Chapter 10
Lyse
“Are you okay, mi amor?” Helena asked. She’d returned for my breakfast tray; I hadn’t touched the food on it.
I nodded from where I was lying on the bed; I hadn’t gotten up much the last few days, not even to bathe.
It was the grossest I’d ever felt, but I didn’t give a damn.
Each sunrise and sunset felt like the last one, and there was a weight on my chest that was only getting heavier.
Every time Helena came in, she looked more and more dour, but she tried to hide it behind cheeriness and smiles that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
Today, Omar would be calling Felix back. “I’m all right,” I told her. “Thank you for breakfast.”
Helena glanced at the full tray and picked up the glass of orange juice. “You have to drink this,” she said. “I won’t leave until you do.”
I didn’t want the damn juice, but Helena had been kind to me since my arrival.
At first, I thought she was a spy for La Bestia, but she was as exasperated at the man as I was at times.
She loved him, that much was obvious, but she also cursed him out under her breath.
It reminded me of how my mother treated my brother at times.
I sat up and took the glass and sipped it. “Happy?”
Helena wasn’t impressed. “Finish it, and I will be.”
I frowned but dutifully drank the juice, then handed her the empty glass. “Happy now?”
She reached out and ran a hand through my hair. “I’m sure your Felix will come through for you,” she said.
There was a scoff from the door; Helena jerked her hand back and turned around.
Omar was standing in the doorway, watching us with the look a cat gets when it plays with a mouse.
“He had better.” He jerked his head toward the hallway.
“Get out,” he said to Helena. “We have a phone call to make.” Helena glanced at me, sad, but Omar snapped his fingers. “Ponte en marcha!”
The housekeeper left, and for the first time since he pinned me to the bed, Omar and I were alone.
It was like being in a cage with a tiger.
Without a word, Omar handed me the phone—a different burner than the first time I called Felix—for me to dial Felix’s number.
My fingers shook as I tapped the buttons. Please have a solution, I thought.
“Hello?”
Omar held up a hand: it was a warning for me to stay quiet. “You’ve had your week, Mr. Suarez,” he said.
Felix paused, and my stomach dropped. It wasn’t good news. Whatever he was going to say, it wouldn’t end well for me. “Can I speak with Lyse?”
I glanced at the man who seemed to tower over me and hated myself for the spike of arousal in my veins.
Despite the pain he’d caused me, my body still remembered the pleasure that he’d brought to me.
It was like nothing I’d ever known before, and even if I’d rather set myself on fire than admit it to him, I wanted him to touch me again. “Go ahead,” Omar grunted at me.
“Felix?”
“Are you okay? Are you…safe?” He wanted to ask if Omar had touched me; I could hear it hanging in the air.
My mind conjured up the image of Omar leaning over me and how sinfully good his hands felt against my skin. “I’m fine, Felix,” I said in as flat a voice as I could manage. “I’ve just been waiting.”
“Good. That’s good.”
“I’ve held up my end,” Omar interrupted.
Felix was quiet again, and my eyes slipped closed as I waited for the inevitable blow.
“Lyse, love, I’m so sorry.” Tears welled in my eyes, but Felix continued, and each word was another nail in my coffin.
“The feds want you brought in, Mr. Castillo. The only thing keeping them from finding you is that I have been dropping anonymous tips that you are in Orlando and Tallahassee and fucking Atlanta. Keep that in mind.”
Omar was furious. His face had gone still, but I could see the way his eyes roamed over me. “How did you want me to send your fiancée back to you, Mr. Suarez?” Omar asked in a deceptively calm tone that did not match his face. “Whole or in pieces? I will pay for the shipping container either way.”
I didn’t know what I expected as a reply, but it wasn’t for Felix to laugh. “You should let your brother stick to the idle threats, La Bestia,” he snarled. “They don’t suit you.” He made a noise akin to oops. “I suppose that plan only works out if Angel ever wakes up again.”
“Leave my brother out of this.” The words came out in a painful growl, as if his mouth were suddenly filled with overgrown, razor-sharp teeth, and he was having trouble forming words around them. More beast than man, I thought. That’s what Apá always said.
“I’ve seen him, you know,” Felix continued, and my stomach began to cramp with fear at the dangerous look on Omar’s face.
The man was going to put his fist through my skull and make Felix listen.
“The once great Angel Castillo, hooked up to a hundred different tubes just to stay alive. He’s never going to wake up; I sincerely hope you know that. ”
I tried to move away, but Omar’s arm shot out, and in a terrifying mockery of what happened between us, he wrapped his fingers around my wrist. This time it was all pain and I cried out. “Felix!” I begged.
My fiancé said something, but I couldn’t hear it. Omar dragged me across the room that had been my prison cell, and for the first time in a week, I left it. I had done nothing but wish to be let out for days, but now, I would give anything to run back to the relative safety of those four walls.
Omar dragged me down the stairs; the only thing that kept me from tumbling down and staining the light oak floor with my blood was his steady grip on my wrist. The foyer came into view, and then we were outside in the sunshine.
Despite the fear pressing down on me and the muffling in my ears, I took a deep breath. It smelled like sand and surf and sea salt here; it would be perfect…except for the part where I was being dragged off to a certain demise.
There was a shack not too far off that I thought he was headed for, but at the fork in the path, Omar steered us down toward the dock.
My chest tightened tenfold. “No,” I moaned and tried to tug my arm out of his grip.
My shoulder exploded in pain, but Omar didn’t even react to the desperate sobs coming out of my mouth.
He just kept walking. I dug my heels into the sand, but that did little to slow us down. “Omar, please.”
“Shut. Up.” The words were thrown over his shoulder.
We hit the dock, and the wooden planks slapped under our feet. I couldn’t breathe. The world was closing in around me, and I was starting to get tunnel vision. Omar walked us out to the very end of the dock. He wrenched me around so that I stood in front of him, looking out at the horizon.
Even in my panic, I could see how beautiful it all was.
The water was a deep azure; the sky seemed to go on forever.
It was something I wished I could paint.
Even thinking the word paint made me ache for my set at home.
The last thing I’d committed to canvas had been a dour, abstract piece; I’d done it the day my engagement ring came by courier.
Now, I would give anything to be able to whitewash that silliness away and paint this view instead.
“Look down,” Omar growled at me.
I shook my head. “No.” If I did, I might start screaming and not stop. Or I might throw up. Either option sounded terrible.
His giant hand cupped the back of my head and forced me to look down.
The pilings of the dock disappeared into all that blue.
I could see fish…but I also noticed that despite the clearness of the water, I couldn’t see the bottom.
“It’s fifteen feet,” Omar said, loud enough that I knew he was really talking to Felix.
“She can’t swim. Can you, conejita?” He crooned the pet name, and my skin crawled.
“Lyse?”
Omar tsked. “How much do you actually know about the woman you were going to marry?” he asked.
“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?” Felix’s panic had bled back to anger and frustration, but all I could focus on was that my toes were curling over the edge of the dock. How embarrassing is it to pee yourself before you die?
“Your little bunny is a feisty little thing,” Omar taunted. “That’s all. Shame you’ll never get to know that side of her.”
“Did you touch her? Bastardo! I will see you rot in jail for this!”
Omar let go of my wrist but quickly grabbed hold of my shoulder.
His fingers brushed my collarbone, almost intimately, before he tipped me out over the water.
“Stop!” I cried, grabbing at his arm. “Please, Omar, don’t do this.
” The man groaned out loud, as if I’d done something pleasurable to him. “I’ll do anything,” I begged.
“Don’t offer him anything,” Felix demanded, but his voice was tinny and far away. “The big moron won’t hurt you! It’s against those stupid rules of your organization. No women or children!”
Omar seemed to freeze at that, and for a moment, I thought Felix might have gotten through to him somehow.
Maybe he’d reminded Omar of his humanity just enough for it to kick in.
“You are absolutely right, Mr. Suarez,” he said, and I shivered at his tone.
“The rules of my organization are stupid. Thankfully, I don’t always abide by those rules, especially when they don’t suit me.
If you thought that I wouldn’t hurt her, and you would be able to skate by until the feds found me, you thought wrong.
” He squeezed my shoulder, and I whimpered under the touch. “Say goodbye to your pretty fiancée.”
He shoved me hard, and I went toppling into the water.
It happened so fast that I didn’t have enough time to scream.
Buoyancy kicked in for a moment, and I rocketed upward, sucking in a breath and screaming for help.
I thrashed my arms and legs, trying desperately to keep myself above water, but it was hard to keep myself oriented because I’d never learned how.
The water sucked me back under, no matter how much I fought, and even though I was able to breach the surface again, I knew it was a losing battle.
Glancing up at the dock, even as I fought, I zeroed in on Omar. His face was a stone, and he turned away from me, not watching as I sank for a final time below the warm, blue waters of the Caribbean. Don’t open your mouth, I told myself. Don’t suck water into your lungs.
But, of course, that was advice for a rational mind. My lungs burned for oxygen, and in a panic, I sucked in and tasted salt.