse.
I clambered onto the bed and wrapped myself in the goose-down comforter, taking solace in the soft blanket.
While I contemplated what exactly I could do for the next seven days, another thought took root in the center of my brain.
If I could somehow get off this island without killing myself, maybe I could run and keep running.
I could find somewhere to go where no one had ever heard of the Castillo or Rojas families, and I could settle there, far away from this kind of life.
I wouldn’t have to marry Felix or bend to my father’s whims. I would be free.
I stood, wrapped in the comforter, and stared out across the seemingly unending ocean, watching the waves break upon the shoreline.
What a stupid idea, I berated myself. Even if I wasn’t stuck on this godforsaken island, there was still nowhere to run from here.
Stay sane; that’s all you have to do.