14. The Mother Of All Plot Twists
THE MOTHER OF ALL PLOT TWISTS
Alejandro
Dahlia lets the water run and I hiss when it makes contact with the broken skin on my knuckles.
“Is it too hot?” she asks.
“Son of a bitch has a jaw made of led.” I grunt. “I thought I crushed every bone in my hand.”
Her eyes soften with sympathy and she rises to her tiptoes to kiss my cheek. “You’re very sexy when you playing knight in shining armor.”
I scoff and roll my eyes which only serves to elicit a laugh from her. I was so furious when we left Karina’s house I hadn’t registered the pain in my right hand until halfway through the Holland Tunnel when my fingers began to ache from holding the steering wheel.
Dahlia uncaps a bottle of peroxide and pours the clear liquid over my bleeding knuckles. The injury isn’t serious and only two of them broke skin but I was surprised to have bled at all. I must not have realized how hard I hit him in the moment.
“Kay’s upstairs moaning and unpacking.” She closes the peroxide and leans against the counter with crossed arms. “But I think deep down she’s afraid.”
“He’s escalating. She should be afraid,” I say. “I can’t tell if the tough act is denial or self-preservation.”
“Both. Maybe it helps her to feel in control of a situation that is quickly spiraling out of it.” Her bottom lip catches between her lip. “You know…I was thinking.”
I turn the sink off and dry my hand with a clean towel. She meets my gaze and waits expectantly while her head tilts back and forth like the weights on a scale of justice.
“Maybe we should just…” she swipes her thumb across her neck and makes a popping sound with her tongue.
A burst of laughter leaves my lips but she doesn’t laugh with me. Her expression remains the same.
“Wait, you’re serious?”
“I’d rather my cousin be a widow than a divorcée. Better benefits.”
I’m not completely opposed to the idea. He wouldn’t be the first man I killed nor the last and Brent would certainly be among the most deserving.
Today, it took every ounce of self-restraint in my body not to snap his neck in two.
Our interactions over the past few years have been sparing but even my first impression of him was a bad one.
Something about him always felt deceitful like he was putting on a performance for the people around him.
Getting rid of him is the easy part. Dealing with the emotional fallout from Karina in the aftermath of his death is what I’m most concerned about.
She’s already in a delicate state and I can’t help but wonder if Brent’s abrupt death wouldn’t de-stabilize her further.
Wanting to divorce someone isn’t the same as wanting them dead.
“What about Karina?”
“What about Karina?” she counters. “We’re doing her a favor. Besides, it’s not like she’d ever know it was us. We’d make it look like an accident.”
Noise from upstairs catches my attention. I pass Dahlia on my way to the hallway and check to see if anyone is passing through but the house is empty. Lyss has been out all day and Dona Ana is helping Karina to get settled in the guest room.
“I’ve been meaning to ask: just how much does Karina know?”
She shakes her head. “Nothing. I never told her anything.”
“You made a comment earlier about being kidnapped. Don’t you think that’s suspicious?”
She waves a hand dismissively. “I doubt she read into it. She probably thinks I was being sarcastic and besides, what is there to be suspicious of? She only came to visit us in Barcelona once.”
“When we were in the hospital waiting for you to come out of surgery, I asked her if Brent had ever tried to hurt her again and she said no. I told her that if he ever did, I’d kill him.”
She rolls her eyes. “See, that’s suspicious.”
“Not really but that’s beside the point. What surprised me was her reaction.”
“How did she react?”
“Like she believed me.”
Dahlia’s brows furrow in deep thought. Before she can say anything else, footsteps echo throughout the house as someone descends the main staircase. A second later Karina appears in the kitchen looking pale-faced and under slight duress.
“The bathroom, it…” she rubs her forehead. “The water is running cold.”
“Again? Ugh,” Dahlia groans. “I’m going to have to call the plumber. Ever since the new year, the bathrooms on the third floor have been giving me trouble.”
“Is there another bathroom I can use?” Karina asks quietly.
“Use mine. Lyss was just in there this morning, her water was running cold too.”
Karina nods and leaves the room without giving either of us a second glance.
“She’ll get over it.” Dahlia says then turns to me. “We all do eventually.”
“That reminds me. Lyss saw her at the precinct today.”
“The precinct?” she frowns. “What precinct?”
“The one on 67th Street near Hunter College. Apparently, Detectives Carson and Wilson called her in again for questioning. Rian went with her and she saw Kay.”
She presses her lips together deep in thought. “First Li and now Brent.”
“What do you mean?”
“My New Year’s resolution was to keep my body count at one.” She replies sardonically. “If Brent continues to be a problem, it might just become two.”
* * *
Teterboro Airport
Bergen County, New Jersey
Me: act like you don’t know anything
Lettie: going through all of this just to catch our brother in a lie is so stupid
Tell him you know he’s been in New York this whole time and get it over with
What’s the harm in asking?
Me: Because I have a gut feeling about something
If I ask him about it, he’ll lie
And I need to be absolutely sure
I wait for my brother on the tarmac and watch as he descends the airstairs to meet me.
He’s fully committed to the bit and arrived an entire hour before I did to properly set the stage.
Right now, the jet is being fully serviced so while one crew works on refueling and repairs, another is inside cleaning and restocking.
Our usual flight crew isn’t here—pilot and flight attendants—and he probably had them swapped out because he didn’t want to run the risk of one of them accidentally outing him
“You’re late,” I say.
He glares at me. “You just got here. I’m the one who landed an hour ago.”
He’s convincing, I’ll give him that much.
“Change of plans.” I tilt my head toward the car. “We’re spending the night.”
“Spending the night?” he stares at me incredulously. “Everything’s ready to go, I thought—”
“Changed my mind. We’re not leaving tonight or for the foreseeable future.”
He scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Alejandro, whatever’s going on between you and Dahlia I want no part in it. I have better things to do than be your chauffeur in the sky.”
I head toward the car and wait for him to follow. “Come on. We’re staying at The North Star.”
* * *
My brother’s like a mouse caught in a trap.
He doesn’t know how he got here but he still thinks he can escape with his tail intact if he evades notice.
I watch him squirm the entire car ride back into the city, sense his anxiety when we reach The North Star, and can hear him pacing in the middle of the night when extreme jet lag should’ve caused him to crash hours ago.
Over breakfast he hounds me with questions I answer vaguely and he avoids speaking to me on the way to Dahlia’s.
Part of me wonders if I’m wrong. My theory is a little far-fetched but my instincts have never steered me wrong before. I know my brother so well that even as he feigns indifference and irritation, I can read his thoughts as easily if they were printed on a page in front of me.
He’s shitting bricks right now.
He’s wondering if he’s been found out, running through everything he’s done in the past month, and trying to figure out where he slipped up.
Where did he forget to cross his t’s and dot his I’s and did anyone figure out what bank account he was using and was he being followed and if so then for how long?
We get to Dahlia’s and I use my key to unlock the front door. Diego looks around with furrowed brows and narrowed eyes, curious about where we are and why we’re here.
Before I can explain, someone comes to a staggering stop on the second-floor landing. I couldn’t have planned this any better myself.
“Karina,” I smile. “You remember my brother, Diego. He’s visiting.”
Karina swallows and runs a trembling hand down the front of her shirt. “Diego…hi. It’s…it’s been a long—”
“Over a year.” I watch as a muscle in his jaw jumps. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“I think you both said that already.” I take off my coat and open the closet door to hang it up. “Where’s Dahlia?”
“I don’t know. I was just about to go downstairs and look.” Karina replies but she’s not looking at me.
She’s looking at Diego.
He holds her hostage with the intensity of his gaze and Karina eventually remembers she’s hovering on the staircase because she scurries down the rest of the flight. She slips past us both and beelines straight for the kitchen where I hear Lyss and Dona Ana laughing.
“Go ahead,” I tell my brother. “I’ll meet you there.”
“Why are we here?” he asks.
“I came to see Dahlia.”
“Why am I here?”
“I thought you might want to say hi to Kay. It’s been so long.” I give his shoulder a firm, brotherly shake. He’s stiff as a board. “Why don’t you go join the girls in the kitchen? Catch up. I’ll be down in a minute.”
I take the stairs three at a time and head straight to Dahlia’s room. The door is slightly ajar but I still knock twice before entering. “Dee?”
The sound of rushing water leads me to the bathroom where I expect to find her in the shower or washing her hands.
Her scent lingers in the air, strong enough for me to know she was in here, but it’s already begun to fade.
The faucet is on which means she left in a hurry and forgot to turn the faucet off all the way.
Steam covers the bottom half of the mirror over the sink and I push the handle all the way back to stop the flow of water.
“Dahlia?”