Chapter 35
Alma
Imiss Efren. I miss him so much, I type it out and delete it about ten times before Mireya notices my discomfort.
“Is it Efren?” she asks. “You have to get used to it. Adrian misses a lot of these events.”
“Are you used to it?” I look at the way my friend holds her baby close and stares out past the terrace.
Thalia’s mansion sits on Patricio’s twenty acre estate where he built not only his home but also a home for Adrian, Thalia, and his father, Don Vicente Consuelo.
Mireya and Adrian’s house is modest compared to Thalia’s.
Thalia went for a more goth maximist vibe.
Dark cala lilies fill the outer edges of the courtyard, and bushes are carved into majestic creatures like they walked right off an Edward Scissorhands screening and into her backyard.
“I thought I was adjusting,” Mireya replies after a moment of silence. “But sometimes, all the secrets and shit and the drama can be too much.”
“Tell me about it. Human relationships are complicated.” I sigh.
“Nah, girl, love is complicated. It’s easy to get along with someone you don’t care about.”
Fuck is she right. It was easy to fight with Efren when I didn’t care about him. But then again, I think I might have always cared for him. Even the night I killed Esteban, something in me felt safe the moment I saw Efren.
A mariachi band begins to play loud enough to drown out my thoughts and fears.
Luca, Lucia, and Ariella are placed center stage, and the mariachi band plays Las Mananitas while a six tier cake is rolled out.
The guests all sing along, and Luca’s hands fly up to cover his ears.
Lucia beams at the cake with anticipation, and Ariella once again looks like a Victoria Secret model.
I look at her differently now and can see features in her that are similar to Efren’s.
Small expressions like the arch in her brow or the shape of her cupid’s bow.
“Is he wearing a sweater?” Mireya leans in to whisper.
I nod, taking in the man in the wool sweater standing next to Ariella.
He’s tall and handsome, and together they look like a modern day power couple.
The kind that makes money from just existing as beautiful people.
Like the Beckhams, who exist purely to remind the rest of the world they can never reach that level of attractiveness.
Still though, I catch the look in Ariella’s eyes, and it’s not one of love.
And I know love. I love love.
Every book I read—romance.
Every movie that captures me—romance.
Every time I people watch or daydream, I’m romanticizing everything.
I know the look of a woman in love when I see it.
I know because I’ve seen it in myself the last few months.
The mixed feelings that were developing inside me felt too big to make sense of.
I wanted to figure out my past, but I also didn’t want to live in a future where Efren didn’t exist. I love him.
Every minute not in his presence feels like I’m not living.
And Ariella does not look at Preston like that.
Even as I watch them dance, there’s no chemistry, and my heart breaks for her.
I think back at the images the paparazzi captured of her the night her bodyguard came for her and remember how she looked at him.
That look held everything I needed to know about the rumors, and I wish I had seen that before accusing her of wanting something with Efren.
I drop my selfish pride and send the message to Efren.
Alma
Can we stop fighting? I miss you.
I throw my phone back into my bag like a coward.
The thought of him rejecting me is too much.
Instead, I focus on the party, spending the next two hours eating cake, dancing, and gossiping with my friends.
Before Thalia can trick me into taking another shot, I slip down the hall toward the guest bathroom.
Exiting, I pull the door open and nearly collide with Ariella.
“Ari!” I gasp.
“Excuse me,” she snaps, already pushing past me into the house.
“Wait.” I follow her. “Can we talk?”
She stops.
Just stops.
I open my mouth, and suddenly my back slams into the wall. The impact rattles my teeth. I barely have time to suck in a breath before a woman is there, forearm pressed hard across my chest, her face inches from mine.
“Leave my friend the fuck alone,” she hisses.
Her eyes are wild. Protective. Not listening.
“I—I just wanted to talk to her,” I say, my voice catching as I shrink back against the plaster, every nerve screaming at how close she is.
The times I’ve seen Genesis Fernandez, she’s been quiet. Cool, calm, and collected wouldn’t be in my vocabulary now.
“You and your ugly little friend want to call her prissy? She’s not prissy. She’s always, always, putting everyone before herself. So, think about that the next time you talk shit so publicly about her.”
“Gen—let’s go,” Ari pleads, grabbing her arm.
Genesis doesn’t even look at her. She jerks free and, in one smooth motion, pulls a switchblade from her elegant updo. The metal snaps open with a sharp click that silences the room. The crowd tightens around us. Heat presses in from all sides.
The blade points straight at my chest.
“Next time you fuck with my friend,” she says softly, almost gleeful, “it’ll be the last.”
My breath locks. I squeeze my eyes shut as every word she spits sinks into me anyway.
“Back the fuck up.”
I hear Efren before I feel him. Standing in front of me like a shield. Genesis’s lips curl as she meets his stare, something wild flickering across her face.
She laughs manically in his face before Ari grabs her and drags her toward the guest bathroom. She’s still laughing even as the door slams shut behind them. Efren turns to me, his warm hands palming my face.
“Are you okay, Kitten?”
The dam breaks. I fold into him, a broken sound slipping out as I cling to his shirt, breathing him in like oxygen. Over his shoulder, I see a tall figure approaching through the thinning crowd.
Ignacio Fernandez.
“We should go,” I whisper.
“Abre la pinche puerta,” Ignacio shouts outside the door.
Efren lifts me and carries me out of the party, but not before I look back as Ignacio pulls Genesis out of the bathroom. She stands tall and level with him, and he pulls her forward. They yell, but I’m too far to make out the words, then I watch him hug her. It tugs at something inside me.
“Alma.” Efren’s voice snaps my attention forward to the bottom of the hill, where a black van idles.
“We need to get out of here.” He sets me down.
That’s when I see the blood. Smeared across his hands. Dark against his knuckles. Soaked into the front of his shirt.
“Oh my god! Are you hurt?” I reach for him, panic climbing up my throat.
He catches my wrists and pushes them down.
“No. But we need to get out of here.”
I climb into the front seat of the van, look back, and freeze. Don Cheetos sits between Ricky and the tall, hollow-eyed man Efren calls Lurch, his orange fur a surreal splash of normal in the dark interior.
“What is Don Cheetos doing here?” I ask, turning to look at Efren.
“He’s sort of our mascot,” Ricky says, and I turn back to bitch him out.
But instead, something long, heavy, and wrapped in plastic on the floor catches my eye. The shape is unmistakable.
“What. The. Fuck. Is. That.” My lips tremble at the sight.
Ricky exhales. “Oh… I can explain that, see Efren had this—”
I don’t hear the rest. My stomach drops hard, nausea crawling up my throat.
“Please,” I whisper to Efren, turning back to face the front. “Tell me that’s not a body.”
His silence is answer enough.
The van starts moving.
Efren talks. About Jasper, about Salma’s husband, but the words blur together. I stare straight ahead, hands clenched in my lap, nodding when I’m supposed to. Somewhere, we stop. Somewhere, the men get out. I don’t follow.
I stay quiet.
There’s so much to process. The Biondini brothers, Salma, Missy. It’s new information, but nothing that leads me to my birth parents. Just another crazy goose chase that would once again lead to another dead end.
The guys return, and Efren drives us back to the hotel. When we reach it, I’m out of the van before it fully stops. Ricky hops out behind me as I snatch Don Cheetos from Lurch’s arms. He lets out a low hiss that makes my skin crawl.
“So what? She’s just gonna take our mascot?” Ricky mutters.
I don’t look back.
I keep walking until I reach the elevator, Don Cheetos pressed tight against my chest, the doors sliding shut between me and everything else. Efren squeezes in just before they close.
“Alma,” he says. “You have to say something.”
I don’t answer.
We walk the rest of the way to the penthouse in silence.
“Alma,” he says again.
“Stop calling me that,” I snap, my teeth clenched.
“That’s your fucking name,” he fires back.
“No. That’s what you call me when you don’t care about me. And I don’t like it!”
Right now, I want to be Almita, Kitten, darling—anything that reassures me I still belong to him, because right now, I don’t know where I belong.
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” I swallow the emotions climbing up my throat. He stares at me then nods.
“Okay, Kitten.” The name cracks something open in my chest.
He closes the distance and laces his fingers through mine, guiding me to his room.
He pulls his bloodstained shirt over his head and tosses it aside, then opens a drawer and hands me one of his white T-shirts.
I slip out of my dress and pull it on, the fabric warm and familiar.
Efren reaches out, tapping the blue circle of my evil eye necklace once, gently. His eyes lift to meet mine.
“I got your message,” he says quietly. “I missed you too.”
He pulls me back into the living room, scanning the bookshelf before he settles on one.
“The Day I fucked El Cucuy.” He reads the title with his brows pinched together.
“Can never go wrong with a monster romcom.” I shrug.
He moves me back to the couch, pulls me into him, and I lay my head on his chest. I missed this, him reading to me, us together. I listen to him read and take in the sound of his heart beating beneath me before I surrender.
“I feel like I don’t know who I am anymore,” I confess.
His hand slips into my curls, slow and soothing. “What do you mean, Kitten?”
“Like it’s too much to keep up with all the lies,” I say softly. “Not telling my friends the truth. Not even knowing who I am half the time. Not really.”
“I know who you are,” he murmurs.
His hand drifts down my thigh, his thumb brushing the scar on my knee.
“You’re the little girl who couldn’t have her own pet, so you asked the neighbors if you could walk their dog. Only you didn’t expect it to drag you across the pavement.”
I lift my head, staring at him. “You read the letters Missy sent Curtis?”
“Every single one.”
My chest tightens. I hold his gaze, letting my eyes say what my mouth can’t.
“She rushed me inside like my leg had been amputated,” I say, my voice cracking. “Cleaned the scrape like it was a medical emergency.”
He chuckles. “My favorite was you telling your third-grade teacher that when you grew up, you were going to be Darth Vader.”
I groan. “Oh god. Instead of a quinceanera or any puberty talk, Missy decided my rite of passage was making me watch all the Star Wars movies.”
“That explains a lot,” he says.
“That’s not fair.” I push myself up until we’re eye to eye. “Now you know everything about me, and I know nothing about you.”
“Well”—he shrugs—“if you must know, I wanted to be Darth Vader too.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. But I’ll settle for Bruno.”
I laugh and fall back against his chest, my cheek pressed over his heart.
“Tell me something real,” I murmur. “Something deep. You already know all my secrets.”
“You know all of mine too, Kitten.”
“Sometimes I feel like I don’t know you at all,” I admit. “And other times it feels like I’ve known you for several lifetimes.”
“You have known me for several lifetimes,” he says quietly. “You’re my soulmate, Alma.”
I let the words sink in. His fingers comb through my hair, unhurried. His heart is racing now, wild beneath my ear, and I realize this is the only place that’s ever felt like home.
“I’m going with you,” I say.
His hand stills.
“What if I say no?” he teases.
“I don’t care,” I mumble, already half-asleep. “I’ll follow you anyway.”
“Estás loca,” he laughs.
“Por ti,” I whisper, squeezing him tighter.