Chapter 4
Lyse
Iexpected to be taken to the Castillo compound and locked up, but the longer we were in the dark SUV, I came to realize that wasn’t Omar’s plan.
I had been prepped for being taken hostage before — Apá wanted both Matteo and me to know it was always a possibility — but training wasn’t the same thing as being huddled in the front seat of the enemy’s car, driving into the night.
Focus, I told myself. Look for a moment to escape.
Apá taught us how to escape from a trunk, how to get out of handcuffs, and untie complicated knots. If I kept my wits about me, I could easily get away from Omar Castillo. He was practically bleeding to death anyway.
I watched the road signs and did my best to commit them to memory. Once I was free, I would need to tell Apá and Felix where I was so that they could come get me.
Or….you could just not call Apá.
It was the kind of dangerous thought that I could not afford to have right now.
It was that last little spark of hope in my chest that I wouldn’t end up shackled to Felix Suarez for the rest of my life.
It was a childish wish, but it was hard to resist the idea of getting away from Omar Castillo and letting my father think that he killed me.
Even if they didn’t find my body, they would assume, right?
It’s not like they thought about me enough to get me out of the ballroom to begin with.
I shouldn’t think about my freedom, shouldn’t imagine what it would be like to run and keep running until I found a brand new place to start over, but I did. I let myself fantasize as Omar drove.
But when he turned onto a road and headed toward the marina…
everything stopped. There was no more fantasizing and imagining the “what ifs.” Panic spiked through my veins and wrapped around my heart, squeezing it until I couldn’t draw a breath.
There’s no way he’s going to put you on a boat, I told myself over and over.
It makes sense to put a safehouse near a marina for a quick exit.
But my fears were quickly confirmed when he turned into the marina’s parking lot and cut the engine. “Where are we going?” I asked before I could stop myself. What was wrong with me? I was so good at holding my tongue literally any other time, but now?
Omar looked at me but said nothing…and the pull of his dark eyes froze my breath in my lungs. It was unfair to be this close to La Bestia. The man was terrifying, but he was also handsome. Devilishly so. Even covered as he was in my family’s blood, there was no denying it.
He opened the door, and I saw the inky black of the marina, and my heart kicked against my ribs. I would not get on a boat. I couldn’t swim.
I sank my teeth into my tongue to stop the scream that wanted to fly free.
Focus, I told myself. Now was the time. I could do this: I was a fast runner, and he was injured.
I just had to keep moving. The moment the door started to open, I kicked at it with all of my might, sending it smashing into Omar’s handsome face.
I heard him grunt, but I threw myself into the night, hissing as my bare feet touched the crushed oyster-shell gravel.
I ran, ignoring the pain, because if Omar got his hands on me, I was finished. Considering how easily he threw me over his shoulder at the Biltmore, it would be nothing for him to break my leg so that I couldn’t run. Or my neck so that I was just a body to dump.
I made it all of thirty feet, maybe, before an arm grabbed me.
I tried to scream, but a hand clamped down over my mouth and nose, muffling the sound.
“That was really stupid,” he panted in my ear.
I hope you bleed to death, I thought, wishing that I could sink my teeth into his palm, but he was pressing down so tightly that I could feel my teeth shredding the inner lining of my lips.
Everything tasted like bile and copper and smelled like gunpowder.
He dragged me back over the gravel; pain was radiating up my legs now, and I could feel tears on my cheeks. When we got close to the dock, and I could hear the black water slapping against the pilings, I tried to scream again.
Omar picked me up, hand still clamped over my face, and carried me down the dock. I could hear him muttering under his breath, but I couldn’t make out the specifics over the rushing in my ears.
When we finally stopped, I didn’t get a very good look at the boat before he tossed me over the side, sending me toppling to the boat’s deck before climbing aboard himself.
He half-dragged me to a seat that was directly in front of the wheel. “You try that again, and I’ll make sure that you regret it.”
As if I don’t regret most of my life, I thought. I had survived life in Luis Rojas’s house for twenty-five years. What more could La Bestia do?
I tried to hang onto that apathy, tried to use it to beat back the fear, but as I watched him untie the boat from the dock, my hands wrapped around the nearest railing and gripped it until my knuckles ached.
I refused to look at him as he climbed back behind the steering wheel and winced when he started the engine.
He quickly backed out of the slip and steered the boat out into the pitch blackness. He’s going to dump me, I thought, holding even more tightly onto the rail as if it would save me. He’s going to throw me out of the boat; no one will ever find me.
I tried to tell myself that I wasn’t making any sense, because why would he take me if he wanted to kill me?
He could have shot me at the Biltmore if that were the case…
but then I ran. What if he decided that I’m not worth whatever he had planned after all?
My throat felt like it was going to close.
“You know I’m a Castillo, yeah?” Omar asked, and I nodded, tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. “Answer me.”
My jaw was tight, but I somehow formed the words. “Yes. You’re the enforcer.”
Omar chuckled, and it was an ugly sound. “Enforcer,” he said, as if he were molding his mouth around the word. “My brother’s protector.” His voice took a bitter note. “I failed at that because of your family.”
My stomach filled with ice. Angel Castillo was the newly appointed head of the family, and Apá hated him. What had he done? “Did my father—?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know,” Omar spat.
“I don’t,” I insisted. “I promise that I don’t.”
Again, he let out that bone-chilling laugh. “I suppose you don’t,” he mused. “You were too busy with preparations for your fancy engagement party.”
The words brushed against my skin like broken glass.
Don’t talk to him, I chided myself. There was no point in making conversation with La Bestia.
He was more animal than man—the level of violence tonight proved that—and given the amount of damage he took himself, I had no idea how he was even still standing.
The boat bumped along over waves, and my stomach twisted sickeningly.
I should have ignored Felix about eating dinner.
Apá only allowing me a few bites would have been a kindness now.
“Seemed like a nice party,” Omar continued.
He would almost sound friendly if it weren’t for the undercurrent of bitter anger.
“Your husband-to-be is quite a step up from some low-life cartel boss, huh?”
I sank my teeth into my tongue again until I tasted blood. Between his taunting and the splashing of the water, I was in hell. How had I ever thought being at home was bad? This was far, far worse. As we dipped and bounced again, I groaned, wishing I had somewhere to lie down.
“Does your fiancé know about what your father and brother get up to?” Omar asked, and then chuckled, as if he’d made some kind of joke. “Of course he does. You were probably a part of that deal, I imagine.”
“Fuck you.” It was something I had never dared say aloud, not even in the privacy of my room, but there seemed to be no point in keeping my mouth shut now. Before he inevitably killed me, I wanted the opportunity to say the things I had never been brave enough to say.
Omar didn’t react to my words at all; instead, he continued to taunt me. “Shall I include Felix on my list? Right behind your father and brother?”
I looked back at him, glaring when I saw the savage grin that cut across his face.
He was trying to goad me. Pendejo, I thought.
Felix held little love in my heart, but Matteo…
“My brother had nothing to do with whatever my father did. Apá has only started his training; he barely lets him do anything yet.”
Omar snorted. “Now you want me to spare Luis’s second in command?” Again, there was that ugly laugh.
“He’s twenty-three; he’s acting as my father’s—”
“Enforcer,” Omar finished for me. “I know. Which means that he’s already killed someone. Even if he wasn’t a part of the plot against my brother, he was well aware of it.”
The words were a slap to the face. “Is Angel dead?” If he was, it would mean war, true war, with a lot of death on both sides.
What was Apá thinking? Sure, the Castillos and the Rojas were enemies, and minor members of each family were lost from time to time, but then Apá went after Angel at his club.
Then, he went after Angel’s wife. Now this.
My father had always been an impulsive man. He was driven by his baser desires more often than was dignified for a man of his position. But he wasn’t outright stupid....though his decisions lately seemed to indicate otherwise.
“Not yet,” Omar answered after too long a pause.
“But even if he lives, it won’t save them.
Or you.” The threat was timed with a wave that splashed over the wall of the boat.
I yelped; a shiver ran down my spine. Omar laughed again, and this time, he sounded delighted.
It was even worse than his ugly laugh. “Are you afraid, conejita?” he taunted.
“Afraid you won’t get to have that big white wedding after all? ”
I whipped around to look at him. “I can’t swim, you insufferable pendejo!” I snapped. “I’m not afraid of you!”
Omar’s nasty smile vanished, and something cool and deadly took its place. “You’re not afraid of me?”
He cut the engine, and we were suddenly adrift.
He came around the steering column, unblinking as he stared me down.
He wrapped his hands around my upper arms and yanked me out of my seat.
My fingers fell away from the rail that I had a death grip on like they were made of sodden paper.
A low moan of fear leaked from my throat.
“I thought you weren’t afraid, conejita,” he tsked.
“I’m not,” I lied.
Did he have to be so…big? Omar was the largest man I’d ever seen, tall and broad.
His hands were huge, and although his muscles were barely flexed, my feet were barely brushing the deck of the boat.
He held me like it was nothing. Something hot and sharp zinged through my veins. My breath came out in a shudder.
Omar’s eyes, dark and fathomless, dipped to look at my mouth for a split-second, and I considered spitting on him. Then he swung me out. My toes scraped the top of the boat wall, and then there was nothing beneath me but thick, wet blackness.
I couldn’t stop the scream that filled my lungs. “Please!” I shrieked, trying to get a grip on his arms and failing. “Please, no!” I could already imagine the suffocating darkness filling my lungs until there was nothing to do but succumb to it all.
Out of all the ways to die, drowning had always frightened me the most, because I had never learned how to prevent it besides avoiding water at all costs.
I wanted to beg him to shoot me; it would be a mercy to do that before he dumped me.
But I couldn’t do anything besides sob and try to cling to him.
Instead of dropping me, however, Omar hauled me back over the side of the boat and dumped me onto the deck. I curled into a ball, making myself as small as I possibly could, looking every bit the scared bunny he’d called me before.
“If I wanted you dead,” he growled, “I would make it a lot more fun for me first.” His eyes dragged over me, and I felt it as surely as if he’d touched me.
I swallowed hard. “Why don’t you, then?” I tried to sound bored, unafraid, but there was a shake in my voice that I couldn’t make go away.
Omar returned to his place behind the steering wheel, and the boat roared to life again. He adjusted the boat to counteract the drift, and then we pressed on into the night. I kept waiting for Omar to answer me, but it didn’t take me long to realize that he wasn’t going to.
It didn’t matter anyway. I was alive at his sufferance; he had made that perfectly clear.
I stayed huddled in the bottom of the boat, not looking at him or anything else.
It was the only way to keep myself together.
I had always felt alone within my large family, but until now, I had no concept of what it meant to be truly alone.
On my own and trapped with my enemy. Give me a way to survive, I begged the universe.